Cohost writing prompt: @spy-thief-assassin-who — Thief who promises they're not stealing for themselves anymore
"Hello, Kuarn," says the paladin, in the brisk way that covers for any kind of self-doubt or hesitancy. "Can we speak?"
"I dunno there's a lot to speak about," Kuarn says warily; trapped in a corner of alleyway on his way to the inn's entrance, as the paladin heads elsewhere on whatever godly errand. "We had a good long talk a while back, as I recall."
"Yes, we — yes." The paladin clenches her hands, and then, obviously deliberately, loosens them. "That's — what I wanted to speak about. If you'll grant me the time."
"I've a minute," Kuarn says, and looks at her.
"Ah," the paladin says after a little pause. "Here — no, of course, if that's — I don't want to presume." And her hands clench again, as she takes a deep breath. "Because I think — and I've been thinking, ever since — I think I've already presumed quite a bit, Kuarn."
Which is not the same as apologising to him, but might be as near as one of the type gets. "Oh, aye?"
"You and I," the paladin says, "have had different lives. Have different lives. I can't judge— well. I shouldn't. And yet I did."
There's a worn spot in one pocket of Kuarn's breeches, the perfect place to worry with a thumb. It's a tell; Kuarn stills his hands, counts out some seconds. "Some of what you said," he allows, "was — not pleasant to hear, but not wrong. I'm not starving in a gutter, in your company. I don't need to be stealing food."
"You don't need to be stealing," the paladin says, and gets ahold of herself. "No, no, that's — I said all that, and I'm trying to, trying to make amends for saying it—"
"I'm part of this now," Kuarn says, and waves indistinctly at the paladin, and their other, absent companions. "Part of something bigger than just me. And you need me for stealing, but — stealing for cause. Stealing with purpose. Not for myself, for a couple of coppers and a bread roll in my pocket. I don't need to do that any more; if I need a couple of coppers and a roll, and I don't have it myself, you'll — you'll all see to it I get it." He kicks at a pebble. "We did say all this. I was listening."
"I'm still—" the paladin says, "I'm still sorry."
"Aye," Kuarm says. "Not all that pleasant myself, was I," and he points his chin in the direction the paladin came from. "Been talking to the nun," he adds. "Trying to get — a new sight on things. A look at what life looks like without stealing for myself."
The paladin produces a wincingly mixed expression at the mention of the cleric, because the Dun Bitch is not exactly a kind of a god appealing to the paladinly type. But at the same time, she's pleased that he's trying, she really is.
"I find that noble of you," she says, and then gets flustered, because paladins aren't supposed to say that kind of thing to thieves, and she clasps his shoulder and makes makes hurried excuses and scarpers.
"Did the god-warrior find you?" Lemnestra grunts over the dregs of an ale, in the taproom.
"Aye," Kuarn says.
"Bothered you, did she? Had it on her to bother you."
"We spoke." Kuarn is aware that, on some level, the cleric's interest in the state of his tarnished soul is only as some kind of playing-piece in an inscrutable game against the paladin. Whether it's religious, or because they're both women, or because Lemnestra's just a cutthroat rat bitch who needs no reason, he couldn't say. "She's happy I'd take an interest in stealing for reasons bigger than myself."
"Aye, that she would," the cleric says. "Hand over your day's take to the Dun Bitch, then, sonny, and let the Dun Bitch take care of our merry band's coffers."
Kuarn thinks, fleetingly, of what the paladin's face might look like in pained and disappointed realisation; and dutifully hands over the sum that the Dun Bitch deemed an appropriate contribution from richer pockets for the day.