tasmyn-pearce - Tumblr blog

tasmyn-pearce · 5 years ago

Text

Clepto-faenia || Tasmyn & Morgan

Timing: This Evening Parties: @tasmyn-pearce & @mor-beck-more-problems Summary: Tasmyn convinced Morgan to steal some stuff from one of neighbors houses during mushroom season. Chaos ensues and both women leave with some treasures.

It was often difficult for Tasmyn to convince people to go along with the various criminal enterprises that she so enjoyed. It was real easy when that other person was a spriggan. It was less difficult when the person was a fae. But non-fae? Very difficult. With the notable exception of Morgan, of course. Tasmyn was so thrilled at how quickly she had agreed to partake in some light robbery. She had invited her friend over to her house. After living in town for a few weeks, she had been noticing that a neighbor of hers from a few doors down had been letting its ugly little dog do its business in Tasmyn’s yard. So for some sweet, sweet revenge, she planned to steal a bunch of his stuff. It was the perfect target for her and Morgan, since he presumably had a toaster and she knew his wife had some very fancy jewelry. Giddy when she heard the doorbell ring, Tasmyn pranced over to the front door. She opened it wide and smiled even wider. “Morgan! Welcome to my home!”

Morgan wasn’t sure how Tasmyn had managed to get a house on Harris Island on a hostess salary, but the fae worked in mysterious ways, and most rich people had it too good anyway. She rocked on her heels at the door, trying to stay in the moment. She didn’t want to be thinking about what Deirdre was up to, if she was making the mushrooms last longer, if there was going to be more toasters in the garage, and if she should start giving up on having some kind of ‘normal’ ever again. Everything was spinning out of control and leaving her behind. Maybe if she couldn’t get a handle on anything, she could find a way to dip her toe in, see what more of the fuss was about. Theft from the richest of the rich was on a whole other level from messing with street signs and leaving milk out to spoil at the supermarket, but she trusted Tasmyn what she was doing. And, hey, if she could learn to hang with the fae in town better, that was a win all around, right?

She had almost forgotten that Tasmyn was on her own mushroom bender until she answered the door. She hadn’t met the spriggan woman before, but there was something uncanny, even unnatural in her wide smile that suggested she wasn’t this giddy all the time. “Uh, hey!” She said, as brightly as she could manage. “Took us long enough to meet, right? I uh…” She fished into her oversize bag and took out a succulent in a small pot adorned with amethyst pebbles. “Got this for you. And your house. Although, it looks like you’re not really hurting for decor. So, who’s our lucky mark tonight?”

Morgan didn’t look quite the way Tasmyn had pictured. Sure, she had seen actual pictures of the woman online, but she was quite short in person. Maybe she just had the natural confidence of a tall person. Comparing expectations to reality was one of her favorite things about meeting people from online. “Way too long! But here we are now!” Without warning, Tasmyn leaned in and engulfed her tiny new friend into a tight hug. She hadn’t heard from Ulfric in a while, and while she enjoyed the company of some of her co-workers, none of them were friends. It was nice to be with a friend, especially one who understood. As she pulled back from the hug she noticed the items that Morgan was holding. Her eyes widened with joy. “Oh my! You brought me gifts? Nonsense! I am still deep into redecorating. The previous owners had wretched taste.” She grabbed the small plant and immediately retreated to the living room to find a suitable home for it. “Oh! The Crawfords!” After rearranging the plant on the coffee table a few times, she finally found a spot she liked and turned her full attention back to Morgan. “They are so awful. Always looking at me funny. Letting their stupid ugly dog go in my yard. Apparently they were friends with the people who lived here before me and don’t like that I live here now.”

Morgan stepped falteringly into the house. Everything was a mishmash of aesthetic and color, so off and strange she couldn’t figure out which belonged to Tasmyn and which to the last owners. Knowing the place was stolen property didn’t surprise her as much as it should have, and she had to hand it to Tasmyn when it came to the location. “It’s very impressive here,” she said. “Do you ever feel lonely though, being in so much house all by yourself? Or--” She smiled sheepishly, remembering the mushrooms. “Is this not the time to talk about stuff? Should you just...show me around the place? Don’t wanna bore you or anything.”

“Sometimes. But, honestly I’ve lived mostly alone for … oh, about two decades. Ever since I ran away from my husband. Except for a few years when I lived with Isla. But, mostly alone. It’s not so bad! Tons of space to throw parties with friends. Not that I have enough friends in town to fill this house… but, maybe if I stick around long enough I will!” Tasmyn had started talking before Morgan had offered to not talk about ‘stuff’, and was rambling so quickly that she didn’t even really notice the comment. “Oh, Morgan! You could never bore me! But, yes - I can show you around if you want. We’re in the living room now, you came in through the foyer - OH! Lemme show you the kitchen. I just got the new table last week. The old one was made of glass and was so ugly. This one is made of strong wood, like you’d find in a forest. I wonder what kind of kitchen the Crawfords have. We’ll obviously see their kitchen when we take their toaster.”

Morgan followed Tasmyn around, inching closer to her as her story went on.”I remember you telling me a couple of things, that you might be in danger sometime,” she said. “Are you really okay right now? You know, when things get back to normal, you can come stay with me and Deirdre, if you ever need. I’m sure she wouldn’t mind.” But, right. The theft. And...the toasters. “Yeah! And, you know, maybe some nice shiny jewelry. We should get something for you too. And your house. As long as it’s something you really like.” She gave Tasmyn an encouraging smile, but it felt thin. Being easy going was turning out to be a lot harder than she’d reckoned. Maybe she was the lonely one. “Where do they live anyway?”

Tasmyn cocked her head to the side slightly. Morgan seemed genuinely curious, maybe even genuinely concerned. She wasn’t really used to that, especially given this was the first time they had ever even met in person. “I’m okay right now.” It was difficult knowing that people in town cared for her. It would make it that much harder to leave when he found her. “I don’t think he’d expect me to come to America, so that’ll probably buy me more time than usual.” Almost as casually as she had first started talking, she quickly changed to the topic at hand, thievery. “Yes! I like lockets, I don’t know if they have any. But I intend to find out!” Tasmyn went back into the living room and out one of the sliding glass doors that lead to one of her many balconies. Presuming that Morgan was following her, she pointed at one of the houses in the distance. “It’s about two streets down. The yellow one.”

“More time? More time than what? Tasmyn, you can’t spend your whole life running, that’s not fair to you--” But as quickly as the words had burst out of Morgan, she realized this wasn’t the Tasmyn to have this talk with. “Nevermind. Why don’t you tell me about why you like lockets so much?” It was strange how much the lines between fae did and didn’t blur with one another. Or maybe it was just that she didn’t know Tasmyn well enough to be able to tell the differences yet. She followed the fae through the house and out onto the balcony, which was pretty magnificent, she had to admit. “No. Way. Tasmyn are you kidding me?” A breathless laugh escaped her. “That’s the dean of the chemistry department’s house. He’s a total asshole! That’s amazing! We...have to go right now. How do we do that?”

Tasmyn was done talking about her husband, and thankful so was Morgan. “I like them because they’re more personal than random jewelry. Often engraved and with pictures inside. I don’t know if you know this about us spriggans… but we tend to fixate and steal specific things.” She was admiring the target house when she let out a soft excited gasp at Morgans statement. “Juicy!! Do you hate him? Silly, of course you must if he’s an asshole. Oh I’m so excited! Okay! Let’s head on out!” She turned on her heels and retreated back into her house and pulled out a bag from a hall closet. “I got all the tools right here! Plus snacks. He’s out of town for the weekend with his family, so the place is already totally empty. I know the neighbor who’s watching their dog and managed to make a copy of the spare key. Shit… I wrote the code down for the alarm somewhere…” As she fumbled through the bag she found and pulled out a crumpled piece of paper. “Got it!”

“Fixate? Like...how? Sorry, I don’t actually know much about spriggans. Or any specific fae species besides what Deirdre is,” Morgan said. “But I’d like to learn more.” She broke into a reluctant smile at Tasmyn’s prodding, fighting back laughs.”Hate is maybe a strong word for how little of my daily headspace he occupies but...you’re not...wrong? I mean, he’s just so pompous, overly self-assured, shallow, elitist, sexist…” It seemed like the list kept going on even as they gathered their supplies. Tasmyn seemed to have a real system going on here. “Snacks?” She echoed. “Is that traditional for robberies? I’ve never done one before.” Shoplifting, to Morgan’s mind, was different. It was more about things going out than anything going in. No one suspected you of being in the wrong place, just of your purse maybe looking different on the way out. ” She reached for the keycode paper and tucked it into her pocket. Tasmyn seemed okay, but the last thing they needed were mushrooms making Tasmyn forgetful. “Just for safekeeping, if that’s okay,” she assured. She reached into the bag for a balaclava, twirling it around her finger. If she was gonna do this thing, she may as well go all the way.

“Spriggans like to take things! Any things, really. But many of us have a favorite thing to steal! Mine is engraved lockets. My mother liked fancy hair pins and my father liked shoelaces. We also love to cover ourselves in green tattoos! I could show you one day, but not today. We have work to do.” Tasmyn found it quite freeing to openly talk about her culture with Morgan. Mostly because she was really nice, and never seemed to openly judge her. Plus! She was so willing to go out on this robbery before she even knew they were targeting the man she hated. And boy did she have so many good reasons for hating him. “Of course snacks. Last thing you want is a hungry belly distracting you!” She zipped up her bag and threw it over her shoulder as she stood up. “Sure. Just don’t lose it.” As she flattened her shirt out, she looked up at Morgan. “Okay! Ready to go? I figure we should just go on foot since it’s not weird for me to be walking around the neighborhood and having a car in the driveway might draw too much attention.”

Morgan took one of the candy bars Tasmyn had offered out of politeness and chewed thoughtfully. Still tasted like nothing, but the blend of texture was at least a nice change-up. It was pretty generous for a lady with mushroom for brains. Morgan couldn’t help but feel endeared to her, even if this wasn’t the regular, everyday Tasmyn. She was generous, and the mischief she had her heart set on was hardly violent. “That sounds good, Taz,” she said, her brightness only a little forced. “I think an evening walk would be really great.”

The yellow house was further away than it looked. In the dark, Morgan lost track of just how long they’d been walking, just how much of the yellow siding on the cape-cod style mansion was in sight. Morgan had more questions she was itching to fill the time with, like why lockets, really? Surely there was more to it than that, right? And what did she do with them? Morgan managed to murmur, “So, you’re okay with the mushrooms and stuff? You like being this way?” As they finally neared the house, mostly because it meant the conversation could be short if she didn't like it. To call the building a house was a little grotesquely modest. It towered three stories high in grotesque rebellion against the rustic, simple style of the aesthetic. It reminded Morgan of those yellow popsicles you could get off the ice cream truck that were supposed to taste like banana but mostly tasted like sugar water. Morgan traipsed off the street and into the tall, delicately reedy grass to come up to it from the side. “So, how do you usually get into these places?”

As they walked in silence towards her neighbors house, Tasmyn’s head was racing with thoughts. They weren’t particularly liniar and largely incoherent, but that happened around mushroom season. That’s sort of why Morgan’s question caught her off guard. The question felt loaded, and she couldn’t help but think this must have something to do with Deirdre. After all, Morgan was incapable of truly enjoying the bliss of the mushrooms like her girlfriend could. “I do. It’s… well, it's a nice way to escape for a little while. My dreams are better when the mushrooms are in town. I’m not as anxious all the time. And I know, humans tend to equate it to the dumb human drugs you all have. But I’ve been around for quite some time, I know how to handle my mushrooms.” As she finished talking Tasmyn realized that they had just rounded the street and the house was now in view. There was a slight nonchalant shrug before she responded, “Well, if I don’t have the connections for keys and alarm codes, I just go old-fashioned. Pick a lock, jimmy a window, cut the power.” Tasmyn began to walk up to the house, she fumbled around in her bag and her pockets for a moment before she pulled the key out. “But, we lucked out with this one. Much easier to do with a key.”

“Around for how long?” Morgan asked, eyebrow quirked. “Or is that not polite to ask a lady?” It was strange to think of Tasmyn as being a hundred or even sixty years old. Even with what she knew of how long Banshees could live, knowing vaguely what kinds of shadows Tasmyn was running from, she didn’t seem as old as all that. She thought about the mushroom dreams, and of how she and her Mushroom girlfriend curled around each other at night in spite of all the back and forth and misunderstandings. Was she happy while she slept? Did she at least feel like she was loved then? Morgan wasn’t sure how cozy she wanted the mushroom to be in her real girlfriend’s life, or what it meant that Tasmyn seemed...almost normal, for a fae.

She followed Tasmyn to the door, impressed that she already had a key picked out and ready to go. The door opened for them as if they belonged and she stepped inside. “Geez, aren’t you impressive,” she smirked. Everything in the front rooms was shiny as a magazine, even in the dark. The outline of her shadow glistened on the polished floors. Morgan eyed the antique knick knacks, the glossy vases done up in “exotic” styles, the fancy kitchenware she’d only seen on TV. It was stupid to be jealous with all the resources she had now, but she still burned to see all of this stuff being sat on by this guy who only cared about his research and his status. “You know, I can kind of see the appeal of this…” She ghosted her finger around the curve of a copper plate. It could be hers, if she wanted. She only had to touch it, stick it in a bag. No bargains, no price, just some mild re-distribution of someone else’s wealth. Funny, it wasn’t that hard to make sense of after all. “So, where do we start?”

A small laugh escaped Tasmyn’s lips at the question. “Oh, spriggans aren’t like some fae. We live for just about as long as humans do. Theres rumors of some elder spriggans who lived to be 100, but most of us only live for about 80 years or so. I’ll be 49 this year.” Some people that she had gotten close to in her life had questioned why she never seemed to turn her back on spriggan culture despite the fact that, arguably, it is the reason for so much of her pain. The answer was simpler than most people would expect. It was the only identity she’d ever known. And growing up, when she was within the safe walls of the colony, she was happy. It wasn’t their fault that she wasn’t born with wings. She wasn’t going to let the actions of a few dictate her feelings for the many.

“Well, we start with you pulling out that alarm code you kept safe and putting that into the little box on the wall.” She instructed with a simple wave of her had towards where she had spotted the alarm system on the wall in the foyer. Her eyes danced around the house that was sprawled out in front of them. Man they could really have a field day here, huh? “Wait! First, put these on.” Tasmyn reached into the bag and tossed a pair of black gloves at Morgan, then slipped an identical pair onto her hands. “Can never be too careful. Or that’s what my dad always said.” Jewelry would be upstairs. Toasters would be in the kitchen. “Now, split up and grab whatever you like!” Tasmyn encouraged as she took off up the stairs looking for the master bedroom. People rarely took their best pieces of jewelry on vacation, which meant there had to be a jewelry box somewhere. As she rooted around upstairs, she found some really wonderful items. A ruby ring, some diamond earrings, a weird broach that looked vaguely like a bird.

After a while of grabbing random items that caught her eye, she heard the sound of a garage door opening. Was Morgan in the garage? No, that seemed unlikely. Tasmyn ran back downstairs, checking in the upstairs rooms to see if Morgan had come up there. Once she got back to the ground floor, she whisper-yelled, “Morgan?? Are you in the garage? Did you hear that noise or was it in my head?”

For some reason, Morgan hadn’t imagined that there were any fae that lived to be less than a hundred without Warden or accidental intervention. A sad pang rumbled in her stomach; even if she and Taz stayed friends, it wouldn’t be for very long, in the grand scheme of things. Then again, most of her friends wouldn’t. Whatever good moments (even strange moments) she had now were going to have to be jarred and preserved against the centuries she hoped would follow. Morgan snapped on the gloves and put in the alarm code, smiling sheepishly at her mistake. “..Sorry,” she said. But Tasmyn didn’t seem very bothered. She disappeared upstairs, smiling with glee, and left Morgan to her own devices.

Four collectible books, three toasters, two wool designer coats, and one very chic fountain pen later, Morgan was starting to feel like she could adapt to this whole thievery thing if the circumstances ever called for it. Then headlights flashed past the window. The garage door made a clicking sound, then an angry, mechanical buzz as it groaned to life.

“Shit. Taz—!” Morgan scampered to the stairs and grabbed the fae by the hand. “Definitely not your head!” She hissed. “What do we DO?”

The garage turned silent. Morgan froze where she stood. Car doors clapped open and shut. The garage door buzzed again. The family was in for the night.

Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit…

“We need to get out of here.” She bolted for the back patio (there had to be a back patio), still clutching her fae friend. There were muffled murmurs in the garage, bickering or fighting, she couldn’t tell, either way could potentially pose a problem. Morgan wrestled with the glass door, too panicked to work out the simple lock on the first or third try, but on the fourth it ripped open with a shrill rattle.

“Honey, did you hear that?”

Morgan stumbled out to the patio. A stream of lights flashed on, strong LEDs that might as well have said INTRUDERS THIS WAY. Morgan yelped, much too loud, and fell backwards over the side of the railing.

Tasmyn could see the panic in Morgan’s eyes and it reminded her why she generally preferred to steal alone, or at least with someone experienced. Almost getting caught was normal in these types of situations. After all, that’s what part of the fun is. But she could tell that Morgan did not find this to be any fun. That made her feel bad. She wanted this to be an enjoyable experience and she had Intel that suggested the family would not be home this evening. But plans change, as they always do, which is why it is so important to be adaptable if you’re going to be a thief. And Tasmyn was very adaptable.“What do we do? We leave. Now!” Without missing a beat, she ran to the rear of the house with Morgan, looking for a back exit. Of course there was one, nearly every house on this road had a balcony. Or more than one. Given that she was the one still a bit higher mushrooms, she was surprised to see that Morgan was the less graceful of the two. Sure, the back porch lights were a bit of a surprise, but tons of things can set those off not just to cat burglar‘s fleeing the scene of a crime. Once outside, she quickly ran over to where Morgan had fallen. Grasping her shoulders with both hands, Tasmyn looked into her eyes and said, “Hey! Listen, you got to get it together okay? We’re gonna be fine. Just gotta listen to me And it will be fine. Got it?“ She didn’t really have a plan… but she was quick on her feet.

Tasmyn looked around at where they were trying to figure out what the quickest way back to her place was. Sure, they could run through the backyards of a few of her neighbors but if people noticed that would be rather suspicious. They could just quietly make their way out onto the main street, after all this was her neighborhood too. She was allowed to go on walks late at night with her friends, nobody really had to know about the stolen items in their possession. “Do you trust me?” Before even waiting for the answer, she grabbed Morgan by the arm and begin to pull her along as she made her way out to the Main Street. “ chances are they don’t even realize anything is missing this evening. That’s why you can’t take the big items, like the TV. They’ll notice that really quickly. Toaster? Won’t notice that until they try to make a bagel in the morning.“ Once out on the street she could still hear the remnants of the couples argument. They were clearly preoccupied. So the two women were able to quietly make their way back down the street towards where Tasmyn lived.

#wickedswriting #chatzy #morgan #chatzy:morgan #Clepto-faenia

7 notes · View notes