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I gave my namesake story of mine in the form of a letter in your other thread... shall I give Artful's then?
Aye, the Dodger was a thief living on the streets of England. One day, his thief brother among his thief family ratted him out on the streets, if nothing but to reduce his own sentence. At this point in time, he wasn't known as the Artful Dodger. Indeed, he wasn't known at all. He was only known to men as the Charmer, because one lady who he robbed dreamily thought of him as such. As labeled by the British Parliament's wanted list, he was the Charming Thief. Anyway, that is all beside the point.
He woke up one day when he heard an unwelcome clicking noise. He opened his eyes, and, as his focus came and eyes crossed, saw a barrel between his eyes.
"Make one move, and you're dead," he heard. Apparently, they hadn't known of the Dodger much, but were instead just going on rare rumors. For had they known that Artful knew all the laws, and heard all the tales, they'd have shot him on the spot. For the source of his charming came from his unusual source of knowledge: indeed, it came that in despite of all his knowledge, he paid no heed to it.
"Fabin, run!" Artful cried. The man in power (indeed, he had the gun you see) turned to look at the door, but noone was there. Looking back down on the bed, he saw noone as well. Artful had vanished in the blink of an eye.
Now as Artful tells it, he managed to stay behind the figure completely, out of the range of his peripheral vision. After the figure looked back at the bed, Artful had actually gotten behind the door. As the figure ran out the door, Artful slammed it shut. He had hoped to catch the man, but the man had ran out too fast. Artful had revealed his presence.
Artful jumped out a window, and ran through the crowds. However, he was more than surprised when he saw filing through the crowd more members of the black guard. He started to take his time moving through them. Too slow. The man he had attempted to evade spotted him.
"That's him!" The cry went out. The fellow guards knew their man.
At one point in his escape, there was a dangerous stretch to cover. The crowd wasn't as tightly spaced. He sprinted full throughout it until he was cut short. It was a pistol round that had cut him short. He immediately turned back, and started dancing like a madman. Destiny had saved him: his pursuers had run out of ammo. For a second. They started reloading. He laughed real quick, out loud in a taunt, but in a burst as his time was short. Then it happened.
As soon as he had let out his laugh, he was ready to run again. But his environment had changed. The door right behind him had opened. As he turned around to run, he slammed straight into it, and into the old lady who had opened it. (She was a favorite target of the Dodger, as irony dictates.) He fell unconscious.
As the lights went out, he heard one of the guard say...
"That has got to be the worse pirate I have ever seen."
He then woke up in a cell, staring at a strange fellow, stinking of rum, wearing woman's makeup.
"Ah, peanut... oh, I see you've come to. Captain Jack Sparrow's the name..."
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