Trash Panda

Let Me Steal Your Heart [BuzzingBee + Dagger]

Rikki’s head was spinning. The last three days had been a wild ride for her for many different reasons. On the first, she had finally started getting her hopes up again that Crow had come back to her at last. He had sought her out for comforting and even stopped pushing her away whenever she desired his touch. While she never did find out what exactly had happened on the night when everything had changed between him and Penelope, it had seemed from every angle that one or both of them had ended things. She had pitied him for his heartbreak, but that day had been one of the best she’d had in a long time. It was finally beginning to look like they could be together.

So, when Alistair had come back from their hunting trip with the news that Crow had run off without warning, she had been quite upset. After all, he had to have been going back to Penelope, right? At least, that was what she had guessed at the time. It was why she hadn’t bothered to chase after him. If he was running back to that knight, nothing she could have said would have changed his mind. He was far too hardheaded to listen to reason when he believed he was right. She had thought it best to let him go, so he would get turned down by Penelope and see for himself that he was making a mistake by pursuing that selfish noblewoman.

Apparently, she had been very wrong.

When Hartley had arrived the next day with word that Crow had died taking Jaxon’s sword for Penelope in battle, Rikki had felt like her whole world was crumbling around her. Part of her grief was due to losing both Crow and Simon and feeling like their family was being ripped apart, but most of her pain stemmed from a deep ache of loss and regret. She’d wished she hadn’t been so self-righteous by letting him go, because even though he had learned the lesson she’d been hoping he would, it had come at the cost of his precious life. Thinking about it again, though she knew now that he wasn’t dead, still made her throat feel tight. If she had only tried a little harder to get through to him, she could have stopped him from charging blindly to save a woman that didn’t deserve him. She could have stopped him from getting hurt.

Now, after all of that, she had just learned he was alive and being treated for his wound. Her hands trembled with relief as she laid out the herbs Hazel had set aside for his medicine. Now, she had new resolve to get him back from the knights and be by his side while he recovered from that unnecessary wound. Her heart fluttered with excitement as she clung to the hope that perhaps this incident would be the key that would open his eyes to the fact that he didn’t belong with a noblewoman. If he would just realize what a big mistake he was making, she could still get him to come around. They could still be together. She absently brought a hand to her cheek, smiling to herself at the thought.

“So, how can we help?”

Rikki blinked and looked up to see that the two knights had come over to join the thieves in preparing Crow’s medicine. Her eyes landed on Penelope’s face, and she flushed slightly, reminded that this was the woman who had stolen Crow away from her and nearly gotten him killed. When she had initially seen her, she hadn’t thought much of it, since she had been too caught in the news that the man she loved was still alive. However, now that she’d had some time to process it all, she found it harder to look the knight in the eyes.

Still, she couldn’t just turn her away out of spite. As much as she hated the thought of working with Penelope, she would just have to do it for Crow’s sake.

“I’m just heating up the oil right now,” she shrugged, forcing down her frustration with the other woman to focus on the task at hand. “You can help Hartley and Alistair ground up the herbs over there.” She gestured with one hand at the other two thieves, who were crushing the dried plants she had set out.

Let Me Steal Your Heart [BuzzingBee + Dagger]

Honestly, I see him stealing quite a bit for petty revenge while he's living at the castle xD
I could totally see him sicking the other thieves on his half-brother though

Let Me Steal Your Heart [BuzzingBee + Dagger]

Hazel’s blue eyes flicked between the two knights before she gave a curt nod. “Alright then, I’ll get to work on that straight away,” she announced in a businesslike manner. With the news that Crow was still alive, she now wanted to get him back to their camp as fast as possible. The sooner he was able to move on his own, the sooner he could be safe among his friends and out of the hands of his enemies. After all, she was well aware of the bounty that was still on his head. The knights may have been willing to keep him from dying of his injuries, but that didn’t mean they weren’t going to turn him in to the king for that reward. She and the other thieves needed to get him away from them as quickly as they could, so he wouldn’t be hanged for his crimes.

She was just about to turn away to begin setting up her medicinal supplies, when Penelope spoke again to ask if she had anything to treat Crow’s pain. “That’s exactly why we need to get him out of your camp and back in ours,” the herbalist said with a bitter edge to her voice. This was why she despised physicians. While she was willing to treat anyone, no matter who they were or where they came from, noble healers were too prideful to properly care for a thief just because he was a lawbreaker. It made her sick.

“I do have some herbs in stock that will help with the pain,” she went on with a thoughtful frown. “Unfortunately, I have even less of those than I do of my regular herbs. At a guess, I’d say I can make three or four batches at the most.” She met Penelope’s gaze again. “Since there’s so little of it available, only give it to him if he’s in more pain than he can tolerate.”

“Do you need help with that medicine?” Rikki asked. Her formerly defeated gaze held new fire at the prospect of getting Crow back. “You’ve been teaching me a lot about herbs, so I bet I could do it while you work on the other one.”

“No,” Hazel shook her head. “The painkiller is made of hemlock, henbane, and poppy seeds, so I’ll be the one to make it.” She shot the thief an amused smirk. “If you remember, they’re all poisons, so I wouldn’t want you to prepare it incorrectly and accidentally kill him.”

Rikki paled and nodded her head vigorously, “I-I’ll go get the fire started instead then.” She hurried off with Alistair to begin setting up two separate pots for each medicine.

Hazel followed the female thief with her eyes, appreciative of her help. Over the course of her stay with the band of criminals, Rikki had become an eager and useful apprentice. The herbalist felt confident that she had learned enough to take over most of the preparations of the remedy for Crow’s illness while she focused on the painkiller that Penelope had requested. She turned back to the knights with a courteous dip of her head, “Thank you for coming all this way to tell us the news. It’s good to know Crow’s fate is far from what we believed.”

Straightening her posture, she gestured at the three thieves, who had already begun working on the medicine under Rikki’s guidance, “If you’d like to help, go ahead. I’m sure they would appreciate the extra hands.” She turned to collect the herbs she had stored away with their other supplies. “I’ll be putting together the medicine to numb his pain if you need me.”

Let Me Steal Your Heart [BuzzingBee + Dagger]

Yeah, I'm thinking that when he accepts the offer, he'll do so on the condition that he wants five days to himself before he officially takes the title, so he can travel back out to the outer villages to tell his companions what's going on, since I don't think he'll be able to see them before then. That's when he'd be able to fill them in and *possibly* say goodbye (I could also see him secretly staying in touch with them if they decide to move back to the inner kingdom to raid nobles there like they used to cx)

Let Me Steal Your Heart [BuzzingBee + Dagger]

Hazel listened from a short distance away as Penelope recounted everything that had happened after Hartley had left the battle. She could already see the thieves’ features flooding with relief upon hearing that Crow really was alive and recovering, albeit slowly. Rikki’s eyes watered with tears of relief, and she murmured words of thanks to the gods under her breath; Alistair visibly relaxed now that he knew the reason why their leader hadn’t returned to them; and Hartley was grinning from ear to ear.

“I should’ve known he wouldn’t go down that easily,” the boy laughed. “If Crow can steal from Aeklora without getting smote, there’s no way someone like Jaxon could kill him, right?” He shook his head and beamed at Penelope. “Man, every time I run into you two it’s an adventure.”

Hazel casted him a sideways glance, unsure who or what the foreign thief was talking about, before she turned back to the knight with a thoughtful expression. “Yes, that is a problem,” she mused, folding her arms loosely over her chest. If Crow was healing from an injury that had almost taken his life, he couldn’t afford to be dealing with a chronic cough on top of it. If he continued to strain his stitching, he would either take much longer to recover or make his wound worse and be unable to get better at all. She pursed her lips into a thin line. The medicine she had been giving him, while helpful, had proven that it wasn’t enough on its own to cure him of his illness completely. However, it did seem to slow the rate of his coughing, and at this point, it sounded like anything was better than nothing.

“Since we all believed Crow was dead, I haven’t been making any of his medicine, of course,” she said slowly, looking up to meet Penelope’s gaze again. “I’m also running low of a few of my ingredients, but I think I’ve got just enough left to prepare about a week’s worth of doses.” She paused for a moment as another thought came to her before going on. “It will be difficult for me or anyone else here to get it to him while he’s in your camp, so if you’re willing to wait here for a little while, I can prepare it all tonight for you to bring back to him.”

It was strange, but she couldn’t really bring herself to view Penelope as an enemy or even an obstacle anymore. This woman had not only saved Crow from death but had also killed Simon’s murderer. She had seen to the vengeance that the herbalist had been craving for so long, and that was something worthy to be praised. I guess Crow was right, she thought with a subtle upward twitch of her lip. Penelope isn’t like other nobles after all. She’s something special.

“If I get help from these three, I should be able to finish the whole supply well before the sun comes up,” Hazel said. “So, what do you say?”

Let Me Steal Your Heart [BuzzingBee + Dagger]

All of the thieves sort of freaked out ^^;
Poor Hazel is the only rational one there, and she can't get a word in xD

Let Me Steal Your Heart [BuzzingBee + Dagger]

What did she say? Hazel stared at Penelope with widened eyes. She said nothing as she processed what the knight had just told her. Not only was her husband’s murderer dead, but Crow was alive too. She felt lightheaded with relief. After believing their leader was dead and that Jaxon had won, this was the best news she and the others could have received. She was just about to thank Penelope for coming to tell them, but before she had a chance to speak, the other three went at the knight in a flurry of shock and excitement.

Rikki was the first to move. She had been standing at a distance with a broken expression on her face at the sight of the woman Crow had given his life for, but upon hearing that he was still alive, she perked up right away. “What?” she practically squeaked in her elation, hurrying across the cavern to take Penelope’s hand as she held the knight’s gaze. “You’re telling us the truth, right? H-He’s not dead?”

“If he’s alive, why hasn’t he come back yet?” Alistair added with a concerned frown. He had followed Rikki over to the entrance of the cave and was now standing a little behind his friend with a wary look, as if he didn’t fully believe the news. Occasionally, his gaze flickered to Olivia, but he didn’t move to greet the other knight while his attention was focused on finding out what was going on.

“How did he survive?” Hartley was the last to chime in, studying Penelope with innocent curiosity. “That sword went all the way through him! I’ve never seen anyone recover from something like that.” The three thieves stared expectantly at the knight as they waited for her response to their rapid series of questions.

Let Me Steal Your Heart [BuzzingBee + Dagger]

Same xD
Yeah, I can't imagine that's gonna go well, haha

Let Me Steal Your Heart [BuzzingBee + Dagger]

It had been a long three days.

Hazel was sitting with her knees drawn to her chest as she gazed dully out over the cavern. She, Alistair, and Rikki were still reeling from the whirlwind of everything that had happened recently. On the first night, Alistair had come back empty-handed from his hunting trip with Crow. She could still vividly remember the troubled look on his face as he announced to them that their leader had taken off without warning. At the time, no one had thought too much of his disappearance. While it was out of character for Crow to leave without giving an explanation, he had said he would be back soon, and they had all believed he would come back. How foolish that had been.

She closed her eyes, taking a shaky breath. They shouldn’t have brushed it off so easily. Someone should have gone after him. When that strange Younisian boy had shown up the next morning with news of the thief’s death, it had felt like a weight had been dropped on all three of them—a weight of shock at the suddenness of it all, of sorrow for his loss, and most of all of guilt that they could have prevented it if any one of them had gone after him in the first place. Piled with the still-fresh loss of Simon, it had just been too much for the remaining three to bear, so they had spent the next two days in mourning.

However, the time had looked different for all of them. Rikki had become inconsolable and cried constantly during her waking hours until she’d had no tears left to shed. She had also stopped eating, which reminded Hazel of how she had become when she’d lost Simon about two weeks ago. It was clear to both her and Alistair that, while the feelings seemed to have been unreturned, Rikki had been in love with Crow. It hurt the herbalist to see the other woman so heartbroken, especially since she had gone through the same thing so recently. Losing a loved one wasn’t a pain she would wish on anyone.

Alistair hadn’t been much better off. While he’d mostly kept his appetite, he had also shed quite a few more tears than Hazel had been expecting from him on the day Hartley had delivered the news. It seemed he had developed a close friendship with Crow during the time they’d been together, because he hadn’t even cried that much when Simon had passed. She supposed she must have underestimated how good of a friend and leader the thief had been to his companions.

Among the three of them, she was the only one who hadn’t shed any tears. It wasn’t because she didn’t mourn Crow’s loss, but rather because she simply didn’t have any more grief to spare. Instead of being overcome with sadness like the two thieves, she had been stricken with a numbness from the shock of learning they had lost him too. It was probably for the best, since she was the only one amongst them in any condition to prepare food and begin packing up their supplies—they had decided the day before that they were going to move to Younis with Hartley, since it seemed like Brerra was going to lose the war—so she had taken over as a sort of temporary leader for them now that Crow was gone.

Thinking about it now, Hazel decided she should probably keep working on packing for them. She climbed to her feet from where she had been sitting and stepped over to the supplies, but before she even had a chance to get started, she froze at the sound of a voice outside the hideout: “Alistair? Hazel? Rikki?” At the sound of it, everyone in the cave got up from the various places they had been sitting or lying about, instinctively reaching for their weapons.

In the next moment, Alistair knitted his brow confusedly as he recognized the voice, “Is that—”

“Penelope!” Hartley exclaimed, scrambling to his feet and dashing for the entrance. Just as the knight came into view, the boy wrapped his arms around her in a tight embrace.

Hazel stared at the knight—or rather, knights, since there were two of them—in surprise. What was Penelope doing here? She had no more reason to visit the thieves now that Crow was dead. The herbalist had thought she would have just gone back to her life as a knight, since she had nothing to risk anymore. Shifting her weight slightly, she took a step towards the cave entrance. Even though she wasn’t officially the leader, she still felt like it was her responsibility to protect the mourning criminals while they were in no condition to defend themselves. That meant being the one to question their unexpected visitors.

“What are you doing here?” she asked with more curiosity in her voice than accusation. Penelope had actually been by Crow’s side when he’d been killed, so she couldn’t have been doing well. Out of respect for her loss, Hazel couldn’t bring herself to be as hostile to the other woman as she normally was.

Let Me Steal Your Heart [BuzzingBee + Dagger]

I'm excited though xD
I'm also excited for when John figures them out cx
Crow's gonna have to face the terrifying wrath of a protective father