A/N: Media is how I imagine our heroine, Lumina, to look! Music video is "Unsquare Dance" which goes well with Lumina's thieving, if you enjoy listening and reading!
I always loved the rush of adrenaline that came the second before the steal.
Picture a busy marketplace; people shouting their wares, the hissing of frying pans, the braying of donkeys as they move through the crowds. Imagine that it was nearly midsummer, and the sun was so hot that it sent heat waves rising from the dusty ground, and cast dark, soothing shadows that created puppet shows of weaving bodies. Now, add in a small, lithe figure of a young girl, no older than eighteen, and expertly hidden amongst the dark corners of the market.
That would be me.
It was nearly midday, during the height of the summer, and sweat coursed down my neck. My palms trembled. My back ached. Gods, was I getting old? My eighteenth birthday was in a few days. And I had been feeling odd lately...
Suppressing a snort, I sighed. Reia would say I was being silly, as she had the last time I'd brought up "becoming old". My reasoning was, as orphans approaching adulthood, that we were old— within the year we would have to leave and find our own trade.
Whatever that would be. Reia would be fine. With her good looks, her charm and her cleverness, she could take almost any job she wanted to.
I stuffed my hands into my pockets, waiting for midday and the heaviest traffic in which to conceal my activity.
My thoughts drifted once more, staring around the marketplace with a feeling of foreboding. Was this all that the remainder of my life would be— a tiny, backwater town in the north where technology barely reached? I clicked my tongue, disappointed. I dearly loved engines, and rare was a sight of a flying machine passing overhead here. Rumour was it that airships were common in Illychia, a land to the south, and that electricity lit up the capital city. Here, we were lucky to have a gas lamp.
Here, we were lucky to have food on the table.
If I managed to bring it.
Stealing was the only thing I was good at, aside from inventing - which nobody deemed a useful talent anyway. Not here, where technology was still tomorrow's adenture. Not that stealing was morally right- I knew that it wasn't- but when you were hungry, and an orphan, there weren't many options available.
My eyes today, however, weren't focused on the usual nourishing theft. If they were, I would be over towards the bakery stalls, the vegetable stalls, and, if I were having a particularly good day, poultry or fish stands. Instead, I was fixated on a more expensive, excessive product as I prowled forward.
Overhead, the sun reached its peak. Time to move. Two steps and I was in full daylight. Feeling blinded and exposed, I hid behind my fringe. I approached the wooden booth, decorated with lamps and wind chimes, enticing the customer with some spare coin.
Water trickled down my spine, from heat and anticipation. Not a single commoner flanked this stall; as I approached it, eyes flickered towards the peasant approaching them.
I could almost see myself from their own eyes; a tiny, deathly pale, cloaked girl, lurching towards them with dark hair flowing like hellish tentacles from her head. I had to look scary.
The servants of the wealthier families were the first to shoo me away. They turned their noses upwards at me and cursed my filthiness. The middle-class ladies, clustered in groups, clutched at their posies and clasped their hands in prayer. I put on a convincing stagger, gasping for breath.
'I think...I think I shall be sick!' I called loudly, in my roughest accent. It took only the nearest person to hear and begin tripping over themselves to get away. Ladies began screaming and gentlemen too; pushing aside each other in attempt to get away from the walking illness that I pretended to be.
I lurched and gripped the stall table for dear life, as if I could support my body weight no longer. By this time, all this acting and heat and attention really had brought on a sickly feeling in my stomach. I gave a retch, just in case anybody needed more convincing.
I could hear the stall owner trying to console his customers; a few of the ladies and gentlemen had decided to swoon, only making my job easier. As I fumbled at the stall table, I saw my catch, and as I pretended to fall, I swept it underneath my cloak with the air of a magician.
As soon as it was safely hidden, and no shout of, 'Quick! Catch her!' pierced my acting, I tucked the item into my hip-bag, and then made a swerve along the ground, back towards the flow of people. I staggered away, hoping my ill-turned-drunkard role was received with the prestige of my performance.
It was only when I was out of sight, and tucked safely into the shadows once more, did I allow myself a small smile. I felt for my prize within my bag; I could picture it perfectly; a beautiful bronze pocket watch, with a crystal glass covering and ornately carved hands, and small enough to fit in my palm.
There was only a vague sense of guilt-- a prickle of conscience-- that could ruin the triumph of the moment. But when every day was a fight for survival, conscience was something slowly pushed into the background.
I breathed out once, twice. Safe. Sweaty, palms soaked, body overheating, but safe. And now I had the present for my sister's birthday that she'd admired from a distance, but never thought she could own.
Satisfied, I began to weave my way through the market crowds in the direction of home. I joined the ribbons of dwellers with my eyes flashing all around in my normal fashion. Observing everything, and everyone, was something I considered a key to my successes at stealing. To calculate every reaction and event that could occur would save me from being caught, which could mean juvenile prison.
I shuddered, remembering that in a few days, I would be eighteen, and considered a child no longer. And when that day came, my punishment for thievery would double.
As I stepped, the crowd slowing my pace, I wondered for the hundredth time what I would do for my future. The lady in front of me was carrying bundles of clothes; a seamstress, perhaps, or a washerwoman?
I noticed the reddened skin on her wrists and elbows, and her faint aroma of powder, and decided on the latter.
It was a possibility for me- but the likelihood of an orphan being employed in a job that many workers wanted was unlikely.
As an orphan who could not read nor write, and only had a basic grasp of numbers, I would probably be employed down the mines or in the factories, or- even worse- be forced into prostitution.
Thievery, and the punishment of mutilation, seemed a better prospect for someone that disliked human contact.
And yet-- yet, said a voice-- there was something in the back of my mind that didn't see my future here, among the dusty clouds of this town. Somewhere I imagined my own workspace, my own agenda, in honest work that didn't risk mine or my sister's ruin. Not that I thought myself better than the clutter of people around me, and their trudging home for the day after working early mornings in bakeries, mines, factories, smelting and blacksmithing. No, I didn't see myself as better, just different.
Was it so wrong to wish for something more? I thought again of the southern cities, the technology, and felt a pang of longing for machinery more complex than a cuckoo clock.
Could I sell my inventions? That would be my dream job. Some nights, I would dream I owned a market stall, filled to the brim with strange gadgets and devices that people would come from across the world to see.
When not helping with the chores at the orphanage, I would fix and create from the metals and contraptions, left in the orphanage or in rubbish piles outside the town. Industry had struck across the land, sweeping all into its path, and a whole new array of machinery, warfare and transport was springing up. Factories had opened outside our nearby city, and crowds walked early morning each day and night to take their shifts there. Armies of other countries were now equipped with gunpowder and firearms, artillery to kill masses and flying machines to travel across the land.
Electricity had began to be implemented in everyday life in many places, and it was changing the minds of inventors like me. My passion was my workbench and my tools.
If only this sinkhole could catch up!
How ironic that to afford a stall, and the equipment for my inventions, I would need money and reputation, two things I did not have. How ironic that to travel to any of the places that wanted inventions, I would need cash first.
In the midst of my reverie, a flash of red caught my eye.
A bright red fabric floated in the wind.
The market seller had hung it out on display next to her other fabrics, but they were dull in comparison. The fabric was red silk, and it danced tauntingly towards me, patterned with feathers of silver thread. It was like nothing I'd seen at the market before, and I was surprised that nobody else was drawn towards it as I was.
Even if it was expensive, I could look...right?
Inadvertently I took a step towards it, then another. Again, that prickly feeling came over me; that odd sense I'd told Reia about, and she'd said I was being silly.
But this was a very particular feeling. A pounding in my chest, a ringing in my ears...and a sensation that something was arising within my mind that was just out of my reach.
The smell of soap and comfort. Male, gentle hands. Beautiful pale hair.
Silver feathers. Soft silk.
A necklace. A promise.
The feeling of belonging and déjà vu...
I blinked, hearing a shout.
A large, bald, obese man was charging towards me from where I stood, gaping at the red silk.
'Oy! Get lost, scum!'
I flinched, stepping away from the silk as if I were guilty. Normally, I wouldn't have let myself get caught, but my mind was still dazed and woozy as I returned to the present. A few heads had turned, but most looked away with indifference even as the man placed his hands on my cloak and pulled me by the scruff.
'I know the likes of yer, pet'y little orphan thief,' he snarled, and I caught views of black-and-gold teeth. His breath stunk of cigar. I simply stared at him with big, large eyes, unable to move.
'Yer think yer can look at my expensive silks? Muddyin' it with yer grubby little eyes?'
He let me drop, and my hands flew to my neck, coughing my guts out as I choked for air.
'Don't mess with me, yer miserable wench. Just yer wait. I don't ferget. I'll come find yer in a dirty brothel somewhere in a coupl'a years, and I'll make sure to remind yer who has the power in this world. It's not yer, orphan.'
His leer, as he stepped closer, made my skin crawl. I sidestepped him, knowing that I was faster, but my body still frozen in fear.
'Oh? Tryin' ter run? Ha, ha, ha- jokes on yer, kid. I don't run, but me dogs do.'
The owner grinned at me once more, displaying his crooked teeth. He ducked behind the rows of silks, and I heard the latches of a cage being opened.
I didn't need a better invitation to run. Hearing the barking of bloodthirsty hounds, I turned on my heels, and ran.
Author's note: Again, thank you for reading my work. Did you enjoy it? What do you think of our main character, Lumina?
Larissa x