psychoshenanigans | For Guin // Street Urchins

Ah, another day in a strange new world! Brought here by some unknown force for some unknown reason, everyone is still adjusting to the idea of being somewhere that isn't home--or wherever they were before.

The town they have been brought to has no name. It's a strange place, a sprawling mix of old, rustic aesthetics and modern, mechanical automatons. Quaint one or two-story boutiques and bakeries line the streets surrounding the main square, but a strange clockwork servant walks past them on its way to fulfill whatever tasks their master has given them. Two villagers browse handmade wares in brightly-colored market stalls, but one of them checks what looks like an astrolabe every twenty minutes or so.

Overall, it seems like a quiet, charming little world... But no world is without trouble.

This morning, trouble comes in the form of a small, pale boy skittering away from the sound of yelling behind him. He squeezes between some crates and nearly stumbles on a storm drain in his hurry, darting into a crowd and then out of it again to try and get away. A couple of people look up to see what the ruckus is about, until they catch what the men in pursuit are yelling.

"Stop, thief!" There are two of them. "Get back here!"

The boy makes the mistake of glancing back as he rounds a corner... Which means he doesn't see the person turning the corner from the other direction, and nearly slams into them head-first with a startled yelp.

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Privately Cassian agrees, but he's not about to admit that to someone older and apparently better informed. You don't just hand out advantage like that. He shrugs instead, hitching himself a little further up the shallow slope of the roof. "Where were you before?"

"Umm... I don't know."

Which, funny enough, doesn't sound like the sassy 'I don't know' of a kid trying to be a brat. It sounds like he genuinely doesn't know where he used to be.

Apparently, this fact doesn't bother him all that much, because he starts picking out a few coins and putting them into obvious pockets in his pants and less-obvious pockets up his sleeves. He lifts his shirt to reveal a wrapping of bandages that may not be for any reason other than for him to squirrel things away into.

"How do you--" Cassian begins, and then gives it up. It's none of his business, anyway. He watches the proceedings for a moment or two with detached interest. Then he darts out a hand, surprisingly deft for such small fingers, and extracts three of the silver coins, the smallest: flick, flick, flick.

"That's for almost getting me in trouble," he informs Alex gravely.

"I don't know what it's called, okay?"

He could have let Cassian drop it, but this has come up... a couple of times, and he's getting a little defensive about people getting weird about him not knowing where he used to live. It was supposed to be a secret anyway, or so the Priesthood said.

Just as he commits to fully sitting on the ground, he watches the younger boy snatch three of his coins, eyebrows raising at how quick he is.

"Oh..." He isn't sure what to say at first, but after thinking a moment, he tilts his head and adds, "I'm pretty sure those guys were real' bad, it would have been nasty."

Are you trying to humor him, glowstick boy. Are you really. Cassian levels another flat stare at him, while the coins disappear into some fold of his own threadbare clothes; then shrugs. "Next time watch where you're going," he says, but without heat. For whatever reason, Alex isn't pushing him, the way he's grown used to big kids doing; which means that he doesn't have to push back hard, and that's... nice, he concludes begrudgingly. Nice, for a change.

...He had been trying to use subterfuge to get Cassian to take more money, but he's never been very good at it. He can imitate his more clever brothers and sisters, but he's missing something. Charisma, maybe.

"Yeah, yeah..."

Still, he leaves the rest of the coins in a pile between them as he rolls his eyes, carefully smoothing out the tickets he's been so interested in.

Though, suddenly struck with an idea, he holds the tickets out at arm's length, towards Cassian's face. "--Oh, hey! Can you read?"

"Yeah," warily; it's an admission that's gotten him into trouble before. "Kind of." The letters on the little slips are strange-looking, like the ones on the coins, but he thinks he might be able to figure them out. He's good at picking up things like that. (You're very quick, a man's voice says in his head, warm, and he stomps on it before it can scald him.)

If the other boy doesn't already have plenty of reason to think Alex is weird, his face breaks into a small, but excited, smile. He flaps the paper tickets in Cassian's direction.

"Can you try reading these?" He nods a little, too, as if to encourage him. "All of my brothers and sisters read better than me. Except for the little ones. Because they're little. And one's blind."

Cassian leans back a little, pointedly, maintaining eye contact as he pulls the scraps out of Alex's hand. "How many do you have?" He knows, or at least is acquainted with, kids who have a sibling or two too small to fend for themselves; but this sounds like five or six at least, which seems impractical to him.

The letters are definitely weird: nothing like the angular blocks he's used to seeing on signs, or the intricate curls he used to practice copying when he was little. These are tall and spindly, sprouting little twigs and loops to one side or the other, but they're clearly letters of some kind. He hasn't seen any people in this place except humans and weird-looking droids, so probably all the letters make sounds humans can make...

He bites his lip, frowning down at the biggest ticket. Absorbed in the puzzle, eyes bright and intent, he looks - softer somehow, more open.

When he no longer has a ticket to hold, he drops his hands into his lap, starts rocking gently back and forth where he's sitting, for want of something to do. The earlier chase feels very far behind him, now that they've calmed down.

"Eight. But they're..." He hesitates, making a face before deciding it's probably okay to tell this kid. "Uh, they're not really my brothers and sisters, we just kind of... Found each other. We're related, but not like normal people I guess."

The ticket, by the by, seems to be advertising some kind of prize.

Cassian might have argued, once, with this explanation; now he just absorbs it, with a strange feeling of indifference. Other people, not him.

It takes him another minute or two before he's confident enough to read out, carefully, "In-ef-tant Win. One quart any... somebody's Bubble Tonic." And then, more dubiously, "prefent ticket at any park-- park-something, price oh matic limited patent something."

His eyes flick up to meet Alex's, bemused.

“Huh.”

The boy thinks for a moment, nodding, and then...

“...Yeah, I dunno what that means.”

Shrug. He doesn't entirely understand it either, but there's no percentage in admitting that. After a moment's thought, he says, "You said you saw people putting them somewhere."

For Guin // Street Urchins

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