Trash Panda

Let Me Steal Your Heart [BuzzingBee + Dagger]

Crow sighed as he met Penelope’s lips once more, a little disappointed that she didn’t think it was a good idea, even though her reasoning made sense to him. They didn’t know when or where the mercenaries could strike next, and sleeping together out in the open would leave them both vulnerable to attack. Besides that, it would be difficult to make sure the suturing in his chest didn’t get irritated if they tried. Even though he wanted to spend one more night with her before they parted, he knew she was probably being more reasonable in turning him down.

“I hate that you’re right,” he shook his head and then smirked at her. “Well, I hope you know I’m going to hold you to that.” Leaning in again, he kissed her playfully on the nose. When he pulled back, his gaze wandered up to the night sky again. It wouldn’t be much longer before he had to leave. He wished they had more time together, but it would be better if he left sooner rather than later.

Crow drew Penelope a little closer to himself, suddenly reluctant to let her go. “I should probably leave soon,” he murmured, resting his head against hers. “Just promise me you’ll be safe, okay? I want you to come back to me in one piece.”

Let Me Steal Your Heart [BuzzingBee + Dagger]

Crow is a bad influence xD

Me too! I especially can't wait for them to run into each other again. It's gonna be very dramatic, I'm sure

Let Me Steal Your Heart [BuzzingBee + Dagger]

When they finally parted form the kiss, Crow panted softly, trying to catch his breath. He continued to remain close to Penelope, not wanting to let her out of his embrace. They only had a little bit more time left together, and he intended to make the most of it. He held her close to himself, leaning his head against hers and closing his eyes blissfully as she pressed into him. As she told him she loved him too, he smiled and squeezed her tightly for a moment, savoring the sound of the words on her lips.

After a moment, he felt her pull back from him slightly and he looked down at her, his heart swelling at what she said next. He was glad to hear that she was so happy with him, and he laughed softly when she said she was already excited to see him again. “I am too,” he grinned back at her, tracing his hand down the length of her spine. He shook his head and chuckled again. “I still can’t believe how lucky I am to have you; you know that? You’re really something else.”

He glanced furtively back at William once more. The knight appeared to have drifted off into a sound slumber. His chest rose and fell steadily and the thief could even hear soft snoring coming from his direction. He turned back to Penelope with a mischievous glint in his eye and leaned in again to press a series of kisses to her neck and jawline, and then whispered in her ear, “There’s still a while before you need to wake him for his shift… How about we make our last night together one to remember?”

Let Me Steal Your Heart [BuzzingBee + Dagger]

Got it to work!

Year One

- After Penelope doesn’t show up to the meeting spot they had arranged, Crow begins to worry for her safety. He returns to the tavern every night for a week until finally, he overhears a patrol of knights talking about how the mission had been a failure and the king never received the staff. He comes to the natural conclusion that Penelope must have gotten attacked and killed, which was why she never came back to him

- He spends the following two months mourning his loss. His grief changes him deeply during this time, and he ends up spending most of his days in and out of taverns, getting drunk to cope with losing Penelope. During this time, he has a few close run-ins with the local knights, but still manages to not to get caught because of Evelyn’s efforts. The tavern owner keeps him safe while he’s in no state to take care of himself.

- After the period of mourning, Crow finally accepts that he will have to abandon his plans to be with Penelope since she’s gone, and will have to move on with his life. He quits drinking and goes back to stealing. He initially just goes after local knights to ease himself back into it before he moves on to hitting bigger targets as he used to.

- With time, word gets out that ‘the most infamous thief’ is back, and his reputation spreads throughout the kingdom again.

- As winter approaches, Crow begins to realize that his life feels incomplete. He finds that he misses having the company of other people around him and that he no longer enjoys living alone as he used to. It is around this time that he runs into a rogue band of thieves near the inner kingdom.

- The leader of the thieves, a man named Jaxon, recognizes Crow immediately and propositions him to join the group, hungry to add his skill and reputation to their mix. Blinded by his desperate search for a community, Crow agrees to join them.

- He spends the following winter traveling and living amongst the other thieves. At first, he finds their company enjoyable because they all come from similar backgrounds and experiences. He even manages to rise up amongst them as something of a leader because of his skills and charisma, though he never officially takes on such a title.

- They operate out of the inner kingdom, using their combined skills to steal almost exclusively from wealthy noble families. Because of this, they make a reputation for themselves and the local knights learn to keep a lookout for them. The thieves end up losing a few members as the knights begin to better predict where the group is going to strike next.

- As he continues to live amongst them, Crow begins to see the thieves’ true colors. He begins to notice that some of them steal from other members within the group, some take more than their share of loot when it’s divided from group raids, and many of them lie and spread rumors behind each other’s backs. He starts to feel less comfortable being among them, but he doesn’t want to be on his own again, so he continues to stick it out in spite of his concerns.

- One of the other reasons why he stays for so long is because of his affinity for a few thieves in particular: Simon, Alistair, Charles, and Rikki. They aren’t quite as greedy as the other thieves in the group, and Crow gets along with them quite well. He even considers them to be friends, despite his hesitations about getting close to other people.

- The four work well with him in group heists, usually following his plans while adding some of their own input to improve on his ideas. He comes to respect their individual talents and thoroughly enjoys stealing with them.

- Crow’s relationship to Rikki is a bit different from the male thieves. He views her in a similar way as the others, respecting her ideas and skills, but they also share a mutual physical attraction to each other that leads them to have a ‘friends with benefits’ type of relationship. They are by no means exclusive with each other—both would still have other flings with other people whenever the opportunity arose—but neither one is bothered by this.

- Crow’s inevitable breaking point with the group comes in the following spring. One day, a young boy happens upon the thieves’ hideout in the woods. Jaxon captures him before he can get away and rallies many of the other thieves to kill him. Crow is appalled that they would take the life of an innocent child who had stumbled upon them by accident and confronts the leader about it. Jaxon merely brushes him off as soft and kills the boy anyway. His actions open Crow’s eyes to the kind of people he’s been associating with and he leaves the same day.

- While most of the thieves in the group were rotten to the core, there were a few others who shared in Crow’s disgust for the way Jaxon handled the situation (Simon, Alistair, and Rikki—Charles had been killed by a knight), and they leave the group with him in the hopes that he will make a better leader than their last. Together, they form their own little band of thieves and continue stealing from the knights and nobles in the inner kingdom.

Year Two

- The next summer, Crow finds himself getting a bit homesick after being away from the outer villages for so long, so he and the other thieves travel to the village of Aramoor near the border. When they arrive, he finds that the war with Younis had just begun in his absence.

- With a bleeding heart for the peasants who were inevitably going to be ravaged by the battles, Crow tells the other thieves that he plans to stay and do what he can to help them. To his surprise, they find his decision honorable and choose to remain in the village with him. Together, they do their best to assist the villagers of Aramoor in the midst of the war.

- During this time, Crow discovers an unpleasant, personal side effect of being so close to the fighting. He gets unintentionally caught up in the middle of a number of battles in the village. Each time, the fighting triggers his PTSD from his childhood experience with the tax collectors, and he’s rendered unable to move. One of the other thieves, Rikki, notices his handicap the second time it happens and helps him get to safety. From then on, she stays close to his side whenever they get caught up in battles and helps him when his episodes occur. Her actions forge a close friendship between them that would have possibly turned into a romance, but after losing Penelope, Crow is afraid to get as close to anyone else as he had been with her for fear of losing them too.

- Over the course of the next few months, Crow’s PTSD fades of its own accord as his instincts to survive take over, until he eventually overcomes it for the most part (It still occurs on occasion, but he functions much better overall). A particular time that caused him to get over his episodes was when he was caught up in a battle and got run through with a sword in his left shoulder. Wounded and vulnerable on the battlefield, he had to fight past his panic to get away so he wouldn’t be killed by the knights. Ever since that accomplishment, his flashbacks and panic attacks came to him less powerfully, and he was able to work through them on his own.

- Finally able to fight without freezing up in battle, Crow steals a set of daggers from a Brerratic knight—he had sold all of his old weapons long ago to pay for food—and builds his skill with the blades until he is talented enough with them to hold his own against most opponents.

- As he starts to put himself in a position to fight more often and witnesses more of the destruction caused by war, he begins to develop a deep-rooted hatred for knights. He can’t stand to see the way they only care about winning each battle and don’t seem to pay any attention to the bystanders who are falling dead around them. So, no longer afraid to kill to defend the people he came to save, he uses his weapons to protect himself as well as the other peasants in Aramoor, fighting off any of the knights who threaten the safety of the villagers, no matter which kingdom they came from.

- By the time fall comes around, Crow and the other thieves realize there is no longer anything they can do to save the villagers of Aramoor from the war. The battles have grown too intense, and they don’t have the skills or resources to protect anyone. So, with heavy hearts, they leave to save themselves and move on to the village of Silverpool, where they take refuge with Evelyn and Hazel Ansgot.

- While he is there, Evelyn reveals to Crow that she had received a letter from the king of Brerra addressed to him. Crow is initially disinterested, until she tells him the name of the current king: Albin Mannering. Crow is shocked to learn that the previous king had been assassinated and his own father had usurped the throne. Still, the new information does nothing to change his answer. He accepts the letter from her, but refuses to open it.

- Also during his stay, Crow has his first run-in with Hazel in years. Having just come home from traveling around the outer villages, she isn’t happy to see him, but with some prodding from Evelyn, she reluctantly agrees to treat the wounds he had sustained from fighting in Aramoor.

- While they are together, Hazel admits to him that she had felt used when he merely slept with her and left without even a goodbye, and he apologizes for hurting her. After this, they manage to get along at least somewhat tolerably, though it is clear to Crow that she doesn’t intend to let go of her grudge against him just because he said he was sorry. In the interest of avoiding conflict, he tends to avoid her unless they have to be around each other.

- After hiding out with the Ansgot family for a couple months, Crow and the other thieves move on to the village of Myrefall because Crow is concerned about the people in his home town. When they arrive, they find the people in bad shape, so they decide to stay and do what they can to help the villagers survive both the war and the cold winter.

- Even after winter ends, Crow and the others continue to stay put in Myrefall because Crow is reluctant to leave the people behind in the middle of the war. However, as spring rolls around, he begins to notice that he’s developed a small cough—one of the first symptoms of the illness that took his mother’s life. He starts to fear that he contracted the disease that so many villagers in Myrefall end up dying to, but not wanting to worry the others, he keeps it a secret and tells no one.

Let Me Steal Your Heart [BuzzingBee + Dagger]

Love it x3
I'll get Crow's up in a bit

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EDIT: It might take a while, because this site doesn't like the formatting I used in Word, so I'm editing it first ^^;

Let Me Steal Your Heart [BuzzingBee + Dagger]

Crow leaned into Penelope as they kissed once more, closing his eyes serenely. He continued to hold her by the waist with one hand while he brought the other up to caress her neck. When they parted again, he met her gaze and smiled at her words. “I can’t wait,” he said, keeping his voice low as he heard William approaching. The older knight seemed disgruntled upon catching them in such an intimate moment, but fortunately, he kept his opinion about it to himself. Instead, he merely told Penelope to take the first watch and went to lay down on the other side of the clearing.

As he walked away, Crow let out the breath he didn’t realize he had been holding. He was glad that William had chosen not to pick another fight. After all, he didn’t want to remember his last night with Penelope ending in another argument with her stubborn comrade. Parting on peaceful terms would be a much better way to go.

He turned to look down at her as she suggested he take the opportunity to sleep while he could. However, he shook his head. “No, I’d rather stay up with you,” he said softly, brushing her hair from her face. “Besides, I’m too excited to sleep even if I wanted to.” He smirked at her teasingly. “Sorry, love, but you’re stuck with me until the moment I leave.”

Crow glanced at William for a moment before taking Penelope’s hand and leading her a little farther away from the knight, so they wouldn’t have to worry about keeping their voices down quite as much. Once he felt content with the distance, he leaned back against a tree and looked up at the night sky. It still felt like a dream, and part of him was afraid he might wake up. He couldn’t believe he was going home after so long, but even more so, he couldn’t believe she was going to come with him.

He lowered his gaze again to meet hers, running his thumb over her hand affectionately. “Thanks,” he said suddenly, breaking the silence between them. “For everything—for seeing past my reputation, for treating me like an equal, for entrusting me with your heart… and for letting me go home.” He smiled at her a bit sheepishly, hesitated for a moment, and then leaned in to wrap his arms around her in a tight embrace. It was still strange to him to lay bare his emotions for someone else, but she deserved to hear how he felt.

“We’ve only been together for three weeks, yet you’ve already given me more than anyone else ever has,” he went on. “I can’t express enough how grateful I am… I love you, Penelope.” Still holding her close, he pulled back just enough to meet her lips once more, kissing her with more passion than he ever had before as he tried to express his feelings to her physically.

Let Me Steal Your Heart [BuzzingBee + Dagger]

Do you want to share the timelines here pretty soon? It could be good to make sure there aren't any discrepancies between them. I don't think there will be, but it doesn't hurt to check ^^

Let Me Steal Your Heart [BuzzingBee + Dagger]

“Alright then,” Crow said, leaning into Penelope a little more. “I’ll go tonight.” He planted a quick kiss on her cheek and sighed, watching the streets and growing forest around them. While he knew it was the best option he had, he was a little disappointed that his time with her was going to be cut short. He supposed they would just have to make the most of their time while they were still together that night.

--

The rest of the ride to the border passed by peacefully. Crow spoke idly with Penelope for most of it, savoring their casual banter and the feeling of closeness that was brought on by the way they were sitting on the horse. Even though they didn’t have much time left before he would take his leave of the knights, he was glad that the remainder of it was being spent in such a relaxing way.

Eventually, William found a spot to make camp just on the inside of the Brerratic side of the border. After all of the troubles they had seen in Younis, Crow found it relieving to finally be back inside his own kingdom. He climbed down from the back of the stallion with Penelope—noting that it would be the last time he rode the animal—and looked around their campsite. It was on the small side, but there was plenty of room for all of them to sleep comfortably.

William was already scouting the area around the clearing in search of any signs of mercenaries. While the knight was busy with that, Crow slid his arm around Penelope’s waist and pressed a kiss to her lips, taking advantage of the short time they had alone. “Gods, I’m going to miss this,” he murmured, holding her close to himself and kissing her once more on the forehead. “Next week can’t come soon enough.”

Let Me Steal Your Heart [BuzzingBee + Dagger]

No worries! Do you want me to skip to the campsite?

Let Me Steal Your Heart [BuzzingBee + Dagger]

I didn't even think about that, but they totally would xD