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Chapter One 𓅪 Bless All The Petty Thieves TW // drug addiction (alcohol/morphling), animal cruelty, child labor, poverty, police brutality.
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𝕴t's quiet moments like this—all alone eighteen stories up, kicking her legs through the rooftop railing—when Madaket Rosales feels genuinely alive. A humid breeze, still heavy from this morning's rain, catches in her flyaway hairs as she cranes her neck down at the street below. This high up, it's easy to feel detached from the world below, staring impartially at macilent clay figures going about mundane and forgettable tasks. She hears the distant rumble of a diesel engine as a cohort of Peacekeepers jostle down the pitted street, faraway chatter from the marketplace, a disembodied yell from one of the apartments below: all of it drifts past her like smoke up into the overcast sky. Immaterial.
For once, she's above everything. Not having to elbow her way through crowds, not stuck in a factory filled with ear-splitting machines fighting to be heard. Here, she can witness the overcrowded city without drowning in it. Such tranquility is a rare thing to find in Smogborough.
A pigeon coos nearby and she glances over her shoulder. The flock that calls her apartment's rooftop home has earned a nasty reputation amongst the residents. Smogborough superstition hails birds—pigeons especially—as harbingers of death and disease. After the last flu outbreak that killed thousands of children and elderly, a mob of grieving families set fire to every bird nest in the city they could find. Seven years later, the pigeons are still wary of humans, but she thinks she's earned something like mutual respect between them. She brings them scraps for their nests every so often, and they must remember her, for they hoot each time she staggers up here to be alone.
Realizing suddenly that the pigeons are expecting a gift, she sighs guiltily. They had slipped her mind. The first week of July always makes her anxious months in advance. These days she's forgetful to the point of inattentivity, so consumed is she with stress. Her oil-stained knuckles blanch on the warm, rusty railing.
"Sorry," she tells the flock, "I'll bring you some rags next time."
Food can't be spared, so she settles with keeping the flock warm. She had always admired them for their resilience. Despite the nest burnings, the pigeons had stubbornly survived. She strives to be that determined, that free. If she had wings like they did, she'd fly away from any danger lurking in the labyrinth of Smogborough's streets. For a wistful moment, she tests the rooftop's ledge and imagines what it would be like to soar over the street on feathered wings. Adrenaline rips through her veins at the thought.
Someone laughs from the street below, jarring Madaket back into the present. She scolds herself internally. Her focus should be on the marketplace. Setting her jaw, she trains her gaze on the stalls set up around the town square.
