First off, this story contains spoilers relating to Swaine's backstory, so be warned. Anyway, Swaine is my favorite character from Ni no Kuni (after the Lord High Lord of the Fairies, of course), and I was interested in his past and how he went from a prince to a thief. And so this story is meant to better explore not only his childhood, including his relationship with Marcassin and his father, but what happened between his decision to leave home and the events in the game. I'm also using this as practice for fancying up my writing skills. I hope you enjoy!

The characters, locations, etc. mentioned in this story are property of Level-5, not me.


The Makings of a Scoundrel

Chapter 1: An Uncommonly Common Boy

Countless bodies passed through the bronze streets of Hamelin, jostling without thought through the crowd as if their very position in society depended on it as much as a bit of force was necessary to make progress to the market or the factories or anywhere else. It was for this reason that no one paid any mind to a certain ragged boy in their midst, for to distinguish him from the throng would have required a second perusal, and no one had time for the first.

This common, everyday street urchin, if someone had actually found the time to pause in their busy schedules to look at him, was of a raggedness that seemed strangely intentional, in a crooked cap and medium-length coat stained with a suspiciously neat smudge of soot just above the hem. Just the simple fact that both his shoes were still securely attached to their respective soles was a baffling detail even your run-of-the-mill scamp would find curious if they were not more focused on things far more vital, namely earning the odd guilder or two that would make their families' lives just the smallest ounce easier.

If they had stopped and spared him the luxury poor folks worked to the bone for, but inevitably received not even the leftover crumbs of in return, perhaps most perplexing of all to see in such an uncommonly common boy, whose hair looked as if it had been washed and combed within the last 24 hours, was that he was the only one who was not in a hurry.

The ambling young beggar with a round face devoid of anything that could possibly be mistaken for want, strolled through the city of gears and steam with a casual air anyone else in his position would know was a privilege rarely afforded them, both hands in his coat pockets as much for comfort as in a simple, but effective, defense against pickpockets. It gave him minimal trouble to meander through the eternally fluctuating pathways created by a churning sea of bodies, for he had, as far as could be guessed, nowhere to be and no deadline to be there.

His goal for the day had already been fulfilled, and he fingered the slight weight in his pocket created by the object he had acquired in Hamelin's black market, just one of many pieces he had sought out for a very special project he was building. While few his age knew where that shadowy establishment hid and even fewer could find it a second time once its location inevitably changed again, when he made up his mind to do something, he always followed through on it.

As a necessity to keep this promise he had made to himself, he had come to know the streets and alleys of the world's most technologically advanced city as well as any could. Even as it grew and changed, as much in its physical layout as in its scientific breakthroughs, this city felt very much sometimes as if it was his city, though he believed it would be far more accurate to describe it, rather, as a vast machine of gears and pipes and pistons, a machine made of steel as well as people, whose inner workings he had studied and come to know intimately. For he was quite certain in the wee hours of the night when there was nothing to occupy one's time but dreams, waking or not, that he felt like an ache in a rotting tooth that this city comprised his entire world and would until his dying breath. And if one was stuck with something, one might as well become the master of it.

The boy slipped like a shadow into the nearest alley, a path too narrow and out of the way to be of any use to those with tight schedules to keep and guilders to be made and spent. And yet, despite its physical width, it might have been a highway in the space it offered in comparison. The noise was the second thing to drop off, albeit far more gradually, as every turn the alley made reduced the chattering and the organic buzz of human voices, until it was but a scarcely noticeable drone that had no choice but to give way to the squeak of turning wheels and the hiss of escaping steam, the heart and lungs of a monstrous mechanical beast whose very gut they resided in.

His pace quickened just enough to shorten his journey without allowing the occasional passerby the opportunity to mistake him for someone short on time until he was stopped by a high wall. With no more delay wasted than a single glance about him, the most purposeful sign he had exhibited during his entire day's stroll, he entered a back door only he knew, an act which would have warranted serious reconsideration had he indeed been what he was trying very hard to appear to be.

His cap was the first to go, followed by the coat, which was spared half a mind more than the cap as it was folded and tucked under one arm with absent care for the contents of its right pocket, the beginnings of a transformation the folks milling about outside might have actually noticed had it taken place in their midst. The unnaturally tidy street urchin smoothed the far too recently washed brown hair his cap had previously obscured and straightened a short coat quite unlike the first, for it lacked any sign of wear, purposeful or not, and was bordered in gilded thread. Simple, but elegant, chandeliers peered down in lofty approval from high ceilings, while his own regal reflection mimicked every sauntering step of that haughty march from the polished floor that made him look every inch his height and more. And it could hardly be certain if it was the doing of his surroundings that accounted for so complete a change in his appearance or, as seemed more likely the case, the other way around.

Prince Gascon paid the palace guards no mind, their solemn nods in his direction receiving no outward response in return as he passed them by, for his thoughts were still focused on the day's events and notions of what future days might hold behind doors whose locks not even the most skilled of thieves could pick. He coughed as he took notice of a rawness in his throat he had learned from experience was a consequence of the blanket of choking smog that always slithered beneath Hamelin's high canopy. The discomfort always passed with enough time spent indoors (ice cream always helped to speed up the process), but today it was more pronounced than it had been since his outings to the streets beyond had begun just a couple years prior. Curiosity was a young boy's greatest companion, and greatest danger, and not even nobility was exempt from it.

He had hardly arrived back in his bedchambers and hidden away his newest find in a box he kept hidden beneath the wardrobe with the rest of what had still yet to progress beyond collected scrap when one side of the double doors flung open behind him and struck the wall with a shuddering bang.

The prince spun to meet the intruder, and his words left his throat before the action had yet been completed. "Can't you knock?" he asked, but his fists unclenched as his younger brother stumbled to a halt in the middle of the room as if reeling from some unseen blow.

Prince Marcassin's bottom lip quivered, and he hiccupped from the sobs that had already reddened his cheeks. He wiped his eyes with one sleeve.

"G-Gascon," the small child said and drew in a loud sniff. "Gascon, i-it's mu-mummy—" he attempted to say, but the way his shoulders shook said more than words ever could.


It occurred to Gascon with bitter revelation that death only brought rain in books. Not in real life.

In real life, you couldn't just turn back the pages.

The funeral procession was hardly different from any other appearance the Hamelin royal family made to the public, but wherever it strayed in even the smallest detail brought with it a thickness in the air the elder prince wondered if anyone else could feel. It constricted him, suffocated him without causing any change in breathing. The normally raucous crowd stood like a sea of black on either side of the street like stagnant waters making way for the passage of a boat, and it was a wonder they, too, still breathed amidst the stillness. He swallowed, to hold back a scream that threatened to pierce the silence, but one glance up at their father, whose expression was no less severe than usual, was enough to extinguish any such urge he might have.

Why did his heart feel like glass, as if every beat threatened to make it shatter? Never before had all those faces made him squirm inside, never before had those watchful eyes compelled him so strongly to run, and in that moment, he thought he knew what it might feel like to be a statue people stared up at, which could flee their scrutiny no more than he could beg their father to let him hide until this whole day, and the weeks and months that followed, had passed.

And yet, fragile as it felt, his heart pounded within his chest, as his mind dwelled on anything but the ivory box rimmed with pale lilies their focus was supposed to be upon. It was not allowed, unheard of, for the future emperor of Hamelin to show weakness. It was against the rules to cry. What else could be expected from one whom the very buildings themselves parted and soldiers laid down their lives to protect? One day, the fate of the entire empire would rest on his shoulders. How could wars be won and peace be maintained if the emperor lost his nerve?

Marcassin grabbed his hand in one of his own, and Gascon drew in a deep breath that hitched within his chest. He squeezed his eyes shut and, in a fleeing sense of self-restraint, allowed a few hot tears to slip free.

He couldn't live up to it.


I'm rather proud of this chapter. It was a lot of fun trying to be fancier in my writing. I should probably mention, though, that the chapters in this story are going to be a bit disjointed, more like a collection of events rather than a typical story. More will be coming, hopefully, in the near future.

Please review, dear readers!