bolderfell | Prismatica Inbox

You can pretend we're in the same state this time if you like. I won't confirm or deny any assumptions you make. Just let me refill my glass.

It's funny. Last time I told this story was over drinks, too. You might appreciate it even more than the tavern master did then -- it's about my cleverness getting me into exactly the trouble I deserved.

Pretend as I might, I'm afraid tugging on my own hair doesn't have quite the same effect. But I'll make do somehow, regardless.

I'm curious what coin you'll be claiming from me in exchange for your tale, also.

I know you didn't miss the part where I've been cooped up inside for days. I'm bored. Just tell me a story of your own when I'm done -- won't even ask it to be true.

Where you're from, they ever punish thieves with something called the Fool's Bangle?

All right. I'm sure I can come up with a tantalizing lie with which to entertain you, when my turn comes.

You'd be surprised by the myriad of creative ways my homeland has developed to punish thieves. But for the sake of the story: no, what is it?

Probably not much of a punishment by your standards, then. The Fool's Bangle is a metal band locked around the wrist of a thief stupid enough to get caught plying his trade. It's more 'humane,' supposedly, than sending them to rot in a gaol or cutting off hands to prove a point, but it shows anyone in the know that they ARE a thief, and a sloppy one. That band's spelled the end of more than a few careers. And more than a few lives.

What I'll tell you is how I got, and got free of, the Fool's Bangle myself.

Unless you'd rather not hear how a seventeen-year-old girl and her ancient butler got the best of me.

A humiliation, then. I can think of plenty of thieves that would sooner choose death than to be branded so.

I think I recognize these characters. Is this Cordelia and Heathcote? The sweet girl and the old man.

That's them. Though you can imagine I had no reason to think fondly of them at the time.

By that point, I was used to working alone. I came to Bolderfall riding a nice little streak of success and found that news of my exploits had preceded me. Not that any of the other thieves in the tavern knew my face or name. To them, I was just another dusty knave at the bar. Still, hearing others make tall tales out of my work helps bad ale go down better. I was feeling pretty good.

The conversation turned, as it does, to where that thief might strike next. That's how I learned about the treasure of House Ravus, and all the money they'd spent on men, dogs, and traps to guard it.

The tavern master noticed I was listening and thought to warn me off. Said no one else had so much as laid eyes yet on what they were keeping.

This sounds like a trap in the making, with the benefit of hindsight.

But I assume you knew you were up to the task, and ready to pit yourself against the challenge?

Of course. I'd done well for myself till then, hadn't I?

So picture my surprise when it DID turn out to be a trap, and all I found waiting after all my skill, care, and daring was a single red jewel and an old man with a sword.

For my dignity's sake, I'll have you know I won the duel that followed. But clever, short-sighted, prideful me couldn't have foreseen he'd be fast enough to slip that bangle on me in the fight. And no way could I have dreamed what they were after all along, more than rumors of wealth or the illusion of safety, was a thief at their mercy.

You see, when I got past all their traps, I saw only the one stone. But the Ravus inheritance was originally a set of four, and they needed someone quick enough, smart enough, and resilient enough to steal the rest back from the robbers who came before. I happened to be the first one to pass their test -- and fall into their trap.

I had some strong words for Heathcote then.

It's a fairly irritating habit of the righteous, isn't it, to conscript others with less rigid morals to do their dirty work for them.

So it wasn't the old man that won you over, but the girl?

[A pause.]

Not then, and not on our next meeting, either, when I brought back the second stone.

Kurama, she had the gall to ask Heathcote to let me go early. Can you imagine? I'd only brought back one stone for them, and there she was, claiming it was enough, that they could afford to turn me loose after the lengths they'd gone to to catch a thief of my caliber.

Oh, dear. You didn't do the rest of the job out of pride, did you?

Setting aside all matters of the bangle, I'm sure the implication that you'd be content to leave a job half-finished would be even more offensive to a master thief's sensibilities.

Hell, you sound just like her. 'You seem like someone who would never abandon responsibility,' yadda yadda. Something like that. At least Heathcote spared my feelings by telling her no.

Though I'll admit that I refused before he did. Maybe...not necessarily for the sin of leaving something half-done, but for other matters of pride. I got myself into their mess, and damned if I didn't get myself out.

Something like that.

Anyway, I'm not sure either of them could have won me over without the other. It wasn't just what either one said or did for me, in the end, but also...seeing what they were to each other. That wasn't something I understood until my next return to Bolderfall, after I failed to retrieve the emerald stone.

I called you a stubborn thing once, didn't I? I see my assessment was accurate.

You failed to bring one back? What happened?

[A longer pause.]

My old partner got there first. It was my first time seeing him since we parted ways, and I was less prepared for interference than I could've been.

Edited 2020-08-30 19:20 (UTC)

He rattled you.

[He is, maybe, interpreting that from Therion's actual words. There is also an excellent change that he is not, in fact, interpreting that from anything Therion said at all.]

Did he harm you again?

He didn't even try.

He just left me to his henchmen and returned north with the stone. Cruel of him, really. Either he forgot just how good I am, or he figured a few men to slow me down was an acceptable loss.

Overconfidence always comes with a price. I hope you made him regret it.

I wonder.

[But he doesn't unpack what, exactly, he wonders about.]

I had to explain some of it to Cordelia and Heathcote when I returned empty-handed. Neither of them disbelieved me. Cordelia...told me she understood. And she did. I'd thought her such a meek little naif, a sheltered princess standing in Heathcote's shadow, but I didn't know...exactly how much betrayal she'd had to endure. Not until then. And she still, somehow, always managed to see me or Heathcote off with a farewell. And with her trust.

I didn't think of it until later, but at seventeen, she's about the age I was when Darius tried to kill me. You said I was a child when I met him. How young must she have been, to be so much stronger at that age?

The sort of betrayal, I suppose, that leads a sheltered girl and her aged retainer to resort to the services of a thief for help. I was wrong, before — their consigning you wasn't about moral character at all.

It was that she had no one left. Wasn't it.

Yeah. No one but Heathcote.

This is what she told me: 'From the moment we met...Heathcote has never once betrayed me.' Just that. She didn't mention any grand gestures or oaths he swore her. The old man just never, ever did anything to shake loose her belief. That's why she can still trust others, she told me. And she said that that trust, even after everything she's been through, was what made her strong.

And she said...that she had faith in me, too.

A seventeen-year-old girl. I'll never forget it.

And suddenly it wasn't about the bangle or your pride.

You were ready to do it for her. For that faith she had in you.

A stronger leash than any stupid metal band, isn't it? And at the same time, it's probably the one thing that set me free.

After that, with some assistance from Heathcote, I won both the gold and emerald stones from Darius and brought them back to Bolderfall. This time, when Cordelia asked Heathcote to unlock the bangle...well. Old coot said there was no need. What do you know, the lock was undone way back at the return of the second stone.

...

And you hadn't noticed?

Did I, didn't I? Who can say.

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