osirian rebecca and macalaure
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A young woman in temple robes that do not fit her very well is shuffling through the temple.

When no one is looking, she drops little packages - wrapped in rags and scratch paper, tied with string, shaped oddly - at doorways and in alcoves, meandering from one section of the temple to another, making her way gradually to the section she hopes to be in by the time someone spots one.

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Someone spots one! He's alarmed. He pulls over the nearest cleric to cast Detect Magic on it.

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Nope, not magical.

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Then probably not dangerous?

Detect Poison?

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Yes, it is that.

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- huh. 

This is communicated to this person's superior and then to this person's superior who orders the place carefully searched for more of them.

There are more of them.

Perhaps they should evacuate this temple for the time being while it is determined what kind of trap this person is setting and how dangerous it is.

They give the order to do that.

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When the alarm goes off she's almost there. She breaks into a run and - nope, someone already has the baby, they're quick about evacuations here. She picks up a random toddler, chases the cleric with the baby out. "I banged my shoulder - trade me, he's heavy -"

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He hands her the baby, takes the toddler. They spill out into the street. "This way," he says to her.

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She goes this way. She falls behind the rest of the pack gradually.

She steps into a side alley and runs as fast as she can.

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No one calls out to her. Or stops her. Some people in this alley look startled to see a running woman with a baby but by the time they think anything of it she's past them.

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The bystanders won't notice anything but the clerics will; any moment that one will notice that he's never seen her before, that they don't have the right number of babies, and then a woman running with a baby will be suspicious. She runs two blocks, slows down as she rounds a corner, walks.

The baby starts crying. She is wearing stolen cleric robes and they are not designed for breastfeeding babies. A crying baby will draw attention. She needs somewhere to go take the robes off, then she'll be able to calm her down - she can't just shrug them over her head in the middle of the street, even if there weren't a baby in her arms -

"Baby be quiet," she coos, drifting automatically into melody, "baby be still, baby I love you, I always will - baby be quiet, and I'll show you the moon... baby be quiet, it'll rise soon -" She babbles her way through verses and starts making them up. For the moment it's keeping her from hollering. She will show this baby the sea, the woods, the desert, the Starstone, all of the previous things only upside-down, she will show this baby everything, what rhymes with "boat".

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His security looks mildly annoyed when he detours to listen to the cleric singing beautifully to a baby, but only mildly - Telcar has probably adjusted their expectations for a reasonable amount of detouring, and Abadar's more effective at screening than any security system run by humans. 

He is slightly surprised when he actually gets a closer look at her.

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"Baby be quiet, I'll show you the shore, it'll be lovely, can't ask for more..." - dude over there is kneeling. What.

She looks over her shoulder and ohshitthat'stheprince and she leaves off singing to walk as briskly as she can directly away from him, barely resisting the urge to break into a flat run again. You're allowed to just, like, leave, right, if they haven't stopped you, that's why traffic is weird around them, people just detour -

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And that's weird - suspicious, really, and he's not even a very suspiciously-minded person -

Those robes don't really fit her and the baby's not dressed to take outside and -

"Stop her," he says, and a spell stops her barely a second after that.

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The baby starts crying again, when she stops singing.

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"Well, don't scare her to death -"

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And he approaches, surrounded by guards.

He waves his hand impatiently and the spell stops holding her. 

 

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...well. This is no longer "if they haven't stopped you". She falls to her knees, knuckles pale around fistfuls of the baby's clothes.

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"  - it's okay, it'll be okay, please calm down, I'm not trying to be the worst thing that ever happened to you," he says. "Uh - could you explain what's going on here, please - what temple are you with -"

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Maybe he won't follow up. "First of Little Katapesh your grace?"

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"The baby too?"

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"Y...es?"

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The guards shuffle nervously.

"Why're you out with the baby?"

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"The alarm went off and we got the kids out."

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"What's your name -"

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"Jamila."

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