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"Where did he go?!?"
"Check THAT side!"
"I think he went that way!"
xiao-Wūyā grinned. Hair as dark and spiked as a raven's wing. His eye teeth glinting in the shadows.
Across the street and down the way, a plume of fire billowed into the air. Catching the wind, and spreading sparks even further.
Another boom rocked the shutters of the street. Sending the mayor's soldiers stumbling and ducking for cover.
Heh, that would be the flour.
Bit surprising that it went, considering how much clay dust the stuff had been cut with.
He slunk away. Lithe and scrawny as an underfed alley cat. Ducking in and out of doorways and windows as it served him.
Two streets away, he transitioned to strutting along the peaks of the Kuizhou rooftops. Arms crossed behind his head, he kicked at the stray broken roof tile. Watching the pieces clink down to the street below, bouncing off the occasional straw hat of the passersby. An old man shook his fist at him, and xiao-Wūyā laughed, pretending he was too high up to hear him. Grannys tutted at him as he dropped down to a garden wall, knocking over a box of refuse as he went.
The pretty young ladies shied away from him as he walked by. Their clear bright eyes widened in alarm, their well-fed faces scrunched at his disheveled appearance. The young men puffing out their chests in their perfectly mended clothes. All talk. Flexing for the sake of the crowd and showing him their nostrils.
A few looking between him and the fading smoke from the warehouse district. He bared his teeth at those, letting the smile go just a touch too wide.
The poor cloth-mask disguise he'd been wearing earlier was stuffed in his pocket. Sure, he was soot smudged. But good citizens of the town expected people like him to be dirty.
They could suspect, but they'd never be able to prove it.
He scuffed his bare feet through the dirt. Kicking up dust everywhere. So that it coated the bottom of his too short ragged robes and the clothing of anyone else who got too close.
He kept his eye on the street as he skipped along. Doing a few elaborate spins for the contrary inconvenience of the bustling merchant carts. Ducking in and out of the wheels for the stray dropped coin or tiny treasure of interest. Some polished glass beads from a broken bracelet. A muddied hair ribbon. Playing a dangerous game with the heavy wood wheels and hooves. Daring any a one to hit him. Winning a tiny personal victory, each time they failed.
He spent a long time staring at the body of a fox that hadn't been so lucky. The way the different colored energies swirled above the tattered fur, where it lay smashed into a muddied part of the road. Fingers twitching with the eddies. The grin never leaving his face, to the alarm of anyone who could see what he was looking at.
He snuck a pear from the inattentive owner of a donkey, who'd foolishly left two large enticing baskets in easy reach on the thing's back. And neatly side stepped into a narrow gap between two shops that smelt of run-off and piss as more soldiers passed by. The blowhards shouting about how the town's granaries being destroyed by a 'sabatouer' to the murmuring alarm of everyone in ear-shot.
He snorted, biting into the pear. Most of the town's grain had been sold to the Jin, except for the good mayor's personal stores. Which were large enough to feed most of the town, if everyone went hungry a little. It wasn't so bad to miss a measly meal or two. And he never had a problem catching game in the woods nearby. They could manage it with a few of their fancy arrows.
What had been left-over from the mayor lining his pockets had been slow-poison.
Old Lady Zheng's pastry shop ordered flour from that warehouse.
He stole from that shop all the time. He wasn't about to eat that shit. No thank you.
Licking the sweet juice from his fingers, he decided it was a good time to return to the roofs when a soldier did a double-take, pointing him out to the others with a shout.
Grabbing a bit of that warm fire that seemed to always burn low in his belly, xiao-Wūyā pulled at it. Like it was warm taffy. As delicate as dragon beard candy. Pulling it so that it warmed his legs and feet, filling them from the inside out. Burning away the itch that had started to build under his toenails and a small cut on the bridge of his foot. Making him feel like he could do anything.
With a laugh, he spun on his heel, throwing the sticky core in the startled guard's face. With two steps, he sprang straight up into the air. High enough that he breached the two story eaves. Swinging up past the gable and out of sight.
"CURSE YOU! You! You DELINQUENT!"
Hah! The Delinquent of Kuizhou. He liked the sound of that.