Autrian's Bravest Journey

The thief’s name was Rem, and he was the first person to treat me with any respect. My mother had been taken by the disease that rotted her bones and turned her skin grey, and my father died in the mines when he tried to steal enough gold to pay for her medicine. We were always hungry, always cold, and even though I was a horned boy I was often chased from the city by old folk who believed I would steal their children.

That day, as I led my sister to the marketplace for food (she could barely walk on her own), I saw a crowd of people gathering around a man sitting on a wagon. He had long blond hair, and wore a black cloak over his shoulders. His hands wore a pair of gloves that looked like they were made from shining scales. The crowd was cheering him on as he took coins from them and threw them into the air.

A few moments later, one of his hands raised up into the sky and then brought it down so quickly that his arms blurred into two lines. When they returned to normal, they held a beautiful gold coin in each palm. The people cheered louder until he pointed to one man in the crowd and made another coin appear in his hand without ever touching anything at all.

I could not believe my eyes as I watched him make coins appear out of thin air. My sister stared wide-eyed at him, as well. She pointed at him and said something but I couldn’t understand what she said through all the noise of the cheering people. Finally she grabbed my sleeve and pulled me towards the wagon. When we reached the front row, she pointed at him again and tugged at my sleeve again until I got down on one knee beside her. She kept pointing at him while pushing something into my hand. When I looked down, it was a small coin with our country’s flag on one side and a picture of our king on another.

I wanted to reach out to take it back from her, but instead I simply nodded my head as everyone around us kept cheering this man named Rem as if he had done nothing more than scratch an itch on his backside. But then he stopped making coins out of nothingness and began handing them back to people in the crowd who seemed to feel very grateful for it, too. When he reached me and said “Hey kid! Here!” I nearly fell over backwards trying to catch it in midair before he snatched it back up again with that other hand that could move faster than lightning itself!

When I finally caught my breath again, there was only one thought running through my head: “What if...” Then I opened my mouth to say it aloud, but then closed it just as quickly when someone pushed hard against my shoulder, nearly knocking me down onto the cobblestone street beneath me with nothing but broken dreams ahead of me now!

It was an old woman with grey skin just like mine except worse than mine ever got. She scowled at me and spat close enough to lick one side of my face before turning away like she didn’t care about any opinion anyone might have about how nasty she was being! But then she stopped suddenly when she saw what I still held tightly in my fist even after she had bumped into me so hard that it knocked the breath right out of me! It was another gold coin with our country’s flag on one side and our king’s face on another! She turned towards me slowly like someone pushing through snow deeper than anything a human should ever have to endure until finally her eyes widened like she had seen a ghost! Or maybe...a miracle? Whatever it was, she was looking directly at me now when she said: “You! Little Horned Boy! Give me your money or else!” And she raised up both fists like she was about to knock some sense into me if she had to hit me until every last one of these coins fell from my hands!