Iccos' claw fiddled around in Aaron's chain lock, feeling for pressure points.
"What's it like?" Aaron asked, hoping to break the awkward silence that had started when Iccos began to pick the lock of Aaron's chain.
They were in an alley, some buildings away from the dungeons. Iccos had said that Aaron's chains were making too much noise to be conspicuous, so he'd help Aaron take them off.
"What?" Iccos replied, his eyes not leaving the careful focus they were in.
"Your claws, feeling through them I mean. Is it different from how you feel with your fingers.
"I don't know, I haven't really thought about it before."
Iccos paused before answering.
"I can feel through them, but it's not the same kind of feeling I get on other parts of my body. I couldn't tell if something was hot or cold from touching it with my claws, but I can still feel things like pressure and vibrations."
A satisfying click was heard from Aaron's chains, and Iccos slowly removed them.
"That's why they're as good for picking locks as they are." Iccos said with a smile, clearly feeling a sense of accomplishment.
"It's also probably why most people say we're 'natural born thieves'."
Before Aaron could ask a follow up question, the flickering light of a torch alerted them to a guard's presence coming towards them.
They looked at each other, unaware of what to do.
The alley was a dead end, and running anywhere would be too suspicious.
"Follow my lead." Iccos whispered.
Aaron nodded, as he had no other options at the moment.
Iccos and Aaron walked into the street, as if they hadn't a care in the world. The hopefully did not look as though they had escaped a dungeon less than an hour ago.
Aaron saw that it was only one guard patrolling, which put part of his mind at ease. He was worried it may be an entire patrol, which would have been much harder to fight or outrun, whichever Iccos had in mind.
As the two of them walked past the guard, he gave a disgusted look when he saw Iccos. He then spat on Iccos' leg.
"Damn scaly." The guard muttered under his breath as he continued to walk off.
Aaron was shocked at the guard's casual cruelty. Granted, he had seen some horrible things done by the city guard in his life and especially today, but he had hoped that those were simply the actions of malicious people like Stellan.
When Aaron looked to Iccos to see his reaction to the guard's spitting and insult, Aaron was even more surprised to see that there was none. Iccos' face was no different now as it may have been the day before.
"You okay?" Aaron asked, wanting to get a gauge on Iccos' feelings.
"It's nothing, let's keep going." Iccos responded bluntly.
The two of them kept walking, lurking and peering about every street and corner to avoid more meetings with any city guards.
When they finally reached the edge of the town, they could hear the distant shouting of some guards, most likely realizing they had escaped prisoners.
As the climbed over the city's outermost wall, Aaron took a moment to look over the city that had been his home for so long. While he had ventured out plenty of times before, he felt that this may be the last time he'd be looking at the city. A sunrise began to spill over the horizon, slowly oozing onto the city's buildings.
"Aaron, c'mon, let's go!" Iccos called out from the bottom of the wall.
Aaron descended the wall, and ran with Iccos into the nearest forrest.
...
As Aaron and Iccos came to a clearing in the forrest they were running through, Iccos stopped and put his hand out to motion Aaron to stop as well.
"Let's...stop here...and rest...for now." Iccos managed to get out through his rapid breaths.
Aaron nodded, his breath also coming out like the panting of an animal.
As they both sat down in the clearing to catch their breath, Aaron had a sudden realization.
What am I doing?
The realization hadn't come when he cursed out the guards, or escaped from a dungeon, but it came to him when he was free.
Where am I going?
Do I follow Iccos?
Does he know what he's doing?
Where will I get money?
Aaron once again turned to Iccos in hopes to read his body language to gleam an answer from him.
Iccos became aware of the eyes on him, and turned to look at Aaron.
"Yeah?"
"Well, what now?"
Iccos looked confused.
"What do you mean 'what now'? Now, we go. You your way, and me mine."
Iccos stood up, and audibly felt the dryness of his own mouth.
"But I..."
Aaron stumbled to stand up, from his fatigue and general sense of nervousness.
"...I don't have a way. I don't know what I'm doing."
Iccos looked at Aaron, looked away, looked back at Aaron, and finally sighed.
"Look, I'm going to be trying to find a group of people I've travelled with before. I know where we are, and there's a town not too far away I was going to start walking towards. If you want, you can join me until we get to the town. There you can ask around and find some work and lodging."
Iccos put out his hand to pull Aaron up from where he was sitting, and as a nonverbal agreement to what he had just proposed.
Aaron took a moment to think.
When he finished, he smiled, and took Iccos' hand who then pulled him up.
Iccos returned Aaron's smile with his own toothy grin.
Aaron didn't know where he or his life were going, which was nothing new for him.
But this time, something that he just couldn't place felt right about the whole situation.
While Aaron knew that he'd probably have an encounter with more guards, some thieves, and even possibly a wizard, but it didn't seem to make him nervous this time.
When he took the first step with Iccos into his knew life, he felt something he had not felt in a positive way for sometime.
Anticipation.