Forum Block
Stacked With: MC4A (Shipping War; SI(N); FR)
Individual Challenges: In a Flash; Click Bait It; Bow Before the Blacks; Thief MC; Flags & Ribbons (Y); Letter of the Day (Y); Old Shoes (Y); Colonial Times (Y); Technicolour Moon Assistance Fund (Y);
Representations: Disguises; Agender Tonks
Bonus Challenges: Lovely Coconuts
Word count: 587
The house was silent and unoccupied—the perfect mix for a thief. A dark figure climbed the wall surrounding the house and slipped closer to the building. Unseen, the figure then crawled through a window that had previously been closed and locked. After that, there was no outward sign that anything untoward was happening in the shut-up house of a local wealthy merchant.
Tonks grinned to themself as they crept through the quiet house. They had been watching this house for several weeks, waiting for the opportunity to sneak inside and take a closer look at the fancy jewellery Mrs. Hutton bedecked herself with when out and about. The pieces that had taken true craftmanship, Tonks would leave alone, but the rest would be losing nothing from being pounded out of their current shape and reworked into something else.
The skeleton staff had left several hours ago and there would be no one else arriving until after dawn. Tonks made their way carefully down the hall and towards the master bedroom—there was no point in being reckless. Even if it was almost assured that no one would catch them, there was always the chance of Lady Luck turning away.
Mrs. Hutton's trinkets were hidden away in a wall safe that was easy to get into if you had the skills and the time—Tonks had both. It took a matter of moments to find the safe and then more than a few minutes to break into it. With nary a sound, the safe swung open and revealed the small boxes that held the majority of Mrs. Hutton's collection. Her best pieces, of course, would have gone with her on the trip to the countryside but that was fine by Tonks. There was plenty here that wouldn't be missed too badly.
They quickly sorted through the pieces by the light of the moon shining through the window. Those that bore a family symbol or were too beautiful to be destroyed stayed behind, everything else was wrapped up in muffling cloth and stowed away in the various pockets of Tonks' suit. When they were sure they had everything they wanted, Tonks quickly reorganised the safe so that the empty boxes were to the back and shut the safe before slipping back out of the silent house.
Once out, it was only a matter of climbing over the wall again and retrieving their street clothes from their hiding place. When Tonks walked out of the alley and onto the street, they looked like a respectable gentleman making his way home after a night out at the pub and the few patrols they encountered didn't look twice at the thief.
Lupin looked up from the dagger he was cleaning when Tonks arrived home. "Good night?" he asked, and Tonks nodded, pulling out the results of their heist to add to the collection of weapons that was currently spread all over the table.
"Won't need to pull another job for a while with what we'll get from this one. Anyone ask you to go on the prowl?"
"Not tonight." He grinned and put down the now clean dagger before gesturing to the jewellery that needed to be made unrecognisable before they could be fenced. "Shall we?"
"We shall." Tonks turned to the fire and put a full pan of water over it to boil before settling down at the table and beginning the task of destroying Mrs. Hutton's jewellery—one couldn't embark on such a job without the aid of tea.
