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Dockson was out of bed before the sun could sweep away the mists. It was an old habit, still ingrained in him some twenty years on from his days on Lord Devinshae’s plantation. However, in place of prepping for a long day of intense manual labor under the sun, this granted a pocket of time for quiet, solitary hours in the morning to get things done before the rest of the crew woke and tugged his attention this way and that.
The floorboards of his drafty room creaked beneath his feet as he made a direct if slightly groggy transfer from the bed to his desk, to sit and palm open one of his many ledgers. The day’s agenda was scrawled neatly and legibly, listing the times and locations applicable to each task. He skimmed the pages, absently scratching his beard. Various duties bookended the major business of the day – a recruitment meeting down by the canal and the renting of a warehouse to store the weapons they were accumulating.
He poured over the schedule a little while longer, making amends to the notes when needed and adding details he hadn’t anticipated at the time he’d originally penned them. After working for an hour or so, he set down the planner and stretched his limbs. There was an accompanying crack of his joints that had settled into his bones with age.
With a sigh of resignation, he pulled himself out of the chair and set about readying his physical appearance for the day. This process was just as thought out and methodical as his intellectual one. He splashed his face clean with water fresh from the basin and slipped into the suit he’d finely pressed and laid out the night before. A quick comb through his hair and beard in front of the mirror left him satisfied with the put together reflection looking back, though there were other tells of his increasing years. The silvering of his hairline, the ever present crease of concern between his brows that had become a permanent line. Two years Kelsier’s senior, he sometimes felt and looked a decade older. He suspected being in proximity to the other man had aged him significantly. Something Marsh would empathize with, he was sure of it.
Tidying his surroundings came next, and he turned down the sheets of his bed and made a neat pile of worn clothing for the scullery staff to collect. When everything was suitably presentable, his feet took him out the room and on the familiar path down the hall to the adjacent suite. He nudged open the door without bothering to knock.
Relief washed over him to find Kelsier lying draped across the bed with an arm slung over his eyes. He was snoring softly and wearing clothes from the day before, though his boots and Mistcloak were strewn in a trail that led to the window.
Sometimes, when the sheets were empty, Dockson entered the room and kept vigil, anxiously waiting on a return that seemed to take an eternity. Kelsier always came back to him of course, crawling through the open window with a rueful smile, covered in blood he was quick to assure was not his own. Dockson would pull him into a bath to run a cloth over his skin, scrubbing his body clean. It was the only time he ever saw the man with nothing to say, in a near meditative trance as he watched the beads of blood roll off his arms and into the water. Dockson always wanted to ask what he was thinking in those rare moments of solemnity, and never worked up the courage to. But it was a ritual unneeded for today, and reassured, he folded the Mistcloak carefully and placed the discarded boots on top of it before closing the door behind him.
Where the upper floors were deserted, the ground level was alive and already swarming with activity pouring in and out of the central kitchen area. In the throng of movement, he caught sight of a stern woman barking orders at the passing apprentices, intensely dicing food with a knife as she did so.
“Morning, Costa.”
The older woman softened and smiled in greeting, creasing her face genially in his direction. “Good morning, Master Dockson. There’s a warm tray for you on the table.”
“Thank you,” he replied. “How are you doing on supplies?”
He spent the next twenty minutes dodging both the bustling staff and Costa’s enthusiastic knife as he followed her around, jotting down amounts of barley, vegetables, and other commonly used foodstuff she required to keep a functioning kitchen. By the time he was done, his breakfast had cooled, but he made no comment and stole away to a table in the corner of the main room.
Seated, he reached into his breast pocket and donned his spectacles to account for the cost of ingredients while he ate. Never a dull moment to be sure. But he preferred it that way. Dockson’s stress levels in fact increased when there was no work to be done, nothing to occupy his mind or bide his time with. He needed the productivity to feel at ease.
He’d scarcely made a dent in meal or page when Clubs’s nephew entered the room, balancing a tray precariously on his arm. He was followed closely by Breeze who sidestepped him and forwent the row of empty tables in favor of Dockson’s sole occupied one.
Breeze waved the boy over with his cane. “Right here, lad.”
Lestibournes obliged and set down Breeze’s amply filled tray, supporting both a plate and glass, filled to the brim with a liquid of a deep mahogany color.
“You’re up earlier than usual,” Dockson remarked, tucking his spectacles away as Breeze took the seat beside him. “Is that wine? Already?”
Breeze unfurled a handkerchief from his pocket and slipped it under his chin before taking his fork in hand. “Yes, well, I knew you had some little task to dole out and I didn’t want you pounding on my door like an Obligator come to haul me away.”
Dockson crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair with an amused smile, watching the other man tuck into his meal. “So you do listen when I tell you these things. That’s news to me.”
“Droll wit doesn’t suit you, my good man. Leave that to your better half. Oh, you can go now Clubs Junior. That will be all.”
Dockson nodded to the boy as he made his rather hasty departure, feeling a pang of sympathy he knew was mostly unwarranted. There were worse places for a scrawny, uncoordinated teenager in the Skaa underground, and it wasn’t with the likes of Kelsier’s crew. Even if Breeze could get a bit…carried away.
“I’ll stick to business then,” Dockson said. He stacked his array of papers neatly in front of him in emphasis. “I’m working on acquiring a deed for a warehouse in the Industrial District to house our armaments, but the lessor is dragging his feet. I need you to pay him a call to ease any misgivings he might have. I’d like to get this done by the end of the week, if that’s possible.”
Breeze delicately patted at his mouth with the corner of his kerchief. “Please, I’ll have the papers for you to forge by supper. So long as you supply me with a suitable amount of brass.”
“You’ll find a pouch of it already in your coat, along with the funds to move the process along smoothly.”
“My dear man,” Breeze said. “What would any of us do without you?”
“Sit around all day and drink, I’d imagine,” Dockson replied dryly.
Breeze raised his glass to toast his words. “Hear, hear!”
Dockson whiled away the rest of the morning with the usual tasks that occupied his days of late. Letters and ledgers and routine inspections of the crew and staff to keep them in sync and on schedule. Little of what he did was flashy, acknowledged, or appreciated. And that was fine by him, so long as it got done.
Kelsier decided to bestow his presence well into the afternoon, taking the steps two at a time with his usual affable nonchalance. He was in a fresh set of clothes, and his hair was damp and curling slightly at the ends.
Dockson ducked his head to hide a smile in a concentrated effort not to look too entirely pleased to see him. If the Survivor of Hathsin wanted a benevolent greeting, he should have dragged himself out of bed before lunch.
“Good morning, crew,” he said brightly when he spotted Dockson, the room’s sole occupant.
“It’s a quarter to three, Kell. And I’m the only one here,” Dockson said with a disparaging look one might give a cat who’d taken a claw to a favorite pair of shoes.
“Mere technicalities.”
“I’m not arguing this. You have a recruitment meeting in The Cracks with the canal workers in an hour. Breeze is busy making good on our warehouse deal, but a team of his soothers will be there to assist you.”
“Alright.” Kelsier strode over to gently touch his elbow and skim the work he’d laid out from over his shoulder. The smile this notion evoked, Dockson could not hide. There was little here that would be of interest, or even make sense to the crew leader, but the intent of his acknowledgement was appreciated. Kelsier hooked a nearby chair with his foot, pulling it by the ankle, and then sat astride it backwards. “Give me a rundown of everyone else.”
Dockson took a second to recount the whereabouts of the other crew members, drumming his fingers against the table. “Ham is still off with Yeden, settling arrangements with the few defectors that have signed on to train the recruits. What else…Vin should make her return to Fellise tomorrow morning. Any longer away and her absence won’t go unnoticed by the Renoux mansion staff. Last I knew, she was running through dining etiquette with Sazed.”
There was a scuffling sound behind them, and they both turned in time to watch Vin slide into the room as though she’d been waiting for her cue - no doubt, listening at the door. Dockson had caught her several times lurking outside of meetings she’d been excluded from, dark eyes peeking through the sliver of light (and presumably burning tin).
“Kelsier, you’re awake!” she exclaimed. Dockson raised an eyebrow. That was a display of energy that was rarely seen in the typically aloof girl - but he knew more than anybody that Kelsier could have that effect on people.
Dockson clucked his tongue against the roof of his mouth, and shared a dry look with his old friend. “Nevermind.”
“At least somebody’s happy to see me,” Kelsier returned.
“Sazed had some Keeper errands to run before we return to Fellise,” Vin said, “so he gave me the rest of the day off.”
Kelsier folded his arms in front of his chair. “Did he now? That’s generous of him.”
Dockson could tell where this was going, and he decided to head it off before Kelsier could exacerbate the poor girl’s hopes. There wouldn’t be any room for clandestine rooftop training tonight, not if Vin was going to arrive at a suitable time to Fellise in the morning. Besides, he needed Kelsier focused on the meeting that evening, and reigning him in was always a monumental task in and of itself.
He reached over and passed a piece of parchment into Kelsier’s grip with a pointed look. “The carriage is waiting for you in the side alley. I’ve written you a list of points of contention with the canal workers that you can capitalize on to win them over,” Dockson said in a low voice.
Vin, it seemed, didn’t miss the exchange. And how could she, with veritable eavesdropping powers at her disposal. Mistborn…
She visibly deflated. “Oh. You’re leaving?”
Well, that was suitably pitiful. She might as well have rioted their emotions for all the sway Dockson knew that kind of reaction would have on Kelsier, and when he looked at the man, he could see those brilliant, mad wheels turning inside that coiffed head of his.
“Wait a second, Dox,” Kelsier said with the beginning of a dangerous smile. Dockson made a skeptical noise. “I’ve been neglecting Vin’s training this week, and I want to make it up to her. What do you two say to a little outing? In fact, let’s go right now.”
Dockson and Vin looked at him, askanced. “Now?” they asked in perfect unison.
It took Dockson a long few seconds to recover. When he did, he reached over and pressed the parchment more insistently into Kelsier’s hand. “But, the recruitment meeting-“
Kelsier took the paper and tossed it aside where it flitted back to the table. Dockson watched it go with a flat stare. “-Was going to be initiated by me anyway. We’re working off our own time, we have a little leniency. And I think our young lady here could use a bit of fun. Besides, this will give her a chance to practice being Lady Valette around people who don’t already know her as Vin, the Skaa thief. And you said it yourself,” he added, with a conspiratorial shine in his eye that Dockson never liked, “she has to go back to Fellise tomorrow. She won’t have the opportunity again.”
Vin crossed her arms in mirror of Kelsier’s posture. The way she glared down at his seated, shorter figure was enough for Dockson to find comical even in the moment. “Kelsier, you and I have very different definitions of fun,” she said.
Kelsier arched a brow. “So you’re going to turn your nose up at a couple of rich thieves throwing down boxings for any purchase of your desire?” he asked blithely.
Vin seemed to perk slightly at that kind of proposal. Dockson practically shriveled under it. He took a grounding breath. “No she’s right, spending more of our money does not sound the least bit of fun to me.”
“What a dull lot I’ve recruited into this crew of mine,” Kelsier said, dropping his head with exaggerated despair. Vin hid a smile behind her hand and Dockson heaved a long-suffering sigh. “Maybe you should both go form a new, boringer one, with my brother at the helm.”
With an agility honed in the brawling scene, Dockson rapped Kelsier lightly over the head with the papers he hadn’t tossed. “Go get your coat, you dramatic fop.”
***
It always felt like an ordeal whenever Dockson’s routine was displaced. He was a man of order, of diligent planning to mitigate any obstacles. He’d never liked surprises - not even pleasant ones. It was something he’d had to get used to as an administrator for Kelsier’s crew - each day brought new unexpected challenges he hadn’t accounted for, and tackling them was all part of the job.
But when he’d awoke in the morning, he hadn’t imagined that he’d be sitting in a carriage leisurely rolling through the commercial district when there was a mountain of tasks piling up back at the shop.
“You look queasy, Master Deltron. Getting carriage sick?” Kelsier teased from his place beside him on the seat. Dockson rolled his eyes at the alias. Kelsier always had enjoyed the theatrics of subterfuge a little too much.
He’d worn a brimmed hat on Dockson’s insistence. Not the most fashion forward accessory for traipsing about the city, but his name was spreading across the reverent lips of Skaa workers, and that western blond hair of his was a dead giveaway. Anyone else in the getup would look like someone’s strange uncle, but he made it work.
“We haven’t done this in a while,” Dockson responded, in lieu of giving into the ribbing. And the scene was once familiar, venturing out into Luthadel as a trio of thieves in disguise. Only Vin had taken Mare’s place as the noble lady among them. In the wake of the reminder, the corners of Kelsier’s ever-present smile faltered near imperceptibly. Dockson immediately regretted his words.
“You’ve known each other long, then?” Vin asked, shifting her posture to face them and unknowingly dispersing the cloud of melancholy. She sat on the opposite seat in a modest day dress, and had spent the majority of the ride picking at the ruffled seam of her skirt.
“Oh, since we were fresh faced whelps brand new to the underground,” Kelsier said conversationally, recovering quickly. He turned his head and exchanged a fond look with Dockson. “You were - what barely twenty, Dox? We met when he pulled me out of a street fight by the scruff of my neck.” He leaned forward and spoke behind his hand as though he were divulging something of great confidence. “He didn’t even have a beard then.”
Dockson shook his head. “That was after you found me in the brawling ring, we’d met before.”
“No, had to be then,” Kelsier insisted. “How else would I know you were any worth betting on?”
“It was after. You’ll have to forgive Lord Kerriman, Lady Valette. He’s gone senile in his old age.”
At this, Kelsier laughed good-naturedly and leveled a comfortable arm around Dockson’s shoulders. He would laugh, Dockson thought, if someone struck him in the street. “Why else do you think I keep you around?”
Vin watched them banter, smiling with an almost careful hesitance, as though she were teetering on whether to join in or not. It was progress, at least, and she’d come a long way from the ash smudged child who’d simply stare at them motionless like a sealed door - like she’d never heard a joke in her life. Perhaps he could understand why Kelsier would want to dote on her so, provide her with all the goodness she’d been neglected.
Before she could give one way or the other, the carriage slowed and the driver tapped briefly on the window.
“Ah, we’re here.” Kelsier lept up before they could stop altogether, impatient as ever. He ducked out of the carriage and held open the door for both of them to maneuver out, Vin a little more clumsily so in her wide skirt. Kelsier winked at her when she stepped past. “Remember, you’re Valette, sampling the, uh, charms of the city for the first time. And we’re your chaperones, friends of dear old Uncle Teven. Now let’s do some refining of that palette of yours.”
Here turned out to be a bakery nestled into a street corner with an array of scents that had a crowd of beggars shuffling nearby to take in the aroma. Of course. The only thing that rivaled Kelsier’s pension for dramatics was his pension for sweets.
Kelsier swept inside the shop first, confident in his surroundings as if he were the proprietor of the establishment, and Vin and Dockson followed closely behind.
“Hello, my good man,” he greeted the baker, as well as announced his presence.
“Afternoon, Masters. And to you, young Mistress.” The elderly purveyor was stout about the middle and visibly Skaa, albeit far enough up the pecking order, as was the case with most shopkeepers in the district - Skaa, usually half-bloods, who’d circumvented a system designed for them to fail. Dockson tipped his head in polite acknowledgement and Vin, to her credit, bent her knees in a half curtsy half bow that didn’t wobble too precariously.
The two of them carried on browsing the assortment of baked goods, Vin with hungry eyes, Dockson more despondently. He’d purchased wine cheaper than some of these pastries. Kelsier, however, already had his order in mind.
“A fine selection you have here, judging by my nose,” he said appraisingly, tapping a nostril in emphasis. “We’ll take the batch. The young lady has a ravenous appetite.”
Dockson, who’d already somewhat anticipated this, refrained from sighing and forked over the hefty amount that the baker stuttered out with anticipation. All three of them left the shop with sacks hanging from both arms and the baker, completely bought out of his stock, locked the door behind them hastily.
“Not even a grumble, Dox?” Kelsier prodded.
Dockson answered him with a good-natured harumph. “How’s that?”
“Much more in character.”
Vin wasted no time in digging into her sack and sampling a round tea cake dappled with sugar.
“What do you think?” Kelsier asked around an ample mouthful of his own confectionary.
“I think,” Vin squeezed her eyes shut and hummed in what Dockson presumed was delight, “we need to get Master Deltron to hire new kitchen staff. This makes baywraps taste like the ash that piles up in the canals.”
Kelsier laughed. “Word to the wise, don’t eat and burn tin at the same time. You’ll taste everything down to the smallest grain. It isn’t pleasant, as far as the senses go.”
“Allomancy lessons at a time like this?” said Dockson stiffly under his breath, glancing around at their surroundings with caution.
Kelsier’s eyes twinkled and he waved a dismissive hand. “You can learn from a bit of everything. That’s something I’ve learned.”
“You? Learn?” Vin posed the quip sheepishly and this time, Kelsier and Dockson both laughed in unison, and her hesitant smile broadened to join them.
They took turns tasting the rest of their bounty and when they’d had more than their fill of sugar, Kelsier turned to the beggars who’d been lurking in their wake like encroaching Mistwraiths and hoisted the bags for all to see, beaming. “Who wants sweets?”
Dockson lost Kelsier in the flurry of ashen hands that waved and reached eagerly towards him. When he caught sight of him again, he’d let the hat slip askew, the sleeves rolled and bearing the array of thin white scars beneath. There were a scarce amount of thanks you’s, of bless you master’s and even a few mutterings of the Survivor that had Dockson on edge.
At last, the frenzied crowd dispersed and Kelsier shuffled back to him as he generously licked the powder from his fingers. “We should get into food heistery, when this is all over. I think it’d make a killing.”
“I’ll add it to the agenda,” Dockson replied in a way that implied he intended to do nothing of the sort.
Kelsier wasn’t deterred, by anything really, but that especially. “Trigger a House War, topple the regime of our immortal God Emperor,” he said, counting each point on his sugar coated fingers, “Start stealing tea cakes. Quite the list.”
Dockson folded his arms. “Was that display really necessary, Kelsier? I thought we weren’t trying to draw attention to ourselves.”
Kelsier cast a cursory glance back over his shoulder as if to say, ‘Oh that?’ . He shrugged. “When you’re that hungry, the last thing you remember is the person doling out the free food.” Memory shadowed his face, and Dockson knew he was speaking from experience even if he didn’t buy into the explanation. Kelsier liked to make a show of things, the answer for anything you questioned him about was often simple as that.
Dockson sighed resignedly and looked around. “Where’s Vin?”
They found her a block away, standing in front of a window display of elegantly gowned mannequins, nose near pressed to the glass pane.
Kelsier stepped past her and held open the shop door, gesturing a grand sweeping motion inside with his other arm. “After you, My Lady.”
Dockson stayed behind and gave Kelsier a nod, which he acknowledged. He would let them have this time together.
Hands tucked into the pockets of his overcoat, he roamed the length of the square, busy in the early evening, and found that he was familiar with this street. Kelsier and Mare had an apartment in the area, before everything that had transpired. Inconspicuous on the outside, but lavishly decorated with the accumulation of their wealth, which was considerable near the end. For all his posturing against the Nobility, Kelsier had liked to live in luxury, weaned on the finer things in life that he’d never been able to let go of. Dockson would come over for supper regularly, to drink their expensive wine and talk and laugh late into the evening.
He stopped in front of what he thought might have been the place, nearly indistinguishable from the row of tenements on either side. Yes, he remembered it well. He remembered coming here that last night, two years ago, and rifling through their possessions, for incriminating evidence that could link the pair of them back to the crew when the Inquisitors would come searching. It’s when he’d found Mare’s flower drawing, the one he knew Kelsier had folded in his pocket. Even with death in the pits inevitable, Dockson had taken it to satisfy a misguided hope that one day they’d return. And it wasn’t so misguided, as it turned out, at least not partially.
It was thought of that night, of losing his friends to the blood red horizon, that drove him back to the shop with haste, unwilling to squander anymore time of the second chance he’d been given.
He found Kelsier and Vin in a circular room sectioned off from the rest of the merchandise, with a large mirror and a pedestal for trying on clothing. They were surrounded by a small army of wrapping paper and opened boxes.
“You try balancing in a four-layer gown and pinch tight shoes, Kelsier,” Vin was protesting, holding the hem of her gown above a pair of delicately jeweled slippers.
Kelsier sat posted on a stack of the boxes with his legs crossed at the knee, hazel eyes dancing. “Oh, but I have. On more than one occasion.”
“With his own slew of complaints, I can assure you,” Dockson interjected. They hadn’t noticed his arrival, and both glanced towards him.
“You just need practice, kid,” Kelsier continued, leaning back against the wall behind him and somehow managing not to topple over in a miraculous display. “Wear them around the manor this week to get used to moving in them. Nobles have all sorts of eccentricities – wearing heels to morning tea can be yours.”
An attendant came to whisk Vin back behind a dressing curtain in the other room, and Kelsier rose and meandered over to Dockson’s side.
“You asked Sazed to let her off early didn’t you,” Dockson posed it as an obervation more than a question. “You planned this all along.”
Kelsier nodded, raising his hands in mock surrender. “I’m sorry about the meeting. I know it’s important. I’ll make it up to you.” He sounded genuine in his apology, but Dockson had already forgiven him on the carriage ride over. Or perhaps before then.
“No. No, you don’t have to,” he said. “I think I may have needed this as much as she did. I do tend to…overwork myself don’t I?”
“Twenty years of this and you’re just noticing?” Kelsier wound an arm around his waist and bent his head to him conspiratorially. He smelled metallic, and of the rich scented salts he used in his bath. “Think of it like this. We’re dipping into our coffers to support Skaa-owned businesses, all this money is just going back to the cause. So in a way, you are working right now.”
“Full of perspective, as always.”
Kelsier hoisted up another bag like a sack of grain over his shoulder. Dockson didn’t know where it came from. “I’m about to be full of pastry, so I hope there’s room.”
It was a senseless comment, but one that made Dockson swell with such pure affection for the man that he refrained from any eyerolling. Instead, he reached out his hand and thumbed away a smudge of powder on Kelsier’s cheek. He smiled warmly down at him and Dockson smiled back, and knew that he’d follow him anywhere (even exorbitantly priced pastry shops.)