Arcadia's Ignoble Knight: The Sorceress of Ashtown

The Chase

Caspian and Erica turned to see a man dressed in rags, running off with a purse clutched in his arms.

Several meters from where they stood, a woman dressed in a plain-looking yellow sundress was pointing at the hastily retreating man and shouting. "That man stole my purse! Someone! Please, stop him! My entire life savings is in there!"

Caspian didn't hesitate. His body moved before his mind caught up with the situation, taking off in the direction of the thief.

"O-oi! Caspie, where are you going?!" Erica shouted at him as he gave chase. He barely heard her, however, as his attention was focused solely on the thief, who even now was disappearing amongst the crowded streets.

Caspian wove his way around the mass of people, using his agility and reflexes to dodge and weave through the crowd like a river flowing around thousands of pebbles. The man in front of him had no such talent; he just shoved people out of the way.

The man looked behind him, eyes widening when he saw Caspian slowly closing the distance between them. In what appeared to be an act of desperation, he ran out onto the street. MAFTs honked and tires squealed as people swerved to avoid the crazy thief. Several people shouted at him, but the man ignored them in his effort to reach the other side.

Caspian followed. He sped across the street, heedless of the danger. A vehicle came speeding in from his left, the MAFT's horn honking loudly. Out of instinct, Caspian leapt into the air and flipped over the car, allowing it to continue unimpeded. When he landed, he tucked into a forward roll, thereby dodging a car that came in from his right. As his feet touched solid ground, he pushed off from his crouched position and launched himself into a full-bodied sprint that took him out of the street.

The man tried running away when he realized that Caspian had followed him, but Caspian was having none of that. He followed as the man turned a corner into an alley, which turned out to be a dead end. The man turned around, eyes wide and frantic as he backed away—until his back hit the wall and then he could move no more. Caspian stopped two meters away from him. Now that the chase appeared to be over, Caspian finally got his first real look at the man.

Young. That was the first word that came to mind. He didn't look much older than Caspian himself. He might even be younger, though it was hard to tell because of the dirt smeared all over his face.

The man—no, boy's—clothing was ragged and worn, the edges frayed and torn. Grime covered much of his clothes. Mold and moss grew along the rough fabric in thick patches, as if he'd found it buried underneath a creak and dug it up. It had several black stains from the spirits only knew what. He wore a bandana that hid his ears, much like Caspian, only his looked more like a strip of cloth torn from his clothes than an actual bandana. Dark strands of stringy, rough-looking hair covered his forehead, and his eyes were so dark they looked almost black.

"There's nowhere left for you to run," Caspian said, taking a single step forward. "Give me the purse and I'll pretend this incident never happened."

"I can't do that," the teen said, slowly shaking his head, body quivering in fear. "I need this money to feed my younger sister."

"Tch!" Caspian's glare hardened. "People like you are the worst. You go around stealing the hard-earned money of innocent people, never working a single day in your life. You can justify it all you want, but it doesn't change the fact that what you're doing is wrong. If you need money so badly, then get a job! Don't go around stealing from other people!"

"You think I haven't tried getting a job already?!" the teen shouted back, anger and frustration lacing his tone. "I've tried finding a place to work dozens of times! Hundreds! But no one's going to hire someone like me!" He gritted his teeth. "You humans are all the same! A bunch of greedy fools who can't look past the differences of others!"