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One: Larabie Jenkins will not leave her alone.
It starts when Jenkins catches her untangling her hair one day (Piece does not care what he claims he saw, she was not braiding her hair), an innocuous if embarrassing incident, but it somehow leads him to believe she’s an authority on hair ornaments. Then he starts bringing her swatches of cloth and ribbon, asking how she would pair them and what colors would work best. Piece learns quickly to just throw them into any sort of order rather than insist she doesn’t know how or care.
And not long after they get paired on missions, Jenkins starts to comment on clothing as they work. Piece suspects half of it is meant to provoke her response, such as his lavish praise of a floral motif on velvet, or a Tyvian collar with Karnacan sleeves. On missions like those Piece maintains composure with gracious silence and beats training dummies to splinters after she submits her report.
(You never put Tyvian collars with Karnacan sleeves. Idiot.)
Eventually one day Jenkins plops into the chair across from her at breakfast and gives her a winning grin. “Piece! I’ve been working on a few sketches and I’d like you have a look, tell me what you think.”
“Morningtide, Jenkins,” says Piece politely, then gives him one of Rulfio’s frowns over her oatmeal. “I know what you are doing. You are trying to coerce me into joining your pursuit of high fashion. It’s not going to work.”
He jerks back as if shocked. “No I’m not! You’ve got a good eye for these things. I just want your opinion. Just one look, Piece. Pleeeease?”
He puts so much stock in her opinion on these matters, even though she doesn’t have one. Piece feels the sudden and guilty need to continue the lie, the same way some parents can’t bear to tell their children that the Whitecliff Rabbit isn’t real. “Okay,” she mumbles into her bowl. “Just let me finish. Won’t be long.”
The smile Jenkins gives her is so bright his teeth may as well have been sunshine. They wind up sitting on a rooftop overlooking the Wrenhaven, Piece curious at how tightly Jenkins is clutching the sketchbook in his hands.
“Okay Piece, this is serious. This—” he thrusts the book forward “—is the super secret sketchbook that I don’t show anyone and it’s only this much less secret than the really secret sketchbook which means I’m entrusting you with something very important—”
“Jenkins,” says Piece, swiveling in her seat to face him with proper respect, “I swear by Void and sea I will not break your trust.”
He beams. “Okay. Good. So anyway—” Jenkins flips the book open to a marked page. “What do you think, is the cerulean too much?”
Piece almost doesn’t hear him. She suddenly can’t speak. She’s dimly aware that she’s gaping and her face has gone pink but…
She could be looking through a window at Madame Grayling’s. The fabric is so finely rendered, the drape so impossibly right. She’s almost afraid to touch the velvet because she knows it’s just paper, and there’s cotton and silk and tulle all next to each other on the same page. And it's nothing but pigments and inks and it all looks so real and—
—Jenkins drew these? With flesh and blood hands? Piece drags her gaze from the book to his face as if viewing some impossible creature. She almost wants to reach out and touch him, just to assure herself he is real. Her silence has made him nervous, and he says hesitantly, “Well…?”
All that falls out of Piece’s mouth is, “You can’t put rose embroidery with cerulean. It should be camellias.”
Jenkins blinks. Looks at the book, back to her. Back at the book, back to her. Then his face splits in a grin. “Outsider’s eyes you’re right. You’re absolutely right. You wanna look over a few others for me? Just in case I made similar mistakes?”
In Jenkins’ sketchbooks the Outsider dwells, Piece thinks numbly. This must be what slipping into heresy feels like.
“I-I guess I c-could…look at a few more…”
-
Two: Piece will not stop following him.
Jenkins doesn’t notice it at first because he just assumes she’s glad to finally have someone in the base who understands the difference between Wynnedown and Alban trim, but then things start happening in and out of missions. Tins of mustache balm appear in his locker. His blanket remains remarkably not stolen through the colder nights of the month. Watchmen and Overseers disappear from his scouting missions, and the one time a Hatter catches him by the docks, a large hagfish comes flying out of nowhere to knock the man into the Wrenhaven.
“It’s Piece,” says Smith, partway through a story about Jenkins going through a manor only to find all the guards piled unconscious in one room. “At least, I’m fairly certain it’s Piece. I’ve never been able to prove it.”
“What? She does it to you too?”
Smith inclines his head and frowns thoughtfully. “I believe she is under the impression that it’s how you make friends.” He looks at Jenkins. “Talk to her. Maybe it will help.”
Jenkins wavers on the decision (he really does like the mustache balm) until a disturbingly well-tailored shirt turns up in his locker.
“Stop stalking me,” he tells Piece on patrol that day. “It’s creepy.”
Piece wilts, gaze dropping to the walkway, and twists her left pinky. “I’ve offended you. The shirt offended you.”
“It’s not the shirt, I—well, actually, how did you know I wanted it?”
“…the way you looked at the staff in Brimsley manor,” Piece mumbles, twisting harder. “I’m a face-stealer, Jenkins. Good at knowing people.”
“That doesn’t explain how you know my size.”
“Face-stealer,” Piece repeats, now so shrunken in on herself she's lost a good portion of her height. “Been one since I was six. Gauging bodies was almost the first lesson.”
“Okay, well…” Jenkins fumbles. “You don’t have to. Give me things or…follow me around. It’s really okay.”
“But I should,” she says, looking now at his boots. “You don’t execute your ideas well.”
“I don’t—?” He stares. “What do you mean I don’t execute my ideas well?”
Piece shuffles on her feet, then straightens and clasps her hands behind her back. Her tone becomes formal, business-like. “You have good ideas: theatrical, demonstrative. But you have no discipline or rigor. Your plans lack the proper scope of detail. You leave too much open to error and provide no failsafes. This is why your missions tend towards trouble.” She looks down again and goes back to twisting her pinky. “Not saying you’re stupid,” Piece mumbles after a moment. “Just that your talents don’t lie in planning. But the danger you put yourself in is real. So I follow you.”
Jenkins blinks at her for a moment. Then his mouth spreads in a smile. “So you’re basically telling me you’ve been my bodyguard this whole time?”
“I—...a-after a fashion, I guess.”
“You know you could just ask Rulfio to be put on missions with me, right?”
Piece draws back without looking at him, wringing her hands. “…didn’t think you would like me around.”
“Are you kidding? You’re a powerhouse!” Jenkins slaps her heartily on the shoulder, and Piece offers him an anxious smile. “In fact, you’re coming on my next one. I have to—”
“I know.” She shifts embarrassedly on her feet. “Already read the intel. Assassination. Elias Baker.”
“Oh. Well, there you go. I guess you heard me telling Valenti how I was thinking of doing it?”
Piece nods. “Bad plan. The ceiling has no vantage points, and it’s too thick to drill. Better to face-steal and go in from the ground.” She tips her head. “Will have to be you killing him. Your mission, and I will provide better cover if the Watch comes in.”
Jenkins’ heart sinks. “I’m no good at close-quarters, Piece.”
“Know that.” Piece smiles, shy and pleased and leftwards. “Which is why you’ll be shooting him with a confetti cannon. All you need to do is aim in his general direction.”
Jenkins gapes at her for a moment, then claps her on the shoulders. “You had me at confetti cannon. Where do we start?”
-
Three: Jenkins is homoerotic.
They take turns choosing the play, and sneak into the theater when they can to watch from the rafters. Jenkins leans towards tales of wild adventure while Piece favors war epics, so it’s usually easy to find something that suits both their interests. Their dislikes, too, fall along similar lines; both are baffled by opera and doubtful of romances. Both are also wary of Serkonan tragedies after their first foray into the genre, where they wound up clutching each other in tears during the final act and nearly got caught weeping on the audience.
The first romance they see is entirely by accident; the play Jenkins had chosen was cancelled at the last minute due to one of the leads falling ill, and the theater had elected to show The Young Prince of Tyvia instead.
“I guess it could be interesting,” says Jenkins, after Piece reads him the play’s synopsis. “I had to scope out Boyle manor last month. They’re not going to perform it in Tyvian, are they?”
“The play was commissioned by one of the Boyle’s rival houses. A Dunwall work. Even if they did translate it into Tyvian, I could translate back for you.” Piece tugs thoughtfully at her pigtail. “Half the literature I read growing up was Tyvian. I wouldn’t mind seeing how different this is.”
“Romance though, and it sounds like the whole thing happens inside Boyle manor. No fight scenes or real drama. I don’t know.”
Piece scratches her head. “We could go to another theater.”
In the end, unwilling to cross several districts for another performance or return to the base, Jenkins elects for them to stay, and they settle themselves in their usual spots above the audience as the lights dim.
Piece is disappointed by the entire affair almost at once—it’s nothing but the usual stereotypes propped up by flowery language—and Jenkins too, seems bored, until partway into the first act, when Prince Kallisarr approaches Lord Boyle. Piece finds herself rolling her eyes hard enough to go blind, and turns to Jenkins to signal she’s leaving.
That’s when she catches the look on his face.
His cheeks are flushed, lips parted, eyes bright. He’s also leaning a bit too far out on the rafter for Piece’s comfort. She’s reached out to pull him back when he whispers, “I’m gonna get closer,” and blinks to a rafter above the front row, just as Kallisarr presses a lingering kiss to Lord Boyle’s lips.
Piece tips her head at Jenkins’ silhouette, pondering his sudden interest—and then it clicks.
She should probably make sure he doesn’t get too engrossed. It’s a long fall down.
Piece gets up, careful not to shower dust, and makes her way to join him.
-
Four: Piece has a sweet tooth.
They’re in a bakery to get flour as a surprise present for Smith, and Piece is flitting from rack to rack of pastries with a child’s flushed eagerness, piling her tray high with an assortment that makes Jenkins’ jaw ache.
“Are you really gonna eat all of that?”
“Of course not. Bringing some back for everybody.” Piece sets her tray down on the counter and goes for a second. “Tyros likes the cream puffs and Rulfio likes the peach tarts. Do you know if Daud eats sweets?”
“I think he’d shrivel up and die if he ate one,” says Jenkins honestly, and watches with worry as Piece takes another tray. He knows she brought a heavy pouch of coin “just for this mission, and a cheering-up present for teacher Smith,” but at this rate she’s going to buy the entire shop.
He’s slipping an apple tart into his sleeve when Piece slaps down his hand and plonks the tart on her tray. “No.”
“What do you mean no?” Jenkins whispers. “You steal stuff from the market all the time!”
“You can’t steal pastries,” Piece hisses back, cheeks bright pink. “Pastries are special. What if everyone stole pastries, hn? Bakeries would stop making them. Then there won’t be any more.”
Jenkins stares, then slowly raises his hands. “Okay. Gotcha.”
Piece turns away, face going back to its normal color, and places their selection on the counter. “I would also like four pounds of flour,” she says to the woman there. “May I have it bound with ribbon? It’s a gift for my baking teacher.”
The woman smiles warmly. “Certainly my dear! What sort of flour would you like?”
Piece goes blank. “Sort?”
“We have bleached and unbleached, self-raising, plain, whole wheat, potato, rye, almond—”
Piece’s expression is identical to the one Jenkins has seen on some targets just before Reynolds kills them. The woman notices.
“Do you know what recipes your instructor prefers? I could help you choose based on that.”
Piece doesn’t move.
“Or perhaps you could select whichever strikes your fancy, and I can provide a list of recipes that would suit it.”
Piece still doesn’t move. Jenkins reaches over and tugs at her sleeve. “Sorry about my sister, ma’am, she’s a little—”
“Four pounds,” says Piece.
The woman blinks. “Yes dear, but of—”
“Everything. Four pounds of everything.” Piece’s knuckles are white on the edge of the counter. “And color-coded with ribbons, please.”
Jenkins sometimes jokes that Piece is the strongest Whaler. That day, he believes it.
-
Five: Jenkins cannot cook.
The day Piece discovers this is also the third and last day Jenkins cooks for the Whalers.
It happens sometime after Jenkins puts salt in Reynolds’ coffee, and sallies back to the kitchen merrily ignoring Piece’s mumbled convictions that he really should not have done that.
“He is going to be angry,” says Piece unhappily. “And then he will try to hurt you, and I will have to punch him. I don’t want to punch Reynolds. He calls me gal.”
“Oh pssh.” Jenkins peers into the soup bubbling on the stove, turns the heat higher, and shakes in several cans of jellied eels. “He’s not going to be angry-angry, not for something like this. You haven’t been here that long yet, it takes a while to read him properly.”
“I’ve watched him,” says Piece, keeping a wary eye on the doorway while Jenkins sprinkles various ingredients into the pot and stirs. “You should have waited until after the second cup of coffee or the first cup of whiskey. He’s going to get angry.”
Jenkins pauses and turns from the stove. “You think so?”
“I’m a face-stealer. I know so.”
The pot glops unpleasantly. Jenkins squints at her. “When you say you’ve watched him, just how closely have you watched him?”
“I’ve slept under his bed.”
“What?”
“I’ve slept under everyone’s beds, Jenkins,” says Piece flatly. “It lets me learn them. I did it in my first month here.”
Jenkins gapes like a fish. “Mine too?”
Piece just slouches into his posture, expression and stance all perfectly his, matching his breath and blinking without the slightest effort. He jerks back in shock; she grins his grin. “Sure did,” Piece chirps in his voice, and Jenkins jumps again.
“Outsider’s balls that is creepy. So you can do that with anyone?”
“Anyone anything anytime,” says Piece-as-Jenkins, then frowns as herself at the stove. “That doesn’t smell right.”
Jenkins gives the pot a dismissive wave. “Eels always smell funny when you first cook them. What’s important here is, did you sleep under Daud’s bed?”
Piece is about to tell him of course when the soup bursts into flames.
“Oh man I was really hoping that wouldn’t happen,” says Jenkins, going for the pot lid. “Don’t worry, I know how to—”
The pot rumbles like a gutted whale, then spews flaming chunks of eel all over the kitchen.
“Outsider’s piss—!”
Piece tackles Jenkins aside as the pot vomits more fire, then seizes the belching thing by the handle and throws it out the window. She helps Jenkins up and is peeling a smoking eel head from the back of her coat when—
“Where are you, you little mustached git?”
Ah. Reynolds found the salt in his coffee.
Jenkins bolts as the other Whaler blinks into the kitchen and lunges to put him in a headlock; at the same time, Piece leaps between them to try and stop the confrontation. This results in Reynolds crushing Piece chest-first to his front and discovering, to his confusion and then immediate embarrassment, that Piece is, in fact, a young woman; as Reynolds mutters a quick apology and sets her aside, Jenkins slips on a chunk of flaming jelly and nearly gives himself a concussion.
The two men end up chasing each other around the dining table while Piece blinks mutely and wonders why Reynolds just patted her hastily on the head, and Jenkins discovers by the Void, you can use icing sugar as a weapon, so long as you throw it in bagged form at Reynolds’ face.
When Smith and Tyros find them four minutes later, Piece has hidden under the table, Reynolds is flinging cutlery and obscenities from behind an upended counter as Jenkins returns fire with baking supplies, while chunks of jellied eel explode on every surface in time to the stove belching smoke in the back.
Smith bans Reynolds from the kitchen for six months and Jenkins for life. Tyros spends half an hour coaxing Piece out with candied citrus peels.
-
Six: Piece is either the bravest or most insane person Jenkins has ever known.
“You are telling me,” says Daud, in a voice that precedes slit throats, “that it all went according to plan.”
“Yes Daud,” says Piece, perfectly polite and without inflection, left fingers laced over right knuckleduster, body planted pointedly between him and Jenkins. For his part Jenkins is just glad Piece has the one inch of height to shield him from their boss. “In those words exactly.”
“Is that so.” Daud turns the first page of her report. “It was in your plan, then, for Jenkins to shoot the Overseer patrol at the gate, thereby raising panic and implicating us in an assassination that was strictly designated to be subtle.”
“Yes Daud.”
“And it was your plan for the gates to close and the Abbey to rally, and for Jenkins to implicate us further by lingering in broad daylight to steal the grenades of the men he just killed.”
“Yes Daud.”
Daud glares. Piece just looks straight through him. Jenkins wonders who rendered her so fantastically unfazed by Daud’s expressions. “So,” Daud says, when no explanation is forthcoming, “rather than have Jenkins find a vantage point and take Willows out with the wristbow, you have him detonate his grenades—”
“He had to,” says Piece. “Otherwise he could not use his wristbow without guarding himself against a close-quarter attack. Improper use of a projectile weapon. I was reprimanded for implementing it in a mission three months back.”
Silence. Then Daud narrows his eyes. “Yes. Though if I remember correctly, that was actually an unequivocal order to never again use a confetti cannon after assassinating a target with said confetti cannon.”
Piece’s face remains emptier than a statue’s.
Daud turns back to her report. “To continue: Jenkins detonated his grenades, blowing open the gates.”
“Yes Daud.”
“Which of course attracted the attention of a nearby Watch patrol, resulting in Jenkins attempting to assassinate the target while a tallboy lit up half the Abbey garrison.”
“Yes Daud.”
If meaningful silences could kill, Piece would have been reduced to compost. “You were asked to plan this mission because of your theatrical skill and undeniable record of success. You were told this was a job that required subtlety, and yet you’ve implicated our involvement and achieved the target’s death only by a fortuitously placed tallboy bolt.” Daud levels a cold stare. “How exactly did this go according to plan?”
Piece blinks, the first sign of a personality since the meeting started. “Standard subtlety would not have worked; Overseers are a more paranoid target group than most. The mission required a triple bluff.” She tips her head, and Jenkins wonders how she’s not giving Daud the widest grin of her life. “I was the tallboy.”