Chapter 1

Alex vaulted himself over a long, brick wall, catching himself in a parachute roll.

A stall vendor was currently chasing him for his committed injustice of stealing a piece of bread. The significance of this bread Alex didn't know, but the stall vendor was mad and riled up like a bull, charging him and hurling objects and profanities at him. It was honestly hilarious, and Alex would've liked to have savored the moment more, but he had places to be, so he ran into an alley where the stall vendor was right behind him, along with a fish trader who's barrel Alex had knocked over and stolen a fish on a stake while he was on the run.

" S-stop running" ,The bread vendor huffed. he was a man late into his thirties with an apron and big, meaty hands from kneading bread for his trade.

"Nowhere to run now, brat." The fish vendor exlaimed.

The man was now close enough so that Alex could smell the man.

his nose wrinkled. The man actually smelt like shit.

"What's so funny?" The bread vendor asked, still breathing heavilly from his escape.

Alex just shook his head and jumped up, ricocheting up the walls, going further up, putting more and more distance between himself and his pursuers.

From his perch at the top of the buildings he said nothing, just giving the men a self-satisfied smirk, before nimbly leaping away on a couple of shoddily built buildings and nearing in on a large Tree trunk just outside the line of shagily built houses that had come to be known as the outline. The reason, Alex didn't know. .

Alex jumped up onto the trunk and scaled the tree, crouching down and eating his newly acquired meal.

He decided to make a type of sandwich with his rations, so he split the loaf into two, and put the fish on it. Alex had made a good haul today so he decided to spoil himself and get a rare delicacy of cheese to celebrate.

Alex shoved the bread and fish into a worn pouch where he kept his feeble amount of coins, and left it on one of the branches. Alex leaped from the tree, doing a small squat before walking out of the shade under the tree branches.

Spotting a stall, Alex walked up to it.

The stall was a purple and orange, both rare colors to acquire in a place like the slums, Having food to fill his stomach was a rare occurrence in it's own, but a second rare occurrence was certainly welcome. The stall owner must've been pretty loaded to own such a richly colored tent.

He rang the bell on the post to signify that a customer was there. A Lady Alex had never seen came out. She had frizzy tied back hair and the harsh, weathered exterior that came from living the desert for a while. she must've been from a different village.

She was wearing a blue stall apron, the only thing that Alex remembered remotely about the old woman. She had caught him a few weeks earlier stealing from the rice farmer, but she had no proof, and she couldn't see his face when he robbed the man blind.

"Relax, I'm here to buy some cheese." Alex said. The lady recognized him, never a good thing when it came to him

"With what money? Everybody, even a newcomer to this trash place knows you're a thief."

Alex suddenly fell into a coughing fit, managing to snag a small wedge of aged cheese, somehow without her noticing.

Alex then ran as fast as he could possibly run back to the large tree, but this time there was somebody outside. He knew this tree was often visited by people passing by, but he also knew other thief's and sometimes even mobsters came here too. This was not a safe time to be at the tree, or just out and about, especially as the sun was now almost out of the sky and the stalls were closed, with everything put up. There wasn't much he could do except pretend that he was passing by.

Not long later, as Alex was reclining in the branch, looking for his pouch, he was suddenly dragged down.

"Looking for your pouch?" A high pitched voice jeered.

Alex narrowed his eyes, looking for a way out of Dedee's Strong Grip on his shoulders . It was Dedee, perhaps the most annoying person in Alex's life. Dedee was perhaps the only noble in the slums, a place known for its' grime and poorness.

"A little birdie told me you forgot to give me a share of the spoils." Dedee spat, throwing Alexs' hard-earned bread on the ground, ruining it.

"I don't owe you anything." Alex spat back, landing a glob of spit on Dedee's eye.

" A peasant like you needs to know their place."

With his limited vision, Alex saw Crouge, Dedee's fat accomplis guarding the spot in front of him. There were too many people for Alex to fight, and as much as he wanted to beat the everlasting life out of Dedee and his friends, he had better places to be and people to visit.

Before Dedee could react, Alex shot his right leg back, hitting his bare heel between Dedee's legs. Dedee instantly let go of Alex, and Alex raced away like the wind. He got a sizable distance away from Dedee, before he was suddenly tackled to the ground. Alex was not at all expecting Dedee's other companion and he Definitely wasn't expecting the black-haired boy to ram him. Alex dropped to the ground, clutching his bleeding head. he had hit his head on a rock, hard enough for the left eye's vision to be blurry fromt he warm sticky liquid that dripped down.

But that was when things turned even more downhill for Alex. Dedee had one card up his sleeve that Alex had forgotten about, as Dedee was forbiden by his parents to use it, and therefore, hadn't accounted for. While Alex was trying to crawl away, Dedee strung out a lash of water that brought Alex to him, bound while also making Alex's arms burn from the tightness of the water whip in the process.

"Listen here, you piece of shit. Dedee doesn't lose". Dedee's eyes then narrowed as the water tightened, as the blood and circulation was being squeezed out of his arms

In a last ditch effort, Alex headbutted Dedee's nose when he came face-to-face with Alex. With a loud crack, lots of blood, and Dedee's concentration broken, the small streams of water that had been gripping Alex let go and faded, giving Alex the needed time to escape and sprint as fast as he could, far away from Dedee and his friends.

Alex opened the cricket door to hog shelter and listened to the snoring sounds of passed out drunks. Hog shelter was often a dangerous place when men got too plentiful with their drink and became violent. Alex himself had had a couple of near-misses in hog shelter. Alex opened a creaking door to the back of the shelter and stepped into a room with labored breathing sounds coming from it.

This often was a good time to make some money. Whenever a bunch of men drinking away their sorrows passed out or fell asleep, Alex would go to Hog Shelter to rob them of their measley few coins.

Pocketing their coins, Alex turned to face a surprisingly conscious man, a hulking bear of a man at that. Without even thinking, Alex pocketed the coppers and raced to the creaky door, bursting though it and climbing up a nearby wooden gutter. Vaulting himself over the rooftops, Alex steadily made progress towards the small shack that he called home. The bear of a man pitifully tried to make progress on catching up to Alex, but Alex was simply faster. With a lean, small build, and a skinny, malnourished body, there wasn't much for the wind to catch onto him and hold him back when he ran.

It wasn't long before Alex either had a sizable enough lead, or the man chasing after him decided it wasn't worth it.

Out of breath, Alex stopped to rest near an unlit, stone, surprisingly large considering the condition of the burps, formally called the slums by nobels in the central kingdom. Just the thought of those pompous nobles living it up in the Central kingdom was enough to make his lips curl into a sneer at the ends.

Giving up his chance to make any more money, Alex wandered through the dirty, unpaved paths of the slums, with the sparking, practically ancient lanterns powered by the fire element infused into rock. It made a glowing stone called a firestone, which could heat and possibly make flames, used in all sorts of commodities. Kicking a rock, Alex looked up from his feet and stood in the doorway of his small wooden shack.

Stooping his head to get through the low ceiling, Alex stepped down a foot into the remains of a wine cellar, the place where he now called home. Peering into his home, it was obvious to an outsider that this was not a well kept residence. There wasn't even a floor, just the red, sandy dirt of the fire kingdom dunes. A pile of mildewed, stale rags that served as his bed keyed in the corner. Sighing, Alex layed down on his makeshift bed, staring at the silver and white moons of Easteria, surrounded by the milky stars twinkling all around them.

It wasn't long before he drifted off to sleep.