Closed A Cape, a Book, and a Band of Miniature Thieves (Ragdoll)

[Alia Beaudouin]

47th of Summer, 514

Once again, Alia was shopping. It seemed with the new season, came new adventures, and new adventures obviously lead to new things. Unsurprisingly, she had ended up shopping for clothing. Though her clothes were lighter than usual winter clothing, they were still much too heavy for the summertime, so a trip to the Bazaar was in order.

She was already wandering through the crowds of sweltering people, and though she was well adjusted to the heat, she was beginning to sweat a bit too. Even with the new shade that was introduced all over Riverfall, if you put a hundred bodies in the same area, it was bound to get hot.
And crowded, very, very crowded.

It seemed everyone had come up with the same idea as Alia when it came to the newfound heat. Everyone seemed to be in line for something, and those lines were very, very long. In order to hurry up things up, and reduce the amount of messing around, Alia had already counted out how many mizas needed for every purchase she made. Right now, she held five golden mizas to pay for the white silk cloak she had set her eyes on.

The cloak was hooded and light, which meant the white color would reflect the sun’s harsh, hot rays while also protecting her face from burns. A useful piece, Alia had justified, not to mention it was beautifully decorated. She needed something to protect her from sunburns, anyways. She seemed to have misplaced her sunhat, and until she officially gave up looking for it, there was no point in buying another.

Sighing, Alia let her mind wander. There was quite a long line at this particular booth, and Alia was growing impatient. She shrugged off the backpack that contained both her money and her notebook, setting it aside as she waited. Rolling her shoulders, she realized just how grateful she was for the release of pressure. Even though the notebook was small, it had quite a bit of pages, both blank and filled, so it weighed much more than it seemed.

Alia hadn’t even had a purpose for bringing her notebook, she really just enjoyed the company of her written inspiration, and the backpack was the only thing that fit it. The book was filled with many tidbits of inspiration she had come up with while out and about, so in preparation for the unpredictable nature of ideas, she carried it everywhere. To the beach, on walks, and of course, to the bazaar. One of her favourite songs had come out of waiting in line, much like she was now.

Alia moved with the snaking line, making sure she dragged the bag with her. Sure, it was slow, but as she ran her hands over the beautifully soft fabric of the cloak, she knew it was worth it.

Once Alia reached the front of the line, she nudged her no-longer a burden backpack next to the table on which the salesman held his wares and handed the coins over to the Akalak seller. Smiling and nodding a thank-you at him, she slipped the cloak on over her body, tightening the ribbon that held back her unruly hair and pulling the cloak overtop of the red mess. After making sure the cloak was securely tied and wouldn’t fall off when she put her backpack back on, she went to retrieve the bag.

But there’s one problem with retrieving things, as in order to get something, that something has to be there in the first place.
Her bag was gone, and with it went her inspiration notebook.

[Ragdoll]

Not that he'd admit it to anyone, but Nakon absolutely loved the rush that stealing provided him with.

Nakon himself was eleven years old, and he was Akalak, as were most of the citizens of Riverfall. His skin was dark blue. His other personality hadn't yet emerged-he was too young for that as of yet, and he found he didn't really mind. The years of having his head to himself wouldn't last forever, and he'd need to make the most of them.

He'd learned how to steal first from a girl only a year younger than him who identified herself only as Bee and was the de facto leader of the group she'd put together. Bee found children from all over Riverfall and brought them back to her hideout, which was the inside of the biggest bush in Semele Park. There, she collected everything that her ragtag group had 'gathered' that dat, divided the food between them all, and gave them each a portion of money based on how much they'd contributed that day. Nakon was consistently in the middle, but today he was determined to break the endless cycle of mediocrity and bring Bee back something that would truly impress her.

He saw this opportunity in the woman currently not ten feet in front of him.

In her hands, she clutched a bag that contained things Nakon couldn't quite make out. Maybe this woman's bag would hold the key to proving himself to Bee!

Well. He couldn't find out until he looked.

So he waited until the readhead-Alia was her name, though he didn't know it-reached the front of the line. He saw his chance when she went to put on a clock. As soon as the hood covered her head, Nakon dashed forward, snatched the bag off the merchant's table, and dashed away from the scene as quickly as he could manage.

[Alia Beaudouin]

How could she have misplaced it?
The bag had been right there seconds ago, it was impossible for her to have lost it. Could someone have knocked it off the table? Moved it because it was in the way? Scanning the scene in hope of spotting the misplaced bag, one particular figure caught her eye. It seemed to be a very short Akalak, heading in the opposite direction of Alia as fast as he could. But Akalaks didn’t do short. It simply wasn’t in their coding, they were meant to be big, bad, intimidating brutes, not midgets.

But there was almost never children in the bazaar, especially days like this. It was too easy to lose them, heatstroke got to them too quickly, and they often got crushed underfoot. That was why this figure caught her eye, because it was definitely a child. What was even stranger was that he seemed to be carrying something.

Not currently able to get a good view of the boy, Alia swam through the crowd after him. She lost count of how many times she had to say sorry or excuse me, but she trekked on. Luckily for the boy, he didn't seem to have to follow such rules. He just dashed away, the distance between him and Alia growing ever more. Finally, resorting to the boy’s tactics, Alia gave up the apologies for pushing people out of the way. She simply chose the path of least resistance, and ran full speed after the boy. By now she knew it for certain, she had glimpsed the bag he had been carrying enough times to know it was hers.

The boy had stolen from her, and Alia was determined to get it back.

The bazaar couldn’t go on forever, and eventually they would break the crowds. The boy couldn’t run forever, as soon as they were out of the bazaar Alia would have the advantage.
She was breathing heavily now, running at full speed for so long was taking it out of her, but she persisted. Alia would not, could not, let the boy take the only thing she still tying her to her parents. Not to mention nearly all of the songs and scripts she had ever written were contained inside of that book.

Soon enough, the crowd thinned out, and Alia could see the boy more clearly, just ahead of her. He seemed to be around ten years old, extremely young to have already devoted their life to theft already. What had driven him to such extremes? Was he orphaned or something like that? Then again, if he was an orphan at such a young age, where could he have gotten the skills to steal without being caught?

From his expression- more of joy than of guilt- he had been doing this for a while. If he was so young and inexperienced with life, how had he not been caught yet? Someone must have taught him, but what right-minded person would teach a young boy to steal for them? Some sick man or woman, Alia was sure. No good person took in an orphan just to force them to steal for them. It wasn’t right.

Unfortunately, all of Alia’s wondering, no matter how helpful, led her thoughts away from the chase. This wondering definitely wasn’t helpful when she failed to process an inconveniently placed bush, lying directly in her path. This inconveniently placed bush immediately caused an inconveniently timed fall for Alia. Though this brought her back from her day dreaming-like state, it also caused her to fall hard on her knee, and fall back on her chase.

But Alia was a stubborn person, refusing to let a small cut on her leg stop her. She immediately got up after her fall, continued the chase, even though it seemed almost fruitless. The boy was far ahead of her, Alia’s bag in hand. He seemed to be getting away with it, though Alia refused to admit it.
Little did she know, the boy held more secrets than why he had stolen her bag, and where he was going with it. And by now, Alia was right in the middle of it.

[Ragdoll]

OOCI can't thank you enough for being so patient with me, and I can't apologize enough for taking so darn long.

Alia's apologies were lost in the sea of the bazaar as the young boy dashed, darted, and danced in between the clot that was the marketplace. His short stature and light weight aided him in his escape, as did his blue skin, which made it easy for him to stop and pose as a shopper's son, or a boy playing a game.

He turned back to look, and grinned triumphantly when his mark tripped on something and fell. That would buy him time to escape! As he turned his head back around, Nakon redoubled his efforts and sped off...

...only to stumble over a root.

He didn't hit the ground, but the bag did-he'd instinctively let go of it when he felt he was going to fall. Cursing to himself, he picked up the woman's backpack by the wrong end. With his thoughts occupied, he didn't notice the notebook that had slid out of the open side. If he had, he would likely have dismissed it. Nakon was after the mizas, not the memories.

Another chime of running and-there it was! Semele Park. He was in the home stretch now. Without affording his target another glance, he locked his gaze on the bush that had become a second home to him.

His entrance into the bush itself was slightly more cautious, as it was thorny and had claimed blood sacrifices from those who entered it on a regular basis. Flattening himself to the ground, the young boy squirmed under the bush with the backpack clutched tightly in front of him.

As always, Bee was there, a crown of brambles tangled in her short blonde hair and a sour look on her face that immediately dimmed Nakon's excited grin. Strangely, though, she was the only child under their bush that day-besides the Akalak boy himself. But there was something else there-Alia's backpack, clutched in his hands. Holding it out to Bee and beaming at her, the aspiring thief began to tell her about what he'd done earlier.

Almost immediately after he started talking, Bee shushed him and clapped a dirty hand over his mouth. "Do you hear that?" she hissed.