Current timeline: Before 'Traitors'.

Avarice

Chapter 1: Reaver's Unmentionables

That boy is bad.

And honestly!

He's a wolf,

in disguise!

But I can't stop staring in those evil eyes.

Of all the stupid, idiotic and downright dumb things she had had to do for people in order to gain followers, this, above all, topped the list. Took the damn, bloody prize for it! Quite honestly, Princess Naveena had no idea why anyone would want Reaver's underwear.

Of the little she knew about the man, through Walter's stories, her mother's letters to a large monk in the North and her own, unfortunate experience with the ex-pirate, he had seemed a downright monster. The fact that he had one fan surprised her greatly, almost to the point that she had thought this a joke to try and get her in trouble for theft. (Oh, and how embarrassing that would be to explain to the guard. How would you explain that you were trying to steal someone's underwear to give to an obviously obsessed fan?)

She had considered against accepting the request.

But, as always, the rather desperate tone in Benjamina's voice had swayed her as easily as it would anyone else who used the same blasted tone. Naveena had always been a gullible one, and her trusting and agreeable nature often put her at the point where she could easily be taken advantage of. This, was something that could, and would, get her into deep trouble one day.

Had she known that today would be the day her easily swayed nature would get her into trouble, she would've run as quickly away from Benjamina, run in the way someone would run if they had a legendary White Balverine on their heels.

It was dark in the Millfields that night, and Naveena, ex-princess and current leader of the revolution, stalked alongside the shores of Bower Lake. She had all the stature of her mother, and bore the elegant and aristocratic features of the former Hero Queen. One could, had they known Sparrow, have possibly mistaken Naveena for her mother. A much younger, less scarred version of her mother, but her mother nonetheless.

Naveena approached the large mansion with a sense of anxiety and apprehension. She had stolen things before, nicked gold from cash registers when the shopkeepers weren't looking, and all manners of items. But this, this was a heist like no other. It was as if she felt she were going to get caught, as if doing this was something so incredibly amoral. Naveena wondered, distantly, if Theresa felt like this all the time.

Theresa… The rebellion, the revolution came back upon her shoulders once more. She'd seen the wanted signs, recently, and had been growing increasingly worried over the fact that any of her allies could possibly be killed at any given moment. It was a worrying thought.

She brought herself back to the task at hand, and entered into the mansion's rear garden. If possible, she had wanted to avoid the front door because, honestly, that was just asking for trouble. The garden, she noticed, was neatly trimmed with hunter green hedges and there were spots of roses and other flowers throughout the rather labyrinth-like garden. It didn't quite surprise Naveena; Reaver's vanity seemed to extend to even his estate.

Pushing back her short red hair, cut in a boy's style because that was how she liked it and men be damned, she looked for any way to enter the mansion. Vines, with neatly cut roses dotting the green, climbed far up towards the windows. A cliché way to enter any house, Naveena supposed, but damn clichés, she was not going to just waltz through the front door like an idiot.

Naveena placed both hands on the pale walls, and reminded herself that this was, once again, the dumbest, most moronic thing she had ever done. Grabbing part of the vine with one hand, Naveena settled her feet into the crook of another vine, and began pulling. The vines whined slightly in protest, and the ex-princess sighed. She knew she shouldn't have had that pie on the way here after getting mauled by Balverines.

Bloody hell, she was not using a door. What manner of moron would do that? Especially when walking into the house of a man such as Reaver? A man who's skill with a gun, (No pun intended, hur hur.) went unmatched?

The Rebel Leader pulled herself upwards, praying with all the faith she had to the Light, hoping that she wouldn't fall and break her neck. Now that would be an unfortunate end to her revolution. Surprisingly, she didn't fall. Naveena gave out a thankful sigh before pulling herself up again. Her gauntlets, in response to her exertions, let out a tiny gasp of electricity, while the other sparkled with the magnificence of her blades spell.

Her hammer, Judgement, was making the crawl up the wall particularly difficult. Naveena's pistol, Peace, bounced against her thigh as she continued the climb. Her fingers reached the window lattice, and Naveena, who finally realized just how scared of heights she really was, began breathing heavily. A silent mantra repeated in her head, imploring that she most certainly should not look down.

Gulping, Naveena pulled herself onto the window lattice and peered inside. It appeared to be a living room, adorned with pictures (Including one which depicted Reaver as a woman… what?) and a drunkard was splayed out on the couch, a chalice of empty wine dangling from his fingers. Feeling her fingers beginning to get tired, Naveena pulled herself through the window, pushing open the shutter and falling inside with a loud clatter.

She'd landed on a half-naked woman, who appeared to be passed out, surrounded by more empty goblets.

Naveena reminded herself to never attend any party Reaver orchestrated. Though, she supposed it was a little late for that, considering the whole Masquerade thing.

The unknown and indecent woman moaned, and stirred slightly as Naveena practically jumped off of her, resulting in the rather poor underpants thief to bump against a dark red recliner and fall backwards into the chair.

Naveena supposed she would never be a professional cat burglar.

Wrenching herself out of the recliner, Naveena navigated herself around the snoring lush, and pushed open the door of the supposed living room, her fingers brushing against the handle of her rather comforting pistol, finding herself in a hallway.

There were more pictures, more symbols of Reaver's increasing pride and… a piano? Well, that was surprising to find. Naveena scowled however, because upon closer inspection, there appeared to be a completely naked man sitting at the keys. The tattoo on his back was jarring as well, a rather oddly drawn heart with the words 'Love G' inside. Huh. Odd.

The ex-princess shook her head, and rubbed at aching temples. She was getting distracted.

Pressing herself against the walls in a vain attempt to skulk around in the shadows without being seen, she listened distantly for any sound of life within the mansion. She'd been lucky enough to get into the mansion after one of Reaver's parties and not during one of them. The fact that the majority of the party's denizens were knocked out worked rather well in her favor. Poor sods, though. Waking up naked on a piano with a hangover was not a way to wake up.

Naveena peered through the doors, looking for anything that might have remotely resembled a bedroom. There were more drunkards, including a poor woman with her face in a plate of rather delicious-looking salad, more portraits and no sign of a bedroom or a pleasure chamber. Which, actually, Naveena would have loved to have not heard of.

Benjamina was really starting to scare the Hero with her knowledge of Reaver's… activities.

The ex-princess came upon a short flight of stairs, and listened intently once more for the sound of anyone, anything that could come upon her.

"Bark!"

Naveena nearly jumped several feet in the air. Turning around, one foot on the stairs, Naveena shot a fierce glance down the hall, fingers tightly clenched around her pistol. Ace was running down the hall, a pair of what appeared to be goggles dangling from his mouth. Naveena let out an exasperated and indignant sigh, bending down to greet her black and white dog. Ace barked again, the goggles in his mouth jiggling with every movement of his bestial mouth.

"Oh, Ace," She scratched the back of his ears, and he blinked up at her in that usual, cute little way. "You just couldn't let me go on my own, could you?"

He barked again.

"Well," Though she wouldn't admit it, not even to this dog who hardly had any knowledge of the human language, it felt better to have someone at her side while she was doing this. "C'mon then."

It was then, that she looked upon the goggles, noticing them truly for the first time. She bent down again, on one knee, examining the thing in her Ace's mouth, before attempting to gently take it from him. Ace growled, jumping backwards, and leaned forward as if they were going to be playing a game.

"Hey!" Naveena lunged forward, only to have Ace jump around her and head up the stairs with a deftness and gracefulness not even she, a bloody Hero, could have hoped to achieve. Naveena groaned, looked back behind her to check that no one was coming to investigate the noise, and bounded up the steps after Ace.

"Bloody dog! This isn't a game!"

She'd been foolish, perhaps, to associate anything related to Reaver as not being a game. She was also, even more foolhardy considering that she was blindly following a dog to Avo-Knows-Where. Naveena hurried up the steps, her well-worn boots squeaking slightly in protest with every step. Eventually, she found Ace within a well-hidden subsection of a bedroom.

Upon wondering through the doorway to that subsection, she had frozen.

Unknowingly, or perhaps knowingly, Ace had led her straight to where she had wanted to go. A king-sized bed, covered in the most expensive of bedsheets, was sitting in the middle of the room. The room, the pleasure chamber, itself was actually rather sparse in the sense that there seemed to truly be nothing but sex that went on in here. A rather modern collection of nightstands were collected around the bed and the walls were adorned with…

Cages? Cages with chickens inside of them? What…? No. Naveena most certainly did not want to know.

Ace sat in the middle of the room, just in front of the bed, those blasted goggles still dangling lifelessly from his mouth. The dog wagged his tail slightly, and barked once more, dropping the goggles at his feet.

"I don't know whether to say good boy or not." Naveena groaned, bending over to pick up the goggles and look at them.

The goggles had a thin band the was now drool-covered and riddled with holes where Ace had bit into them. The glass covering them was both opaque and yet vaguely translucent, and the goggles themselves had been framed by gold filigree. For some reason, though Naveena knew not what the nagging reason was, she felt as if she had seen these somewhere before.

Or rather, on someone before.

But before she could place the goggles on someone in the recesses of her mind, Naveena jumped, hearing the faint sound of footsteps down the hall. There was a clicking sound amongst them, a sound much like the clicking of heels on hard surfaces. Naveena hurried behind the bed, and Ace growled at the empty doorway. Naveena looked at him, worried, but Ace looked back at her as if to say 'Don't worry.'

Naveena crawled behind the headboard of the bed, crouched, her pistol pulled tightly out and held with slightly trembling fingers. The footsteps stopped, ceased, and Naveena heard the unfortunate voice of the very man who's underwear she was planning to steal,

"There you are, you dirty mongrel."

Ace growled again, and Naveena was hunkered down there, letting out silent, panicky breaths. Ever since Reaver had somehow deflected the bullet from Page's pistol with nothing but a thin sliver of brass, Naveena had found herself almost… fearful of the man's skills. And, considering that he was on Logan's side and not theirs… the ex-princess almost feared for her own life.

There was the click of Reaver cocking the gun, and Naveena, before she could really, truly consider the consequences of her own actions, stood, and pointed the pistol directly at Reaver. He was oddly enough, devoid of his hat, and it was then that Naveena realized that the goggles Ace had found had belonged to none other than Reaver.

His dark hair stuck up at odd angles, as if he'd gone through a serious tussle and yet had come out of it unscathed. When he caught sight of the revolutionary something had flickered in the opaque pools of his eyes, as if the sight of Naveena had brought back a well-hidden memory, but it had only lasted a second and he smirked at her, a smirk that reeked of depravity and immoral contrivances.

"Well, well," Reaver had turned his attention away from Ace, who was still growling at the tall man in an attempt to help his own mistress. The deviant was now pointing the Dragonstomper .48 at her, the Rebel Leader. "If it isn't the rebel leader herself! Have you reconsidered my offer?"

There, the two of them stood. Naveena, with her own pistol, Peace pointed at Reaver. And Reaver, with his trusted Dragonstomper .48 pointed at her. The two of them did not move, though the gargantuan smirk on the blasted man's face twitched just the tiniest bit. Naveena scowled at Reaver's derision. The man was acting as if he were the one in control.

"No?" Reaver's hand wavered slightly, gyrating his wrist in an attempt to accentuate the fact that he had a pistol in his hand. She should be the one fearing his skills. He returned to mocking her, "Then you've come to do what your busty little friend couldn't? How annoying!"

Naveena cocked her gun, though it was more as a threat than anything else. However, it was then that Reaver shot, and Peace flew out of her hand, landing on top of the mattress behind her. Naveena's lips parted, and she looked back at her trusty pistol, the one thing that had given her control of the matter at hand.

"Ah, ah, ah, my sweet." He was mocking her again. "I can't have you shooting at me. Would you really put holes in this handsome face?"

This wasn't good.

Naveena looked at Reaver, who still had his pistol pointed at her. She couldn't possibly use her hammer, as Reaver had the advantage of putting a bullet in her head before she could even move. The same went for her gauntlets; for all the time she could take to charge up her spells, Reaver still could kill her.

Ace growled once more.

No, this wasn't good at all.

Avarice is a project I'm working on for Fable 3. The timeline is before Traitors, which means Naveena hasn't headed over to the Castle with Ben yet. The idea for this came from the idea of 'What would happen in Reaver found you trying to steal his underwear?'

For those of you not familiar with the seven deadly sins or over-complicated synonyms, Avarice is the greed for wealth or is an unreasonably strong desire to keep and obtain money.

This story will continue through the Main Plot of the story but with one twist; Reaver is prevalent through more of the Main Plot, and does not act solely as the devil's advocate during the time of Rule.

Also, no sappy, moral or righteous Reaver here. Reaver will remain Reaver, though with decidedly more layers of amoral than was seen in the game. So, if you're looking for a Reaver being changed then GTFO. Or stay. I love you readers.

Naveena, which is what I named my princess, is tomboyish and not without her faults. She's a good person, but slightly corrupt, as she steals gold and things and doesn't always do the honorable thing. And she's got that Short Fringe haircut, the one Elliot's got. (I think…?)

Oh, and before I forget, I am not incredibly good at writing amoral characters. So, if anyone has any tips on writing Reaver, send them my way.

On a less important note, did anyone buy Benjamina's house during this quest? I did just for the sake of having that giant-ass picture of Reaver and his unicorn.

Feedback is appreciated.