#knifeathers

  Sometimes, some specific jobs simply required a certain kind of skill set. Among his crew, they all possessed some of those skill sets, but neither one of them was quite as adept as they needed to be. There was, however, one person Kaz could think of that indeed checked all of the boxes: Sturmhond. There'd been a long internal debate on if he really wanted to take that step and ask the other if he wanted to join; at least for this specific job.

 So far, the two of them had mostly had something more akin to a rivalry, but there was no denying that, every time they'd been forced to work together, it had worked out fairly well. Almost as if they complemented each other and their talents. Kaz hated to admit it, but they had been a good team on those occasions. 

 However, before he made the final decision, he wanted to know Inej's opinion on it. He valued hers more than anyone else's. He trusted her, and her judgement, even if he never said as much out loud. So he'd arranged a meeting. Not at the Crow Club or at the Slat, but at one of the Dregs' safehouses in one of the more abandoned parts of the Barrel. It was more neutral ground and there'd be less eyes and ears on them, as well. 

@knifeathers liked for a starter

One of the things that reassured Kaz he'd been right to make this particular investment, Inej was serious about proving that she was worthwhile. Her intensity resonated with him. It was the same intensity that set him apart from the other Dregs, in both good ways and bad. He imagined she was also destined to be both impressive and intimidating, always thought of as separate.

Although he saw all of that, he still felt the need to test it. Come with me he'd said, without preamble or explanation, and now they were walking down the city street at night. It was cold and his leg ached, but this was when he felt most at home.

Lark was busy tacking up a large white war horse. Lark found irony in the fact that it use to belong to Vasily. Now his private stable belonged to her--a gift from the newly appointed King of Ravka. She suspected that he did not know what to do with them and simply gave the stable to her as a token of good faith. He needn't had bothered if she were being honest but she had come to love every horse in the stable, and though she had no love of the horse auctions or races, she found that she had a knack for tending to the large animals. Even her riding was getting better.

Lark glanced over to the shed-row and saw ( @knifeathers ) . Inej was someone she knew briefly but she had taken a measure of her and found her to be the noble sort and a worthy fighter.

nina wants to protest that this is utter folly, that she can hold her own against… well, against whatever may come. ( does she trust inej to be right on her heels? nina’s not certain — she’s not certain she knows any of them well enough yet to predict them ). then again, common sense would be to listen to the person with experience, the person who knows this place, who knows how things work.

ㅤㅤhe follows her gaze past to the floor of the club, where he can see someone she had to tail the other day - for whatever reason, jesper doesn't know; inej, kaz, and kaz's office walls are the only ones seemingly privy to that type of information. they can see the pretty guns at the razorgull's belt, the bat with nails hefted on his back, the split skin and welts all over his knuckles. it's the type of person that would give his opponent their own teeth to swallow in a fight. in fact, jesper has fought him - and came back limping to the slat with a rib near carved in. it's one of the few fights they've been on the losing side of.

ㅤㅤand he's the type of person that could easily snap inej, nimble, spry inej, like a twig. they roll their shoulders at the thought, blowing out a long breath. inej can take care of herself perfectly fine; that much is sure, but that doesn't mean a bit of them doesn't worry. in the back of jesper's mind, he can hear the incoming tease, because jesper fahey doesn't worry; jesper fahey wears an easy face and bleeds all over the tables and can take off a man's finger with their trigger - happy touch, but they don't worry and fret.

@knifeathers said: “ sender kisses receiver's knuckles. " {♠️ x VARYING KISSES PROMPT ||  (selectively) accepting x}

Losing control didn't look good on the Bastard of the Barrel. And yet, Kaz had been unable to stop himself.

It had been a run-of-the-mill job: stake out the premises, figure out a way in, get in, steal the desired object, get out, and collect the pay. They'd done it countless times before, had never had a problem. Between the Wraith's gathered intelligence, and Dirtyhands' skills, they should've been in and out within a matter of minutes.

But something had gone wrong. Someone had been in the house that wasn't supposed to be there. Armed to the teeth, and dangerous. They'd caught both of them off-guard, just as Kaz had started to work on the safe. Everything after that had happened so quick, it was hard to tell what had happened at all.

Somehow the guy had managed to knock the Wraith down, and was pinning her to the ground with a knife to her throat. He was at least twice her size and three times as heavy; she stood no chance. So Kaz tackled him, reversing the roles. Without hesitation, Dirtyhands had beat him, over and over again until he'd stopped moving and Inej had pulled him off.

They'd parted ways, then, with the Wraith making her way across Ketterdam's rooftops, and Kaz using the maze of alleyways to his advantage.

He was back at the Slat now, up in his attic flat. The gloves were resting next to the bowl as he tried his best to clean his bruised and bloody knuckles.

Kaz didn't need to hear her to know she was here. "How the hell did we miss him, Inej? The house was supposed to be empty. We watched it for hours." Silence. Had he been wrong?

Confused, he turned around to see if he'd been mistaken, only to find her standing right in front of him. Saints. Then he saw how her eyes were glued to his hands, to his bruised knuckles. "I don't know what came over me, Inej. I—" The rest of his words died in his throat as she reached up and took his hands into her own. Her grip was light, more like a suggestion that allowed him to pull away at any given second. But despite the urge he felt to do so, despite the way his body tensed up and his skin started to crawl, he couldn't. He was too mesmerized, too.. taken aback by the way she lifted their hands and placed one kiss after another on each of his knuckles.

Send me 🗣️ for incorrect quotes of your muse and mine

@knifeathers : peer over the edge. can you see me?

Harij sticks his head out over the edge of the building, looking down at his sister. “I can see you,” he says. He gives her a little wave. “I feel so tall. You’re so tiny.”