3. Harsh Beginings

The first two years of Bruno's new life were pretty wonderful. He had loving parents, that insisted to call him Boreas, but that was understandable since they had no idea about the whole reincarnation shtick.

He got a hold of his body in few weeks. In few months he learned how to speak, but remained silent to pretend to be a normal kid.

From the conversations his parents had, he learned that his father, Jerome, was a sailor. Working on a ship, "Merry Mery", that was sailing along the coastline, and transporting goods from city to city. His mother, on the other hand, Matilda, was a seamstress. Mainly focusing her work on repairing clothes and ship sails.

He also learned that they were clearly living in a port town, immensely influenced by the pirates, whose headquarters were on a nearby island.

There were a lot of stolen goods going through the city - Blackrock - and a lot of secret deals making the ships and crews from the town safe from the attacks.

Bruno was very keen on learning how to read as soon as that was possible, but since there was nothing to learn the alphabet from, he couldn't start. That was just the beginning of bad news, though.

At some point, his mother got sick and started coughing badly. She had to be separated from the rest of the family, and very soon after, she died. Death had a huge impact on his father Jerome, who started drinking heavily, and soon even the single attic room was too pricy for their family.

They had to change it for a shack in the dock's slums area. All of that happened when Bruno was three years old, and could both walk and talk. He spent a year being shared between the other families living in the neighborhood, while his father worked on a ship, and rarely visited town.

This led to him starting work very soon. At the age of four, he ended up under Mrs. Griselda's care. She was a very tough woman. Her husband died on a ship, and she didn't have any kids. Now she was taking care of several ones belonging to sailors that had no wives. Even among them, Bruno was the youngest.

She had four kids under her care, but he didn't really care about the remaining three. They all worked in the docks, but there was nothing special about them. His new caretaker found him a job in a tavern called 'Salty Sturgeon'. Since he was a surprisingly capable boy at his age, he would clean fish, peel the potatoes, wash the floors, and carry some lighter things. From time to time, he would even deliver messages. This was enough to keep him alive, while his father was away.

He tried his very best to learn reading, and he did, but It wasn't easy. With the lack of a written world spread around it was hard to learn the alphabet. Bruno found himself forced to spend every minute of free time in the docks, looking at ships sailing in and out and engraving the strings of characters that were ship's names in his memory, to then connect it with the spoken name heard from sailors, or others whom he asked.

It was a long, and slow process, but brought the expected fruits. The first milestone was achieved.

The second most important thing in his life was learning everything he could about the gods of this new world. The situation he found himself in, led to questioning the power and influence of the goddess. He quickly learned that only a few deities worshiped widely across the lands were able to manifest their powers. That wasn't enough to convince Bruno to ignore the deal he made, but he also wasn't necessarily stressing himself about it.

With all that out of the way, he finally started to put a plan of fixing his position in the world. He needed money, influence, and connections. And all of it to just start making moves. Instead of having that, he was trapped in the body of an eight-year-old boy, peeling potatoes on the street behind the tavern.

The day didn't seem so different from any other when two other kids walked past him. They were wearing rugs and clearly were homeless. One glance was enough for him to determine they weren't from this part of the town. Bruno wouldn't probably react if not for information that he heard a bit earlier that day. Two kids were caught in the city market and punished for stealing. Their hands were nailed to the platform on which city folk usually hanged criminals.

The two that just walked past him probably were part of the gang, and right now they had nothing to look for around the market. They were forced to go to a different part of the city. This was a key to the connections he needed so much.

One of the principles of survival among the thief crews formed by kids was loyalty, and that was something he would need in the future, so he dropped his work, and rushed after them.

- Hey, you!

The bigger one turned, putting a hand over the shoulder of the smaller one. It was a girl with short dark hair, and face smeared all over with dirt. She was about to run with the shorter boy, who also looked over his shoulder.

- I have food - said Bruno, and that was enough for them to stay.

- What do you want? - she asked immediately.

- Nothing. I just want to give you something to eat. Stay here, I'll be right back - and he bolted to the alley he came from.

He entered the tavern from the back. The kitchen was busy as always. Since the meals were cheap there sailors would often stop by on their journey across the coastline to have a proper meal. Not to mention the city folk working in profitable businesses, which allowed them to eat outside.

Few women occupied a long table doing various things. Kneading the dough for bread, chopping vegetables, cutting meat. On a brick stove, on the left, was a big cooking pot with some sup boiling inside. Bruno, pretending he is looking for something, quickly stole a few carrots and tomatoes, then left. Nobody even paid any attention to him.

He was a very diligent worker who earned every coin that the owner, Miss Sloan, paid him. Most of that landed in Mrs. Griselda's pocket anyway. He never complained though and was known to do things before anybody even asked him to do them, so women often just ignored the boy, knowing he is not being lazy.

He went outside and ran straight out of the alley. The girl was waiting for him, but the smaller kid was gone. Smart move. If he was to return with some adults to grab them, only she would get caught. The kid was probably waiting somewhere around there, hidden.

- Here - said Bruno, and gave her what he stole.

She didn't say a thing and just took it. He was not expecting anything from her jet, so he just turned to go back, but she stopped him by saying:

- Hey! What's your name?

- Bruno. Remember it, you might need that in the future.

He heard a short laugh, as he walked away to resume dropped work.

From now on Viki would appear from time to time to get some food. At first, she didn't have anything to offer in return, but with time she was bringing him information. Their relationship slowly grew over four years.

Bruno learned a few things about Viki over the months. She was a daughter of a whore who died from venereal disease. After that, she ended on the streets with her little brother named Tom, whom she tried her best to protect. Fortunately for them, a gang of kids picked them up, and together they would steal food from the city market. It was a tough piece of bread but kept them alive. At least until some of them got caught.

In docks, she found herself a new crew of a bit older people, who took care of her.

Their relationship grew stronger especially on one day after she came running for the first time, chased by some men after an unsuccessful attempt to steal something. She stopped in front of him, with panic painted all over her face. He dropped what he was doing, and quickly grabbed her hand, then pulled her and pushed between the empty beer kegs, waiting to be collected by the brewers later that week.

Then he returned to his stool and interrupted work. Two men showed soon after.

- Did you see a kid running?!

- A girl, did you see her?!

He just pointed further in the alley but didn't speak a word. They bolted in the pointed direction, to soon vanish in the distance.

This incident led to few others. From time to time Bruno would help her to hide from chasers. Sometimes be on guard when she and her crew attempted to break somewhere at night and steal more valuable goods. Nothing grandiose though. Food, alcohol, cloth, and other necessities for survival. Usually from the badly guarded port warehouses.

His job was just to hide in the dark, and whistle if somebody would show up when she and a bunch of others went in, so he rarely even met the other thieves.

That's how time went by until Bruno reached the age of twelve, and everything changed.