Reign of Ruin | ONGOING

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The two suns shone high in the sky above. The oasis nearby did nothing to stop the hot desert heat from choking the citizens of the village of Alara, though it did moisten the dry air enough to make it breathable. Akii roamed the busy market streets, slipping their nimble fingers into the pockets of pretentious nobles who scowled at them with upturned noses. Their hands moved so fast that even the keenest eyes could barely catch sight of them snatching bags of coins or jewelry with cat-like agility. Akii tucked a shining watch into the pocket of their trousers before the light-haired nobleman they stole from had even noticed that they were there. He was probably on his way to work, and the fastest way to get there was by cutting through the busy farmer's market in the middle of the city. Everyone who didn't live in a shining glass house went to the farmer's market on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays to buy goods, so the road was jam-packed. It made it hard for distracted late people to get to work, therefore making them more distracted and an easier target, but it also made it easier for Akii to blend in with the crowd once they stole whatever was in their target's pockets.

Akii was currently disguised as a simple man named Ada who wore a pair of dark trousers and an unsuspecting brown cloak. Ada worked for one of the jewelers in town and was loved by many. It was an alias they had been developing for months.

Akii purposefully bumped into an upper-class noblewoman arguing with a shopkeeper who refused to lower the price of a bracelet, a petulant child attached to her arm. "I'm so sorry, Miss," Akii began with false sincerity, "I didn't even see you! My, what a beautiful little girl you have!"

The woman huffed but then turned to look at her daughter. "She is something, isn't she?" the woman said, but it wasn't with the usual motherly affection.

While the woman began bragging about how her daughter was at the top of her class, Akii slipped their hand into her coin purse. They nodded their head at the right times, oohed and aahed periodically, until they had snatched enough to buy them dinner for the week.

"Well, I best get going. Wonderful meeting you, miss. And you, young lady. What a lovely girl," the black-haired thief bid the small family farewell and strolled off with the confidence of the hardworking middle-class citizen they were pretending to be.

The streets in the small city of Alara were still bursting with life hours later. Farmers and craftsmen called to passersby from booths crowded with goods to sell. Akii had managed to steal a month's worth of rent, and food money. They never took too much from one person, which meant it took longer. They also had to scope out their targets: people who were rich enough to not notice a few coins missing, but not so rich that Akii being near them would cause the target to cringe away. However, they suspected that only people closer to royalty than the working class did that.

Akii, satisfied with their loot, began to head back to the shack they had called home for the past 6 moon cycles. They were surprised it had been that long without trouble knocking on their door. Which is why they really should've expected it when they recognized the ratty, dark brown coat of the poacher who had been tracking them for years.

Akii blended in; they wore simple clothes, kept their hair tied down enough to cover their pointed ears, and rarely smiled enough to show their sharp teeth. Their fingers were longer than most people's, but no one paid attention to that. The only obvious sign of their difference from those around them was their complexion; it was considerably darker than that of people from the Eastern Continent, but not nearly as dark as the skin of the Sun-Worshipers who resided in the Southern Continent — called Tuhan — where Akii currently took refuge. Suffice to say, no one who saw them on the street would clock them as a refuge from Sihiri — the forest that took up more than a third of the Northern Continent, and was also the homeland of the magical beings that resided there and pledged their souls to Mother Nature.