Dagger

The streets of the Crescent Town, particularly in the marketplace was as busy as ever.

Merchants coming from the various parts of the kingdom selling wares, food, jewelry, and many more for other objects or currency.

Both poor or rich arriving from the numerous sections of the community to buy their needs and wants.

In every populated areas, pickpockets would be present, eyeing those that they could steal from.

There weren't that many pickpockets around these parts as one would think of, though, the marketplace indeed had the highest crime rate of the mentioned acts that it has beaten the number from the slums.

***

In a noisy street, a perfect place for pickpockets. A man whose hat was shadowing the upper portion of his face was pushing his cart filled with valuables through the crowd of people.

The man, a merchant, with his calm smile and relaxed posture, was being tailed by a young boy.

'Looks like a newcomer, he probably have a lot of money in his pockets.', the kid judged in his mind.

Unsure when to strike, the boy kept on his tracks, unnoticed by the passersby.

Finally, he patiently shortened the distance between him and the man.

Getting closer, the large pockets of the man was the first thing he noticed.

The latter inwardly said, 'What wide pockets. This is a bit weird. No, I must do it, it's William's birthday tomorrow.'

He further lessened the gap between them, as the merchant was about to turn to a corner, the kid managed to insert his hand through hole and grabbed whatever could be felt.

Fishing out his hand, he immediately ran away, unsuspected by any of the people in crowd and hid in the nearest alley.

As the man turned around the corner he checked his pockets, only to feel that there was not a thing to search for.

Rather than being surprised, he only showed a smirk on his half-shadowed face.

Taking a pouch from the cart, he poured in some coins to his pockets then returned the pouch back.

While humming a tune, the merchant then continued pushing his cart.

***

In the alley...

Nervousness struck Allen like a thick wooden stick as his back slid down the alley wall; heavily panting and his hands clutching on his ragged shirt.

"This isn't the first time you stole. Calm down!" Telling himself with short but fast breaths. Feeling disturbed as he felt a cane with many eyes was gazing at him.

"I'm alone now... huff... stop sweating!" Continuing on his attempts, he closed his eyes to focus on slowly breathing.

As his breaths relaxed and his surroundings felt evermore tranquil, he inspected how much he grabbed from the merchant.

Gaping, his eyelids jumped up in astonishment when he saw the amount of money on his hands.

It was 10 bronze coins! It might sound like a small amount, but for Allen, it was already a month's worth of thieving.

Pulling out a small pouch from his shorts, he placed the coins inside it and hid it under his shirt.

He stood up and cautiously looked around him, searching if somebody was spying on him, but determining nobody else was here, he gripped the small openings on the wall, and with it, he started climbing up and came down to the other side.

When he got outside of the dim alley, he was greeted by the sun's rays that stabbed his eyes like daggers, blinding him for a moment.

He covered his eyes for a few seconds for them to adjust, after doing so, he walked amongst the civilians who had no idea that a small criminal was among them.

Arriving at the edge of the town nearly devoid of people, he glanced around him from the corner of his eyes.

When he determined that they weren't observing him, he immediately exited the city through the muddy land filled with tall grass.

"Why does it have to be illegal to step out of the town without using official roads? It will be so hard to escape the guards if I walked on them." Allen muttered.

His feet accumulated mud due to him not having any slippers nor even paddigs to wear, but washed it off from in a river on the way.

Finally, spotting a familiar house on the horizon, Allen was now able to fully relax, as there were no patrols in this area. The sight made his lips curve upwards a little, feeling the peace all-around him, but...

...only outside the house.

Before he even got to open the door, his father Marco, beat him to it first and pushed it in a fast manner that it created a slight wind.

"How much did you get today?", Marco glanced down at Allen and asked slowly in a clumsy manner, seemingly drunk while giving out his rough palm.

Allen smelled the scent of a strong alcoholic liquor from his father's hands, making him a bit nauseous. He could only inwardly sigh and handed out the pouch of ten bronze coins.

Face contorting and eyebrows slanting, Marco inspected the contents of the pouch, he angrily asked, "Why is it only this few?"

Hearing the angered tone of his father's voice, Allen unconsciously backed off and replied in a weak voice, "This is how much I could steal for a month, father."

"So... you are saying you have been hiding this for a month?!", Marco shouted in anger.

The kid nearly jumped back in shock and stuttered, "N-No, I..."

"You are sleeping on the outside tonight! If you dare go in, you will sleep on the grass for a week!" With a loud bang, Marco closed the door.

Lowering his head, Allen muttered, "This day can't get any worse, can it?"

-rumble-

Loud rumbles from the sky could be heard, then in an instant, a heap of rain fell down to the ground.

"A storm?", Realizing what it was, Allen immediately hid under the nearest tree in the vicinity.

The kid shivered as he tightly crouched himself behind the tree, opposite from where the raindrops were coming from; however, the wind's direction was unpredictable and kept changing from time to time that his clothes got wet.

...

The storm didn't stop until afternoon came about. Even so, the sky was still full of black clouds and the rumbling still hasn't stopped yet.

Allen then spotted that the door of their house opening and another boy who looked like much younger ran towards where he was.

"William?", Allen recognized the incoming boy.

"Big brother, you look so miserable, you might get cold or even worse, a fever!", William said in a mocking tone and tossed a blanket to Allen. "Use this."

Although in a snickering tone, Allen knew that William was only trying to cheer him up without any bad intent.

Allen dried his hair and body with the towel while saying, "This will become wet afterwards, then it will be no use for blocking the rain."

William rolled his eyes, "Come on brother, father said you are not allowed to go in the house, but that doesn't mean you are not allowed in the shed."

"Uhh...", Allen paused and blankly gazed at William. In his mind, he slapped himself hundreds of times and thought, 'How could I forget?!'

"Let's go to the shed before it rains again.", William forcefully pulled Allen up and they both travelled towards the shed.

Arriving at the shed, Allen told William to go back to the house as there was a chance it might start raining again. The latter refused to and wanted to accompany the former a bit longer, but in the end, he was persuaded to go back

Allen smiled as looked at William's back. He mumbled, "After all, this is not the first time I will be sleeping outside."

-rumble-

Rain started to pour down again, Allen closed the door of the shed and looked everything around him.

Along with some few tools messily stacked everywhere, the roof of the structure had small holes from where droplets of water were flowing through, additionally, the shed didn't have any flooring, only the grassy ground itself which was absorbing the rainwater.

Allen climbed up to a big-enough shelf sticked to the wall where it was also devoid of holes on that part of the roof.

It also has a tiny gap on the wall wide enough for taking a peek outside.

"When this rain stops, I should find a way to get more coins today to buy at least a small gift for William." Allen laid down on the towel and closed his eyes.

...

A few hours later, the heavy rain stopped and the sky cleared up a bit.

After which, Allen left the shed and sneaked back to the town.

As soon as he entered from the same exit he used, he saw a unit of guards turn around the corner of the street.

"You! Stop there!" One of the guards spotted Allen and ran towards him, in a bid to catch him.

'Oh no.', Allen immediately ran away to the opposite direction.

"Split up!", the guard chasimg Allen shouted in command to the other ones.

The four other guards responded with an aye and ran towards the other directions.

The townspeople witnessed what was happening but didn't interfere, because they knew that the kid would be caught sooner or later.

As Allen was about to reach and turn to a corner of another street, two guards appeared in front, almost tackling him down, before he even got to run to his right side where there was another path, two more guards were already running towards him from that direction.

Two guards at the front, two guards to the right, and a guard running after him from behind.

Seeing there was no more choice, Allen ran to the alley on his left, even though he knew it was a dead end.

"That kid will reach a dead end, hurry up!", the commanding guard said.

...

It didn't take long and Allen reached a wall, after which, he started climbing as fast as he can towards the other side.

Of course, why would he go to a dead-end alley if he couldn't escape by other means?

As soon as Allen reached the other side of the wall, the guards had reached the dead-end too.

"Where's that kid?", a guard asked.

"Damn it! Find him, he'll bring us merit if we catch him, not using the official road is already a heavy crime!", the guard that first spotted Allen commanded.

After a pause, the same guard added, "Good thing I saw his face, I'm going to report this back to the regiment, so at least we could get something else."

"Go. We'll keep running after him." Another guard nodded, afterwards they all left the alley.

Meanwhile, Allen heard their conversation from the other side of the wall, he mentally cursed himself for his bad luck today.

'I hope I won't get posted in the bounty office.', Allen thought as immediately ran out of the alley towards an another street.

He heard from gossips that if one was posted in the bounty office, expect that they would get sliced apart by hunters.

As soon as he exited the alley, he saw a tavern on the other side of the street. On the roof of its porch was the establishment's striking name: Three Heads Tavern.

An urge to enter the building came over Allen, like a tickling feather to his inner mind.

Sticking around for a few moments, he saw from the corner of his eyes that the two of the five guards trying to capture him earlier were on the other side of the street he was currently on, however, they didn't see him yet.

Allen thought, 'I'm really unlucky today.'

Following his urge with reluctance, he entered the tavern.