*~*~*~*
‘Woo-hoo! Oh this is my lucky day! I finally found a place that hasn’t
been destroyed AND is big and very much
overpopulated! Oh I am so good.’ The bright-eyed youth stopped walking
and gazed at the bustling city around him. He then
threw his head back and let out a hearty laugh that shook the chestnut
braid at his back. Finally he noticed all the people
staring at him and he grinned sheepishly. “Eh, sorry folks. Didn’t
mean to disturb ya or anything.” He closed one of his royal
blue eyes in a wink and waved to the crowd then he began to skip down
the street with his braid bouncing behind him.
A few of the townspeople smiled, such a rare thing it was to find such
a happy youth, but most just shook their heads
muttering something about today’s youth and how they should be taught
some respect before continuing on their way. When
he was far enough away the braided boy stopped again and glanced about.
“Hmm…well there’s the market. Big, full of
people, noisy, and it just reeks of cash. Heh heh. Time to go to work.”
So the boy put on his trademark smile and proceeded to
the market square.
Once there he glanced this way and that trying to plot the best course.
‘Lesse, there’s lots of people by the weapons shop but
it’s too open. Can’t have that, someone might see me! Hmm…armor
shop? Nah, TOO MANY people. Guess I’ve got no
choice but to go grocery shopping.’ After having decided where he
was going, the boy started skipping once more until he got
into the crowd.
As he was making his way to the fruit stand he noticed a rather large
man next to a jewelry stall. Attached to the large man’s
belt was an almost equally large coin purse. ‘Bingo!’ The boy made
his way to the jewelry stand and, once there, began to act
as if he was inspecting the jewels. After taking a cursory glance at
the merchandise he shrugged and walked away
“accidentally” bumping into the large man. “Oh, sorry sir! Didn’t
mean to run into ya.”
“Well you should watch where you’re going then!” the man said
huffily. The braided boy smiled apologetically and held up his
hands.
“Sorry again,” he said. The large man just grunted and turned back
to inspecting the gems. The boy turned as well and began
to walk towards an alley. Once there he took his hand out of his extremely
large pocket and looked at the bag of gold. “Thank
you, mister, for your generous contribution.” He chuckled and began
to wonder how long it would take the fat fool to realize
his money was gone. He chuckled again as he imagined the look on the
man’s pudgy face. “Oh well, gloat later, there’s still
more to be done. Food and shelter are expensive ya know.”
He slipped the bag of gold back into his pocket and walked out of the
alley back into the mass of people. He continued on his
regular course, making quick stops every now and again to relieve people
of their heavy purses, until he reached the other
end of the market. He smiled as he went into the shadows to take a
look at his spoils. “Lesse, lots of gold, some silver, and a
bit of bronze and copper. I did pretty good. Heh who says you need
to lead an honest life to get the riches. ‘Sides there’s a lot
more people who’re even more rotten than me and everyone says they
lead “honest lives”. What a bunch of crap. Oh well.”
Again the boy put away all of his money and began to walk again. Suddenly
he was stopped by a rather large and calloused
hand on his shoulder.
“Where do you think you’re going, thief?” a deep voice, just dripping
with authority, asked. The braided boy gulped and
turned to face the officer with a big smile on his face.
“Whoever are you talking to, sir?” he asked innocently.
“To you, thief, now hand over the money you stole and maybe I’ll
let you go,” the officer said. The boy opened his eyes,
innocence filling every corner of those two blue pools, and said,
“But, sir, you were addressing a thief and, if my memory serves me
correctly, I am not a thief so you must not be talking to
me.” The officer let out a short bark of laughter before grabbing
the boy’s braid and pulling hard.
“Listen, thief, I don’t like it when people lie to me, especially
when I’ve given them an easy way out. Now hand over the money
and I won’t have to kill you.” The boy’s eyes narrowed as the
officer tugged harder on his braid. Suddenly there was a bright
flash and the officer was down, face first, on the ground. The boy
carefully grabbed his braid and inspected it for any damage
to the length or any misplaced hairs then glared down at the officer.
“Nobody,” he began, “and I mean NOBODY touches the hair and lives,
man!” The boy continued glaring at the body for quite
sometime until he heard some shouts coming from the market place. He
looked up and saw more officers heading his way
with their swords drawn. “Oops, looks like they noticed. Gotta go.”
The boy knelt down by the dead officer’s body and relieved
the corpse of the heavy money purse before disappearing down an alley.
He watched from the roof of a nearby building as the officers made their
way through the market and alleyways before they
gave up their search of the thief. He smiled and patted his bulging
pockets, which jingled at the contact. “Okay so it didn’t go
quite as I planned. Oh well, I wasn’t planning on staying here long
anyways. New plan: eat, sleep, stock up, and get the hell
outta here! Very nice. Sayonara suckers!” With that parting comment
the boy disappeared from the rooftop and into the
crowd of people below but not before leaving a childish carving on
the rooftop saying ‘Duo wuz here >P’.
*~*~*~*
I forgot to mention earlier that the first six chapters would be char
intros. Well I mentioned it now so I am redeemed!
MUWAHAHAHA!!! I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter. I think it’s
better than the first one. Duo is such a happy guy but no
touching the hair. Very bad. Okies, until next chapter minna-san!