Sentimental Value ((Broken Knight&Crystalfox))

It was nothing remarkable just a simple pendant the hung about a kit's neck as she played in the yard chasing butterflies in the late noonday sun. Joyfully she laughed as she got herself tangled in her skirts and fell down. Bright brown eyes seemed to shine with a child like joy that one would not expect from someone who lost thier mothers three weeks before. The pendent had originally been hers.

It wasn't really worth that much, mere costume jewlry decorated with a few small crystals. A locket that she could never open, for they'd lost the key sometime ago. "Come along Miss." the maid told the young fox. "It's time for dinner and then off to bed." Sighing she stood up and followed after them her head bowed in a pout. Later that very night she slipped of the pendant and placed it in a special jewlry box on her night stand. Delicate hands covered it and she smiled. "Night Mommy." Natalie mumbled as she went to bed, the deep red fur stark against the white sheets.

It wasn't like he'd intended to take it. He was a natural thief and used such a skill to his advantage. He'd been going through her home before she was even in bed. He was looking through the home for valuables, but only ones that he felt the family could live their life comfortably without. He didn't want to be taking food out of anyone's mouth.

He never once saw her. He might have stopped to admire her beauty, instead of taking the small pendant. He had taken only that pendant and left, no other harm done. By the next morning, he was in his shop, a pawn shop where he typically sold his stolen items. Since he could forge a bill of sale for what he had gained, he could legally sell them. As long as no one found out about the forged bill of sale, which was destroyed within three days of creation, the time limit as stated by law.

"This is worthless." a customer said setting down the magnifying glass and pushing the pendant towards him. "It's all invaluble crystal, not a real stone anywhere on it. I can't buy that I'm sorry." this customer was a jewel seller that purchased from him often taking out the stone and placing them in his own setting. "Do you have something else? Perhaps a ruby? I need it for an engagment ring setting."

However it was worth something to the little vixen who woke up that day crying for her mother's locket. She looked everywhere for it outside, in her bathing chamber it was no where. "It's been stolen!" she sobbed in her father's lap. "Now mama's spirt left me!" the small pup always claimed she could see ghosts, her mother's imparticular. Her father just put it up to her often over active imagination. "Don't worry it'll turn up soon love, just wait and see..." he said patting her head.

The wolf sighed, swiping the stone off of the counter. It looked like it was worth a fortune. Another day of not eating, he supposed. "No." He replies, frowning. "But, I'll find you a damned ruby..." Turning, he makes his way out of the store. There really wasn't anything to do with the gem. It was too beautiful to simply be tossed, but too worthless to be sold for even a single meal. Slipping it into his left pocket, part of the chain hung out. He did so intentionally, to entice potential pick pockets into trying to take it, to which he could pounce and hassle them into giving him some money, or turn them over to the police and get a small reward that way. Either way, it was a win-win for him.

It turned out that luck was not on his side, not that day, nor the day after that, or even the day after that. Weeks turned to months, turned to years. And exactly four years after he stole it a carnival was in town and the pup whom he stole it from was no longer a pup. In fact she'd turned into a lovely full bodied vixen with dark amber eyes, dressed in noble finery her hair piled up in a complex bun that framed her delicate features. At the moment she was dancing with another noble out of obligation when a too sharp turn sent her careening into him sending her necklace into a nearby gutter.

The wolf had dropped the necklace that he'd had for so very long now. It'd become important to him. When he was younger, not long after he'd stolen it, he'd gotten into a brawl, which resulted in a large gash over his left eye, destroying the eye. Wearing a patch, a long scar from above the brow to his cheek bone, what had saved him was the necklace. When he was about to be cut in half by the enemy blade, the end of the necklace had caught a nearby chair, not allowing him to fall forward. The blade had caught his eye, but he'd survived. Ever since that day, he took care of the necklace, even scooping it out of the gutter and beginning to clean it off with his shirt.

Natalie had barely caught herself on the arm of her dance partner when the necklace caught her eyes. Immediatly she knew it was hers, in the months after her mother's death she'd counted every crystal and every scratch on the old heirloom. Pausing she gently removed her arm from her dance partners and placed and hand on the wolf's wrist.

"Excuse me sir? Where did you get that necklace?" she asked her eyes regaurding him closely. "It looks just like the one I lost as a small pup, it meant so very much to me." the busty canine was certain it was hers, which meant he must've been the theif that stole it from her all those years before. What luck that she'd run into him. Or perhaps it was misfortune?

His one good eye looks down at the female who'd taken his wrist. When he speaks, his voice is rough, as though it is rarely used. Standing taller than her, the wolf was an imposing presence. Looking down at her, he huffs. "I've had it for years. I bought it from a pawn shop." He says, the story coming from him rather easily, he'd said it several times, so it had been rehearsed.

"Beyond that..." He says, removing her hold from his wrist. "...Is none of your business." He says to her, turning from her, going back to what he'd been doing before he was so crassly interrupted.

However she wasn't done with him following as he moved away. "Then it must've been from a thief's shop. That is my necklace I would very much like it back if you don't mind." despite his rather imposing prescence she stayed near him detirmined to get back her mother's necklace. "Please sir, just let me hold it?" calls of her name were lost in the crowd. "I'll give it back." though that was a very apprant lie.

Natalie always prided herself on being intellegent, but when it came to thinks that were hers she tended not to use it. The fox moved deeper into the crowd staying near the wolf as her dance partner called to her barely keeping track of her red fur amoungst the thickening crowd.

He looks at her, turning his head to see her off to his left, his blind spot. "Oh, ha ha ha." He says, the laugh very, very obviously fake. "You'll give it back just as soon as I'd slit your throat if I saw it was in your possession." The wolf tells her. Obviously, he was not going to give the girl the necklace for nothing. Walking through the crowd, he'd begun to use his large size and bulk strength to simply shove people out of his way... and into hers, to further obstruct the girl's path. And hopefully move further away from her.

"You've naught a thing that you could pay me with that I could possibly be interested in, fox. Go back to your little high class party and find another trinket. This one is mine." The wolf says over the crowd, still forcing his way through, despite the shouts and protest from those he was man-handling.

Lucky for her since foxes were generally small and fast she was able to weave through the people he pushed towards her with some difficulty. "No that belonged to my mother you heartless beast!" she snapped in return. "I don't have anohter trinket I could possibly replace it with." she was beginning to lose him amoungst the thickening crowd of people.

"Are you sure there is nothing you would like in return for giving it back?" the voice was suddenly very close to him. She'd back tracked and followed behing a carriage when cleared the people with very little trouble. "I swear I'll give you anything you ask."

He stops, at the edge of the crowd. Since he no longer had anything to toss in her way, the thought to simply toss her out of the way crossed his mind, although, he didn't like the look the guards were giving him for shoving his way through a crowd. "Anything?" He asks of her, his one eye upon the young female.

"I suppose I could take you for a month, use you as my slave and pet..." He was being sarcastic to a point. No girl would willingly submit to that, just for a worthless trinket. He was quite certain that she'd get the hint from his tone of voice and scurry away, frustrated.