02/07/2001

"If I gotta do it, you gotta do it." You know how really fancy rooms for
nobility have the main room, and then a sitting room type thing? Well
Kyleigh is in her bedroom room while people wait outside, thoroughly
enjoying making Neelkan squirm. Wait, that sounded really bad. Let me
continue. The issue? Fancy clothing of course. "If you're going to be my
royal bodyguard, you've got to dress the part. Now go out there and get
fitted!"

"I don't need t' get fitted, blood 'n ashes." Neelkan grumbles, clinging to
his cloak that's held in his arms against his chest. "I'm a Gaidin, not yer
Royal Bodyguard. I don't see many Gaidin dressed up, burn it!" This is no
fair. He gets away from the Tower and Wyntere and the 'fancy clothing'
hints she drops every so often and he /still/ gets it thrown in his face!!
And what's worse, is if she hadn't /insisted/ on it like that, he'd
probably have gotten the clothes himself. As long as they weren't too
fancy.

"Well you are now, whether you like it or not." Kyleigh puts her hands on
her hips and glares at him. Then she pauses, and changes her mind. "Of
course... you could always go back to the Tower. After all, there's no
danger here that I'll be exposed as an imposter and lynched or some other
horrible fate like that. Certainly nothing for you to worry over." She has
a wry kind of smirk on her face, and one orange eyebrow is slightly arched.
Oh, and did I mention her voice has been dipped in sarcasm and hung up to
dry?

Blood 'n bloody flamin' ashes. Neelkan mutters a few choice curses under
his breath (some doing with mother's milk and the back side of a Trolloc)
then throws up his arms in frustration, letting the cloak flutter to the
ground in that color-shift, eye-jarring way that only that kind of cloth
can manage as he growls, "Ya women're impossible!! I..." he shakes his fist
(the one with the bracer on his wrist) in the air in anger, then
immediately cuts off and starts to storm towards the door, as if to leave.
Or more likely, to get himself fitted. The Wheel is a Woman. Definately.
It's so bloody unfair.

Kyleigh grins and peers out the door to make sure he actually is getting
himself fitted instead of walking out, but then she closes it again, not
wanting to see him with his shirt off. Icky. Some people have no
appreciation of male beauty. This means she actually gets some peace and
quiet for a change. Ever since yesterday morning it's been a long stream of
well wishers and supplicants and it just seems that everyone wants to talk
to her. She settles down at her writing table and pulls out her little
blank book, jotting down the notes she's been keeping in her head while she
waited for just this opportunity, since it occured to her that she's
probably getting a closer look at an inner royal circle than most people
can boast of. <repose?

Oh good the pip squeak has gone to get his clothes. Therefore, Spike slips
through an open window with extreme silence. Cat crosses the courtyard as
the Warders call it. He slips in behind Kyleigh, slipping a drugged cloth
around to cover her mouth and nose. If this works, she'll be sleeping like
a baby. And he'll take that warder fancloth cloak and get out of here with
her. Yep, hard job being a paid hit man.

Neelkan's shirt is removed soon after the door is closed, and he stands
there grumpy while they measure him. Hey!! He is /not/ a pip squeak. Sure,
he's not the tallest guy in the world, but he's well built!! He's a thief,
not a bloody blacksmith. He doesn't need to be huge. He's perfect just the
way he is! As the girls measuring him likely notice. (Grump.)
Unfortunately, since the assassin is so silent, he has no reason to check
the door just yet.

Kyleigh's green eyes pop open as the cloth covers her mouth and she reaches
up to try and pull the hand down, tilting her chair back at the same time
to try and get some leverage and push her attacker away that way. She would
scream, but it would be muffled, and she's trying to hold her breath at the
moment. So she lashes out with her foot to the underside of her desk and
gives it a good kick. Since it's fairly flimsy, it's enough to lift it a
bit off the ground, which in turn knocks a little porcelain figurine off
the desk. It falls to the floor where it shatters with a small crash before
Kyleigh succumbs to the need for breath and is forced to inhale. Does
Neelkan have reason to check the door yet? ;)

Spike looks to the door as this girl is making noise and then reaches
around her to pick her up and scoot out of here. He's still trying to get
that cloth over her mouth to SHUT THE WOMAN UP! Gaidin cloak... wow, that'd
be cool, but time's a wasting and the tock just lost precious minutes with
Kyle's noise making. Come on, drop kid and then you won't feel a thing. I'm
not going to say a word. And Spike's face is masked to hide his identity.
He's tall and well built and prepared to kill. And he where's black cause
that's the law for bad guys.

He certainly does, Ky. Neelkan is standing there with a fabric measuring
tool thing wrapped around his waist when he hears the crash. He blinks, and
'Gaidin' instinct kicks in and he twists out of the confindes of the
measuring devise and quickly moves towards the door. His movement isn't
'supernatural' but it certainly is faster then 'common' folk. He's a fast
kid, even without his earrings. He pushes through the door while the
kidnapper is still in the room with Ky. And without uttering a word he
immediately runs towards them, trying to grab for the girl with one hand
while aiming a punch at the man's masked face with the other.

No I will not drop, thank you very much! Kyle squeeks as Spike grabs her
around the waist and lifts her up, leaving her feet to flail at the air in
front of them, air that is suddenly occupied by a Gaidin. As the fumes from
whatever is on the cloth start to do their work though she stops kicking
and her head lolls a little, not quite out completely, but definately not
all there either. She barely even sees Neelkan, much less registers that
maybe she's not going to die after all. She doesn't even notice that he is
indeed shirtless... yet.

Spike tries to dodge the punch and gets his nose broken instead. "Leave us
alone and stay away from this or you'll get killed too." Darn it. Two
deaths. They better pay him twice as much. The masked Spike grasps
Kyleigh's waist tighter and then prepares to fight this boy too. It'd be
easier if the girl really was out. Since she isn't, Spike shifts her in
front for protection has his arm tries to reach for Neelkan's throat.

"Burn it, let 're go 'n deal with m', ya goat-suckin' son of a rat-kisser!"
Neelkan grabs the hand moving for his throat, fingers tightening around the
wrist. That's when he gets an idea. It's... well... not one he would
normally get. It's insane. And... it's against most of his morals. But he
knows that he has no weapons, and as long as this masked man has Ky between
him and Neel, the guy has an advantage... It's a really crazy idea, and
he'll apologize for it later, but he leans forward and bites Kyle's
shoulder. Yup. You heard that right. He /bites/ Ky. Why? Because she said
she can only channel if she was in pain. It's not hard enough to break the
skin much (due to the fabric), but it should still hurt pretty good.

Spike blinks a moment and has never seen that before. And while then young
warder is leaning forward to bite the girl, he tries to grab the man's hair
with the hand not holding Kyle, if he can free it from the gaidin's grasp.
"Looky here. This ain't none of your business so let's us be." The man
loosens his grip on Kyle just enough to slide his arm around her throat. "I
can kill her now if ya want to fight over her." He slowly raises his arm
trying to get the girl's tiptoes off the ground.

Mad dog! Mad dog! No, not Spike, Neelkan! The biting however does two
things. First of all, it is just painful enough to get through the drugged
haze she's in to unblock her, and second of all it sort of pulls her out of
the brain fog and back to reality where she can be more useful. "I can't
believe you bi-" but talking is rather difficult when someone is trying to
lift you off the ground by the throat so she stops doing it. Come on
Kyleigh, I know you're having trouble thinking, and you're tired and it's
hard to move, but just one little weave. Suddenly she has the perfect one,
and she kind of flails out with one arm to put her hand over Neel's eyes
while she uses the same weave she used to accidentally blind Wyntere
temporarily, to intentionally blind Spike.

You know, the second that the man grabs Neelkan's hair, he's nearly
convinced the man must be a woman. Only a woman would grab hair. He yelps
against the shoulder of the girl who he just bit a second ago, then finds
her hand covering his eyes and he closes them under the covering of her
fingers. Hopefully the rat-kisser will let go of his hair. That /hurts/.

The flash of light does blind Spike and he lets go of both the hair and
Kyleigh. Good grief that hurts and he's seeing Spot. Or is that Spottie,
he's beautiful lover that shares the doghouse with him. Or it is! He
reaches his arms to Kyle to embrace this 'girl' of his dreams. Wasn't he
suppose to be killing something? Well, if ya can't see, it's hard to do
anything.

Uh.. uh.. uh... Why is he hugging her? Kyle kind of looks at Neelkan in
bewilderment, because she can't look at Spike in bewilderment. Truth be
told they've both totally wierded her out. Maybe this is all just an
halluciantion from the drug... Yeah, that's a good explanation. It also
explains how docile and quiet she's being right now. Normally a man hugging
her would bring boughts of screaming and kicking and spitfire, but she just
kind of stands there, starting to maybe think about how she's going to get
this wierdo off her. Bare in mind that all this happens very fast, in the
space of a few seconds as a matter of fact, and the tailors and
seamstresses who were much slower than Neelkan was are just now getting to
the door, just in time to see the 'Princess' getting hugged...

Grrr! Hands off her you rat-kisser!! Neelkan doesn't say it, instead he
blinks himself for a moment and then starts to attempt prying the man off.
/Now/ he can say what he thinks. "Get yer bloody flamin' hands off the
princess ya milk-licker." He glances back at the seamstresses and yells,
"Get the bloody guard. 'ere's'n intruder threatin' the princess." See? He
can play the part of bodyguard... Sorta.

Spike blinks. Princess... Oh yeah, he tries to find Kyleigh's neck again to
kill her. Well, he's doomed. They will kill him, but he should have his
glory first. Come on, let's twist that little brat's neck. And I'm not a
rat-kisser! "Yeah, Milk is good for ya you little flaming horse dropping."

Milk is good for you??? What kind of conversation is this to be having
while her life is in your hands? Literally! None of this is restoring her
faith in the male gender of course, but that won't matter much if Spikey
has his way. Faintly, somewhere through the fog she can hear people
screaming and running and the word guard in there somewhere. It doesn't
really register much as she fights for breath though. And I must say this
is probably going to go down in history as the strangest assassination
attempt in history. She'll have to write down what happened if she can
remember... and if she survives.

Ok. This is the end, damnit. Using the bracer on his wrist, Neelkan aims to
smack the man over the head a few times with the thick metal. He doesn't
know exactly what this thing is supposed to do still, but if nothing else,
the metal should cause a good enough impact to hurt, since he's unarmed,
it's the best chance he has. Knock him out. Pulling his hands off her would
be difficult (though he could do it if it comes to that). This way's
easier.

Spike gets hit over the head with that bracer and winces. His grip loosens
on Kyleigh as he falls forward toward the 'princess'. "Stars? When did
someone..." If Kyle doesn't watch it, she might fall with him to the floor.
IF the bracer didn't knock him out, his head impacting the floor did.
"night...." Is the last owrd that comes from him. That's gonna give a head
ache the next morning.

Alright, shall we tally up everything that has happened to this poor girl
in the space of 30 seconds? She was drugged, grabbed, used as a human
shield, bitten, strangled repeatedly and now she to top it all off she has
an unconscious man on top of her. What was that about being treated like
royalty? If this is being treated like royalty it's amazing there are any
princesses left. 'Amalthea' wants to scream. She wants a good long scream
to vent her anger and frustration... but all she can manage right now is a
pitiful whimper. Oh yes, I forgot one thing on the list. She's being bled
on from that broken nose of Spikes. Is this her punishment for giving
Wyntere grey hairs?

Kneeling down, Neelkan (no puns, damnit) grabs the man and rolls him off of
the girl and looks her over, mostly her neck and shoulder where he bit her,
"I'm sorry, Ky. I couldn't think of anythin' else." He gives a quick
apology, then moves to find a scarf in the room somewhere so he can tie the
man's arms up good just incase the unconsiousness is temporary. "'re ya
a'right?" He asks while he starts to tie the man's hands behind his back.

Nope, Spike is out cold for now as his hands are getting tied. He'll never
know what hit him in the morning.

"No," she mumbles, dragging herself to an upright position. -Finally- the
guard arrives, now that it's all over and they are very quick to take Spike
into custody while a flood of people follow them to see the spectacle.
Kyleigh actually cringes away from them and much as she doesn't want to see
any of them or have to deal with any of them, she certainly doesn't want to
be alone. It's rather amazing she hasn't totally cracked up yet. Yes she's
a little psycho, but lesser minds would be stark raving mad by now.

Letting the guards take over, Neelkan slowly moves towards Kyle and shifts
on his feet for a few moments, "Um... ya should sit down. 'n..." He looks
around and yells at one of the people standing around, "Get the princess
some tea, 'n bring m' some al--uh... wine." Wine... Grump. A fop's drink.
But if he's going to play bodyguard, he might as well drink something that
might better fit. Besides, he's planning to splash most of it in the tea.
Poor girl needs it.

Drugs -and- alcohol! Woohooo! You do realize you're contributing to the
deliquency of a minor, right Neel? That's nothing new though. ;) Kyleigh
nods dumbly and climbs up to her feet with the help of the wall and
carefully picks her way over to her bed so she can sit down. At Neelkan's
command about half a dozen people leave the room. How many people does it
take to make a cup of tea anyway? Thankfully someone else realizes that
perhaps the princess is not an animal in a zoo to be gawked at and some of
these people should be cleared out, and so people start to get ushered out,
slowly but surely. Kyleigh seems to be spending a lot of time staring at
the floor, gently touching her neck and wincing and thinking, and.. staring
at the floor, and trembling and.. staring at the floor...

Making sure that they bring back the tea and the wine, Neelkan puts in a
generous splash or too of the alcohol and then hands it over to her to
drink before he gets a shirt to put on and sets up to sit near the window.
"I'll sleep in 'ere t'night. Just in case someone else shows up t' finish
the job. Ya should drink 'at 'n go t' bed." Which she should do. He'll be
here watching over her and no doubt will fall asleep after a while himself.
He isn't gonna leave, and the measurements can wait til later.

If Kyle were all there... she'd probably protest... well, maybe not, but
she will at least say that she would have protested, but the tea tastes
strangely good, and... did she just down the whole cup? Yup, and it proved
to be enough to finish the work that the drug started. It's probably rather
merciful that she just passes out. After all... sleep is better than the
state she was in before, right? Well, that remains to be seen.

Neelkan will make sure she has a lot of water at her bed side in the
morning, though if that one cup gives her a hang over, he'll have to teach
her how to drink.