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peopleofthedas2010-10-27 10:33 pm
bellaknoti) wrote in peopleofthedas2010-10-27 10:33 pm
Entry tags:
fanfic: Second Chances
Series: Second Chances
Tales From The Road Not Travelled
Title: Can't Go Home Again (chapter three)
Rating: M
Characters: Daveth and Pol
Summary: Easy pickings come with a price; Pol nearly pays with his life.
Pol is hanging around the back door of the Lamb and Thistle, waiting for Melia to finish her shift. “Predictable,” a man's voice says, and he turns around.
“Daveth,” Pol says, wary. Daveth grins, and this is not reassuring, at all.
“Pol, just the man I was looking for. I knew I would find you here.” His face falls, looking much more serious. “Morven's got Liddy again.”
This is not what he was expecting to hear, and the news saddens him. “I'm sorry. What will you do?”
“I've got to make four silvers by the end of the day, or they'll...” He swallows, looking sick. “Can't leave her to that fate, Pol. Not my girl,” he says, almost pleading. Pol looks at him distrustfully. Every time he sees Daveth, it ends up being some kind of trouble.
“What do you want from me?” There is that flicker of calculation in Daveth's eyes, that bit of the mercenary that always gives him pause when dealing with the big shem.
“I've been talking to Slim,” he begins, and Pol groans. “No, no, hear me out! The Bann of Honnleath's wife is leaving her house open for workers to be in and out, changing everything. We could nip in and out, take enough to get Liddy out and buy us some dinner. Easy as pie.”
Melia opens the kitchen door and steps out. She stops when she sees Daveth and Pol, and eyes them both suspiciously. “Daveth.” She spits his name like he's a wharf rat sniffing at her stew. “What are you on about with my Pol?” she demands. “You're like to get him hung, you gambling roustabout.” She turns her gaze on the elf. “Don't you dare be listening to what he's got to say, it's none of it good.”
Perversely, her concern makes him want to rebel. Pol sticks his hands in his pockets and smiles innocently. “Na', Melia, we was just talking about dinner. I'll see you 'round the vhenadahl tonight, a'right?” She presses her lips together, narrowing her eyes, but says nothing more. She walks up, getting very close, and looks up at him. He watches her nervously, unsure of what she intends.
She goes up on her toes, leans into him, wraps her arms around his neck, and kisses him, full on the lips. Just when he's getting over his surprise and beginning to respond to her soft, questing little mouth, she pulls back. “See that you do,” she breathes. Then, with one more unfriendly glance over her shoulder at Daveth, she saunters off, back toward the alienage. Pol stares after her, open-mouthed, and Daveth laughs.
“Blast,” he mutters, “I forgot to ask her for a pie.” Daveth laughs even harder.
“Must've been good, to make you forget your stomach,” he says, wiping away a tear of mirth. Pol scowls.
“A'right. I'll go with you, but I'm not going to make you any promises. I'll look. That's all.”
“Fair enough,” Daveth says, but that predatory gleam in his eye makes Pol shift uncomfortably.
The estate is woefully, and fortuitously, under-guarded. Daveth has a plan to pose as delivery people. “How do we do that, then?” Pol asks. “We haven't got any clothes, or anything to deliver.”
Daveth grins. “That's the clever bit, see, we just go in there, and pick up some of the stuff sitting there, and carry it in the house. Easy as pie.”
“You keep saying that, but pie is not easy to get,” Pol says, his stomach growling. Daveth laughs and claps him on the shoulder.
“Just think what you could get for your pretty Melia with your share of the take, eh?” Pol sighs.
“Right. Let's go then.”
Daveth and Pol approach the back gate of the estate, pick up a crate each, and carry them inside, like they're just doing their jobs. They find themselves in the kitchen, and set their crates down on the table. Pol starts rummaging around in the drawers, looking for silver, and Daveth prowls off into another part of the house.
He can hear workmen coming and going, and, with Daveth gone to another area, he begins to feel paranoid. He finds the silver and stuffs several butter-knives and spoons into his pockets, looking around quickly. Daveth doesn't return, so he heads out the back door. “Ain't gonna swing for the likes of him,” he mutters.
He is in the middle of a wide-open area, half-way across the yard, when a couple of burly shem workers come through the gate. One of them points at him. “Oi. You're not one of our elves. Who are you?” the shem demands.
Pol panics, and bolts. “Oi! Bloody thievin' knife-ear!” the other man shouts, and Pol can hear them closing in on all sides. He grabs onto some ivy and scales the estate wall, leaping over the top and onto the ground outside, his feet just a breath out of reach of the shouting shems on the inside.
He sprints up the street and around a corner, ducks through several alleys and up another street, over someone's hedge and into an alcove where he can't be seen. He hopes. He waits, his heart pounding in his throat, and tries to control his breathing. He hears shouting and running, but none of it comes near. After a while, there is nothing. Pol waits for a long time, listening to the quiet, before he finally creeps out of his hole.
He makes his way down to the docks, keeps his head down, and hopes that he won't be seen by the workers from the estate. It takes him a while to find the man he's looking for, but he finally locates a fence by the name of Ferret, who will launder anything, for a price. Pol stands there, nervously, watching the Ferret look over all the silver he brought with a critical eye. He tests the quality, scratching at it a bit, and then holds it up to the light.
“Well...” he says, “I see it's fine silver, quite right. But you see this crest here? The Bann of Honnleath, yeah? I'd have to melt all this down to make anything of it. That's going to cost you extra, and take away from your coin, you understand?” Pol nods.
“I don't much care. I got out of there with my skin,” he replies. “Any coin I make on top of that's a blessing.”
The Ferret nods. “Fair enough.” He rises from the stool he's been occupying, leaving the silver on the crate they've used as a table. “Let me get my scales, and some coin.”
The Ferret disappears behind a stack of crates, and Pol waits, shifting nervously. He looks around, but all is quiet. Time passes, and Pol starts to feel paranoid again. This time, when he turns around, there are those two shem workers, right behind him, wearing identical, wicked grins. The Ferret speaks, and Pol turns around again, trying to keep all three of the shems in his sight. “You stole from the wrong house, knife-ear,” the Ferret says. “That was our house.”
One of the shem workers starts tying a noose, and the other cracks his knuckles. Pol backs away, slowly. “Uh, I don't know nothin' about it! I just went in there with a friend, we was just tryin' to make a few silvers to get through the day, y'know? Y-- you can have the silver, I don't care; I'm not tryin' to step on anyone's toes now,” he babbles, holding his hands up.
The shem with the noose laughs. “Yeah yeah, but now we're made, and the place has shut up real tight. So instead of the entire haul, all we got is this pitiful pile of silver you took.”
The brute shem continues, “So the only way we've got now, to earn us sommat from all this, is to sell the corpse of a knife-ear. Right buyer, that pays real well.”
Pol fetches up against a stack of crates, and has nowhere else to run. The three shems close in on him, his death in their eyes. He does the only thing he can do. He scrambles up the crates, sending them flying backwards onto the shems, and makes a run for it. They follow him, and as he runs along the docks, he realizes how much attention he is drawing. Other shems are gathering ahead, ready to cut off his escape route.
He glances around, and turns at the last second, bolting down the pier and throwing himself straight into the ocean. He sinks under the water; a wave carries him back toward the shore, and smashes him into one of the pylons that anchor the dock to the ground. He loses his breath, and turns around, clinging to the post for dear life. The wave recedes, and he can hear the shemlen running back and forth above. He backs up, letting go of the pier, and lets the next wave carry him upward. He grabs on to the bottom of the dock and swings his legs up, setting himself in the hollow between the surface of the dock and the surface of the sea.
He shivers, listening to them look for him, conclude him drowned, and give up. He waits for hours, watching the sun fade and feeling the tide start to come in. Eventually, the tide grows high enough that it is beginning to edge him out of his little air pocket, so he drops back down into the water, hoping that the heat has passed enough that he can get back to the alienage without being spotted.
He creeps along down the wharf, trying not to be seen until his clothes stop dripping. His luck runs out when he's within spitting distance of home. He can see the alienage walls, the top of the vhenadahl, and the two angry shems with cudgels waiting for him to return, standing on the edge of the bridge. He bolts again.
There's no going home. He's going to swing, no matter what he tries, now he's on the outs with the thieves' guild; it's all over.
“I'm sorry, Melia,” he whispers, as he runs out of the city gates and down the west highway. “Nothing left for me to do but run.” There's only one place in all of Ferelden where he might get a second chance. Pol turns his feet toward the Brecilian Forest.
Tales From The Road Not Travelled
Title: Can't Go Home Again (chapter three)
Rating: M
Characters: Daveth and Pol
Summary: Easy pickings come with a price; Pol nearly pays with his life.
Pol is hanging around the back door of the Lamb and Thistle, waiting for Melia to finish her shift. “Predictable,” a man's voice says, and he turns around.
“Daveth,” Pol says, wary. Daveth grins, and this is not reassuring, at all.
“Pol, just the man I was looking for. I knew I would find you here.” His face falls, looking much more serious. “Morven's got Liddy again.”
This is not what he was expecting to hear, and the news saddens him. “I'm sorry. What will you do?”
“I've got to make four silvers by the end of the day, or they'll...” He swallows, looking sick. “Can't leave her to that fate, Pol. Not my girl,” he says, almost pleading. Pol looks at him distrustfully. Every time he sees Daveth, it ends up being some kind of trouble.
“What do you want from me?” There is that flicker of calculation in Daveth's eyes, that bit of the mercenary that always gives him pause when dealing with the big shem.
“I've been talking to Slim,” he begins, and Pol groans. “No, no, hear me out! The Bann of Honnleath's wife is leaving her house open for workers to be in and out, changing everything. We could nip in and out, take enough to get Liddy out and buy us some dinner. Easy as pie.”
Melia opens the kitchen door and steps out. She stops when she sees Daveth and Pol, and eyes them both suspiciously. “Daveth.” She spits his name like he's a wharf rat sniffing at her stew. “What are you on about with my Pol?” she demands. “You're like to get him hung, you gambling roustabout.” She turns her gaze on the elf. “Don't you dare be listening to what he's got to say, it's none of it good.”
Perversely, her concern makes him want to rebel. Pol sticks his hands in his pockets and smiles innocently. “Na', Melia, we was just talking about dinner. I'll see you 'round the vhenadahl tonight, a'right?” She presses her lips together, narrowing her eyes, but says nothing more. She walks up, getting very close, and looks up at him. He watches her nervously, unsure of what she intends.
She goes up on her toes, leans into him, wraps her arms around his neck, and kisses him, full on the lips. Just when he's getting over his surprise and beginning to respond to her soft, questing little mouth, she pulls back. “See that you do,” she breathes. Then, with one more unfriendly glance over her shoulder at Daveth, she saunters off, back toward the alienage. Pol stares after her, open-mouthed, and Daveth laughs.
“Blast,” he mutters, “I forgot to ask her for a pie.” Daveth laughs even harder.
“Must've been good, to make you forget your stomach,” he says, wiping away a tear of mirth. Pol scowls.
“A'right. I'll go with you, but I'm not going to make you any promises. I'll look. That's all.”
“Fair enough,” Daveth says, but that predatory gleam in his eye makes Pol shift uncomfortably.
The estate is woefully, and fortuitously, under-guarded. Daveth has a plan to pose as delivery people. “How do we do that, then?” Pol asks. “We haven't got any clothes, or anything to deliver.”
Daveth grins. “That's the clever bit, see, we just go in there, and pick up some of the stuff sitting there, and carry it in the house. Easy as pie.”
“You keep saying that, but pie is not easy to get,” Pol says, his stomach growling. Daveth laughs and claps him on the shoulder.
“Just think what you could get for your pretty Melia with your share of the take, eh?” Pol sighs.
“Right. Let's go then.”
Daveth and Pol approach the back gate of the estate, pick up a crate each, and carry them inside, like they're just doing their jobs. They find themselves in the kitchen, and set their crates down on the table. Pol starts rummaging around in the drawers, looking for silver, and Daveth prowls off into another part of the house.
He can hear workmen coming and going, and, with Daveth gone to another area, he begins to feel paranoid. He finds the silver and stuffs several butter-knives and spoons into his pockets, looking around quickly. Daveth doesn't return, so he heads out the back door. “Ain't gonna swing for the likes of him,” he mutters.
He is in the middle of a wide-open area, half-way across the yard, when a couple of burly shem workers come through the gate. One of them points at him. “Oi. You're not one of our elves. Who are you?” the shem demands.
Pol panics, and bolts. “Oi! Bloody thievin' knife-ear!” the other man shouts, and Pol can hear them closing in on all sides. He grabs onto some ivy and scales the estate wall, leaping over the top and onto the ground outside, his feet just a breath out of reach of the shouting shems on the inside.
He sprints up the street and around a corner, ducks through several alleys and up another street, over someone's hedge and into an alcove where he can't be seen. He hopes. He waits, his heart pounding in his throat, and tries to control his breathing. He hears shouting and running, but none of it comes near. After a while, there is nothing. Pol waits for a long time, listening to the quiet, before he finally creeps out of his hole.
He makes his way down to the docks, keeps his head down, and hopes that he won't be seen by the workers from the estate. It takes him a while to find the man he's looking for, but he finally locates a fence by the name of Ferret, who will launder anything, for a price. Pol stands there, nervously, watching the Ferret look over all the silver he brought with a critical eye. He tests the quality, scratching at it a bit, and then holds it up to the light.
“Well...” he says, “I see it's fine silver, quite right. But you see this crest here? The Bann of Honnleath, yeah? I'd have to melt all this down to make anything of it. That's going to cost you extra, and take away from your coin, you understand?” Pol nods.
“I don't much care. I got out of there with my skin,” he replies. “Any coin I make on top of that's a blessing.”
The Ferret nods. “Fair enough.” He rises from the stool he's been occupying, leaving the silver on the crate they've used as a table. “Let me get my scales, and some coin.”
The Ferret disappears behind a stack of crates, and Pol waits, shifting nervously. He looks around, but all is quiet. Time passes, and Pol starts to feel paranoid again. This time, when he turns around, there are those two shem workers, right behind him, wearing identical, wicked grins. The Ferret speaks, and Pol turns around again, trying to keep all three of the shems in his sight. “You stole from the wrong house, knife-ear,” the Ferret says. “That was our house.”
One of the shem workers starts tying a noose, and the other cracks his knuckles. Pol backs away, slowly. “Uh, I don't know nothin' about it! I just went in there with a friend, we was just tryin' to make a few silvers to get through the day, y'know? Y-- you can have the silver, I don't care; I'm not tryin' to step on anyone's toes now,” he babbles, holding his hands up.
The shem with the noose laughs. “Yeah yeah, but now we're made, and the place has shut up real tight. So instead of the entire haul, all we got is this pitiful pile of silver you took.”
The brute shem continues, “So the only way we've got now, to earn us sommat from all this, is to sell the corpse of a knife-ear. Right buyer, that pays real well.”
Pol fetches up against a stack of crates, and has nowhere else to run. The three shems close in on him, his death in their eyes. He does the only thing he can do. He scrambles up the crates, sending them flying backwards onto the shems, and makes a run for it. They follow him, and as he runs along the docks, he realizes how much attention he is drawing. Other shems are gathering ahead, ready to cut off his escape route.
He glances around, and turns at the last second, bolting down the pier and throwing himself straight into the ocean. He sinks under the water; a wave carries him back toward the shore, and smashes him into one of the pylons that anchor the dock to the ground. He loses his breath, and turns around, clinging to the post for dear life. The wave recedes, and he can hear the shemlen running back and forth above. He backs up, letting go of the pier, and lets the next wave carry him upward. He grabs on to the bottom of the dock and swings his legs up, setting himself in the hollow between the surface of the dock and the surface of the sea.
He shivers, listening to them look for him, conclude him drowned, and give up. He waits for hours, watching the sun fade and feeling the tide start to come in. Eventually, the tide grows high enough that it is beginning to edge him out of his little air pocket, so he drops back down into the water, hoping that the heat has passed enough that he can get back to the alienage without being spotted.
He creeps along down the wharf, trying not to be seen until his clothes stop dripping. His luck runs out when he's within spitting distance of home. He can see the alienage walls, the top of the vhenadahl, and the two angry shems with cudgels waiting for him to return, standing on the edge of the bridge. He bolts again.
There's no going home. He's going to swing, no matter what he tries, now he's on the outs with the thieves' guild; it's all over.
“I'm sorry, Melia,” he whispers, as he runs out of the city gates and down the west highway. “Nothing left for me to do but run.” There's only one place in all of Ferelden where he might get a second chance. Pol turns his feet toward the Brecilian Forest.