Trash Panda

Let Me Steal Your Heart [BuzzingBee + Dagger]

Crow nodded, feeling relieved when Penelope said she didn’t think Gavin had followed her this time. Just to be sure, he casted one more look at the forest around them but, seeing no movement or other signs that they were being watched, he let himself relax. Without her stubborn ex suitor around, it was going to be easier for him to convince her that that the knight had fabricated the story of his meeting with Jaxon, and he wouldn’t have to worry about arguing with anyone to prove himself.

“Speaking of Gavin…”

Here it comes, Crow thought, turning back to Penelope with a confused look, as if he wasn’t sure what she was about to say. While she went on to tell him when Gavin had told her, he listened quietly without interrupting to defend himself. He had been hoping she would be able to tell him a little more about what her former suitor had overheard of his conversation with Jaxon, but it seemed like she didn’t know very much either. At least, she wasn’t telling him if she did know.

“Gods, I told him not to tell you that,” he groaned, shaking his head in frustration. “The hardheaded fool…” Turning back to Penelope, he offered her a hapless smile. “I was going to tell you this on my own, but after we parted ways two days ago, I found another potential lead in Myrefall. One of the men of the village overheard me and my companions talking about Jaxon and approached us to say that he may know where we can find him. He knows how dangerous the men in Jaxon’s group can be, so he refused to talk until after nightfall, when we could be sure we were alone.”

He shrugged, “Anyway, I went out to meet with him, and he told me that he heard rumors of a band of thieves in Black Hollow. He thinks they’re the ones we’re looking for.” His smile grew slightly more hopeful. “I know it’s not much, and it will be difficult to convince your baroness to let you leave again, but it’s better than nothing right?”

Let Me Steal Your Heart [BuzzingBee + Dagger]

Same cx
Crow's pretty confident that he won't get caught

Let Me Steal Your Heart [BuzzingBee + Dagger]

As Crow made his way through the woods, he recited the story he was going to tell Penelope in his head. The more he thought about it, the more his worries gave way to peace. Penelope had made it clear that she trusted him, so it wouldn’t be too difficult to get her to let go of whatever Gavin had told her, and that was if she even believed her former suitor in the first place. The only thing he was still concerned about was if the stubborn knight chose to follow her again.

He shuddered slightly as the image of Gavin’s furious expression appeared in his mind. The knight already had a tendency to tail others, so the thief wouldn’t put it past him to do it one more time. It would be much harder to get Penelope to listen to him while her ex suitor was screaming “liar” in her ear the whole time. He hoped she had been able to get away from her camp alone, so they wouldn’t have to put up with the man’s impulse to get involved in things he should have kept his nose out of.

When he eventually reached the clearing, Crow stood with his back against a tree, forcing himself to stay still despite how tempted he was to pace in anticipation. He wanted to appear as calm as possible when Penelope showed up, so she wouldn’t have any reason to suspect how restless he really was. So, instead of walking in circles around the small space, he contented himself by fidgeting with the hilt of his dagger beneath his cloak. The motion helped to relieve some of the nervous energy inside of him, and the thick fabric of his cloak made it difficult to see in case the knight walked up anytime soon.

Fortunately, he didn’t have to wait long before he saw a figure step out of the trees. Crow looked up and was relieved to see that it was Penelope. He glanced past her shoulder towards the woods she had come out of, but it looked like she was alone. He narrowed his eyes slightly. Despite the fact that it looked like Gavin hadn’t followed her this time, he didn’t want to take any chances. The knight could have easily followed her without her knowledge again.

Recovering from his moment of suspicion quickly, he stepped away from the tree to meet Penelope halfway across the clearing, grinning at her excitedly. When he reached her, he wrapped his arms around her in an eager embrace and leaned in to kiss her. However, just before their lips met, he paused and looked up again with a frown. “Are we alone this time?” he asked softly, gazing into the trees with a concerned expression and hoping she would mistake his worry about her ex suitor for worry that their moment of privacy would be interrupted.

Let Me Steal Your Heart [BuzzingBee + Dagger]

Man, it's going to be so bad when she finds out Gavin was right xD

Let Me Steal Your Heart [BuzzingBee + Dagger]

The next day, Crow spent most of his time with Hazel on a halfhearted search for Jaxon. The group of fugitives had split off into patrols of two—Alistair and Rikki made up the other—to scour the forest on the southeastern side of their camp in an attempt to find the band of thieves. Of course, he knew they would find nothing, since they weren’t even close to the part of the outer villages where Jaxon’s camp was really located, but he pretended to look anyway, so they wouldn’t know he knew more than them.

As he had expected, they came away empty-handed at the end of the day and had to turn around with no new information about the criminals they were after. The failure of the hunt was beginning to take its toll on Hazel, who broke down crying on their walk back. The sight of her tears sent a stab of pain through Crow’s heart, but he had no words to console her. How could he even try, when he was the sole reason why they hadn’t caught her husband’s killer? So instead of offering any words of sympathy, he said nothing and simply waited for her to let out her frustrations without interruption as they headed back to the camp.

The second day didn’t go much better either. This time, Alistair went with Hazel, and Crow went with Rikki as they searched the northeastern side of the forest. At first, Crow kept his guard raised high around the female thief, but as time passed, it became clear that she didn’t intend to make any moves on him today. He supposed her new tactic was to strategically time her attempts when Penelope was around, since he had proven to her that he wasn’t going to do anything with her behind the knight’s back. Besides that, she was surprisingly focused in her search for Jaxon. He had never seen her put so much effort into anything before. He hadn’t realized it until now, but Simon’s death must have impacted her much more than she had originally let on.

So, by the end of the day, when they had found no trace of the thieves they were after yet again, she was in an especially foul mood.

“That rotten, no-good bastard,” she cursed viciously as they walked back to their camp, empty-handed once more. “I want to wring his neck!”

Crow flinched slightly at the intensity of her voice. “I’m sure we’ll find him eventually,” he said slowly, trying to reassure her. “The outer villages are vast, but he can’t hide forever.”

“Yeah, well he’s doing a pretty damn good job so far,” Rikki shook her head and raked her fingers through her hair, causing the long, black waves to cascade around her slender neck. “I just don’t get it. We’ve been searching for him everywhere, and there’s been no trace. How can anyone be so skilled at hiding their tracks?”

Because we’re not even close to the place where he set up camp, Crow answered silently. “I don’t know,” he lied. “But no one is perfect. He’ll slip up eventually, and when he does, we’ll catch him.”

“I know,” she sighed. “I just wish he would hurry up and make that mistake already.” He expression turned cold. “I want to make him pay for what he did to Simon.”

Crow nodded wordlessly. He understood her hatred of Jaxon perhaps better than anyone else. Not only had he lost one of his closest companions, but the murderer was now threatening the life of the woman he loved. He wanted to see the thief leader’s head roll probably even more than she did, but he couldn’t do anything about it. As long as Jaxon had his sword against the knight’s throat, his hands were tied. The murderer would continue to roam free, and there was nothing that he or anyone else could do to stop him.

Rikki seemed to catch his desolate look and placed a hand comfortingly on his arm. “Come on,” she said quietly. “Let’s hurry back for supper. Maybe we’ll have better luck tomorrow.”

“Maybe,” Crow nodded, averting his gaze so she wouldn’t see him grimace at the lie. He followed her lead as she picked up her pace, eager to get back to the camp and forget about their futile search for Jaxon as the next problem of how he would approach Penelope that night arose in its place.

--

Crow spoke little to his companions as they all sat around the hearth for supper together. Fortunately, his silence didn’t stand out, since they were all in a sour mood from the unproductive patrols. However, while they were probably all mulling over their failure to find Jaxon, he was busy formulating the lie he would tell the knight to convince her that Gavin had been lying about his meeting with the killer. He needed to come up with something solid enough to throw her off without leaving room for suspicion.

Once he felt like he’d come up with a reasonably believable story, he set his empty plate aside and rose to his feet, stepping over to grab his cloak in preparation to leave for their next meeting. He murmured a quick goodbye to the others and then walked out into the brisk night air, sending up a prayer to the gods that she would believe him as he made his way north towards the clearing where they had last met during the night.

Let Me Steal Your Heart [BuzzingBee + Dagger]

Crow is banking on Penelope not believing Gavin cx

Okay! Can't wait

Let Me Steal Your Heart [BuzzingBee + Dagger]

Crow braced himself as Gavin brought up his sword to block his dagger. The sound of clashing metal filled his ears as the blades bounced off of each other, giving the thief just the momentum he needed to sprint for the surrounding woods. Taking advantage of the knight’s momentary surprise, he turned and ran as fast as his legs could carry him, weaving between the trees to lose the other man, whose footsteps he could hear pounding on the forest floor behind him.

Fortunately, it wasn’t long before those footsteps began to fade as the distance between them grew. Crow glanced back over his shoulder as Gavin shouted one last threat at him just before he disappeared from his sight. However, even though it seemed like the knight had given up on pursuing him, he didn’t slow down quite yet. Heart hammering, the thief continued to race through the forest until he felt certain that he had left the other man far behind.

Eventually, the waterfall came into view up ahead, and that was when he finally slowed to a walk, panting lightly from the exertion of running all the way back from Myrefall. Now alone, he felt the frustration of what had happened all the more sharply. He couldn’t believe Gavin had caught him with Jaxon. It was the worst possible thing that could have happened, especially since the knight was just going to go straight to Penelope with everything he had seen. Now he was going to have to lie to her again when he would inevitably deny her ex suitor’s claims.

In a fit of anger, Crow stopped walking and swung a fist at the nearest tree, inhaling sharply as he felt the rough bark cut into his knuckle. The gesture did nothing to ease his inner turmoil. He pulled his arm back and clutched his bleeding hand in the other one, grimacing at the sting of the shallow scrape. It hurt, but he supposed it was better than taking out his frustrations on Gavin. If he had attacked the knight, he would have given him proof to bring back to Penelope of their encounter in the woods.

He let out his breath in a sigh and kept walking to the camp again, the pain of his cut somehow helping him calm down. As unfortunate as Gavin’s appearance had been, it wasn’t the end of the world yet. He felt sure that Penelope wouldn’t believe her former suitor over him, especially after the knight had already tried and failed to accuse him in the past. He would have to tread more carefully around the other man from now on, but as long as she still trusted him, he could still keep her safe.

Feeling a little better, Crow slipped quietly inside the cavern and made his way over to the sleeping area. After everything that had happened that night, he wanted nothing more than to get some sleep so he would be well rested to think through his next steps in the morning.

Let Me Steal Your Heart [BuzzingBee + Dagger]

Crow is definitely panicking now

That sounds good to me! I imagine the assassin attack would happen in/around the knights' camp, so I'll leave it up to you how that will all play out ^^

Let Me Steal Your Heart [BuzzingBee + Dagger]

Crow wanted to rake his fingers through his hair in frustration. As hard as he tried to convince Gavin to let it go, the knight refused to see reason. He wished he could explain himself or do anything to make the other man understand what was going on, but he couldn’t do so without breaking his word to Jaxon. To make matters worse, it seemed that Gavin had mistaken his warning for a threat. He groaned inwardly as the knight took on a defensive stance, as if he expected the thief to come after him. Of course he wasn’t going to attack anyone. As infuriating at the man could be, he didn’t want to see him die. They may not have gotten along well personally, but he didn’t think Gavin was a bad person, and the knight certainly didn’t deserve to be killed for stumbling upon something he shouldn’t have.

He was just about to try another approach to get Gavin to back down, when the knight added something else that made him bristle: “And so will Penelope once she learns what you’ve been doing behind her back.”

Crow narrowed his eyes at that. It was quite clear that no matter what he said or did, Gavin had every intention of telling the others that he had seen him with Jaxon. He’s going to ruin everything, he thought scathingly, trembling slightly from a mixture of anger and fear as he restrained himself from lunging at the knight. After everything he’d done to keep the knights from finding out about his alliance with Jaxon, Gavin was going to spoil it all and get Penelope killed anyway! He took a shaky breath, trying to calm down so he wouldn’t do anything irrational.

“That’s not going to happen, because she’s never going to find out,” he snarled. Well, so much for being rational. “Tell her whatever you want, but I’ll deny it tooth and nail. She’s never going to believe you.” Knowing the conversation was going downhill fast with no resolution in sight, he glanced over his exit points again. He needed to get away from Gavin before the situation got any worse.

Without waiting for a reply, he lunged at the knight with the dagger in his right hand poised to strike. Of course, the attack was merely a distraction. As soon as Gavin blocked or dodged it, he intended to sprint for the closest escape route to get away from him, using his superior knowledge of the outer villages to get away.

A Summer in Santa Barbara [MxF 18+]

Hello, all~ I don't normally post public interest checks, but I've had a weirdly specific craving for a reality TV based RP for a while now, and I figured I may as well throw out a line and see if I get any nibbles.

First, here's some boring stuff, expectations, and the like:

• I'm seeking a long-term partner who can post at least once per week on average. However, this does not mean consistent long-term partner. I completely understand that life can get in the way, and you may have to disappear for days or months to take care of what's important. I only ask that you give me a head's up if you need to take a hiatus, so I don't think you've dropped the RP.
• Similarly, if you do at any time lose interest and no longer wish to continue, please please be honest with me! I'd much rather you drop out rather than continue writing a story you've lost fire for, but I need that upfront message admitting it. Ghosting doesn't give me the same sense of peace with the discontinuation. Also, I'm always open to discussing new ideas/new RPs for a story to get your interest back if you would like to continue writing with me, but don't like where the current plot is headed. Communication is key, after all!
• I'm an advanced roleplayer, so I expect my writing partners to be able to post at least 3 grammatically correct paragraphs. I know this is a lot to ask of some people, but it's something I can't really negotiate on, unfortunately.
• About the 18+ tag on this thread. I don't always write 18+ RPs, but this particular plot is going to contain some adult content (specifically in the grounds of sex, drug/alcohol use, and nudity), so I'd prefer my partner to be over the age of 18. I just don't feel as comfortable writing this sort of content with a high schooler. Sorry!
• Also relating to 18+ content, I do not write smut. I will lead up to a fade-to-black scene, but I will not use graphic language to describe specific sexual acts. Not even in PMs. It's a little out of my comfort zone, and I personally just don't feel like it adds anything important enough to the plot to be included.
• A little more into romance: The main romantic pairing in this RP will be MxF. Again, it's just a comfort thing for me. I'm fine with a few MxM and FxF minor characters, but I'd prefer to stick with a heterosexual pair for the mains.
• Characters! I'm looking for someone who would like to write for one MC with a large side cast of minor characters that will either be shared between us or split 50/50. I can get very detailed in my posts and write up to 2000+ word posts, so for the sake of time, I prefer not to double.
• Regarding character gender, I tend to prefer to play the M character. Even though I'm female IRL, I've always found that I'm more in tune with my masculine side (much to my husband's confusion sometimes), so my male characters are often more well-rounded than my female characters. Because of this, I'm looking for someone to play the leading F character in this RP!
• Lastly, I wanted to mention OOC chat. I'm an extrovert, and therefore a talker. I love to get to know the people I'm writing with on a personal level, so if you roleplay with me, expect lots of questions and interest in you as a person. Of course, I will never pry at your personal life if you don't want to share certain things, so you don't have to worry about that. Any questions I ask are always out of genuine curiosity and love of the uniqueness of all people <3

Now if you made it through all that, here's the fun part!

The general plot of this RP is a reality TV show about a group of select "average people" who've been thrown into a California ocean-side mansion for the summer to live with some well-known celebrities. Essentially, the draw for the show is average people having to learn to adapt to the wild and eccentric lifestyles of the rich and famous. They all come to the house with different goals in mind: Some hope to build connections in Hollywood to start up their own lives of fame, some are looking to get into relationships with their idols, and some are just in it for the parties and the paycheck. Naturally, plenty of drama and comedy ensues that help the show rise to the top of the charts in popularity.

The F character is one of the applicants whose audition tape snagged her one of the openings in the show, while the M character is one of the celebrities who was asked to participate in the show as well. Over the course of the summer, production coaxes the two into a show-mance in the hopes of using them to bring in more views. The two end up cuddling in the common areas of the house, kissing in the confessional booth, even fighting about the other flirting with someone else at the club and so on. Overall, the experience is a blast for both characters, but it's nothing either one expects to last once the show is over.

So, there are quite a few directions this story could be taken in, and I intentionally left the minor characters open-ended for some sidebar romances and other drama.

If anyone has any interest in this RP, leave a comment or shoot me a PM! I'd love to discuss ideas and details!