Random Writing

Thief

She had smoke in her eyes and death at her back.

My mother always told me not to play with fire...

He was born in absolute darkness, to the lowest social class of his world.

*****

It never had been easy, he thinks to himself, the brick roofs of the city's buildings passing in a blur beneath his skillful feet. The shouts of angry guards have been trailing him for a while now though it is a surprise they could even keep up. He grins to himself. They can try to climb the building in their lumbering suits of armor, though they won't make it very far once they do.

The edge of the roof grows closer with every passing step. He is lucky the building is as large as it is, otherwise he may not have been able to lose the guardsmen so completely. Pumping his legs faster, the muscles burning with exertion, he reaches the edge of the building and pushes off, sailing over the alley below for a brief moment before coming crashing down on top of the next building.

Quickly regaining his balance and his momentum, the boy continues like this for several more buildings before coming to a rest atop the most familiar one in the city.

The bank.

He ran from here not long ago when the guards caught him with his hands in the pocket of an unsuspecting Gem sector girl. The boy managed to get away with her coin purse, but not much more, and not nearly enough to keep him and the remainder of his family fed for the next week.

The boy scans the ground below him, eyes on the lookout for anyone in the standard blue officer uniform. Finding none, he walks to the edge of the building and looks down, mapping his path in his mind before descending rather quickly. He emerges from the back alley of the bank and slips inside just after a richly dressed man. His sticky fingers slip into the man's pocket and withdraw his wallet. Quickly, he dives into the soft, polished leather and withdraws a few paper bills, all worth more than he himself, and replaces the wallet before moving away from the man.

The key to good thieving is never taking enough that someone might notice you. The boy had learned this early on. Never take something that might be missed either, or something too large and heavy for the weight will be noticed.

His mother always told him not to play with fire, not to play with the anger of the rich. Unfortunately, or fortunately depending on how you viewed it, he had a habit of not listening to the mother who had abandoned him at the first sign of trouble, waltzing straight into the arms of a wealthy businessman and never looking back at her poor children left to starve on the street.

The boy slips deftly through the bank's thick crowd, managing to pocket a few more purses on the way out, and emerges into the light of day. He ducks his head and wanders to the edge of the street where no one is likely to notice a poor boy dressed in rags such as himself. After all, the rich have no reason to associate with the likes of him.

He just manages to slip into the same alley from which he emerged before chaos breaks out in the road behind him. Quickly, the boy scales the wall using protruding bricks and window sills as hand and footholds to propel him further into the air.

When he reaches the top, he presses himself flat against the roof and crawls to the edge eager to catch a glimpse of the commotion. But what he sees is definitely not what he expected.

The first thing he notices is that the crowd from within the bank has dispersed into the street and surround a crumpled figure on the ground dressed in the familiar blue guard uniform. The boy can't help but grin. He has only ever managed to take down a few guards in his time thieving so whoever this mystery assailant is, they must be powerful. The second thing the boy sees are the pillars of smoke and accompanying sea of red fire burning the bank to the ground. His grin stretches even wider.

However, the third thing he sees, again, is not what he expected.

Emerging from within the flames is a lone figure. From the boy's vantage point, the figure seems small and harmless, yet as the shadow moves into the light, its smoky disguise falls away and reveals to him a girl. On her face is a grin more sinister than he has seen on any man's face. In her eyes she holds smoke and at her back is nothing but destruction. This girl, whoever she is, frightens him more than even the king's guards.

Slowly he backs away from the ledge, away from the fire, away from the girl though he'd never admit that to anyone. He rises to his feet, careful not to make any noise, turns around, and takes off toward his waiting family.

The city passes by in a blur, the concrete gliding below his feet like the rush of wind over a bird's wings, quick and quiet, effortless and efficient, smooth and yet somehow altered. The buildings don't pass the way they usually do, their order is all wrong. Instead of growing more dilapidated, more disheveled, they grow more sturdy, sounder, more... more stylish.

He comes to a halt. This is not the city he knows. This is not his home. This is the home of the enemy. This is the city only they know. He spins in a slow circle.

How did he get here? How could he have made such a grave error? How could he have made such a grave error and not notice it until it is too late?

It is only when his eyes land on the one thing he knows he should never be this close to. The castle.

The palace sits atop a marvelous hill covered in lush green grasses. The diamond walls that reflect the dying sun only stand to show the vast differences between the two classes his world has fallen into. And the river, filled with crystal clear water straight from the mountaintops, that flows straight through the castle or so he is told- flows also into the city where it is polluted and turned into something less than natural, dividing once more the rich from the poor.

Behind him, a throat is cleared. The boy spins around so fast it is surprising he does not fall over. Before him stands the girl from the bank, her eyes no longer black with ash from the destroyed building, and nothing but the sunset at her back.

She smiles. "Wonderful view, is it not?" she asks, surprising him by speaking in the carefully sculpted, well-mannered way of the Gem sector. The boy does nothing but nod, yet in his mind he is trying to think up a way out of this situation.

The girl glances him over before speaking once more. "You are obviously not from here so I will give you a bit of advice. Stay away from the red roofs. They are the ones with surveillance. Any others are fair game." Reaching into her pocket she draws out a small pouch which jingles as she moves it. "For you."

The pouch sails through the air and lands at the boy's feet. He stares at it, then at her in astonishment and wonder. The girl smiles again and turns to descend the wall behind her and return to the world from which she is from.

Carefully the boy leans down to pick up the pouch, open it, and peer inside. For the third time today, the boy is surprised at what he sees, and he is never surprised.

Inside the pouch sits no less than thirty gold pieces, the kind of money only the richest of the rich could get their hands on, let alone give away like it is nothing. Whoever this girl is, she is no ordinary citizen. And he is determined to find out just who, exactly, she is.

The boy turns away from the palace and towards home. He starts running and does not stop or look down until his feet touch down on the familiar roof of his home. From inside he can hear the voices of his four younger siblings bickering over some other unimportant matter once more.

He slips through one of the many holes in the roof and into his home. The bickering stops, the noise is silenced, all eight eyes focus solely on the pair of shoeless feet descending into their home.

As he touches down on the wood floor of their home, the boy is bombarded with hugs and shouts of glee. But they do not last. Before the boy can show his family what good news he brings today, the trapdoor in the corner of their room bursts open and in comes hordes of officers and soldiers armed to the teeth, grinning mercilessly at the five orphans huddled together in the abandoned attic of a long forgotten building.

What was once a day of joy, he thinks staring down the guards with all the venom he can manage, is now a day of horror.