{DISCLAIMER: the "Renarian" race is copyright to Jay Naylor and is used without permission.}

"I was more than half expecting you," the proprietor said after she had entered, the door jingling the bell. He came out to her with his nearly toothless smile and the desired goods. "Do you realize how very admired you are by several of the local wharf rats?" He handed over the tin almost ceremoniously and she accepted it with a crooked smile and replied, "I do have an idea from the way several of the younger ones stare and the older ones are careful not to let me catch them looking. By sixteen your lads seem to know better than to tempt the vain wrath of an armed Tigress Feline." And she WAS armed, heavily enough soas to say "Don't cross my wake or bring your own arsenal". The officers of the Dark Chocolate always went well armed ashore in Renarian free ports; they all had flattering bounties on their heads.

Reaching for the heavy purse hanging securely from her trousers belt, she counted out the gold pieces owed him for the special order, as he laughed and returned, "My people have brains, to be sure! Your breed pass through this port quite often, perhaps more than you are aware, and are known for their fierce tempers, even by Renarian standards. And you being a younger female..." His tone of voice suggested he would lick his lips if he felt comfortable doing so. "Our lads learn about respecting the opposing gender very early. Says an old Renarian wise, "Heavens preserve the brother with an older or younger sister!" Red fur seems to be the sign."

She returned her purse to its place at her belt and he swept the gold into his hand. "Are you quite certain you will not buy a few little somethings for yourself?" He always asked. And she had always remained firm to-date. "Quite," she responded distastefully. "I am not to be counted a weak willed fool as many of the wenches of this port." Her captian and her superior officers of the Dark Chocolate had warned her - half out of greed and half out of "kindness" - that they were a very expensive habit, one difficult to break. And she knew the former well enough first hand; each order fetched half of a gold krowner for every two treats!

"I have decided to finally offer you a gift of your choosing," he tempted her with a smile brimming with false guile. "You can smell the pleasure they can bring, surely."

She knew he was only jesting. At least she assumed he was not so insulting as to be serious. The first word of a Dark Chocolate officer was her last and she had given him that already. She leaned against the attractively gilded display case on the counter to his right and took a long breath through her button nose, her eyes closing at the simple pleasure of just the smells hovering in the air all around her. Then she gave him a hard look. "That is all the taste I require. I will not be hooked by your delights, Kennor, leaving almost unsaid that I could hardly choose. Harriet herself calls your chocolates "the sins of the Hierarchy"; rich extravegance and self-indulgence."

"I could choose for you," Richard Kennor ventured meekly. "My pleasure would be your pleasure. I take great pride in my craft. No young lass deserves to be deprived forever from experiencing such palatable bliss at least once, such-" "Stow it!" she growled menacingly. "You are making me feel positively feral! Surely you would not rouse my bloodlust?" Quickly, he shook his head deniably and she relaxed her threatening posture to worshipfully cradle the precious tin with a quiet sigh, a brooding expression on her pretty face. "I am feeling frustrated and shall tease a young Renarian cruelly to feel better. And you will help me!"

She gave him a sharp look and bared her teeth at him anew and he shrank back consciously soas not to appear defiant. He let himself frown as he nodded his compliance. "Describe the "wharf rat" who reported to you my coming." With a neutral expression he did, after which she bowed her head to him out of courtesy for his generally appreciated craft and backed toward the door with a familiar ease of movement. "Were you willing to make a gift to me and also really desire no young female to be deprived of sampling your treats as you claim, give my due to those I shall send." She paused with her hand on the latchtipper to hear his response before leaving. "My 'sinful' treats, as your Captian rather aptly refers to them, have been stolen and hijacked on more than one occasion, probably by young male
Renarians seeking to please the females of their attentions."

"For shame!" she laughed uproarously before departing. "Pirates everywhere!"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

According to one of his fellows who claimed to know him quite personally, the particular "wharf rat" she was looking for was aged about fourteen and commonly called by the assumed nickname "Snicker" and much less commonly by his real name which he hated with wrath, Francis; surname rather famously unknown. An orphan from elsewhere, appearantly.

Another of Snicker's fellows, keeping the company of the first loitering at the highest end of the smitty street very near Richard Kennor's confectionary shop, found the daring to join her on her little whimsquest, respectfully holding his silence but boldly admiring her. Well, her covey of weapons in actual fact. She took no offense as her vanity allowed that he was too young to have much interest in how her shirt and trousers fit, as she took him to be little older than nine. She let him follow her without more than looking at him out of the corner of her eye and he stayed on her left as he did so. She therefore realized he had likely been a slave at one time.

"Do you know Snicker well?" she inquired of him finally, as they turned off of the smitty street and stepped onto the mooring quay. He indicated she might go left along the quay when she halted her progress to decide just that, and replied cautiously, "I do not care to say, in case you have unpleasant business with him he might not be keen on. He loathes snitches as anyone with something to hide."

"You admit you feel you are betraying him by helping me to find him, then?" she pressed. "If that is the matter, either you know him very well and like him but favor me, or you know him well enough as a mere acquaintance to dislike him strongly soas to bring me upon him for whatever purpose I should seek him." He made no reply straightaway and she concluded, "I cannot help but suppose it is the latter which is more likely true. Does he have quite a bad reputation?"

The Renarian boy gave her a stony look and said just loud enough for her to hear over the surrounding noises of busy commotion, "The devil himself consorts with Snicker, who will 'one day rule this port by his cunning and treachery'. So says he. For his age and habits, he is among the most feared of my fellows in this port, being every bit as wickedly cunning as he claims." He turned away and gestured to the fine merchant ship being loaded, sailor men and a few obvious wharf workers bearing burdens up its gangplank. "He actually works the quay regularly as a laborer, seeking to go asea as a cabin boy. You might find him along here now. If not, try the two more popular bawdy houses a little later. He likes wenches a lot despite all his brains."

As she was certain he did not count her as a "wench", she took no offense at that last. And after hearing all the rest, she was put off from pursuing her cruel amusement any farther. Finding her "snitch" was not worth the bother any longer, as simply walking from Kennor's to her present position had calmed her negative intentions. "Well, thank you for the escourt and advice, young sir," she said sincerely, quickly noting the dress of the older men and younger Renarian boys moving about the quay. Many of them were casting glances at her, some curiously interested and others just "plainly interested". None of the young Renarians were dressed as Kennor had helpfully described to her.

She was more than a little surprised and almost instantly furious when her self-appointed companion pulled on her purse at her belt in a firm manner and began to ask, "Can I see your-" "Hands off my gold you filthy conniver!" she snapped loudly, slapping his hand away with her own left hand - almost dropping the tin pressed under that arm - and drawing her pistol from her belt with her right. "I meant not to-" he began to defend his rash action fearfully; he was prevented from making his intentions clear to her by a muskiball which killed him instantly.

She then made the mistake of turning quickly around and running, making to dive - without a thought as to her dignity - for the nearest good cover, a parted grouping of large and small crates which had been stacked on the docking side of the quay. A mistake because there she was with her pistol in her hand and moving away from the boy's body rather swiftly. But she was clear in her mind as to what had just happened and well able to prove her guiltlessness concerning the boy's death, so she did not hesitate in her actions and screamed madly at the top of her lungs, "Twenty whole krowners to the man who brings to me alive whosoever fired that shot!"

To her dismay she landed amid her chosen cover in an ill manner, striking her shin on one small crate to the fore of the valley of the stack and her wrist on another just behind it, loosing her grip on her pistol at the very unpleasant blow. That she also lost the tin from under her arm was of such minor importance that she barely noticed. Amid the alarmed and angry shouting coming from all around, she was crawling deeper into the safety afforded her by the crates and reaching for her dropped pistol as it vanished under the lifted corner of a large pile of burlap sacks before her eyes. Registering that a hand had helped it disappear in such a fashion, she paused nervously to wonder at her cercumstances and was forced to consider another cercumstance; there was suddenly a firm hand or two holding onto the rear half of her belt's loop.

"An easy reward to earn," said a deep voice as she was roughly pulled up from amid the crates and onto her feet, "If I do not kill you!" She had not struggled, in fact eager to depart the person - possibly persons - who was already residing among the crates. "My pistol is still loaded," she saw fit to announce calmly as several of the Renarians she found present around eyed her vengefully. The hand grasped on her belt remained firm. "Retrieve it from the thief among those crates who stole it from my hand and shall be proved the truth of my word by a demonstration." With a little difficulty she turned to regard the man holding her prisioner. He was a strapping big middle-aged man whom she took to be the current quaymaster on duty, judging purely by the defferent air with which the gathering of his fellow Renarians allowed him his place at her back and his claim to her reward without dispute of any sort. She had not seen him on the quay just earlier.