Crow nodded thoughtfully when Penelope said that meeting an estranged father would be difficult for anyone. He supposed he hadn’t thought much about that before, since it wasn’t a common occurrence in the outer villages for a family to be separated like his was. Sure, plenty of children were born out of wedlock, but the parents always ended up getting married anyway. Usually single mothers or fathers were the result of one spouse dying young. It wasn’t often seen that a parent would voluntarily leave the other to fend for themselves, and because of that, he’d never met anyone else in the same situation as himself before.

As Penelope went on to say that his father could have been afraid to meet him too, Crow cracked a small smile. The thought that the king of Brerra could be nervous to face [i]him[/i] was amusing. He was nothing more than a lowly thief from the poor outer villages of the kingdom. He may have had a reputation as the most successful thief in Brerra, but Albin was the ruler of it all. He couldn’t imagine that his father had anything to be nervous about, but he appreciated the knight’s efforts to make him feel better.

He looked up as John rose to his feet and announced that they needed to keep moving. Just as he was about to follow his lead, the older knight added something that made him pause: [color=fdc68a][b]“You’re starting to even make me anxious.”[/b][/color]

Crow stared at him in surprise. Though the words weren’t particularly comforting or even reassuring in any way, he hadn’t expected John to give his input at all. The knight had grown obviously more tolerant of him since the previous night, but this was the first time he had said something to indicate that he cared at all about how the meeting with Albin was going to go. The thief wasn’t sure what to think about that. He was partly unnerved, since he wasn’t used to nobles caring about him in the first place, but he also found that he felt strangely happy to be an object of concern to Penelope’s father.

“And the sooner it’s over with, the sooner I can go home,” he added as he climbed to his feet. Once everyone was ready to keep moving, they headed back to the main road to finish the last leg of their journey to the castle.

--

The rest of the walk went by in much the same way that the morning had. Word seemed to spread like wildfire about Crow’s appearance in the citadel as the nobles caught sight of him. They didn’t keep their opinions to themselves about it either. He heard multiple people make comments about how he’d finally been ‘captured’ and gossip about how he was going to be hanged for his crimes this time. He wanted to roll his eyes at their arrogant words. If only they knew that he had been personally invited by their precious king, maybe then they would keep their pompous mouths shut.

By the time they reached the castle in the evening, he felt convinced that every noble in the inner kingdom had heard of his arrival. That meant his father probably had as well. He swallowed nervously as he stared up at the massive, stone building, tempted to reach for Penelope’s hand, but restraining himself for the sake of keeping their secret from the small crowd of nosy nobles that had gathered to see what was going on. For now, he was just going to have to content himself with the knowledge that she was still by his side.

Crow took a steeling breath as they climbed up the steps that led to the main entrance, simultaneously glad to be escaping the crowd and terrified of what laid beyond those enormous doors. [i]I’ve already made it this far,[/i] he thought, trying to calm his pounding heart. [i]All that’s left is to have this conversation and be done. I can handle that.[/i] Still, it took every last ounce of his willpower not to turn around and run as John pulled open the castle door.

“You know, this is only the second time I’ve been to the palace in daylight,” he mused, attempting to make small talk with Penelope as he tried to distract himself from his fraying nerves. “The first was the day I was released from prison two years ago to go on that mission with you in Younis. I never thought I’d ever come back here again while the sun is up… Funny how plans change.” He took a shaky breath as John held the door open for him and Penelope to step through. This was it. Once he passed through into the castle, there was no turning back.

[i]Time to get this over with.[/i] Clenching his hands into fists at his sides, he forced himself to step inside the building.