Claymore and Dagger (closed)

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Heather was quiet for a long moment as Sam talked to her about what she should do. She had never meant to make her mother upset about anything. However, thinking back on her attitude, she knew that she had probably hurt her feelings a time or two.

"I didn't mean to make Mama upset." She said softly, ashamed that Julia would have felt that Heather didn't love her at any point in time. "I'll ask Papa if he'll go with me. We'll have fun in Edinburgh with Kate and Kell."
 
"Tha's my girl. Like I said earlier... Go easy on 'er. She's 'ad a lot o' hard times in 'er life." He then brushed back her hair. "Y'know Da was blind once, almost a whole year after a were cat got 'old of 'is neck. Lunar healers managed t'remove a fang th'night y'were born after Da had a heart attack hearin' how hard a time Ma'd had."
 
"Ashelin was the one that caused the trouble." Heather insisted as Sam told her about their Da and the time that he had been injured so severely that he had been blind for nearly a year. "Da got better though. I'll never get better."

She had long ago accepted the fact that she was blind and always would be. The first few days after her illness had been tough. She remembered her Ma crying all the time and her Da working to make sure that she would always be cared for. Annie would raise her if something were to happen to either of them and Rho would support her from the Inverness treasury for the rest of her days. It was the way that things had always been.

"Can I go with you tomorrow? Ashelin is always off without me and I want to get out of the keep." Heather asked out of the blue. "Please, Sam? I promise I can be good and listen."
 
"Prisons an' soldier barracks're no place for a lady, Heather," he told her softly, but he couldn't resist. "I suppose you could. But you have to keep close. With men out there sparring, I don't want you to get hurt. Even people who can see just fine end up wandering into the matches." He set her on her feet and kissed her forehead. "Go get ready for bed, love. I'll wake you up in the morning when I go out."
 
Heather hugged Sam tightly as he promised to take her with him tomorrow. As she left his room, her hand trailed along the hallway wall until she had found the entrance to her room. Julia quietly watched her go, her heart sad as she glanced in at Sam and gave him a kiss on the forehead.

"You're a good lad." She said softly. "I worry about her but you constantly show her that she can survive on her own."
 
"She's a perfectly capable lass," Sam assured her as he rose to face her. He now towered over her like Durban. "Y' shouldn't baby her so much, Ma. She's startin' to resent any help at all. She might no' have even eaten dinner tonight if she hadn't swallowed 'er pride an' asked where things were. She's got Da's stubborn streak, but we can' convince her like you can Da. I know y'love 'er, but ye've got t'let 'er figure it out on 'er own. Otherwise she'll never learn t'function on 'er own an' ye'll never make any good memories with 'er." Sam had always been wise beyond his years, and having watched his little sisters grow made him somewhat knowledgeable in the ways of children and the innate stubbornness of Ghis children.
 
"You will never know how hard that is, love" Julia said softly as she hugged her son tightly. "When you have your own children, you'll understand why I want to make sure that life is always easy for everyone. I know we need to let her live her own life, but it's hard. I see Ashelin acting like a sunny little girl and I see Heather struggle. It isn't fair."
 
"She jus' needs t'find her place. Let 'er do tha'. She's only ten." Sam hugged his mother close. "She's more like Kate than y'figured, huh?" He gave her one of his rare small smiles and walked with her toward her and Brogan's room. Brogan was already there, relaxing in his chair by the fire. Winter had been hard and he was looking a bit thinner and paler, but life had never left his dark eyes and he was beginning to regain his color and strength.
 
"I always figured that Ashelin would be the one to be most like Kitten." Julia said as Sam showed her to her rooms, Brogan sitting by the fire to relax. "She surprised me though. Who knew that little ball of fire would be interested in dresses and court matters."

She chuckled as she sat down next to Brogan, kissing his cheek as Sam joined them. "Tell me about the market thief, love. If she is simply stealing to survive then prison is not the place for her."
 
"Theft is theft, Ma. We 'ave shelters an' a kitchen for th'homeless an' hungry. We put it in place so people wouldn' have to starve. She has no excuse." Sam sat across from his father, and Brogan finally spoke up quietly.

"Pride, lad. Tha's why people steal food at all. They're too proud t'ask fer help 'r stoop t'degrading low jobs tha' pay pennies for breakin' backs."

"She's my age an' clearly intelligent. There's no excuse. She could do just about anything she wanted."

"Y'also have t'remember this is all she knows, Sam. And maybe she enjoys th'thrill an' the challenge."

"Then she can go somewhere else to steal. Not on my watch."

Brogan chuckled, shaking his head. "You really turned out like Durban used to be when he was young."
 
"Sam." Julia said with a soft smile towards her son as he insisted that stealing was stealing no matter the circumstances. "You have to have compassion for others. She might not have any other chance out there and this is how she survives. Has she harmed anyone or taken anything that is important? Besides frightening Lynndon, it sounds like she had done little wrong."
 
"Ma, my job is not to judge. I only arrest those who have done wrong, and I let Rho do the judging. I don't make the laws, I only carry them out." Sam kissed her cheek. "Is there anything either of you need?"

"I'm fine, lad," Brogan assured him.
 
"No, love. Good night." Julia said as she reached out and touched Sam's cheek as he stood from his spot and left the room. "Where is your Ma when we need her? She would set all of our stubborn children straight in a heartbeat."

Julia looked over at her dear husband and gave him a little smile, reaching to take his hand and holding it tightly. "Our lads are stubborn and all grown up and our little lasses are well on their way. I truly think that this will be what turns me grey."
 
"She only left when she knew she'd finished 'er job. We'll make it," Brogan assured her softly, drawing her into his lap. Now only a half-year off from sixty, Brogan had continued his trend of growing quieter and more peaceful, but his power as a king had never diminished. After accepting that he could no longer be the active leader he used to be, he had given his more physical responsibilities to Rho and Sam, and now was more of a wise watcher than the active constantly-moving leader. He had a close group that acted in his stead, made up of Sam and Rho for Inverness, Ruben's children Katya and Timmal for the Lunars, and Dazu and Leon for the Erygonians after they'd moved to the little village. His siblings were still his most valuable advisors, but it was his children and nieces and nephews that were the doers and the active leaders for them all.

His hair had gone mostly grey after the hard fight that winter, but it was still streaked with black and his beard was much the same. But his dark eyes had never faltered in their color or brightness, just like his deep love for Julia. Even when he was weak, he found ways to let Julia know he loved her more than anything else in the world. She was the one he leaned on when he was weak, which was much more often since his sickness took hold and since Kitty passed. His mother's death had perhaps been the hardest thing he'd ever faced in his life.
 
"I'm sure she's watching us even now. You know how much she loved her children and grandchildren...and Vincenzo." Julia said softly as she leaned her head on her husband's shoulder and sighed with contentment. "Heather has made it her duty to make sure that Vincenzo is taken care of though. She adores him about as much as she adores Sam."
 
"I'm worried about 'er though," Brogan murmured. "Vincenzo's been fadin' since Ma passed. He wants t'be with 'er but 'e won't go because o' Heather an' Val's girls. When 'e does go... I wonder 'ow Heather'll handle it."

At the same time, Fiona was still under guard until the start of the late night shift, where there was a ten-minute break between guards switching out with their late-working counterparts. That was enough time for a scrawny and scraggly youth to sneak in and approach Fiona's cell with a set of lock picks. "Hey, you finally got caught again," he commented with a smile a little too big for his young teenaged face. He was a fellow thief, a fourteen-year old in a line of thieves. But most of his predecessors had embezzled from court coffers, which put the boy where he was as a street rat. His name was Will Bard, and he'd learned all he knew from Fiona and cruel old slumlord they'd once worked for in a gang that now haunted their steps if they wandered too far south of Inverness to bandit camp territory where the man now lived.

Brushing back his long, wild chestnut hair, his brown eyes focused on the lock til it clicked and he carefully swung it open. "Come on, I got a horse," he whispered.
 
"Running into the patrol tends to do that." Fiona murmured as she got up from the cot and made her way towards the door where Will was working. "And his majesty the Prince seems to think allowing me to rot in jail is the kind thing to do."

Once the lock clicked open, the both of them stole away from the building quickly. She saw two handsome horses waiting for them just a short distance away and she paused, looking over at Will in question.

"Where did you get the horses? They didn't come from the Shanendoah barn, did they?"
 
"Yeah, why? Are you picky?" He pulled himself up on the back of one horse. He hadn't taken the saddles, only the bridles, so they'd be riding bareback. But there was someone else there waiting for them, a man that looked oddly familiar but his face was shadowed from any moonlight by a wide-brimmed hat.

"We gotta go. They'll notice you're missing any minute," Will told Fiona, reining his horse in when it clearly did not trust him. Ghis horses tended to rebel against riders that their masters didn't approve of, or against riders that their masters hadn't specifically introduced them to.
 
"Will, take these horses back right now. I'm not taking horses from her barn. That would surely help me end up at the gallows." Fiona said, looking at the young man that was trying to help her. "And you as well."
 
"It's just two horses, Fi. She's rich as they come, just two won't ruin her," Will scoffed, but then his horse really started to act up, turning in circles and stamping the ground and snorting loudly. Will tried to quiet the beast, but it wasn't having any of his nonsense. Finally, Will got off and the horse took off, the other following after it.

"Well damn," Will muttered.

"We'd better get moving," the dark man muttered.
 
"Don't mess with her horses again." Fiona warned as she looked towards the mysterious man. "And who are you? I don't know that I've seen you in this area before."
 
"Surely you remember you old lad Morgan," the dark figure murmured. They'd only crossed paths once in the slums. Morgan was an bodyguard who'd been trained by Khelt Aleister the First to serve Queen Sarah of Ireland, but he'd gone to Scotland on a mission to locate a criminal and have him executed. But Morgan had found the wrong man, and without running his identity by the authorities in Edinburgh, he'd killed the man. When he returned to Ireland, it was found out that his real mark had gone on a killing spree in England and the innocent man he'd killed was a Catholic priest. Khelt might've excused it and given him another chance if he'd not killed the man outright without anyone else's confirmation, and if Morgan had felt any remorse. But Morgan Kerrigan was a remorseless, cold man. He'd been discharged, too dangerous to work around Sarah's children, and he'd wandered to Scotland as an assassin for hire and a cutthroat thief. Most in the area refrained from hurting those they stole from, but Morgan didn't care who died as long as he got a meal.

Fiona had met him when the slumlord called for her to be hunted down and brought to him, and Morgan had defended her from the hunters in exchange for a meal and some favors, some of them not so nice. But she still owed him some favors for fighting off ten men.
 
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Fiona stared at him for a long moment as he revealed who he was. She didn't trust the man and she certainly didn't want him to be anywhere near her. Glancing towards Will she wondered just what the boy had gotten messed up in if he was running around with Morgan at his heels. Taking in a deep breath and slowly letting it out, Fiona shook her head at the two of them.

"I don't know what the both of you have planned, but I want nothing to do with it." She said as she turned to leave them both behind.
 
"Seriously? I just saved you and you can't even say thanks?" Will called after her.

"Quiet, boy," Morgan told him, then he called ahead, "You still owe me, Blackstone. I'm calling in a favor, and you're going to accept if you don't want to be handed directly to the slumlord."
 
"What do I still owe you, Morgan? I've already repaid you more than enough." Sh said as she stopped and turned to look back at him. "You should be grateful for what you've already received and move on to darken someone else's door. And you, Will...you need to pick better friends. He'd as soon gut you than let you have anything in return."
 
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