Wards and Rebels: Storms Of Change

Chapter one: An average day

It was a cold winter morning, crystal white snowflakes slowly danced to the ground, twisting and twirling in the air before settling on the jagged polluted ground. The streets were littered with people on their way to work, or just browsing the market. Carriages pulled large sacks off towards large buildings with tall towers vomiting out ash and smoke into the white sky.

Rowan made his way down the street before finding an old rotting wooden bench to sit on, it needed a new coat of paint and creaked when he sat down. He rubbed his hands together before cupping them and breathed into them, his black finger-less gloves doing little to ward off the cold. A stray mottled dog limped towards the man, whimpering when it reached him. Scratching the tired animal under the chin Rowan surveyed the scene before him.

Not too far in the distance an old lady slipped, letting out an ear piercing scream when she hit the cobbled street, a younger woman rushed towards her, leaving her market stand unattended.

"Are you alright?", the brunette asked as she attempted to help the woman up. The old lady continued crying, drawing a a small crowd.

A slight of hand individual made sure to take advantage of the distraction and robbed a basket filled with a variety of foods from the unmanned stand. Before he could make off with his spoils a heavy large hand covered in a metal glove clamped down on his shoulder. The thief turned his icy gaze slowly towards the burly man who had grabbed him. Two other men in matching uniforms flanked the large man.

"We don't tolerate scavengers here." The large man said.

"Caught 'im red handed too," Laughed one of the smaller men. The masks they wore made it difficult to tell who had spoken.

The group of bystanders gathered were now making it difficult to hear or see what was happening. The woman with the old lady had been begging anyone for help and now turned her attention to the two guards now approaching. They paid little attention to her, only shoving her away. A man of similar age to her grabbed her by her right arm, preventing her from interfering further. Without a sound the two roughly grabbed the old woman off the floor and dragged her away, her shouting slowly fading until they had stopped or been drowned out by the sounds of the city.

The thief desperately tried to explain himself to the large guard, who only stared passively at the scrawny man.

Rowan watched this from his perch, he wiped his nose, and watched the crowd slowly disperse. His attention was drawn again to the young woman shouting at the man that had held her back.

"It'll happen to you one day!" she waved manically, snot and tears painted her red weathered face, "and none of you care, your just lambs going to the slaughter!". She shoved the man who was pleading with her to calm down now and went and sat back behind her stall. Leaning with her hands on her temples. The young man said something to her under his breath and left.

By now the burly guard had restrained the quiet thief by twisting his arm behind his back and took him down a back street, towards a less industrialised area of the city.

Rowan licked his dry lips and scratched his stubbly cheek. Taking an old sandwich out his pocket, and feeding it to the stray dog which had now settled under the bench, Rowan mad his way into the market area, close enough to observe the situation without being obvious.

"Still doing your morning walks huh?" a new voice interrupted Rowan's scheming, as he took a step towards a side street.

"I just needed to get out of the house." Rowan turned towards the voice . A small girl with shoulder length hair the same deep black as his was looking at him smiling. It did little to improve his mood. "and what are you doing here, don't you have some expensive trinket to steal and pawn in for alcohol?"