Compassion

Prologue

In a cold and rainy city, comes the story of two unlikely individuals. A criminal prodigy and a runaway Grisha.  The boy, known more commonly by the alias he shared with his brother, the "bastards of the barrel." His brother was Dirtyhands, he was the Strategist.

It was complicated to be a Grisha. Some wanted them dead, others their service, more still wanted them for experiments, and some others revered them. Of all those that she could have ended up with, she was instead bound to a lifetime of debt. She was the Messenger.

Here comes the story of Kasper Brekker and Lanying Kir-Zhengyi, better known to those in Ketterdam as Lanying Kir-Shen.

It wasnt always that way however. As a young child, Lanying lived a happy life with her parents. When she was six, her parents had moved to Ketterdam in search of a better life for their child. And so, seven, a year later, she befriended some pretty unlikely friends. It was three brothers by the name of Jordie Rietveld, who was the oldest, Kaz Rietveld, the second oldest and lastly, Kasper Rietveld the youngest.

As Jordie was the oldest, he was often away on errands as a runner for a Jakob Hertzoon. Kaz, Kasper and she spent the majority to their time together in the streets playing around together and laughing as they shared hot chocolate and desserts. She was the closest with Kasper. The two were practically attached at the hip. They would say that they could tell each other's steps and voices.

One day, when Kasper told her they had lost everything to a con artist and were left penniless, to wander the streets, she did everything she could to keep them warm at night on the streets. Whether it be a blanket here or a coin there. Soon after that, the plague, the Queen's Lady Plague spread through Ketterdam.

One fateful day, three days after Jordie had fallen ill with the plague and two after Kaz and Kasper had followed suit, she caught them just before they were being loaded onto a cart to be taken to the reapers barge. She had clung to Kasper's body screaming at the top of her lungs that he was alive. He had a faint heartbeat, she could hear it pounding. But the men did not listen and ripped her tiny arms off of her friend's body and loaded all three brothers onto the cart. She ran after the cart all the way to the harbour where the brothers were floating away on the reaper's barge.

─── ∘°❉°∘ ───

She sat at the docks and cried. Her best friends were gone. Lost to the plague and borne away by the barge sailing away on black waters. Who knew how long she sat there for. When she was about to go home, as surely her parents would be worried about her, she saw two figures swim weakly to shore clutching onto what seemed to be a body. She slowly made her way over and gasped. It was Kaz and Kasper. They were both weak, and unable to swim, had used Jordie's body as a float to make it back to shore. Kaz seemed to be able to struggle and reach the shore alright on his own, but Kasper, was floundering about in the sea. She helped drag him onto shore and flinched away when slapped her hand out of the way.

"Kasper, it's me." She said reaching for him but he scooted away, fear in his eyes. "Don't touch me." he whispered hoarsely. She did as he asked.

Two weeks later, she was spending time with Kasper, who had calmed down after his episode with her at the docks. Both he and Kaz now wore black leather gloves on their hands. The two also changed their names, severing ties with the Rietveld name and vowing to bring vengeance upon the man that destroyed their family. Now the two were called Kaz and Kasper Brekker. A funny thing really as rather than "brick by brick," it would be "brekker by brekker, I will destroy you." The two were now desperate to build their own empire, forge their own names in the barrel.