Fair warning, but all characters are OOC, because let's face it: no one is that innocent after living in the dirt-poor slums of any city.
I would also like to point out that none of these characters are mine, and that I am simply playing around with them.
"We can get you out of this place, if you come with me."
The girl with silver hair stood over him.
Rays of light shone from behind her, although he wasn't sure if that was simply his imagination projecting his desperate, entirely unexpected new hope onto her. The realistic, disbelieving side of him rose.
"You can't. They won't let me leave, and there's nothing I can do for you that could possibly make this worth it."
"That's not true, and you know it. The Begnion occupation is killing the Daein people, and we need to help them however we can."
"I . . ." (He doesn't care about the Daein people. The Daein people have left him to rot in these slums along with all the other traffickers, orphans, and hardened criminals. He has been forced to do unspeakable things to ensure his continued existence.)
All this remains unsaid.
"I know. I was here too once." And she was the lucky one, and they know it. She moves on.
"The Sword of Wrath, however, isn't really an appropriate name for member of the Dawn Brigade."
He sighs, resigned to the fact that this frail-looking girl has already assumed he would join.
"Well then, what do you suggest?"
"How about . . . the Sword of Justice?" She smiles then, almost laughing, because anyone who had been in the slums in the same period of time as him has heard the stories about how he ensured his survival.
The Sword of Wrath was not a title that was easily earned. (Although, in his humble opinion as a semi-trained swordsman, no-one in the slums was really that tough to fight.)
"I appreciate the irony."
"I thought you might."
Now he's smiling, and he hasn't in years, because the frail-looking girl with the silver hair has amused him more than anyone else ever has.
"Well, I'll throw my lot in with you. You are, after all, the first person that's personally offered to get me out of here."
Damn the Mad King. Two, maybe even another year, and he could have escaped this Ashera-forsaken place with nothing but hard work and a piece of steel.
She's full on smiling now, although tinged with just a hint of wistfulness and sadness at the subtle reference to Daein's bloody past.
"Although you'll be the Sword of Justice to others, the Dawn Brigade will be your family. Families call each other by name. I'm Micaiah. What's yours, oh mighty Sword?"
Ignoring the slight mockery, he regards her. Takes in the tome at her side and the determination in her eyes. He looks at his saviour, the one whom, he has determined, will command (and receive without question) his loyalty for the rest of his natural life, and decides to divulge the one thing he has held onto, his own personal identity not marred by gang wars and massacres of the unruly and the filthy things desperate people do when any day could be their last. He opens up the last, most reserved part of himself, and he offers it to her to use as she will.
"My name is Edward. Please guide me from this day on."
Ah, my first work. Hope it was at least mildly entertaining, albeit short.
With kind of crude grammar. Ah well . . .