Trash Panda

Let Me Steal Your Heart [BuzzingBee + Dagger]

Once they were both ready to keep moving, Crow followed Penelope out of the room. He casted the innkeeper a furtive glance when they reached the front of the inn, noticing that the man was still eyeing him hostilely, but made no comment about it. After spending his whole life as one of the most hated men in the kingdom, he was used to being closely watched. As long as the other man didn’t say or do anything to hinder them in their journey, he would leave him alone.

Heading back to the main road with Penelope, Crow trotted up to fall in step beside her. He glanced down at her and smirked as he noticed that she looked just as tired as he felt. It made sense. From what he knew of most knights and nobles, they usually embarked on long trips like these on horseback. She probably wasn’t used to walking such long distances.

Of course, he wasn’t much better off. While he was used to traveling on foot, he never had any schedules to keep, so he could move at his own pace. When he had energy enough to walk from one village to the next, he would do so. When he was feeling tired, he would set up a makeshift camp to rest until he felt ready to keep going. Aside from their mission in Younis two years ago, he never had to push himself like this to stick to any sort of timetable. It was much more tolerable to stop and go without rushing.

Still, Crow snuck another glance at Penelope and smiled to himself. If I’m going to be enduring trips like this, I’m glad it’s with her. Feeling warm with affection for the knight, he walked a little closer to her so that their hands brushed occasionally as they walked.

--

The day passed slowly by, and Crow felt convinced that it was longer than the last. By the time they arrived in Sarton, he nearly swayed on his feet from exhaustion. He lingered by the front of the inn to wait for Penelope while she got their room key, since the innkeeper seemed to have noticed that one of his pieces of jewelry had gone missing and was studying him with narrowed eyes. Of course, there was nothing the man could do to prove that it was him who had stolen the gaudy bracelet—he’d already given it to Alistair during his stay with his companions—but, too tired to deal with the conflict, he chose to keep his distance from the innkeeper regardless.

When the suspicious man finally handed over the key to their room, Crow trailed after Penelope down the hallway with a yawn. “I’m glad we’ve only got one more day of this,” he mused. “I don’t know how much more walking my feet can take.”

Let Me Steal Your Heart [BuzzingBee + Dagger]

Nice! I like them already cx

I'm super excited for the castle part

Let Me Steal Your Heart [BuzzingBee + Dagger]

Crow didn’t get as much sleep as he would have liked that morning. Just as he began to drift off again, he felt Penelope shift against his side, indicating that she was awake. At first, he felt her wrap an arm around him, and he exhaled softly, wondering if she was going to let him keep resting. He hoped so. Just thinking about the distance they had left to walk made him feel exhausted. However, it seemed he wouldn’t be so lucky, because it wasn’t long before she pulled away from him to get up.

“Right, okay…” he mumbled tiredly when she said they needed get ready. Although, he made no attempt to sit up yet. Instead, he took another long moment to lay in the comfort of the warm bed before he forced himself into a sitting position, yawning broadly and giving his head a quick shake to try and clear it. When he felt a little more alert, he turned to Penelope with a mischievous smile and wrapped his arms around her tightly, pressing a kiss to her cheek.

“Gods, it’s good to wake up next to you again,” Crow sighed. “I hope it won’t be much longer before we get to do this every day.” Feeling more awake, he touched one more kiss to her cheek and then let go of her so they could both get up and get ready for the day. When he’d gotten his boots back on and shouldered his bag, he stepped over to the door and turned to the knight with a grin, “Ready, love?”

Let Me Steal Your Heart [BuzzingBee + Dagger]

Can't wait ^^

Let Me Steal Your Heart [BuzzingBee + Dagger]

“That’s true,” Crow smiled at Penelope tiredly when she said they wouldn’t get sick of each other. Although, right now it was hard for him to imagine that he would ever feel like that about her. They hadn’t been together for more than a few months, so he was still quite infatuated. However, his feelings toward her ran even deeper than that. He was closer to her than anyone else he’d been with before, except perhaps for his mother, but she had passed away so long ago that it was hard to compare their relationships. What he could say for certain was that within the last decade of his life, he had never let anyone in as much as he’d let her.

He closed his eyes, feeling warm as she kissed him on the cheek. As he laid comfortably against her side, it didn’t take long before his exhaustion began to settle over him, and he yawned after she did. Even though he had been enjoying talking with her, he felt ready to pass out after such a long day. “I love you too,” he mumbled as he gave in to the impulse and drifted off to sleep.

--

The next morning, Crow was roused from his slumber by the gentle morning light that flooded in through the window. He stirred tiredly, having slept somewhat deeply in the security of Penelope’s arms, and stretched. His body was beginning to ache slightly from all the walking and hiking they had been doing to and from the outer villages, so he was reluctant to get up. Instead, he burrowed a little deeper beneath the blanket on the bed and nestled his head between Penelope’s neck and the pillow, hoping to snag a little more shut-eye before they got up for another long day of traveling.

Let Me Steal Your Heart [BuzzingBee + Dagger]

That's probably a good thing xD

I like it. You can go ahead and create those characters then, since they were your idea ^^

Let Me Steal Your Heart [BuzzingBee + Dagger]

Crow mumbled incoherently against the pillow when Penelope said he wouldn’t have to go anywhere for a while once they got back. Thank the gods for that. He didn’t usually get so exhausted on trips like this, but after being bedridden for nearly three weeks from his injury, his energy wasn’t quite at its peak anymore. Plus, traveling from the outer villages to the inner kingdom twice was quite a long way to walk. He wished they had a cart to recline in like they had on their journey to Younis two years back. Sleeping in the shade had been a much more comfortable way to travel compared to having sore feet at the end of every day.

He turned his head slightly to glance down at Penelope as he felt a tug at one of his boots, and a smile played on his lip as he realized she was taking his shoes off for him. Her thoughtfulness never ceased to amaze him. Feeling a swell of affection for the knight, he rolled onto his side and draped one arm over her as she laid down next to him on the bed. He listened thoughtfully as she brought up the point that he was going to have to travel quite a bit once he started working formally as his father’s ambassador.

“Alright, well then as long as I get a good, long break, I’ll be content,” he compromised to no one in particular. Leaning forward slightly, he touched a gentle kiss to her lips and then smiled. “In all seriousness, I think I’m going to like that aspect of being a viceroy. Aside from the few times I’ve gone to Younis, I’ve never really left the kingdom borders before. I think it will be interesting to finally see the homelands of the other travelers I’ve met in the outer villages.”

He fell quiet for a moment, lulled into silence by both his weariness and his internal musings. “I suppose the only downside is that it means we’re going to have to spend more time apart eventually,” he sighed, tracing his hand absently along the curve of her waist and hips. “Hopefully my father won’t send me off too frequently.”

Let Me Steal Your Heart [BuzzingBee + Dagger]

Crow gets kind of whiny when he's tired xD

Ooh I like it! Also, I love Harry Potter
I think if there's a character who was vying for the position, he would have been trying to build connections within the Mannering family (maybe befriending Braden?) since Albin's apprentice was Abraxas, and he never took another apprentice after Abraxas died
It could be interesting if they framed Crow for something he didn't do to try and get him booted
Would you want to design those characters, or would you prefer if I did? I'm good either way tbh

Let Me Steal Your Heart [BuzzingBee + Dagger]

Crow met Penelope’s lips briefly when she kissed him and then stood up from the bed, taking her hand as they headed to the door. When they reached it, he glanced over his shoulder to take one more look around the home where he’d grown up. It felt surreal to think that this was the last time he would be coming here in quite a while, and that the next time he visited, he wouldn’t be a peasant anymore. He took a moment to capture an image of it in his mind before turning back to the knight with a soft smile, “I’m ready now.”

He took a slow breath and opened the door, once again letting her pass through first before he followed along behind and closed it after him. As soon as they were outside, he gave her hand a quick squeeze and then dropped it, letting his own hand hang at his side. Even though they hadn’t seen very many guards around, it would have been just as troublesome if a peasant caught them together. After all, his face was known throughout the outer villages, so it wouldn’t take long for a rumor to start that the most infamous thief in Brerra was seeing a knight romantically. It also wasn’t unlikely for such a rumor to eventually spread to the inner kingdom.

As they walked along the road that would take them further south, Crow passed the time by telling Penelope a few more stories from his life in Myrefall, a few of them being: the time he’d gotten caught by a few local guards when he was a child and got away all on his own; another time when he had been running along the top of a wall in the rain during his teenage years, slipped off, and given himself a bit of memory loss when he’d hit his head on the ground—he pointed out the spot where it had happened as they passed by—and an even more embarrassing time when he’d been spotted by a patrol of knights while bathing in a stream just outside the village border and wound up fleeing from them through the streets before he’d had a chance to put his clothes back on.

Despite the lingering sadness he felt about leaving the outer villages, reminiscing with her about his childhood lifted Crow’s spirits quite a bit. So, by the time they arrived at the inn in Wellspring, he had a grin on his face and was in a rather upbeat mood.

Word of their travels must have spread to this part of the kingdom by now, because the innkeeper didn’t give them much trouble when the thief requested a room for the night. The man merely casted him a wary look as he handed over the key and muttered something about them leaving the room exactly as they found it. Crow wasn’t bothered by his distrust. He thanked the innkeeper politely for the key and then headed down the hallway with Penelope until they arrived at their room for the night.

As soon as he stepped through the doorway, Crow dropped his bag on the floor and collapsed tiredly onto his stomach on the closest bed. “I don’t think my father needed to bribe me to stay in the castle after this,” he groaned into the flat pillow, his voice muffled against its fabric. “I’m sick of traveling. I just want to lay down and never get back up again.”

Let Me Steal Your Heart [BuzzingBee + Dagger]

Crow got caught up in the moment cx