Finch strides through the busy strides, hands in his pockets, half-keeping an eye out for easy targets and half-enjoying the beating sun on his pale face. Since arriving back in Torchline, he had thrown his energy enthusiastically on the pursuit of the three caches Jack had pointed him towards, fingers itching to delve into locks and coax them open. He had planned and schemed and scribbled out little notes on the hand drawn map Jack gave him, but it turns out his stashes are just as tricky as he and it’ll require a little more planning in order to reach them. After three days straight in his little hole in the wall he had converted into a home, he vowed he needed sun and some enrichment.
What better way to enrich oneself by pickpocketing?
On the beach, sunbathers and visitors are stretched out languidly enjoying the day. There’s always someone running sort of scam here, usually amateurs and desperates, which makes it quite easy for Finch’s professional fingers to slide lithely in and out of pockets and bags. Some little boy was wretching theatrically, gagging and spitting while his eyes darted around, crying some garbled words about hel meat and practically begging to be a distraction. Alright then, if that was the distraction, then where was…?
Finch felt the ghost of little fingers digging into his pocket and for a moment, he thinks of him and Lark, on this same beach, sticking clumsy hands in distracted pockets and making away by bandits. His body reacts before his mind does, snatching the little hand out of his pocket and hauling the boy up until his feet are just barely kicking above the sandy floor.
The boy is skinny, easy to lift and a little sticky. He’s the spitting image of the one who was now likely genuinely hunched over in real stomach pain if his facial expressions were anything to go off of, and Finch slots the scheme together quickly in his deft, thieving mind.
“Your distraction wasn’t very good,” he grins, flicking the little pickpocket’s nose with his forefinger and thumb. “No one wants to see throw-up while they’re sunbathing. They’ll move faster just to get away from the potential smell.”
What better way to enrich oneself by pickpocketing?
On the beach, sunbathers and visitors are stretched out languidly enjoying the day. There’s always someone running sort of scam here, usually amateurs and desperates, which makes it quite easy for Finch’s professional fingers to slide lithely in and out of pockets and bags. Some little boy was wretching theatrically, gagging and spitting while his eyes darted around, crying some garbled words about hel meat and practically begging to be a distraction. Alright then, if that was the distraction, then where was…?
Finch felt the ghost of little fingers digging into his pocket and for a moment, he thinks of him and Lark, on this same beach, sticking clumsy hands in distracted pockets and making away by bandits. His body reacts before his mind does, snatching the little hand out of his pocket and hauling the boy up until his feet are just barely kicking above the sandy floor.
The boy is skinny, easy to lift and a little sticky. He’s the spitting image of the one who was now likely genuinely hunched over in real stomach pain if his facial expressions were anything to go off of, and Finch slots the scheme together quickly in his deft, thieving mind.
“Your distraction wasn’t very good,” he grins, flicking the little pickpocket’s nose with his forefinger and thumb. “No one wants to see throw-up while they’re sunbathing. They’ll move faster just to get away from the potential smell.”
