Penelope looked over at William as he addressed her. She nodded her head in agreement before shooting Crow a quick glance. “Good luck.” She whispered in return, knowing fully well that William hadn’t forgotten the detail about him stealing at the marketplace despite the whole Hartley situation. She turned and walked off with Abraxas to the front of the wagon, which felt a bit strange to her since she had grown so used to riding in the back with Crow.
Abraxas kept glancing over towards his comrade as she sat down by him. “It’s weird to see you up here..” He finally commented, stating the obvious.
“Yeah. Definitely a change of pace.” Penelope agreed as she looked ahead. The two didn’t speak much as they took their leave from the small village. It was mostly small talk, that is until Hartley decided to poke his head out to start speaking with Penelope. Asking her where they were truly from and many other questions, all while trying to flirt. What amused Penelope was Abraxas’ interest in the thief and the people of Younis in general. The younger knight often butted in with questions of his own, either extremely oblivious to Hartley’s attempts to flirt with Penelope or simply not caring.
“I have to ask, where did you learn to fake an accent that well? You’re just full of surprises you know?” Hartley mused as he looked over at Penelope.
“Crow taught me.” She answered with a simple shrug, still trying to withhold most information from the new thief.
“Does your kingdom get a lot of travelers?” Abraxas asked before Hartley could say anymore to Penelope. Hartley, at this point, seemed a bit annoyed with the other knight. “I dunno. I don’t really pay attention to that crap.” He answered with an uninterested shrug.
The three spoke a bit more until Hartley became noticeably interested in the action that was taking place inside the cart. Penelope exchanged a look of alarm with Abraxas as the chanting of ‘Fight, fight, fight!’ was heard from inside. “Stop the cart.” Penelope said immediately, fearing that William might have gone a bit too far. It was unlikely that the older knight would seriously wound the thief but Penelope couldn’t help but feel a bit of panic at the thought. She just didn’t want Crow to get hurt in general.
The cart eased to a stop and she quickly jumped down to race to the back of the wagon with Abraxas trailing behind her, drawing his sword as he likely thought Crow was attacking William. She got there in time to see William pressing his sword against Crow’s neck and her eyes went wide. “William! Enough!” She practically screamed at the older knight. William didn’t bother taking his eyes off Crow but he ever so slightly raised the sword away from Crow’s throat.
“I should end you for that.” He spat venomously at Crow.
“You won’t be ending anyone. Stand down, William.” Penelope snapped as she moved to pull William up and way from Crow, only doing so successfully as William willing moved. She moved to place herself in between the two and glared furiously at William. “What in the hell do you think you were doing?! Can’t you control that hot-head of yours for one second!”
“What happened?” Abraxas asked in a quiet voice as he looked around. Meanwhile Hartley watched from the side, looking as entertained as ever.
“My hot-head?” William growled, looking angered by Penelope jumping to the defense of Crow. “That filth dared to challenge me!”
She glanced down at Crow with a questioning gaze before fixating back on William. “You didn’t have to let it go so far.” Penelope stated with a small glare in her gaze. “I’ve seen you fight before, surely you could have handled that without threatening serious harm!”
William tightly gripped the hilt of his sword. “Would you stop treating him like a comrade!” He snarled, making even Penelope flinch at his words. She felt a small sense of panic run through her at the realization William might have been more perceptive of how close Crow and her were. It only escalated more when she thought about him knowing about her feelings for the thief. The faint look of panic that Penelope revealed seemed to satisfy William as he narrowed his gaze at her.
“Don’t think I haven’t noticed! The reason he thinks he’s entitled to being treated well is because you’ve been foolish enough to do just that. You let him get away with too much, Penelope. And look, you’ve even managed to get another thief pining after you!” He snapped gesturing to Hartley. “So stop blaming me and start blaming yourself. They’re leeches. They aren’t nice or good people. They’re just using you. It’s all they know how to do Penelope. He will never be anything more than a greedy, disgusting criminal and you need to start treating him like one.” William growled taking a small step towards Penelope as he towered over the smaller knight.
Penelope held his gaze for a moment but she was far from as confident as she looked. Slowly but surely her gaze fell and she avoiding meeting anyones gaze. “You’re right. I apologize, William.” She replied, the words tasting bitter. She didn’t believe them but she certainly didn’t want to make the situation worse than it already was.
