Chapter Text
Alessio has no family name. He has no home, no coin, no food. The streets of Treviso are flooded with people like him in the Drowned District. Marcello tried to convince him to learn to steal coins from pockets or bracelets from wrists. He says that’s the only way they’ll get to eat. Alessio doesn’t like stealing. He’s not a thief. Marcello doesn’t care and takes whatever shiny things he can find to sell to whoever will keep it quiet. Marcello is older than Alessio so maybe he’s smarter but Alessio doesn’t think so. Alessio thinks he’s holding his hand over an open flame and waiting to see his skin blister.
Alessio doesn’t blame him, though. Hunger hurts. There’s indignity in sitting on a street all day, caked in grime and muck and who knows what else. Trying to stay clear of the nobility and out of the way of the merchants who shoo them for scaring off customers. There’s indignity in begging – having to ask others to help him survive even though he’s 10 and his options are death or thievery. Hunger just makes the indignity worse. It gnaws at him – claws for attention in every waking hour. It makes his head cloudy and his limbs heavy. Still, Alessio knows it does not need to control him. Marcello lets hunger chase him as if it is the one thing he is truly afraid of.
Alessio knows there are worse things to be scared of in Thedas than hunger.
Giulia and Tomaso were good people. They weren’t rich or important but they were good. At least, from what Alessio can remember of them. He’s been without them for so long it’s hard to remember what his mother smells like, or how his father laughs. He would miss them, if he had time. If he could spare a second to do anything but survive, he would miss his parents. He leans back, shoulder blades with too little skin over them making contact with rotting wood. It’s a slow day in Treviso. If he’s lucky, maybe the Chantry will have some Treviso energy balls they can slip to him if he can’t make enough to buy something from the market. Sometimes the owner of Cafe Pietra has something left over at the end of the night so he could check there too. It’s usually full of Crows, but food is food.
He’s pulled from his thoughts of food when Marcello plops down beside him, knocking into him on purpose. He’s got a fat, juicy apple in his hand and he raises a brow at the younger, smaller boy as he takes a large bite out of it. The crunch hurts Alessio’s pointed ears.
“Mmm, this apple sure is delizioso.”
Alessio rolls his eyes. “And what did you do to get that apple?”
“You won’t believe it. The score of a lifetime. She had important looking robes on and her hands were covered in gold. I only took what was in her pockets. She gave me the creeps.”
“Sei un porco, Marcello.”
“Ah, si, ma non ho fame.”
“You’re lucky it was dark. What if she caught you?”
“Then I make my eyes real wide and I shrink my shoulders in real small and I make my bottom lip tremble. Works every time.”
“Yes, until it doesn’t.”
“Ah, don’t be such a coward, Ale. You can be un porco and eat, or un pollo and starve.”
Alessio’s face crinkles in disgust. He doesn’t believe those are his only two choices but he can see why Marcello would feel that way. Marcello is 12 to Alessio’s 10 and has been on the streets longer than Alessio has. As far as Alessio knows, Marcello never knew his parents. The Chantry orphanage wouldn’t take him and he was too old for the Crows. At least, that’s what he told Alessio. Alessio didn’t think he ever tried. He was always too scared of hunger to do anything that might mean he wouldn’t eat. Crows have a habit of killing their trainees. Marcello can’t eat if he’s dead.
It’s Marcello’s turn to roll his eyes. He fishes another apple out of his pocket and holds it out to Alessio.
Alessio’s mouth waters. He takes the apple and holds it up to his nose, closing his eyes and giving it a deep sniff. It smells like the forest. It smells like his mother’s kitchen in midautumn. It smells sweet and bitter. He opens his mouth and takes a small bite, intending to savor the flavor for as long as he can. Juices from the apple run down his chin and swipes them off with his hand. He’s tempted to lick his fingers lest the juices go to waste.
Marcello gives him a pat on the shoulder that shakes half his body and stands. “Enjoy it. There will be plenty more to come. I’m going to go see if that woman had any friends hanging around the markets. I’ll see you in the alley later.”
Alessio wants to tell him that it’s a bad idea. If the woman gave him the creeps, why would Marcello want to go looking for more people like her? What if she recognized him? What if she caught him? Alessio knows Marcello doesn’t really care. He’s faced no consequences for his actions. Alessio fears that when he does, it will be too late.
The boy takes his time finishing his apple. The sun is starting to set and Treviso is cooling off. The canals are starting to smell like the tide and Alessio loves it. He doesn’t know why. It’s not like he’ll ever be able to afford riding through the canals. The smell comforts him, though. It makes him feel like he has a home even if his bed is a semi-hidden spot on the ground in an alley. He’s always preferred night time anyway. It’s cooler, and it’s harder for people to see him. That means people stare at him less. When he’s done with his apple, Alessio is careful to save the seeds in his pocket. He might be able to trade with a merchant. He won’t get much for them, but sometimes the merchants take pity on him. Sometimes.
Thanks to Marcello, the gnawing hunger eases off a bit. Alessio decides Cafe Pietra is too far to go for a place that may not have anything for him. The apple was good, but it wasn’t enough to give him that kind of energy. Moving across the city comes with risks. Dogs could be set on him. Nobles could accuse him of stealing. He could be shoved – or worse. He tries to stay to his own little area of the Drowned District. This way, no one pays him any mind. If no one pays him any mind, he has no reason to worry.
Instead of going to the Cafe, Alessio goes back to the alley where he and Marcello share a sleeping spot. It’s not completely hidden, but they’d managed to scrape together enough pieces of driftwood and rotting lumber to make themselves a lean-to shelter against the side of the alleyway. It doesn’t do much but it makes them feel better. Sometimes he likes to sit in their shelter and dream. What if he and Marcello had been born brothers? What if they lived in the house Tomaso built with Giulia and a cat they’d call Pallino? What if they always had food and warmth and never had to worry that they’d be the next casualty of the streets of Treviso? Alessio let himself drift off while he waited for Marcello to return, imagining a family for himself and the closest thing he had now.
A few hours later, Alessio wakes to the sounds of some kind of commotion. It’s not uncommon in the alleys of Treviso. Sometimes drunks wander in and cause trouble. Sometimes the shadier inhabitants of Treviso use alleyways for deals they have no intention of keeping.
What catches his attention is the scream. It’s pure fear. It sounds like Marcello. Alessio pushes himself off the ground and out of the corner he wedges himself in to sleep. He peeks around a moldy slat of wood and his eyes widen.
Marcello’s feet are off the ground. A woman in red robes has him by the neck and is lifting him into the air. Her hair and robes are the same color and they remind Alessio of blood. Her fingers are lined with gold and her nails are painted black. Alessio doesn’t need to hear her speak to know what she is.
Marcello will die tonight. Alessio is more sure of that than he is that is parents are dead. Still, like Marcello couldn’t let Alessio starve over an apple, Alessio can’t let Marcello die over a few gold coins.
“There you are, you greedy little thing! I was looking for you all day when my pockets felt lighter. One of my men saw you scampering away like the cat that ate the canary. Didn’t think you’d get caught, hm? You thought you were smarter than me? Than the Venatori? So bold, little cat.”
Marcello struggles in her grasp. Her voice is cold. It reminds Alessio of a snake, the way she twists her words around Marcello’s throat. She’s waiting to strike and when she does, her dress won’t stain because the colors will match. Alessio steps out from his little hiding spot and takes a deep breath. It won’t be so bad, seeing his parents again. Maybe he’ll get a cat in the Fade. He’ll name it Marcello, then.
“Hey! Put him down!”
Green eyes flash to Alessio’s face. They aren’t a natural shade of green. They’re so much worse, like death itself lives inside her. For all Alessio knows, it might. He wouldn’t be surprised if there was a demon in the Fade who called itself Death. The mage looks gleeful. More and more, she reminds Alessio of an adder.
“What’s this? Did the little cat lead us all the way to the mouse? Well, we can’t let the mouse get away can we? I don’t know that I have a phylactery large enough for both of your blood. Ah well, I will make do with what I have.” Her fingers tighten around Marcello’s neck, nails digging into the soft skin. There’s a rustle behind Alessio and he knows he’s being surrounded from the other end of the alley. This mage has friends. Alessio and Marcello have each other. They have no weapons. They have no one to call out to for help. They are two street urchins whose clothes are too small and whose skin is too dirty.
Alessio braces himself. He picks up a rock. Marcello’s blood leaks out from the pin pricks created by the mage’s nails.
Alessio throws the rock at her head.
It’s like time slows down.
The mage’s hand twitches and Marcello’s neck snaps.
Alessio’s eyes widen, his breath stolen from his chest.
The Venatori behind him pounces.
His hair stands on end as a rage fills him from head to toe. He’s never felt this kind of anger before. He’s never felt this kind of helplessness, wanting to destroy everything around him – even himself, if that’s what it takes. The world has not been kind to him but Marcello? Marcello had been kind, in his own way. Sharing what little he had with a boy much younger and smaller than him. Always making sure Alessio slept closest to the wall in case someone wandered into their alley. Giving Alessio his clothes if he managed to find something better so Alessio would have something to grow into.
Marcello was his family. Now he’s lost his family for a second time.
A buzzing fills the air and thrums under his skin. He opens his mouth and screams. He screams for Tomaso and Giulia. He screams for the cat he never got to have. He screams for himself. He screams for Marcello.
The sky splits open and violet rage rains down from above.
The Venatori mage is struck with a bolt of lightning so thick it nearly cleaves her in two. Marcello’s body falls to the ground and rolls away from the puddle that used to be her body. Alessio was right – her robes didn’t show the stain of blood.
Whatever friend of the mage’s that creeped up behind him is vaporized.
He can smell it in the air. Ozone and ash and blood. Rage and despair.
As quickly as it came, the storm goes.
His rage is gone. Marcello is gone.
Alessio sinks to his knees, panting. What has he done? What will he do now? Tomaso and Giulia hadn’t been mages. They’d been elves, sure, but not Fade-touched. Right? Or has it been so long that Alessio’s only recollections of his parents are what his mind can conjure up in the dark? He stares at the puddle of viscera in abject horror. That puddle was a person not seconds ago. He ended her life. He stained the alley with blood. He failed to save Marcello.
He thinks he’s going to be sick.
Instead, for what feels like the millionth time in one night, he is surprised. An elf clad in the skin-tight black leather of the Antivan Crows holds a blade to his neck. She will kill him, he knows this. He is ready to die.
“Are you Venatori?” she asks, pushing the blade into his neck just enough to remind him how sharp it is. He hesitates to answer. The question feels loaded with something he can’t quite put his finger on and he is tired.
“… No.”
“Good. You’re coming with me.” The elf grabs him by his bicep and yanks him up, keeping the blade near enough to do damage if he fails to cooperate.
Alessio nods, feeling like he’s not quite in his own body. He knows he should object. He can’t just leave Marcello’s body. With the same conviction he used to confront the Venatori mage, he plants his feet, not caring if his blood ends up mixed with the mage’s.
“I won’t leave my friend.”
“Your friend is dead.”
“I know that. Can you – you’re a Crow. Can you send someone to take care of him? He doesn’t deserve to be out here like this, bloating like some lazy drunkard.”
“Those are big words for such a… small child.” She squints her eyes at him and Alessio can see they have no light to them. Her eyes are dark. After a few seconds of staring at him she nods. “I will have him cared for.”
Alessio is sure this will come with strings. He’s learned a lot on the streets, but nothing so important as the lesson that nothing comes free.
For Marcello, Alessio would pay whatever price the Crows demanded of him.