Thieves were often considered the scum of society, the dirt on one's boots. Mere lowlives who stole from the hardworking, from those who truly deserved it.

In Allen's opinion, that was a load of bull.

A thief had to know when to steal - one would not survive on the streets if one did not have impeccable timing. Pickpocketing gave a thief a hazy, deluded sort of sixth sense, telling one when to run for their lives and when to shelve cash. A useful instinct to have, even if it left one too wired, too high-strung and empty-headed to appreciate it. It was second nature by then, ingrained into his bones by the coarseness of the streets themselves, and Allen found himself ever thankful for it.

Gender, age, sex, everything was irrelevant. Twenty dollars, a pearl necklace, a chocolate bar. Everyone had something he could get.

Allen smirked, gauging the dip of the man's gaze and the brief dissociation from well-pressed trousers to provide the perfect opportunity for a clean steal. This was a man with a pretentious moustache, impeccable taste in privileged clothing, probably brought their women home, and leered far too uncleanly at children for anyone to be much comfortable with him - a common target among pickpockets, a filth even those left to the back alleys couldn't bear to touch.

It had barely taken two seconds and now the man was in the middle of the Square with one less wallet. Allen withheld the urge to spit at his feet in disgust.

(Thieves often took to this approach to soften the blow of what they were really doing; stealing was not immoral if you stole from immoral men, and money was not money in the hands of monsters.)

Of course, profiling like this was rather unreliable to a trade newcomer. There would always be a man who appeared to follow the stereotype to the letter, and there would be those who would bend the standards, a kindly gentleman or a benevolent governess with food coupons and pictures of family far outweighing business cards and hundred notes. They were rare, but they existed, and even Allen had fallen predator to unwilling prey, once. A thief had to know who to steal from, and appearances could be deceiving.

There were better targets, of course. There were always better targets, better fortune, better luck, better circumstances. Not many could afford anything at all, really, and beggars truly could not be choosers if they took instead of received.

He recalled his dear sister's order - "return to the base before the sun touches harbor with as many fortunes as you can find," she had written, slipping the paper into the bottle and handing it to him with the solid expectations of a competent ruler. Riliane had warned him before he left that people would be out for her head and, by proxy, his, so he was extra careful during the entire ordeal instead of taking the risks he normally did. She had stared into his eyes, as identical as if she were to peer into a looking-glass, and released him to his duties for the day. A royal through and through, his sister.

Speaking of duties. Allen cleared his head and perched on the corner of a dilapidated balcony wedged between a clocktower and an abandoned house. He turned his nose up at that - what a disgraceful waste of space. With the ease of someone used to it, he counted the fortunes to his name. They ranged from the contact card of a Lucifenian noble to a smaller family's mysterious heirloom to an antique hairbrush. He saw orange tinting the horizon, and surmising that that much would be quite enough for the day, Allen knew he would have to return to his sister's side soon or face her wrath (he knew she wouldn't really, of course, but she would be quite cross and Allen was not inclined to beget her into such a state).

Allen leapt off his perch and broke into a slithering run, making his way through several old archways and worn-down paths paved by the thieves before him. He sped past the pier and the pavilion, the smells of flowers and carnivals leaving a brief impression on his nose, and the rich mansions and luxury apartment complexes lined up like dollhouses for sale came into view. He slipped through the lobby of their own needlessly extravagant apartment and waited patiently for the elevator to arrive.

"Brother dearest," his sister's voice rang, a private kind of smile on her dollish face. "Welcome home."

Four years prior, he would have never thought he would be his sister's glorified errand boy, but Fate had ways of surprising him.

"Riliane," he greeted dryly, shifting his duffel full of stolen goods to his other shoulder. "I trust you had a grand time plotting?"

She huffed, leading him inside. "Naturally! I wouldn't be doing such things if it didn't entertain."

The inside of their penthouse after the long ride up was rather bare; Riliane, of course, would not settle for anything less than perfection, but Allen had insisted on keeping things relatively clear so if they were to make room to accommodate for any separate persons later in the game they could easily move in a mahogany fixture or two. Of course, the house was as stylish as they came, all sleek and modern and glass, but his dear sister was fiendishly fond of the more classical things. Allen personally was fine with anything that could hold his weight; he had dealt with termite infestations and chipping polish, before, things he was sure Riliane was not accustomed to (and would never be as long as he lived and breathed!).

Allen set down the bag on the grand end of their dining table, which was as fancy as Riliane got away with. His sister sat herself on her 'throne', looking mightily self-important, and Allen went to get her late evening snack to make himself busy.

They talked about little things, at first. Where Chartette was ("She's doing the laundry out, since she broke the washing machine. Again."), the finances ("Can you believe the numbers of this? Where does it all go? What did mother do with all of it? This is absurd!"), and how much unused space there was in downtown Lucifenia ("They're just lying there, Riliane. Unused. Unloved. I have seen seven homeless children today, yet I have counted eighteen abandoned buildings!"). For them, it was all small talk, the longer discourse taking place in a room of pretentious old men in prestigious clothing who brought their women home and leered at children. Those meetings were always the worst. And about stuffy old people-

"How do things with the 'ministers' go?" asked Allen absentmindedly as he poured them both a spot of tea. Black for her, three or four spoonfuls of sugar for him. (He hated bitter foods. He never understood why people liked them.)

He just hoped Riliane's temper hadn't surfaced during the meeting earlier. That would have been catastrophic for everyone involved.

"Dreadful," she snapped, clutching her teacup with white fingers. "Wouldn't listen to a thing I say. Insubordinate, the lot of them. I say off with their heads."

Oh dear. "Sister, I know you've got the situation under control, but flying heads? Surely, a less fatal solution is in the cards."

Riliane slammed her hands on the table, an uncharacteristic fury burning in her eyes. They were white as the pearls he stole for her and her form trembled like a fallen leaf. It was an unnerving comparison.

"They called me weak," she hissed, and Allen nearly dropped his own cup. It was never this bad before, but it made a horrible amount of sense.

He knew since they met in the rain that day that Riliane was afraid of failure like he was afraid of being separated. She was reduced to nothing without acknowledgment, which was why Allen made it a point to ask her about everything she did. Those pretentious old men did not care about his sister, no. They had denied her her hubris, her dignity, her entire identity, and she agonized over it.

"They called me weak, Allen, dismissed me outright as unfit for the betterment of Lucifenia! A lineage does not make a ruler and I was weaker for it, they said! Child's play it was not, they said! They dare think me a child!" and she was laughing, now, a hysterical edge to the lack of mirth resonating in the walls with each peal.

He tried to calm down himself. "Then they're fools. They can't see what a great leader you'll be." He walked towards her, put his hands on her shoulders. "Riliane, look at me."

Riliane's trembling weakened, building up in her throat as warbling sobs instead of anything more explosive. Allen calmed. A crying Riliane, he could deal with. He had dealt with it most of his childhood, and he wouldn't stop now, even if Riliane's last breakdown was far behind them. He would never stop caring for his sister.

"Riliane? Riliane, I need you to look at me, right now."

She snapped her head up to meet his eyes, and Allen was affixed with the strangest sensation of being searched, mind and soul, for something he himself was not privy to. She laughed blankly, almost beside herself. "Ah, Allen. How can I be such a great leader if, even at this time, you must kneel and comfort me? Tell me, what sort of leader must that be?"

"Quiet," he said, and the burning rage he had seen in Riliane's eyes not two moments ago began to swirl terribly in his chest, white-hot like hands on a skillet. "Sister, dearest, you are not weak; trust me on this. I will fetch you pen, paper and bottle, and you will tell me what you wish of them, and I will ensure it happens."

Riliane looked so uncomfortably pathetic in that moment, as if she was beyond his reach (again), beyond his help (again) and because of his incompetence, she was suffering for it. His sister was the strongest person he knew and here she was, collapsed by a few degrading remarks about her validity as Lucifenia's ruler, by a simple denial. If royals were not decided by lineage or the decisions they made and instead by the death circling in their soul and the blood on their hands, then Allen would be Riliane's hands, Riliane's soul. What he could not bear to be were her tears.

Allen remembered the last time Riliane cried.

The rainwater soaked the cheap leather of his shoes and dampened the back of her dress as he held her against the storm. "Riliane, sis," he whispered, settling his arms around her shoulders as her sobs wrecked his coat, "sister, shh."

"I thought I wouldn't find you again," she cried, and looking into Riliane's eyes was like an exercise in existential dread. There was a shattering, there, reminiscent of broken window glass. It ached Allen's heart. "I thought I wouldn't, and no one would believe me, you would believe me, wouldn't you? Are you real? They'd - they'd said, they said you were gone forever like Mother is and that's obviously not true, you're always here, you're real, it just took me a longer time-"

...What?

The storm picked up and cold crept around his chest like a vice. His hands tightened. "Riliane, could you repeat that?"

"They wouldn't believe me when I said you weren't here," she said, hesitantly extricating herself from his shoulder, weariness suffusing into her words as she made an effort to pull herself upright. "You aren't gone, ha, serves them. I'm right!"

"No, sister, I meant-" Allen stumbled, Lucifenian seemingly out of his reach. "Repeat it to me, Riliane. Tell me of your story from the beginning, no exceptions. I must know everything - this 'they', they've obviously upset you and I want to know who is to blame, and what-" he tightened his hands around her shoulders, "-what do you mean when you say mother is gone?"

He deserved to know. He had run away in the middle of the night, during a storm, and he was cold, and nothing made sense. And his better half was right there in front of him, like an illusion, and she was crying. That wasn't supposed to happen, ever, period, it was his job to make her happy. And she was throwing one revelation after another, making him question the situation he was in, making the pillars of his world explode. Boom, boom, boom.

"Mother is dead," she said, and a little bit of the world went with it. A clap of thunder. Boom, boom, boom. "It was the Gula - her physicians informed me she only caught that plague, but…"

Allen nodded. "It could be anything. Do you think poisoning?"

Riliane looked up, frigid. "Mother wouldn't go so shamefully." It was neither an affirmation or a denial, but it rang loud in his ears all the same.

"Now, 'they'?"

His sister abruptly stood up, and Allen was left kneeling in an awkward fashion on the pavement, soaked to his bones. "Come, Allen," she said, straightening her skirts. She still tried to be regal, even after this whole while, even after a breakdown, even after re-uniting for the first time in years - she was still so much stronger than he was. "It is filthy and unbecoming for us to chatter away in the rain like this. I am cold and miserable. Follow me to our place."

Our place. Allen was reminded of his foster father and the way his prone form laid limp and drunk to the Heavenly Yard, the booming, slurred voice of a police officer with guilts too intense to hold tight, and the crash of skin and glass on wood. Our place, he mouthed; our place.

"Where?" he asked, and Riliane answered, and thunder clapped, and that was all.

Allen read the paper she gave him out of a glass bottle, like always, like children. It was a comforting constant.

'Secure me their downfall and my victory.'

He kneeled. "As you wish, milady."

She smiled the smile of a royal.

Police were often idealized as these perfect figures of authority and guidance, the saviors of the people. When the people found that salvation lacking, they knew who to blame.

To Germaine, it made rather clinical sense.

It was the nature of mankind to pin such things like fault to a third party, so they wouldn't have to deal with the proof of their ignorance staring them in the face. You weren't at fault, you couldn't be, so you found someone else to demonize. It was a dissociation type of thing, a distancing tactic. Those people would do anything to make sure they weren't considered guilty. Germaine knew people like those far too well.

She huffed and took another foul sip of her drink. When a case went cold, the police were to blame. They didn't do enough, or they didn't care enough, or they waited too long, and it was all their fault for being so intrinsically incompetent. The moment they messed up one thing, they went from being those perfect figures of authority to terrible scabs upon the face on the earth, due to suffer in the Hellish Yard forevermore for being human and making human mistakes.

Typical.

Even though she sympathized with the general population, when a case went cold, it wasn't anyone's fault. It couldn't be anyone's fault. It was simply what happened. And that was her own dissociation thing, probably - hate was hard and revenge harder, so why put the blame on someone you couldn't see when you could focus on fixing the problem?

Sometimes, on her darker days when she remembered the war, she tried to feel hate. She tried to muster up the sense of vengeance that had plagued her when she was little. She would always hold the nastiest grudges, and Allen-

Oh, Allen.

Allen wasn't anyone's fault, either. It was simply what happened, and she had to make peace with it, or she wouldn't get any sleep at night.

She glanced at the bottle she was drinking from. Fucking brandy, tasted like horseshit, made her feel worse. He would hate this. He would hate this so, so much; he would grab the bottle and any flask she carried and he would dump it into the sink, because he didn't like his family being inebriated or hurting or distancing themselves from reality (they were cowards, and he was not). He cared for her and her father more than they did themselves, and Germaine would find herself grateful for it at the worst of times. He would hate this, and he was gone. Kidnapped. Whisked away. Case gone cold.

(Whose fault could it be, if not her own?)

Germaine poured herself another glass.