Part Six

Tash yawned and rested her head on the table, vaguely thinking things like ‘aaaaaaarrrrrrrggggghhh’ and ‘I’m dyiiiiiiiiiiiinnnnngggggg. I’m sooooooooo tiiiiiiiired’.

Tash had been awake and running for the last forty-eight hours. Her venture into royal thievery had not worked out. Prince Joshua had obviously given a good description of her, because not only were the palace guards after her, but also the city watch, customs, lackeys, courtiers, and members of the public. Lots of members of public. You name it, they were looking for her. It was lucky she didn’t have any friends, otherwise she would feel really betrayed. She’d been forced to hide in an empty barrel in the middle of a dump. Only problem was she hadn’t been able to stay there for long either because the Thieves Guild were after her as well. It seems the King had suggested it was a good idea for the thief to be produced, or else ...

Tash was not having a good day.

Still it was not all bad. As everyone was already after her she didn’t have to worry about sneaking around when she was nicking stuff. Everybody seemed to know what she looked like already, so she had been on a bit of a snatch and grab rampage. There were posters of her all over the city and a reward offered.

During her travels Tash had already decided on her next move. She had nicked all the things required. All she needed now was to find a place to stay for a couple of hours to assume her new identity. It had to be somewhere with water, so that she could rinse the dye out. Tash rested her head on her fist as she considered possibilities.

“Hey. That’s that thief they’re offering a reward for”, yelled a large unshaven drunk.

“Oh bugger.”

Tash heaved the table into her new devotee, leapt over the bar – hitting the barman in the head with a bottle – and raced up the stairs. She ducked into the first room she came to. Comatose occupant of bed snored on oblivious as she opened his window, leapt for the gutter and swung herself up onto the roof.

She made for the river front by a roundabout route thanking human kinds lack of organisation and narrow alleyways. Tash knew of a house that belonged to a hooker called Lolly. Lolly was currently entertaining a client in his home and would be gone for the next couple of days. Lolly’s friend Kitty was staying there. Kitty slept like a log, so if Tash was quiet she should be able to cut and dye her hair without disturbing her. No one would come visit this time of day because Kitty had a very nasty temper and it would be more than their life was worth to wake her up after a hard nights work.

Tash crept in through the front door. Kitty was indeed fast asleep and not a pretty sight. The first thing she was going to do after donning he disguise was sleep for a week. Tash went into the bathroom and gently closed the door after herself. She took the scissors out of her bag and stood in front of the mirror.

“Goodbye Tash. Hello Morgan”, whispered Tash to herself as she took a piece of her long scraggily mud brown hair and cut it about two inches long. She was surprised to find that when her hair was all cut short, it had started to curl.

‘Learn something new everyday’.

She reached for the packet of dye she'd nicked from the herbalist.
She’d always wanted to be a red head.