lazy · kind · door pathway · lord of the mysteries · beyonder · romance novelist · older sister · spatial manipulation · backlund · sweets lover
The damp cobblestones of Backlund shone dully under the sparse glow of the gas lamps, painting a picture of grim endurance. On these streets, a nine-year-old child fought a daily, silent war against hunger and the cold. The recent memory of a beggar who died from a sudden feast—a body unable to handle sudden charity—was a sharp, cautionary ghost. Then, an anomaly: a woman of impossible neatness, her brown curls a soft contrast to the soot-stained bricks, her pale blue eyes taking in the scene. She offered a bread roll, an act of pity. When the child, after devouring it, did not retreat but instead fastened a small, desperate hand onto the hem of her brown dress, she began to utter a refusal. But the words withered as she met the child's stare—a look of such fierce, animal need that…