Marybell was always careful about telling the truth of what brought her so far from home to anyone. Even her name was a lie. Two lies - Marybell was a false version of Maeriell which also wasn't really her name. But somehow, a few people teased the truth out of her, notably Selfrythe - by being a friend. Marybell was pretty baffled to be called a friend, and gratified.
So little by little she started to think maybe the folk of Bree wouldn't be quite so quick to... to what? Throw her in jail for a theft she'd done in Lake-town, where hardly anyone there had even ever heard of? But even so: caution seemed the best route. Discretion. Secrecy.
Somehow a barmaid at the Pony called Margret heard the truth. Or just saw through her. And a new possibility opened up - using her skills not to take things for herself, but to get things back for people who'd had them taken from them. She told Marybell about a pipeweed-farmer in Staddle who had a small keg of his best crop ready to enter into an upcoming contest amongst the village's farmers. He'd won many years before, and it was a point of pride. But some lads from Bree had stolen it, only a few weeks before the contest. Maybe she could steal it back? The farmer couldn't pay - the contest wasn't for a purse of gold - but she agreed anyway. Maybe she'd feel better about herself, make up for some of what she'd done in the past.
The story turned out twistier than she'd heard in the Pony, though. The Bree-lads had been paid by some bandits with a most unlovely reputation, who squatted in an old ruin in the Chetwood. For days and nights she scouted the boundaries. There was a back way in that came to right near where they kept the pipeweed, but it was never unguarded. Marybell had taken plenty of things out from under the noses of their proper owners, but not while they were standing right there watching! She's no wizard. She can't turn unvisible!
Stealing the keg back was impossible, but trying to figure out what these Blackwolds wanted with it, she concluded that it might be better destroyed than stay in their hands, or the hands of their buyer. The farmer gave her a clay pot full of pitch and oil. She messed herself up with herbs to dye her red hair muddy brown and covered up her face with dirt, then crept to just above the keg, then, fast as lying, dropped the pot and then a lit torch. The pipe-weed took flame fast - and she ran to Selfrythe, whose swift horse was ready to take them both away faster than the bandits could find them, or even spot them.
It was a mixed victory - the farmer still wouldn't likely win the contest, but at least he wouldn't lose to his own crop, and she didn't get paid, but she felt better. And not just for having made a friend and gotten an exhilarating ride around the fields with her.
But still... wouldn't it be better to get paid for such work? Hesitantly, with Selfrythe's encouragement, she started asking around. Anyone needing an Expert Treasure-Hunter to steal back what was stolen from them?
Word started to trickle around town. Maybe she'd get enough work to be able to afford more than a small beer and a huddle under an awning out of the rain. Maybe she'd end up in the town jail. Only time would tell.
