The Royal Theif

This starts off as an explanation of a charecter I was creating a goes into more detail. Basically he is a son of a Noble and is bored with the noble life. When a theif coems along and steals some of his mother's jewels he is introduced to the city's underbelly and finds it intriguing.

This boy lives two lives. He is the son of a rich noble on the surface but in his spare time he pretends to be an orphan and runs with a gang of thieves. While he does not need anything he steals he enjoys the challenge. He feels the life of a noble is suffocating. He pays his due to thief leaders from his own immense allowance and pawns it off as stolen money. He might also use his money to buy “stolen goods” to turn in to the gangs leaders as well. He learns how to steal, cheat, gamble, and knife with the gang during the night. In the day he learns proper sword fighting, dancing, politics, business and other things generally taught to the son of an important noble. He never steals from anyone poor and he will a lot of the time find a thrill in sneaking the stolen item back unnoticed. He never used to be running in both circles. He lived a secluded life with knowledge of only the upper class. He had private tutoring, went balls and banquets and was always quite bored. Then one day while studying alone in his room with the door open he noticed someone scurry past his door. Curious because no noble would ever resort to scurrying and held the rest of their household to the same standards the young noble went to investigate. Just as he leaves his room he sees a flash of something dart through the door at the far of the hall. When he arrives he finds nothing. After looking around for a few minutes he decides to go back to his room and finish his dreadful studying. At the entrance to the foyer leading to his room he sees a scruffy boy with a handful of jewels climbing out the terrace window and gives chase. The chase leads on threw the city with things getting less and less familiar to the noble boy and he is shocked at the conditions around as the chase goes on. Then all of a sudden it is as if the vagabond vanishes from sight. Watching from his hiding place the young thief sees the pompous young noble’s look of astonishment as he looks around frantically trying to locate his quarry. With horror the young thief looks as the noble stoops down and picks up a bronze locket on a leather cord. He examines carefully figuring it must be a clue tosses up just to catch it and put it in his pocket. The thief having lost his most precious possession, temporarily of course, gets out of his hiding place and begins to follow the arrogant young fool as he meanders his way through the poor district like a rat in a maze, waiting for his chance to retrieve his locket and whatever else the boy might be imprudent enough to carry in his pockets in this part of town.  Just as our young thief is about to obtain his locker back from the noble, the fool turns the corner, and, just as luck would have it, runs right into one of the city guard.  Drat!  Of all the luck!  Now he would just have to go wait until night to sneak back into the noble’s mansion and retrieve his locket and anything else he could find lying around. Too astonished with what he had seen this day to do homework, he laid in his bed examining the locket he found obviously belonging to the young thief.  The leather thread was frayed at parts, the bronze was worn down and the picture was faded almost to incomprehension. Surely this locket was less than a copper yet; the thief boy had come out of hiding and followed the noble for some reason and he only came out after he had picked up the locket. He had hoped to lead the thief into a secluded spot to teach him some manners and to retrieve his mother’s jewellery. Bumping into the guard was pure coincidence but Returiend figured it, he might as well get some directions, go home and wait for the thief to follow so he could confront him there and turn him over to the house guard for proper discipline. The sun had already been set for 4 hours however-- it had been mid-morning during his first encounter with the thief-- and the boy had still not returned to reclaim his lost locket. Perhaps the locket had no importance after all and the urchin thought he might just add a few silvers from Ret’s pocket to his own opportunistically. Then again why had the boy chased after Ret in such an lazy manner not bothering to properly hide and sneak and wait for the opportune moment to strike unnoticed. Of course that moment could have never came, however the few silvers and golds one carries around amount to little in comparison to the value of the jewel encrusted golden necklaces, broaches and bracelets the pickpocket had already pilfered. Either way his mother had plenty more jewellery and Returiend would make a formal report to the house guards who would notify the city guards and a warrant for the boys arrest would be drawn up immediately; besides the event had given Ret a much wider view of the world. Up until that point his life had been boring but necessary, for there was only one path that he could see himself following and that path was the path of his father and his grandfather, and his great-father before that.  He would be the head of house Brenalion. Returiend Alendarious Teeroche Brenalion would be one of the Five. The Five governed the five Major cities in the country of (unnamed) equal in power to each other and whose authority only the King’s surpassed. Of course Ret was taught about the lower classes and he knew that city had many different districts from the port district and the market district to the labour district and noble district. He was even learned of the poor district in his studies though it was properly called the commons. He knew of the problems it brought on the city and crime and repugnance it produced and also that even though it was a burden in every city that it existed in, those cities must maintain it and govern for, after all, the people who lived there were still citizens and citizens had rights. What he was never told however was that the commons was alive. While the nobles governed every district they only entered civilized ones themselves and, since it was necessary for them to enter the market and the port and even the labour district from time to time, they enforced strict guidelines of civility on those districts, though they were far too uncouth yet to spend any more time than one had to in them. This made (unnamed city) a very boring city in Ret’s opinion. He never realized it before because up until today his world existed entirely of the rules and structures he had been taught since birth. Today a whole new world opened up to him, a world of thieves. Thievery rarely happened in any district but the poor one and never in the noble district. Or so he was told because today a thief had actually snuck into the most prestigious grounds in the whole city and stolen from one of the most important people in the entire country. Not that anyone would have noticed if not for Ret’s boredom with his schoolwork, for Mother never wore the same set of jewels twice. Even if someone did notice, it would probably be a servant whose job it was to clean, organize and keep up mother’s rooms including her old jewellery and clothes that barely existed to mother except as a means of showing off to her noble peers. The more one of a kind dresses and artfully crafted priceless- to everyone but the nobles- trinkets one had that was not being used signified how much more elegant and important one was. Basically if one could afford to have a room full of the most exquisite things that barely mattered because they were old, boring, and dull that meant the things they were using in the present were worth that much more and the person wearing them was of that much more import. Of course you could not just buy out a jeweller and put them in a room out sight without wearing them because anyone could do that. You had to have worn each piece and each piece whether it is clothing, shoes or jewellery must have been crafted for a specific time, place, and event.  Although mother would not deign even notice that they existed at all anymore, the servants who took care of them were required, wordlessly of course, to know everything about every piece and naturally servants gossiped among themselves it can’t be helped. Not that any of the noble women would want it stopped because that is how one knew about the others collection as it were. That was only one facet of what makes up a nobles royalty. Every little thing imaginable that could affect one’s importance does and it is just an innate sense to them.  Pride. It was the nobles pride that let them think no crime existed in the noble district, they were just too important for it happens to them. Even if a servant claimed something was stolen the noble ladies would probably just blame the servant for losing it and even though it is of no importance to the noble lady the servant has lost something belonging to her and for that would lose everything belonging to her family including her position as a servant in the noble’s household. Once every possession had been confiscated and burned, because what would a noble want with a servants possessions, the family with be graciously given a new home in the commons. Of course there were rumours about thieves getting caught in the act by the nobles themselves but those were only rumours. If they were true there would have been executions. Any crime committed by any person of less than noble birth committed in the noble district was punished by execution. After all the only people of less then noble birth in the noble district are suppose to be serving the nobles and to commit a crime against one who you’re serving is treason, and treason results in death. And Ret supposed that if someone were caught stealing the Noble would have their personal guard carry out the execution secretively because that someone would steal from them would mean that person does not honour them and that would cause them to lose respect in the eyes of their peers. Damned pride. Thinking about it that way he realized that no one in his house would gain from him turning the thief in anyway and more than likely the guards would not even tell anyone that anything happened in the first place. Just then Ret heard a noise from the foyer, the thief had come back. Of course it was the thief because servants where expected not be heard unless absolutely necessary and of course one of them could have made a mistake but it was highly unlikely. Ret quickly put the locket down on his desk and went to bed to a false sleep. ( Ret catches the thief and in exchange for not calling the guards he makes the thief promise to show him the seamy underbelly of the city through the eyes of a pickpocket.)