aves of tired heat radiated off of the sun-baked cobblestones and up the skinny legs of the two soot-covered children as they sat and sweated in the low, shady step of a dilapidated brick storefront. The smaller of the two human children was a girl of early adolescence with big, hungry eyes, dark skin, and a large raised symbol in her skinny neck. It seemed as though she had recently grown long legs, her stained yellow dress seemingly slightly too short just above her scraped knees. Beside her sat a stern-looking boy with a skinny face who was reaching the end of his childhood. He had watery blue eyes and a permanent smirk on his freckled face, and his choppy red hair was tucked oddly into his worn brown cap. The boy was digging green weeds out from between the cobbles with his long, bony fingers while the girl studied the large clock tower visible above the low buildings like a watchful sentinel. The shady, narrow street winding between the row of weary wooden and brick buildings was empty save for the two of them.
With a sudden cacophony of proud bells echoing down the streets, the clock tower beckoned in the new hour. Like clockwork, doors opened down the poor district of human businesses, workers spilling into the street as they were released from their jobs for the evening. The little girl observed them as they shuffled by, wondering what kind of places they return home to as their expressionless faces caught the dramatizing shadows of the setting sun. The boy grabbed her hand gently, and she turned her attention to him. He pointed subtly through the crowd. Upstream, an especially exhausted man with half-lidded eyes and an open satchel bouncing against his back yawned as he walked. The boy squeezed her hand excitedly.
“That’s the one, Seddie! Let’s get him,” he whispered briskly. Sednai could smell years of hard liquor between his stained teeth. She replied by returning a squeeze in his rough plan before they both jumped up and into the churning crowd. Sednai kept her eyes on the man and hungrily eyes the bouncing satchel, memorizing its beat. She deftly pushed between the large bodies pressing in aroundher until she was walking in sync behind the man. At her height, she could just see over the lip of the bag, just see the coin pouch nestled among pages of sketches and blueprints. It called out to her grime-covered hands, asking her to steal it. She, however, awaited Fahlo’s position as he drifted in front of the man like a card shuffled to the middle of the deck. She watched his hand, awaiting his signal. He turned his right hand until the palm faced her, the coin nestled in the rosy flesh glinting in the orange light of the early evening sun. She readied herself, hands hovering in front of her. Fahlo dropped the coin, and, as it clanged against the stones, he dove to catch it. The man recoiled slowly to avoid tripping over the low body of the boy, and Sednai let her small body crash into him. She snaked her small hand into his bag as she collided with his back, quickly locating the coin purse in the mental image she had put together of the bag, and pulled it away as she stepped back from the man, cocking her head at him like a confused dog. Annoyed by the two irksome children, he rolled his eyes and continued on his course, muttering about urchins on his way.
Sednai leaped to Fahlo, pulling him up from the ground and giggling with the feeling of victory as she weaves the two of them back past their former perch on the step to a narrow alley between buildings, barely big enough to allow Fahlo’s wide shoulders to squeeze through. Fahlo snatched the coins impatiently from her as she jingled the pouch beside her ear. He opened the pouch, counting the coins under his shallow breath.
“So? How’d we do?” she asked with anticipation, grumbling as he pushed her nosy face away from the coin pouch. The pouch had been rather bulky and heavy in her hand, the size of roughly both of her fists. In her short-experience pickpocketing, it was a rather swell catch, especially coming from only one person.
“Good,” Fahlo responded, but his tone didn’t match. “It’s enough for a few meals and some new clothes.”
“You don’t sound especially happy for it being so good,” she prodded, crossing her twiggy arms over her flat chest sternly. “Come on, Fahlo. If even I can tell that something’s wrong, you’ve gotta spill.”
“You’ve been a lot of help, Seddie.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. So, I’m awful sorry about this.”
Sednai had nearly asked sorry about what? when she truly found appreciation for the weight of the coin pouch as it collided heavily with the side of her face, forcing her to stumble slightly and out her hands up defensively. Tentatively putting down her hands, she barely caught sight of Fahlo’s geeks as they retreated from the alley. She ran to the emptying street, watching him sprint away. She started after him, taking of her little dress shoes as she ran and threw them after that traitorous coward!
“Fahlo!” she screeched hopelessly at him, not nearly as fast as the older boy as her now bare feet hit the hit cobblestones. Frustration and despondency boiled up inside her as she slowed to a stop at the end of the road and watched Fahlo’s retreat to the other side, her little fists shaking angrily. She retrieved the discarded shoe she had caught up to and hurled it again, nearly screaming as she watched it bounce off a building and into a storm drain.
“Just my luck. Just my luck!” she yelled in frustration to the now empty street. First the money, then the loss of her only friend, and now, as she picked up her only remaining shoe, she only had one shoe.
“What a greedy bastard. I can’t trust anyone on these stupid streets...” she rambled on, brandishing her limp shoe in case the world around her had anymore terrible fetishes to force onto her. She stomped over to the nearest doorway and sat exhaustedly in it, just daring the storekeeper to chase her away as she stewed angrily.
Fahlo was her most trusted ally and only friend, as it had been for the past six months. Both were parentless urchins abused by the world. Together they had perfected the art of pickpocketing, and, in the last two months, had collected nearly enough money to buy new lives in some imagined paradise outside of Vienda. They dreamed of their new life every nigh, imagining all the foods they’d enjoy and skies they’d sleep under in their utopia. That absolutely disgusting and greedy bastard had used her, however. What a liar, a cheat! Used her to get the money for his own life, own paradise, and here she was, yet again stuck in the street with no money, no friends, no allies, and one stupid shoe.
“Oh, ticks and tocks,” she cursed wearily, her anger fading away into a somber loneliness and desperation. She pulled her knees to her chest, and prepared for another hungry night on the streets.