Rift

Chapter 13: Second Chance

"She couldn't have gotten far," Naomi says as she looks around the courtyard, scanning her eyes across the sea of wannabe royalty. It doesn't help that so many people here are wearing golden colored dresses, like J. Only J's is easily far more noticeable than all of the others here.

Malachi snickers. "Yeah, not like she's got an ability that lets her teleport or disguise herself as literally anything," he mutters and slowly takes a bite of a pastry.

Nisha sighs and looks around, spotting a well-groomed tree and she grins before lowering her stance and leaping towards it, climbing up into the leaves and perching on a branch about halfway up.

She peers across the crowd with squinted eyes, her tail flicking irritably as she finds nothing that immediately stands out. Then, she notices something over by the far left corner of the garden. On the outside wall of the Bastion, there is what looks like a fresh scorch mark below a stained glass window that's open a crack. There is a tall wall of white trellis leading up to the window, with slight dirt marks on some of the crosses.

"Hey! Get down from there!" a noble barks in her direction.

Nisha groans and rolls her eyes before dropping from the branch and flipping onto the grass, elegantly landing on her feet with her arms crossed.

The noble marches over and scoffs. "What in the world are you? This is a masquerade, not a Halloween party!" she examines her ears and tail with a grimace.

Naomi glares at the woman and stands at Nisha's side, also with her arms crossed. "Oh yeah? Then what's your excuse?" She doesn't even need to look at Nisha and she holds out her hand and the Tus'Felnis doesn't hesitate to complete the high five.

The noble woman huffs and looks Nisha over some more, her face scrunching up more and more as she takes in everything about her. "You're... a woman?"

"Um... Technically, yeah?" Nisha looks down at herself. "I mean, I got all the 'lady-bits', don't I?"

"Where's your dress?" the woman tilts her head and keeps her grimace.

Nisha snickers, despite the nagging annoyance and desire to punch this woman square in her golden mask. She cocks her head in Naomi's direction and smirks at the woman. "Oh, I think I left it on her bedroom floor. I should really go back and grab it the next time I'm there," she winks and leans against Naomi's shoulder.

Before the woman can get another insult out, there's a shout of exasperation from amidst the crowd and they all turn to see Malachi sprinting towards them with his arms filled with an ungodly amount of fresh pastries.

"Leg it!" he shouts as he runs past them with two officers on his trail.

Naomi and Nisha watch him sprint past and as the noble woman turns away from them to watch him as well, the girls look at each other and Naomi shrugs.

"I guess that's our cue," she says and Nisha instantly bolts for the window with Naomi following close behind. They make it there quickly and Nisha climbs up the trellis first. She vaults through the window and turns back to hold out her hand for Naomi and she takes it, letting the Tus'Felnis help pull her up and they both back into the hallway they've entered.

They stop and look around their surroundings. Unlike the rest of the Bastion, this hallway is completely dark, only the light from the moon shining through the windows is there to illuminate the way, casting a blue glow that reflects the heavy specks of dust floating through the air.

Many of the doors are boarded up, and there are some marks on the white and blue wallpaper that look like normal wear and tear at first glance, but the more they stare at it, the more it looks as though something happened to cause it to become damaged. Some burn charring here and there.