We're running with the shadows of the night (Lark and Haelan)

[havinalark]

The temple was quiet, the only movement being the patrolling of the guards outside. In the dormitories the priests slept peacefully, trusting in the guards to protect the treasures hidden within the deepest sanctuary of the temple.

The guards, unfortunately, are not prepared for the dark shadow that knows exactly where they are patrolling and where their blindspots are, and slips through without them noticing. Nobody expects the soft, barely-there footfalls of the black-clad figure slipping through the darkened temple corridors, and they certainly don't expect someone to be able to pick the lock of the large oak door protecting the inner sanctuary and slip in, ready to do the same to the heavy padlock holding closed the chest that contains the temple's most sacred artefact - a golden statue that somebody has paid the Wing very, very good money to steal.

No, the are not prepared for any of that. Unfortunately, the wing was not prepared for what came next.

The slim redhead was crouched in front of the chest, working carefully at the padlock. As usual Lark was clad in simple black leggings and tunic, baggy enough to hide the femininity of her form, the black hood hiding her hair and a half mask covering her nose and mouth all helping to keep her identity - and gender - a secret. She appeared completely focused on the task at hand, but she had half an ear out for any disturbance, and when she heard a noise she was sweeping her tools into a pouch and disappearing into a shadowy corner, waiting to see who was coming.

Comments

[havinalark]

Jae snorted at the icy glare Lark shot the other thief, he was already removing the tack from the horse but it was obvious he was watching the two thieves out the corner of his eye.

"I am," she replied, tone firm with just a hint of a challenge, as if waiting for him to say anything against it. Part of what made her disguise so effective was how few people expected the Wing to be someone like her, even with most of her features covered, but it didn't mean she didn't have a certain amount of ego regarding it.

"The one and only," Jae added cheerfully, throwing the saddle over his shoulder "Now if the both of you could kindly vacate the paddock before his lordship wakes up and thinks you're trying to steal his prize horse?"

"Come on," Lark said after a moment, setting off towards the fence "I'll show you the best way into the city." he'd seemed biddable enough when she was trying to get him to do anything other than just hand over the idol, perhaps she could just keep telling him what to do until she had him in a safehouse and then they could discuss who was really going home with that lovely gold statue.

[bad_thief]

He really had expected someone taller. With a deeper voice. But he shrugged that off, deciding that right now, they had enough to deal with. Wing certainly wasn't happy about him keeping hold of the idol, and Haelan really wasn't about to let it go.

Part of him, the part that wasn't so awed by standing in front of a living legend, wanted to scoff. He knew the way in and out of the city. He'd grown up here, he had explored every dark alley, every rooftop. He hadn't been caught often, and he'd been able to get most places in secret, sneaking through empty adjoining attics or through abandoned cellars and unused sewer tunnels. But this was The Wing, and he didn't really want to make himself even more unpopular than he had already.

"Lead the way," He says, falling into step, glancing at Wing whenever he thought the other might not notice. They were shorter than Haelan, a lot shorter, and that was saying something.

"You know this place pretty well then?" He has to ask. Is the Wing someone local? Someone he knows from the underworld? That seems so strange, especially when all the stories he's heard about Wing involve robbing exotic sounding places.

[havinalark]

She nodded in satisfaction when he fell into step beside her, glad that he was going along with her plan so far. She wasn't sure how long she could keep this up, but maybe she'd get a chance to take the idol before he went his separate way, or she'd learn enough to find out where he lived and then it would be easy to go and steal it back from him and she'd be back to her buyer with nobody any the wiser that she'd ever let the damn thing out of her possession. It was a sting on her professional pride, honestly, that this guy had grabbed it before she had a chance to, but as long as she got it where it belonged that was all that mattered.

"Like the back of my hand," she nodded slightly, she'd grown up in the city, and while her youth hadn't been spent running the streets quite the way some other children's had - at least, not once she'd gotten old enough to be given her share of 'women's work', she'd managed to pick up plenty of tricks along the way even long before she took up her more lucrative career. It was easy to go unnoticed when you were poor, it had gotten her out of a lot of scrapes.

The place she took him too was an overgrown patch of ground near the castle wall, it had been used as a rubbish heap for a tavern at one point and the ground was littered with barrels too broken to be of any further use, and bits of table and chair that had seen some of the more enthusiastic bar fights. Around everything grew wildflowers and tall grass. Lark made her way to a pile of debris against the wall and lifted a table to reveal that the precarious pile was actually quite deliberately placed, and the tabletop covered a gap in the wall - not very large, but big enough for the two of them to slip through at any rate.

[bad_thief]

"Come here a lot then?" He knows it's chitchat, he knows that to someone as famous as the Wing it must be irritating, but part of his is childishly excited about this, about the fact that he's on a job with a legend. No one will ever believe him, not in a hundred years, but he'll know. "I grew up here. I mean, it's not the most exciting place, I'm sure you've been to a lot of bigger cities. But I scrape by."

Mostly through pickpocketing and the charity of a few other orphans and ne'er-do-wells. More often than not it's the latter of the two, but he gets by. A smart young man might leave town, find himself honest employment. But Haelan has tried and failed at learning a trade.

He's been passed this midden thousands of times. He's never really given it a second glance. None of the trash is useful, and it's not high enough to get to any useful handholds which would make climbing the bailey wall any easier, so he's just carried on. When Wing heads right into the middle of the heap, he holds back, until he sees what the other is doing. He's never realised that beyond the broken bits and pieces, there might be such a hole.

"Where does this end up?" He has to ask, just in case it might be useful again, in case he has to get out in a hurry. There could be a thousand places in the city it leads to, or it might just be a hole leading into the castle bailey, behind some inconspicuous shed.

[havinalark]

Lark glances back at him with a faint smile, it's interesting to see how much his attitude has changed since Jae revealed her identity, and as annoying as this whole situation is, there's a tiny part of her that feels a sort of... nostalgia, looking at him, even though she wasn't all that much older. She was him, once upon a time, eager and awkward and wanting to make a name for herself. There were thieves of legend she'd heard of, great men and women she aspired to be, and she would have freaked out if she found out the information she was about to give him.

"Me too," she says simply, "you're not wrong, I've been plenty of places, but I grew up here just the same as you." it's almost a wonder she doesn't recognise him, to be honest, they've probably crossed paths. Judging by how ragged his clothing was, he was probably one of the street kids her earnings often went to feed, she'd probably chased him out of the washing yard with a broom, or been hanging around outside the tavern in a gang with him, waiting for one of the older kids to bring out stolen food or mead. Maybe they had run in the same circles when they were younger, before she got older and started working more often, but he's older now and it's dark, maybe she'll know his face once they're back in the light.

"You know the laundry behind the Ragged Duck tavern?" she asks "It comes out in the bushes at the back of the drying yard."

[bad_thief]

That's news to him, he'd never realised that the Wing was from his town. It's amazing to think of, there's really nothing here. There's the castle and the lord and the temple, but there's no royalty. The temple is small, really, nowhere near as fancy as the ones he's heard exist in the richer shires, where merchants and mining gold are the main forms of wealth. Here it's farming and fishing and no one ever got rich out of that. Maybe that's why the Wing went away, to rob those richer places, the places that had something worth stealing.

It's still weird to think that someone so famous is from this backwater.

"Really?" He knows the tavern, he knows most taverns in the more industrial parts of the city, the places where the laundries and the tanners are, because the beer tends to be cheaper. Not better, but cheap, and normally you can get a pint of someone who isn't watching their mug. But the laundry? He doesn't know it, not really. When he was new to this game, and sometimes now when things are tough, he's pinched things off the line to sell, but the laundry women never take well to that and they'd tan his hide if they caught him.

"Don't you ever get seen going in and out this way?"

[havinalark]

"Nobody's in the yard this late at night, I only use this entrance after hours," she explains, motioning him to follow her in. She pulls the table back over the gap behind them and leads him through the short tunnel into the bushes. Despite her words, she pauses to listen to the yard in case there are any unexpected interlopers before pushing her way through the shrubbery and out into the open area.

"There's a safe house, this way," she waves him to keep following and crosses the yard, leading him away from the laundry and down an alleyway, a few short winding streets later and she's unlocking the wooden door to her little abode, tugging out a flint and tinder to light the candle just inside the doorway.

"Close the door behind you," she calls over her shoulder and she moves to light more candles.

[bad_thief]

Haelan had been down this alley before. In fact, he'd been chased. He'd not really had time to ponder about what lay behind each door, he'd really not cared, he'd been more interested in looking at a way to climb up and away from the angry stallholder following him.

But maybe he should have wondered. Maybe there were forgotten riches behind each door. Or one of them, at least.

He shuts the door, his eyes peering into the gloom as Wing continues to light candles. He wasn't expecting treasure here, and so he wasn't surprised when nothing glittered in the shadows.

"I... I guess I owe you a thanks, for your help back there."

[havinalark]

Well, that certainly softens the blow of her irritation - however much she still intends to get that idol off of him - and she glances over at him, nodding slightly.

"You're welcome. There is honour amongst thieves, no matter what they say, I wasn't about to leave you to get caught by those guards."

As soon as there's enough light to give the room a warm glow, Lark turns to look at the young man. His face, with the aid of the light, is vaguely familiar, not enough that she remembers his name or who he is, but she's pretty sure she's seen him around once or twice. The room the light reveals is just what you'd expect from a place like this, it's small and serviceable but far from luxurious, the furniture is basic and a little battered, and there's definitely no indication a famous thief lives here.

She opens a chest in the corner and starts shedding her pouches and packs, laying them carefully inside.

"You're welcome to stay here if you have nowhere else to go," she hesitates "what was your name again?"

Her mask is off and packed away as she turns to look at him questioningly, revealing a feminine, freckled face, and she's in the process of removing her hood, allowing soft waves of red to tumble down around her shoulders, shining where it catches the candlelight.

[bad_thief]

"I, er-" He begins, not exactly sure how to go about telling Wing, infamous and legendary thief, that he didn't really have anywhere else to go other than the attic over the bakery. It was warm and dry and smelt amazing, although that never did much for his hunger pains.

But then the mask is off and the hood is pushed back and blinks. Normally at this point you'd expect someone to go you're a GIRL? but Haelan almost suspected it anyway- it was that voice, the higher pitch.

Instead, he swallowed and tried not to turn bright red. He could deal with Wing being a girl, that was unexpected but he knew plenty of young women that preferred theft to prostitution. But the fact that Wing was a very attractive young woman with beautiful red hair and bright, smart eyes made him fumble.

"Thank you? I... appreciate it. I'm Haelan." He pauses, and then rubs a hand on his tunic, trying to rid the hand of the ingrained muck before offering it out. "Nice to meet you."

[havinalark]

Lark isn't sure whether to be glad or annoyed that he doesn't seem to be surprised by her gender, on the one hand she does everything she can do conceal it and she doesn't like to think she isn't succeeding, on the other hand... well exclamations about a young woman being a thief can get awfully tiresome awfully quickly. It's obvious he's fairly startled either way, so she decides to err on the side of benevolence and be pleased with his reaction.

Tossing the mask and hood into the trunk with her other things, she steps over to take his offered hand, laughter sparkling in her eyes as she tried hard not to chuckle at his self-conscious wiping away of the dirt, she was not a squeamish person, dirt didn't bother her, but it was sort of sweet how increasingly flustered he was getting by both her reputation and her revealed identity.

"Haelan?" she says thoughtfully "Sounds familiar, I think I've heard Arryn mention you? I'm Lark."

[bad_thief]

Haelan was brought up by nuns and priestesses, most of whom were extremely determined women. Unlike someone who might have been brought up outside an orphanage, he doesn't have any illusions about "women's work". He wasn't expecting Wing to be a woman, all the legends he's heard refer to the mysterious thief as a man, not that it matters.

"I don't think he's said anything good?" He says, trying for humour, although the fact that someone has told her about him doesn't do anything for the intense blush.

Neither does knowing the Wing's real name. Lark. It's pretty, and makes him think of birds. Maybe that's why she chose Wing. Either way, she's amazing and he feels almost guilty for ruining her night and swiping the idol out from under her.

[havinalark]

"Nothing terribly incriminating, I wouldn't worry," she tells him with a smile. In truth she can't remember a lot of detail, she's certainly not been warned away from him or told anything bad so that's good enough for her, as much as she can recall he's mentioned the name in passing when talking about plans or friends. She would ask Arryn for more information, but they're not exactly on the best of terms at the moment. Her smile fades and she wrinkles her nose slightly.

"Nothing worse than being friends with that rat, anyway, but you're not the only person who's made that mistake." she pauses for a moment, conceding that perhaps she's being somewhat too harsh - not to Arryn, but to Haelan "Not that he's necessarily a bad friend to you."

Shaking her head slightly, she crosses the room to the small kitchen-like area in the corner "Are you hungry?"

[bad_thief]

Haelan feels himself relax, if only because now there is a real, live person as a point of reference. And then, like a soap bubble, suddenly it bursts when Lark scowls. Clearly she's not a big fan of Arryn right now. Sure, sometimes he can be a bit much and not all of his jokes are funny, but Haelan has never thought of him as a rat.


"Rat?" He has to know. There's a story there, he knows it. And let's face it, gossip is as good a currency as coins.

He moves, if only because he's still stood just inside the door, and settles on one of the wooden chairs, unwrapping the golden statue and polishing it a bit with the corner of his cloak. It's not the prettiest of things, that's for sure, but it's clearly worth something to someone.

"I... no, I'm fine."

He is hungry. He's always hungry. But he doesn't know if he should fully trust her, she wants the statue, she might poison him, or drug him or something just to get her hands on it. He doesn't want to be suspicious, but at this point it's a survival instinct.

[havinalark]

Lark scowls faintly down at the bread she's currently cutting slices of, but brushes it off with a shake of her head.

"I wouldn't worry about it, he's not going to..." she waves a hand vaguely in the air as she tries to come up with something "turn you in to the city guard or something, in fact he probably wouldn't do anything even remotely objectionable to you," she glances pointedly over her shoulder at him "you don't have the right attributes, if you take my meaning."

She slides into the chair opposite him, bread and cheese in hand, taking a satisfied bite of the fresh bread and falling silent while she eats, her eyes straying to the idol. He seems like a nice guy, but she won't hesitate to double cross him as far as getting the idol goes - she's been hired to retrieve it for her employer, and she will get it to him, even if she has to steal it from somebody else. It's a professional guarantee, the Wing does not fail.

"You sure?" she senses his hesitation, pushing some of the bread across the table towards him.

[bad_thief]

Haelan makes a face. He knows what she's suggesting, and it's hard to believe it of Arryn. But then again, why would she lie about something like that? Something that is just a throw-away part of their conversation. Still, it's not nice, if that's what happened. "I'm sorry. I didn't know."

Why Arryn would threaten to do that, he doesn't know. He's not sure he does want to know the full story, but he's certain he's not going to see the other young thief in the same way again. You don't threaten to hand someone else over to the guards. You just don't.

The bread is tempting. It looks nice and soft and there doesn't seem to be any green on it at all but... well...

"I shouldn't. I should probably go, really. Have to hand this thing over before it gets too hot to handle, you know?" He says, with a small smile, although frankly this is the hottest thing he's ever stolen and probably will be for a long time. But maybe this is the break he needs. He gets up. He promised to meet his buyer down at the docks before sunrise, and he needs to get a move on if he wants to keep that date.

"I'll leave you to your supper. And maybe I'll see you around."

[havinalark]

"Probably not the kind of thing he brings up in conversation... maybe. I know some guys boast about things like that." she shrugs, oblivious that he seems to have missed what she was implying "I'm sure they'll be very happy together. Or he's moved on already. Either way, I don't care." which of course is why she keeps talking about it. Not bitter at all.

"Of course," she agrees, gaze straying to the idol again. Will she follow him to his meeting, find out who his buyer is and steal it off them? Or get in touch with her underworld contacts, one of them is sure to know who hired him... She decides on the former, though outwardly her only move is to stand and move towards the door.

"See you around, Haelan."

[bad_thief]

Unfortunately, Haelan is not exactly experienced in relationships. Affairs of the heart are really a little beyond him. He's not exactly... suave or handsome or exciting enough for most people to look twice, and there is that baby face. That doesn't do him many favours. So the fact that exactly what has passed between Lark and Arryn has gone straight over his head is to be expected.

But he doesn't stop to ask, he wants to get this idol handed over and collect his big bag of money.

He nods her a goodnight, and slips out into what's left of the night. It's only a few hours to dawn, all the drunks have passed out or made it home, most thieves have called it a night, and the guards are huddled up out of the chill having a smoke. His route to the docks is easy, and when he gets to the proposed meeting place, he hangs back in the shadows of a warehouse, waiting for his contact to show up. He can't much complain they aren't there yet, as he's only just now turned up, but something it making him uneasy.

After an hour, the sky growing lighter and lighter, he really is getting twitchy. Fisherman and dock workers are arriving now, getting on with the business of the day and it's really too busy for him to want to hang around for too much longer. But he does, hanging on until the sun is just over the horizon.

He doesn't know what's happened, but all he can do is slip away, following the alleyways until he goes out near the market. That's getting busy too, the market stalls already up and the first crowds building. Building around the town crier, around parchments, tacked to walls dotted about the place.

"...desecrated our most holy of holies, murdering dutiful temple guards about their business and stole the living embodiment of our god. The Wing, a young man of average height, with fair curls, freckles and a dirty appearance, is wanted dead or alive by Temple officials..." The crier reads, and Haelan feels his stomach sink.

Crash, actually, like a rock through water. He's not the Wing. He's never been wanted dead or alive, and now he can see that the posters depict a not completely inaccurate picture of him. He pulls back into the shadows, head suddenly in his throat, the idol even know wrapped in his cloak in his arms. Would that crowd bother about the or alive part? Would they just want the reward? Haelan doesn't know, but he doesn't want to find out.

His safe house, the little attic above the bakery, is on the other side of town. It means crossing the market, and wild horses couldn't make him do that right now. He has no choice. He turns back on his heel and runs, as fast as he can, back towards Lark's safe house.

[havinalark]

Lark closes the door behind him only to open it a scant few minutes later, scrambling nimbly up the wall of her small home and onto the rooftops, climbing her way higher until she has a good enough vantage point to see where he was heading - then it's short work to dart across the city above him until she's crouched above a balcony, watching him as he waits. Honestly, it's a good job her occupation lends itself to long nights doing very little, because anybody else would have gotten bored sitting there in the cold, pre-dawn darkness waiting for his contact to arrive.

She only waits around forty five minutes, she can already see that he's getting agitated, suggesting the time for the meeting has long since passed, and if she doesn't leave soon she's going to have no time to sleep before she's expected to be at the laundry. Assuming she'll be able to track down the idol some other way, she slips back the way she came, shedding her clothing and sliding into bed almost the second she gets in the door, asleep as soon as her head hits the pillow.

She's barely been asleep an hour before the morning light hits her face through the small window high on her wall, and she stirs fitfully, stretching under her blankets with a grumble of dissatisfaction, but she also knows that she has to rise, and she'll have chance to sneak in a cat nap this afternoon, so she yawns widely and forces herself out of bed.

The shapeless tunic and leggings of the night before are exchanged for a more traditional skirt and blouse, hair held back by a scarf

away from her face but flowing loose around her shoulders, and to a passer by she wouldn't look any different to any other maiden on her way to work. Only she isn't on her way to work, because as she opens the door there's Haelan on the other side and she raises a curious eyebrow at him.

"Forget something?"

[bad_thief]

Haelan is a little out of breath, chest rising and falling as he waits for her to let him in. He's pale, and frightened, and while he might normally try not to show it, he's too shaken to pretend otherwise.

"Don't mess about," He hisses, and slips inside before she invites him. He's not staying out there, not for all the gold in the castle coffers. As soon as he's in, he's pushing the door shut. Only then does he relax, slightly, leaning back against it and taking a big breath.

"There's wanted posters all over town. Big ones. That say reward and dead or alive. I'm not going out there again."

[havinalark]

Almost as soon as the words are out of her mouth she realises that there's something more serious going on, and though she was just on her way to work she makes the split second decision to find out what it is. She can always claim she was sick later, this is clearly more important. So she ignores how he invites himself in and closes her door behind him and just waits for him to explain - she doesn't have to wait long.

"Posters? For... for the idol? I wouldn't worry about it, they barely saw either of us." she shrugs, though her tone is at least attempting to be reassuring. She's seen her fair share of wanted posters for her, most of them with little to no description. Even if they had managed to spot him while they were fleeing, his description would match hundreds of people in the city, surely? There was no way the guards would have any more information... it was weird enough that there were posters up already, that was quick, surely they hadn't had enough time to print all they'd need... Haelan must have just seen one and panicked, that must be it.

"We'll just move it on and that'll be the end of it."

[bad_thief]

"I can't just move it." Haelan replies, a little note of panic making his voice go up an octave. She might be cool-headed, she might have had wanted posters up before, but Haelan is a small fry. He's unimportant, he gets by picking pockets and not being recognised. Even if the posters could be a hundred or more people in town, some of the guards know him already. she doesn't understand. Those posters will be the death of him.

"My contact didn't meet up with me. He should have been at the docks! There was no one there!"

Which means he's stuck with the thing. A thing that will get him killed. He's probably dead already, with a price on his head. Getting caught with the idol on him would just be the final nail in his coffin.

"You have it!" He decides suddenly, shoving it into her hands. "It's cursed. But you wanted it, so you have it!"

[havinalark]

For a moment she just doesn't understand his panic, how can somebody get a job this big without having a reputation for it first? And a reputation means experience... but then she thinks about how he was acting the night before, how amateur he seemed, and it wouldn't be the first time a thief had gotten in way over their head. She forces herself to think more charitably and try to calm him down - only before she can really respond he's shoving the idol into her hands. It's a good job she has quick reflexes or she would have dropped the thing, but she manages to grab hold of it before it falls.

"Right, just... breathe a second, alright? Sometimes contacts don't turn up, it happens. Did anybody see you come here? Don't worry about people being stealthy, you'd usually hear a shout and chasing, did anybody chase you?"

[bad_thief]

He tries, taking a breath, a long, deep breath to calm his nerves and stop his heart hammering. He needs to relax, to breathe. After a second or two, he does feel better, but maybe it's because the awful idol is in someone else's hands.

Later he'll feel guilty about that. Lark is a nice girl, or so she seems, she helped him escape. She doesn't deserve any bad luck the thing might cause, but she did want the damn thing. But maybe he shouldn't have just thrown it at her.

"I... No. No one saw me. No one saw me at all." He's sure if they had followed him, chased him, he would have known. He'd just run like a startled cat all the way here.

[havinalark]

"Right, then you can stay here," she says firmly, already moving to the chest at the foot of her bed to shove the idol and her Wing clothes into a bag, she'll attract less attention dressed as she is, at least until she's safely away from her home and she can change and move to the rooftops instead of the streets. She'll take the idol to her contact, get it away from them to start with, and then figure out what to do with him from there.

"I'll get rid of this, you'll be safe here. Help yourself to food, get some sleep, I'll be back in a few hours. Don't leave, if anyone knocks just ignore it, right?"