disclaimer: the knight and rogue series does not belong to me.
Nonopherian isn't stupid.
His sisters just assume that he can't see, that he turns a blind eye to the fact that their mother is bedridden and their money is slowly draining away and sometimes Anna stays up at night worrying about things that their father used to worry about.
When Anna tucks him in that night, he watches the way she looks down when he asks about Mama. She tells him not to worry and pats his dark, feathery hair and kisses the top of his head. He wants to scream, wants to tell them that he's nine years old and he understands. If anyone's turning a blind eye, it's them.
Nonopherian's room suddenly seems very dark and very empty and he draws his covers around himself, glancing around as though something might come out of the dark. He's never been afraid of the dark. He always thought it was silly, and now, far past the age when it would have been scary, the dark seems like his worst enemy.
Through the sliver of light on the floor left by the open door, Nonopherian hears Anna and Judith whispering about medicine, and Judith sounds angrier than she is when Nonopherian is around. She calls Anna a name and he hears Anna fall to her knees.
He pushes his scratchy, wool blanket off, staring out at the street from the small window by his bed. The night is somehow lighter than his room, less unknown and less terrifying. The cobblestones of the street glisten in the light of the Creature Moon, and then, taking one last glance at his room, Nonopherian pushes the window open and slips out.
He slept in his clothes, luckily enough. He'd never imagined that he'd ever think that the fact that they couldn't afford pyjamas for him lucky.
Clotheslines form an intricate canopy above him, and the cobblestones are freezing on his bare feet. He racks his brain for the directions to the herbalist's, trying to go by memory.
The place where Anna always looks down and whispers to Judith is that way, he thinks, looking South, and decides to trust his memory and runs down the street. He makes sure to stick to the edges of stores, ducking under awnings and moving against walls, when suddenly he feels his back against glass.
Nonopherian looks up with almost awe in his eyes at the herbalist's. The lights are off, and it tooks strangely more peaceful than during the day, probably because no one is staring longingly up at it or banging on the door, begging for a discount.
He grabs the doorknob, testing it, and the door opens right away. Nonopherian finds himself smirking, how stupid did you have to be to leave the door unlocked in a time of excessive robbery?
He counts his footsteps as he tiptoes in. One, where's the one mother needed, two, just at the edge of that shelf, three, Anna will be proud of me, four, almost there. His hand closes around the bottle, feeling the cool, new sensation of it.
It can't be wrong to take something that you need, can it? If it will save his mother's life, then it surely isn't wrong to take it for her?
He looks around hesitantly, and then Nonopherian grabs the bottle and clutches it to his chest.
"What's a kid doing here?" The voice is a snarl and almost makes Nonopherian jump. He opens his mouth, about to scream. "If you yell, I'll throttle you. Now tell me what you're doing here."
The boy looks to be about nineteen or twenty, and to nine-year-old Nonopherian he looks like a monster.
"My mother," he says, trying to make his voice sound and bold as he can get it.
"Sick, is she?" The boy grins, not one of friendship, and it hits Nonopherian that he's laughing at him. "This store's my turf, you little fool."
Nonopherian straightens himself, looking the boy right in the eyes. "Who are you?"
"You answer me. Not vice versa."
"I'm Fisk," he says, the first thing that comes to mind. Nonopherian sounds prissy, like a university man's son. And university men's sons don't tend to last too long on the streets.
"Alright, Fisk." He folds his arms. "I'm Jack Bannister. What's the difference between a burglar and a shopkeeper?"
Nonopherian stares blankly.
"One of 'em tells you that you get something useful in return for your money." Jack cackles at his own joke. "Say, Fisk, you can have that little bottle. It'll help your sick mum loads."
Nonopherian's stare gets even more dumbstruck. "Really?"
"Yeah. Keep it. Just don't come back."
Jack Bannister pats him on the head and sends him off, and Nonopherian swears that he can hear his laughter echoing down the street.
When Anna sees what he's gotten, she draws back from him, her eyes wide, and asks him if he stole this. He tells her that a nice boy gave it to him, which isn't too far from the truth, only Jack Bannister scarcely counts as a boy and certainly wasn't nice.
His mother dies two days later, despite the medicine. She dies while Nonopherian is sleeping, and when he wakes up Anna is crying and Judith stands stone-faced, and even five-year-old Lissy looks upset, although she doesn't understand what's going on.
Nonopherian retreats back to his room and sobs and screams and pummels his fists on the wall, because Jack Bannister had lied to him and Anna had lied to him all the nights she told him that it would all be okay.
So he goes back to Jack Bannister's herbalist that night, and screams and screams and screams because the louder he is, the more likely it is that the herbalist will wake up and Jack will be caught.
Jack Bannister shoves a hand over his mouth. "Stop screaming, I know somebody's died but that doesn't mean that you should scream." He drags Nonopherian out of the shop, kicking and yelling behind Jack Bannister's hand.
"Listen here, Fisk. People die everyday. It isn't anything new."
"H-how...what if...A-anna..." He blubbers, and Jack Bannister slaps him. It stings, but it stops him from crying.
"Come with me, Fisk. I'll teach you how to steal if you stop being such a weakling. It'll help your family."
Staring up at Jack with tear-filled eyes and his nose running, Nonopherian meekly agrees, thinking that Jack would make better company than a grieving family. "Meet me back here tomorrow night," he says, and Fisk-he wonders whether he still wants to be Nonopherian when the person who gave him that name no longer lives-walks home, dragging his boots in the gaps in the cobblestones.
When he returns home, Judith and Anna are fighting again, and Nonopherian covers himself in his blanket like a cocoon and hopes to emerge in a happier place.
fisk actually has a really interesting backstory i'd like to write a whole fic with it sometime. anyways i finished rereading the k&r books so here comes a stream of fanfiction i guess