Evening, February 11

It was just starting to get dark, afternoon creeping into evening, and Lola glanced at the sky as she finished the last of her purchases in the Market with a quick frown. The vendor - a fruit and vegetable seller named Ku'ush - gave her a worried look. She smiled and shook her head at him a little bit, as she gathered her last bag and turned to walk back up the street toward her house. It wasn't that long a walk, really, less than a mile. She'd be home before it was too dark.

She was telling herself this, over and over like a litany of prayer, to keep her mind from the plain fact that she'd stayed out too long, lost track of the time, and now she was walking alone in the gathering dark. She kept her head down and hurried her steps up the street.

Distracted, and really, she should know better. Her hands were full of bags and purse, her head was full of family and what might be waiting in the dark. She didn't feel the hairs rising at the back of her neck, the tell-tale sign of someone watching, until the follower was very close indeed.

The man following her was a wide fellah. Wide like a city bus. His voice was low when he said something to see if he could get her attention. His voice fit him, and sounded like that same bus. He was nearly in range of touching her.

Oh yes. He got her attention. It wasn't that voice, the one with the accent, but it was right there behind her. She spun with a half-shriek from the startlement of it, the sudden closeness. The leap back should have counted for teleportation, really, only it put her slam-bang against the brick wall at the corner of the building she'd been passing.

The big man smiled, and it wasn't a nice smile. He was pulling something from his pocket as he reached for her, meaning to drag her into the Alley, just out of sight. The purse seemed to be one target, and she seemed to be the other. "Give me the purse, you won't get hurt that bad." He gave her another smile.

The purse. The purse was easy. Going into the Alley, however, was not. Whites showed all around the brown of her eyes as she remained frozen in place against the wall while the big man reached. Her hands were wrapped tight around their burdens. Not really to cling to the possessions, but more because she was stark frozen. Deer in the headlights. When the big man actually grabbed her and started pulling her into the Alley, though - she screamed again. Not that anyone was paying attention, but she still screamed.

He reached to cover her mouth, at least muffle the scream. A glint of steel as he produced a blade. "Shouldn't come through my town at nightfall, Sweet." He said, his eyes gleaming with lust. Lust for money. Lust for flesh.

Lola panicked. She bit into the big man's hand when he covered her mouth, trying to draw blood, to get away, any way she could. The bags of groceries landed and produce tumbled onto the ground. She'd have dropped the purse too if that hadn't been actually slung crosswise over her shoulder.

The knife flashed, going for the strap of the purse, and he jerked his hand away as she was biting. "You'll pay for that!" He reached back to bring the fist forward and that was when another man stepped into light.

"Enough, big fella."

The mugger turned to look toward the stranger's voice, and squinted. "This don't concern you, piss off." He turned back toward her, leaning his head closer to hers. Still brandishing the knife. "You tried to see my blood, now I want to see yours." The stranger was moving their way, still a few steps from the pair, but Lola barely noticed that.

She couldn't really hear what was going on over the heartbeat pounding in her ears. But she vaguely recognized the man who'd stepped in - he'd been at the Red Dragon while her family was fighting, hadn't he" And he was distracting the big man - knife or not, she whirled to try to run. Of course, the problem was that the big man was really blocking the alley entrance, and she was trying to run away from him. That would be further into the dark, and - she froze. The thread of a sound that slipped from her throat was pure constricted terror. She couldn't make herself run further into the dark, not when emerald green eyes waited there.

Then the stranger was there, and caught the mugger's blade-holding hand. "You'll not be hurtin' th' lady."

The stranger found himself the focus of the big man's rage as Lola broke into a run away. The knife slashed through the air, and through the smaller man's coat and shirt. "You picked the wrong alley, little man!" He swung the knife with one hand, and a big fist with the other.

It was a nightmare, it had to be a nightmare. Lola stared blind into the dark while the stranger spoke up in her defense, while the big man responded, and while the sounds of combat started up brutally in the air. She couldn't run further into the dark. So she turned with her hands wrapped around the straps of her purse, clinging to the cords like a lifeline while she stood and watched the battle.

The combat was just that. The stranger was dodging most of the big man's swings, and landing some of his own. It seemed his punches rocked the mugger as much as the mugger's brought the stranger to his knees. The smaller man danced around, and took the time to stretch his knees when he was out of reach, almost as if it were a game.

Lola, however, really was in no fit state to notice the way the smaller man almost seemed to be toying with the big one. The knife, the sharp-edged blade, flashed in the light from back on the street. There was room, there, to get around. Surely. So she edged for the wall, and tried to slip back toward the main street around the pitched battle.

And it was then, as Lola was trying to make her escape, that the stranger planted a punch to the side of the mugger's head near his ear that sent him bouncing off the wall opposite and down to the ground, with the knife clattering away. He got up while the stranger was dancing on the balls of his feet, and then broke into a run down the alley.

The stranger picked up the knife, deposited it into the dumpster near them, and looked at the woman. "Are ye okay?" He bent to catch his breath and started to help her gather her things, in a gentlemanly gesture.

The flattening punch had taken her aback, but some of the tension and fear dissolved when the man dropped the knife, and the rest fell to a rush of gratitude when the mugger ran off. She gave the stranger a warm and shaky smile as she knelt to start to gather up the fallen groceries. "I - yes, thank you. Thank you so much."

"Couldn't have th' bully 'urtin ya, na could I?" He smiled, and still picked at her bags, looking at the produce that had rolled across the alley. "I really don't think ya wanna be eatin' that one."

"I - oh - no." She laughed a little bit, a shaken release of tension, as she looked at the apple she'd picked up without thinking and let it fall back to the ground. "Uhm. My name is Laura, Laura Granger, but almost everybody calls me Lola. I - well, thank you doesn't seem like enough to say."

"Laura?" He looked up at her, picking up two of the salvaged bags. "Then why do you let them call ya Lola?"

She blinked up at him with surprise and picked up the remaining bag before she stood. Then she laughed again, just a little, and shook her head. "I don't know - it's what my family calls me, and so that's what most people seem to pick up, I suppose. Uhm. Could I get you a coffee or something" As thanks?"

He stood back up, with bags in hand. "I'm Connor, and most people call me Spider, it was me old boxin' name." He nodded his head. "Coffee with yer groceries." He grinned at her. "He didn't 'urt ya, did he?" He was leaning and giving her a look over.

"Boxing - really' My brother was a boxer for years - he's very good. Ollie Granger, but I don't know if he used another name..." She trailed off at his question and shook her head. "Just a bruise on my arm, maybe." She took a breath and found a better smile, the warm bloom of one that she gave out most often, as they started back out and down the street - there was a little coffee shop just a ways farther on.

"Ollie Granger" Can't say I 'eard much o' that one." He returned the smile, just as bright, walking with her, and carrying bags. "I was more of an underground boxer."

She gave him a puzzled look at that. Safe to say that sheltered Lola had never even heard of underground boxing. "You mean - in tunnels or something like that?" Cheerful little *ding* of the doorbell when she pushed open the cafe door, and she smiled a greeting to the girl behind the counter. "Oh - what would you like?"

He followed her in, "Whatever ya want, Lola. My treat, yeah' And no...well, usually basements or private places, yeah' It's a bare knuckle kind of thing."

"Oh - but this was for - uhm." She faltered off and shook her head, tried again with, "Just some hot tea, please. Thank you. Bare knuckle - boxing" Doesn't that hurt?" Not that padded boxing didn't hurt, but it seemed a whole different level.

"Well I think ya had enough excitement, yeah' Maybe an act of kindness?" Connor ordered her hot tea, and himself a cup of black coffee. "Trainin' and fighting, it's like ya carved outta wood after a time."

The idea of the little act of kindness after everything else he had done to help her earned him a wonderful smile. "Oh - that's why - how you were able to - " To beat the mugger so handily. "Did he hurt you, at all?"