Trash Panda

Let Me Steal Your Heart [BuzzingBee + Dagger]

Read through it, and he sounds exactly like the kind of knight Crow hates, since he sticks to the rules so strictly xD
I'm already looking forward to their interactions

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EDIT: So, I'm thinking that there should be maybe two or three more nights before they reach the border, including at least one where they would camp out, since they had to camp on the way into Younis. What do you think?

Let Me Steal Your Heart [BuzzingBee + Dagger]

They're 3 letters different, with only the J trait in common xD
In a nutshell: Crow is charismatic/social, a bit of a visionary, and not very in tune with his emotions; while Penelope is reserved, down to earth, and empathetic
They both feel most comfortable when they have a plan though, so there's that lol
Also the ENTJ and ISFJ approaches to relationships are both really interesting, since they both seek long term commitment, but go about it in very different ways

Do you know what Gavin's personality type is yet? I'm curious now x3

Let Me Steal Your Heart [BuzzingBee + Dagger]

Crow walked back around to the front of the inn and stepped inside to find Penelope waiting for him in the lobby. He smiled tiredly as he approached her, glad to have a moment alone with her before they rejoined William in the room. After she spoke up, he nodded, “Seems that way.” He leaned in to meet her lips as she kissed him. Wrapping his arms around her back, he pulled her close to himself, although, being conscious of his wound, he made sure not to bring her close enough to brush against his chest. It felt good to be able to kiss her like that after everything they had just gone through. He pressed into her passionately despite his weariness.

When they parted again, he laced his fingers with hers and planted a kiss on her cheek. “He better be,” he snorted. “I took a knife for him today. I think that deserves at least grudging tolerance.”

Crow walked with Penelope down the hall that led to their room. When they reached it, he opened the door and was amused to see that William had taken up the bed closest to the exit, leaving the two remaining beds that were next to each other for the others. While he knew it probably had more to do with the fact that the older knight seemed to prefer to sleep near the door than it did with him promoting his comrade’s relationship with a thief, Crow was glad he wasn’t going out of his way to keep them apart.

He let go of Penelope’s hand and stepped over to claim the bed by the window. Sitting down on the edge of the mattress, he bent forward to take off his boots, wincing as the movement caused the wound in his side to strain. He was quick to remove the shoes so he could get out of the uncomfortable position. Once he was done with that, he laid back on the bed and let out his breath in a long exhale. He could feel the various aches in his body subsiding a bit as he relaxed against the soft mattress.

Crow pulled the warm blanket over himself and closed his eyes, already beginning to feel himself slipping out of consciousness before he even finished settling down for the night.

Let Me Steal Your Heart [BuzzingBee + Dagger]

It's worth it x3

Country music, man xD
It's very fitting though!

Also, I just went through and reread Crow's and Penelope's Myers-Briggs
It's interesting how different they are, but they also complement each other well (making up for strengths the other lacks, for example)
I love it~

Speaking of music, I have another one!
This song popped up on my Spotify discover this week, and I could see Penelope thinking this when she initially runs into Crow, since she's with someone else at that point (aside from the friends line, since it doesn't apply)

I Don't Want to See You Anymore - XYLO

Let Me Steal Your Heart [BuzzingBee + Dagger]

“Thank gods,” Crow sighed as Penelope said they were getting close to the border. While he wasn’t particularly excited about parting ways with her, he was definitely looking forward to returning to the security of the outer villages. After three weeks of travelling and getting attacked almost nonstop, he was ready for a well-deserved break. It would be nice to just rest and recover for a while without worrying about getting killed by mercenaries.

As she went on to say that she was looking forward to being able to settle down, he smiled to himself, sharing in her excitement. The prospect of really settling down would be hard to reach for a while, simply because of their circumstances, but he was hopeful that they would find a way to do it anyhow. He was already starting to strategize ways in which they could get away from all of the people who would be after them when they reunited in the outer villages. For one thing, he could stop stealing from high profile targets so the local knights would be less inclined to go after him. Then, once the uproar that Penelope’s disappearance would inevitably cause died down, they would be in a good place to try and make the dream of settling down into a reality. He couldn’t wait.

“I’m wondering if we should get three beds tonight,” Penelope’s words made him knit his brow in confusion until she went on to explain: “With that wound, it might be better for you to have a bed to yourself.”

Crow lowered his gaze, thinking over her suggestion. He preferred to lay next to her—especially after being attacked again for the umpteenth time—but she did have a good point. If either of them shifted in their sleep, they might risk inadvertently bumping his stitching and reopening the wound. Perhaps it would be better for them to sleep apart, at least until his body healed a bit more.

“You’re probably right,” he admitted after a moment’s pause, meeting her gaze again. “I’ll sleep in my own bed tonight.”

--

After they had traveled a bit farther down the road, William spotted an inn where they could stop and rest for the night. They stopped at the entrance, and Crow climbed down from the stallion’s back. He repeated the routine he had come up with the night before, taking both horses around to the stables behind the inn, hiding the staff and bow behind the hay bales, and returning to meet up with the knights in the parlor.

By this point, the thief’s exhaustion from the day’s activities had finally begun to catch up with him. His back ached from falling off of the horse, he could feel multiple bruises on various parts of his body, the stab wound in his chest still pained him in short bursts, and the older arrow wound in his leg seemed to have gotten irritated again as well.

I’m a complete mess, he shook his head as he walked around to the front of the inn. He was relieved that it wouldn’t be long before he was lying down on a soft bed within the safety of the inn walls.

Let Me Steal Your Heart [BuzzingBee + Dagger]

Do it~ It's so much fun!
Although he goes really fast, so you have to pause the video a lot. It's surprisingly stressful xD

Definitely!
The readers are not going to be prepared for the plans we have coming up

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EDIT: I figured we're probably gonna lose some more minor characters here and there throughout the story, so I'm marking deceased CSs in red and adding the page number for their deaths now to keep track of who dies when/where ^^

Let Me Steal Your Heart [BuzzingBee + Dagger]

“You know, it makes sense, the more I think about it,” Crow mused, casting William a sideways glance. “He’s been a knight for a long time. It’s not a long shot to guess that he’s seen plenty of situations where he would have to know how to tend to his comrades’ injuries.” It was no wonder the older knight was so stoic most of the time. He had probably seen even more hardship than the thief had, so his detachment from his emotions must have run even deeper than Crow’s.

Once William had finished dressing his own wounds, he came back to announce that it was time to leave. Crow looked up at Penelope as she offered him a hand to stand up. “I’ll be fine,” he offered her a confident smile. “It’s going to take more than just a dagger to keep me down.” Reaching up, he took her outstretched hand and climbed to his feet. He winced slightly as the wound in his chest smarted in response to the sudden movement, but he was quick to replace the look with a neutral expression since he didn’t want her to worry. Besides that, he was just as eager as the knights were to get to a safe resting spot. Injury or no injury, he wasn’t going to be the one to hold them back from finding a place to spend the night.

“Alright then,” William nodded curtly and turned to go and mount his horse. “Let’s keep moving before it gets dark.”

Crow walked with Penelope over to the stallion and hitched the staff and bow onto the animal’s belly again. Once both were secure, he stood back to allow her to climb onto the horse before he followed after her. Once again, the motion of stretching to get on the stallion’s back sent a sharp pain through his chest, but he was careful to keep his expression in check so his discomfort only presented itself in the form of a faint twitch of his upper lip.

Now sitting behind Penelope on the horse, he slipped his arms around her waist to hold onto her and leaned forward to press a short kiss to her cheek, although he hovered a little farther away than usual since he was trying to avoid accidentally brushing his bandaged wound against her.

“I’m glad we all made it out of there intact—well, most of us, anyway,” he flashed her a lopsided smirk before taking on a more serious look and glancing down a side street. “I just hope that was the last of our troubles. I don’t know how many more attacks we can make it through after taking so many wounds from the ones we’ve been in already.” He shook his head, mentally replaying the many battles they had been caught up in since they had left the Brerratic king’s castle. Looking back on it all, he was impressed they had survived even until the current hour.

“I’ll be glad when this is over and we can move on with our lives,” he said in quiet longing.

Let Me Steal Your Heart [BuzzingBee + Dagger]

Okay! I just bought a bunch of painting stuff, so I'll probably work on that for a bit x3
One of my friends had a Bob Ross painting party a couple days ago, and I got hooked lol

Really? I noticed the extra guests on the page a while back, but I didn't think much of it until I got a PM from someone complimenting our RP like a month or two ago xD
Made me realize we have fans, apparently

Let Me Steal Your Heart [BuzzingBee + Dagger]

With the unpleasant healing procedure now over, Crow was able to relax again. His mind was still hazy from the ale in his system, although he wasn’t drunk enough to be completely unaware of himself. While he didn’t usually enjoy being intoxicated, he found that he appreciated the way the alcohol took the edge off his pain. He glanced at William and wondered offhandedly if the knight had gone through similar traumas in the past. After all, he had been quite insistent that the thief drink before he pulled the dagger from his side. It had sounded like he’d been speaking from experience when he had said Crow wouldn’t want to be sober during the removal of the blade.

When Penelope spoke up, Crow turned to her and shrugged, still feeling a bit absentminded. “It hurts a little, but it’s fading,” he answered her question simply. Leaning back against the tree, he lifted his tunic again, curious to see what William had done now that he wasn’t focused on keeping himself from passing out.

A thin layer of bandaging adorned his upper torso, securely tight, but still just loose enough that he could breathe without causing the material to strain. He lifted a hand to the spot on his chest where he had been stabbed, gingerly brushing his fingertips across the bandaging. He could feel faint ridges where the knight had stitched him with catgut. While he couldn’t see the suture work, he could tell that William had done a good job. As long as he kept the wound clean, it would probably heal just fine.

“Looks like my old scar is going to have a twin,” Crow mused, referring to the wound on his right side that he had obtained from the tax collectors as a child. He let his tunic fall back down over his body and looked up at Penelope again. “I never expected William to be so medically inclined. Did you know he knew how to treat injuries like this?”

Let Me Steal Your Heart [BuzzingBee + Dagger]

Crow nodded when Penelope kissed him and said they would be right back. “Well, I guess I’ll wait for you here then,” he joked with a one-shouldered shrug. Despite the pain from the dagger in his chest, he managed to keep a somewhat light spirit about the situation. It helped that even though the blade was uncomfortable, he didn’t feel like he was in any immediate danger from it. His heart wasn’t racing anymore and he could still breathe without too much trouble. It was strange how anticlimactic it was to be stabbed in the chest. He would have thought there would be more blood and screaming, but instead it was almost as if he had just received a cut.

Then again, we haven’t tried to remove the blade yet, he thought with a nervous shudder. Arrows were painful enough to pull out. He couldn’t imagine what it was going to feel like to remove an entire dagger. Suddenly, he wasn’t quite so enthusiastic about taking the blade out of his side.

While Penelope and William went to the market to get the supplies they needed, Crow passed the time by dozing against the tree. He covered the dagger up with his cloak again so he could relax without worrying about drawing attention to himself. Fortunately, his rest was uneventful and he even managed to drift into a light sleep until the knights returned.

When he eventually heard approaching footsteps, the thief blinked his eyes open and stretched, wincing as the motion caused the dagger in his chest to shift slightly. After his nap, he had almost forgotten it was there, so the pain was an unpleasant reminder.

He looked up at the knights as they briefly discussed who would treat his wound and was surprised to hear William insist on doing it, himself. He would have thought the stubborn old knight would jump at the chance to let his comrade take over the healing of a criminal. Although, if William truly did have more knowledge about dealing with injuries like these, Crow would have preferred to have him treat the wound anyway. He loved Penelope, but he wanted to have the blade removed in the least painful way possible, and if the older knight was better at that, then of course he should be the one to do it.

“First thing’s first,” William grunted as he crouched down beside the thief. “Drink up.” He offered a rather large flask of ale that he and Penelope had bought at the market.

“Um, thanks, but I’m not really fond of getting drunk,” Crow shifted his weight warily, naturally swinging towards suspicion. He knew William was planning to treat his wound, but he didn’t see why alcohol was going to help anything, and he didn’t like the idea of being inebriated around a knight he didn’t trust.

“Well, you’re going to make an exception this time,” William grumbled impatiently as he shoved the flask into the thief’s hands. “Trust me, you’re not going to want to get through this sober. Now, drink that whole thing, or, so help me, I’m going to make you.”

Crow looked down at the flask and grimaced. He still didn’t feel comfortable with the idea, but he disliked the thought of William forcing him to drink even more. “Fine,” he sighed. Casting a quick glance towards Penelope for reassurance, he brought the bottle to his lips and downed its contents. The drink was strong. It burned his throat on the way down and made him feel warm almost immediately. Once he finished off the flask, he set it aside and turned back to William, trying to fight back against the fuzzy feeling in his mind. “Now what?” he asked a bit gruffly.

“Sit up straight against that tree,” William instructed. He waited for the thief to comply before going on. “I’m going to pull out the dagger first. It’s going to hurt, so bite down on this.” He held up a thick piece of bark that had fallen from the tree and gave it to Crow. “It will help you bear the pain and muffle your screams, since we don’t want to draw attention to ourselves.”

“’S it really that bad?” Crow slurred slightly with a frown, leaning away from the knight. “On second thought, ‘m fine. We should just leave it in.”

“Only if you want to die of infection,” William snorted unsympathetically. “Hurry up and brace yourself. The sooner you do, the sooner this will all be over.”

Crow hesitated for a moment before he gave a reluctant nod. He took the bark between his teeth and subconsciously reached to hold Penelope’s hand, seeking comfort in her touch. Once he was ready, he turned back to William and nodded again.

The knight returned the gesture before going on, “I’m going to count down from three and then remove the dagger. Understand?”

Crow nodded once more and closed his eyes, bracing himself for what was to come.

“Three,” William took the hilt of the dagger in his hand. “Two,” he grasped it firmly and braced his other hand against the thief’s shoulder. “One!” In one sharp movement, he ripped the blade from Crow’s chest. The thief let out a wail of pain that was stifled by the bark he was biting down on and squeezed Penelope’s hand tightly. Even though he was under the numbing influence of the alcohol he had drank, the searing pain still nearly made him black out for a moment. With the dagger gone, the feeling continued to resonate in his chest as the open wound began to bleed freely.

Fortunately for him, it seemed that William really was skilled at dealing with wounds like these. The knight worked calmly and swiftly as he lifted Crow’s shirt away from the cut and used the catgut and needle to suture the injury closed. Checking over his work once he was finished, William reached for the bandages and wrapped them around the thief’s chest to cover up the stab wound.

“There,” the knight said, seeming satisfied. He let Crow’s shirt drop back down over the bandages. “That should hold until it can heal on its own.”

“Thanks,” Crow panted a bit lightheadedly, opening his eyes again to meet the knight’s gaze.

William just grunted in response and stood up, turning to Penelope. “After we take care of our injuries, we need to keep moving to find a place to stay tonight. One of those bastards is still out there, and I’m not about to give him the satisfaction of catching us while we’re still licking our wounds.” With that, he took some bandaging and moved to sit down a little farther away as he dressed his own injuries.