Lost Destinies

↳ 00: Prologue

three years ago...

"I dunno how much longer we can do this," groaned a twenty-one-year-old Claude Verelia, popping the cap off a colorful blown-glass bottle of cognac he'd snatched from an unsuspecting old drunkard who had happened to leave his satchel flap open while walking through the magic-infested markets of East Fairy Kingdom. It was a rookie mistake when Claude, a longtime pickpocket out of mainly necessity, could easily be considered one of the least dangerous scoundrels prowling the streets these days.

His sister, several years his junior and still harboring some baby fat in her rosy cheeks, looked over at him curiously. The young man had been pacing for so long there was a dent in the horrendously ugly pink carpeted floor of their shared motel room.

"I have to support you," he continued feverishly, "and I can't do it here anymore. You're—you're not going to get anywhere here, Sicilienne. I want a meaningful life for you—"

"I'm fourteen! I don't know what I'm gonna do with my life!" she protested with an incredulous laugh, dumping the contents of his wallet onto the counter to flip through it. How she could still laugh so freely was something he could never understand. A headache was blooming behind the bridge of his nose. "You said your job was secure. It seems like we're doin' okay for now—"

"We're barely scraping by," Claude sighed, finally giving up on pacing and flopping onto the rock-hard block of moldy cheese the lady at the front desk had claimed when she gave them the room was a couch. Godmothers, hotel-hopping was the worst. He tipped back the bottle. Piles of them littered the place by now, but Sicilienne was polite enough to eye them warily and refrain from mentioning the increased frequency of his drinking habit. "Wages are less and less... They're laying people off at the shoe factory, and I don't think I have a good chance of staying, if I'm being honest."

He wasn't being honest, of course. He never was. He had no shoe factory job, not anymore. Holding down anything for much longer than a few months wasn't one of his strong suits. Some might have called him a pathological liar but, really, he just could never bring himself to tell his younger sister about the theft. She would be devastated, that sweet, innocent girl of morals that she was. And after one too many lies, it became easy, too easy...

Sicilienne's lips twisted, and she reached up to anxiously tug on the caramel-colored bangs that tickled at her eyelashes.

"Scraping by." She said it as if she didn't quite understand the meaning of the words.

He took another swig of his liquor and a deep breath before replying.

"Yeah."

If she had stopped for a moment to consider that Fairy Kingdom was known far and wide for its footwear demand and that the labor shortage had leveled out since Queen Ella's rise to power, she might have had the good sense to question what he'd said. But she trusted her brother wholly and fully, so she just sighed, slumping into a stool at the counter and tracing little circles on its surface with lacy-gloved fingers. Where could they go with almost no property to their name and no family anywhere to extend a helping hand?

"You know, I bet you could easily make a living with that music o' yours," he said finally, leaning back. She met his eyes again. They always sparkled when he complimented her, like she was the sun to his earth, like she was the center of everything for him. Maybe she was.

She cast her good eye downward, flushing with warmth. "Oh, I don't know."

"'Course you do, love—you're a natural. People make incredible careers out of art and music and whatnot, 'specially in the Northwest Tower Kingdom. We could go there if we got ahold of enough cash to make the trip. Just picture it. You, the official flutist to... Queen Rapunzel or something."