The War Thief

A Bad Omen

"Don't judge me."

They had only made eye contact not more than a moment before. The sight of her made him start. He did not take his eyes off the girl on the other side of his bed chambers. She was perched on the open window sill like a little bird, and one of her hands held a solid object wrapped in cloth.

"Judge you? You're stealing my stuff!"

"Hey, you're rich, I'm not, it's not complicated. Now I'm just going to walk away with this and you're going to pretend I wasn't here. Problem solved." The girl wistfully tossed the token into her bag and hopped backwards out of the second story window.

"Wha-Wait a minute! You don't know what you're doing!"

He scrambled to the window and helplessly watched as the girl started trotting away.

"Sure I do!" she shouted triumphantly.

Unfortunately, she didn't. If the prince couldn't retrieve that artifact, she very well could be the cause of a war.

"Well this is just the topping on this disaster of a day," he mumbled to himself as he huffed. "She could have stolen anything else and I could just move on with my life. But no, she had to take that blasted artifact!"

He watched as the girl fluttered down a pathway leading away from the west wing of the castle.

"How did she even land without hurting herself?" he asked himself, completely baffled at the sight of her unwavering pace.

Once he concluded which direction she was taking, he sprinted across the room, nearly tripping over his bed, and heaved open the door which lead to the corridor and sprinted away without a second thought.

The drop from his window was too far for him to jump. The girl of course had to choose a room to heist that was the farthest from a stairwell. The prince's frustration and panic only grew with every step he took.

Most everyone knew he had had a long, strenuous morning, so it was no surprise when he had decided to retreat to his room for a while. The people found it quite unusual for someone of such high importance to be such a well known recluse.

When the prince was found frantically scrambling down the public corridor soon after retreating to solitude, however, that was an even more usual sight to see.

"Are you well, Terrence?" a short plump woman asked him as he breezed past her.

"Oh yes, just fine Mrs. Wilson!" he blurted out over his shoulder. He didn't bother stopping to soothe her concern. That was a problem to deal with later, because he was sure he'd hear about it the next time he saw her.

When he finally reached the closest stairwell, he nearly tripped down that too, and as he stumbled outside in the overcast weather he spotted a small glimpse of the girl's bouncing black curls.

Another unfortunate thing to occur, to add to all the other unfortunate things that transpired prior that day, was he lost sight of her at the next turn she made down the path.

Completely out of breath to spare and hopeless, he locked eyes with several stunned locals around him at the beginning of the main street in front of him. With no other option, he continued down the main street, checking the small side streets and alleys as he passed.

"Excuse me," he said to several passerby's, "Have you seen a girl pass by here with long black hair?"

Every response was the same. Some surprise, some amusement, then an answer of no. They looked at the prince in a slightly odd way to whomever he asked this question. As much as they tried to hide it, he noticed, but he also knew and understood why. It was very rare for any person to have natural black hair. If they did, they weren't a local, and they probably were not good company to have around, let alone a person you'd wish to seek out. The Ravens were omens of bad luck.