please see the author's note at the end of the chapter!
Nights in Cairo were cold and harsh. Dust and wind whipped through the streets, prompting many a late-night walker to pull the scarves wound around their heads closer.
Despite the late hour, the marketplace still saw a steady stream of traffic. Only a few of the stalls were closing for the night. Most stayed open, lighting bright, glowing lamps over their wares and calling out prices of souvenirs, beautiful jewelry, art pieces and enticingly warm street food to tourists that passed by.
Vivian walked over to one such stall. The hot, spicy scents of shawarma and falafel wafted over like a wonderfully warm dream, making her smile. It was Ororo's favorite too, she knew. She clutched the small leather bag in her skirt's deep pocket, feeling the heavy weight of coins within. The shopkeeper at the galabeya stand let her have an extra hour's worth of wages in exchange for some extra mending and needlework, today. Her last boss hadn't been so nice about doing extra time like that.
In the end, she was able to buy an order and a half of what the vendor called Today's Special. He'd slashed the price because of the late hour and threw in the last scraps of pita chips that he hadn't been able to sell today, something she was grateful for. She and her sister could always use the extra food and money. She pocketed the change, smiled charmingly up at the skinny merchant when he patted her dark hair and made her way through the crowds of people, towards the Wall.
It wasn't easy, living off the street. After their parents left (she couldn't bring herself to say out loud that they died, so she tried not to think of it that way either), she and the tiny Ororo were sent to a dark, dank orphanage. Four year old Ororo had been eerily quiet, clutching her big sister's hand at all times - they could barely get her to sleep in the small, cramped room that housed all the orphans of that district in Cairo. Often she needed to rocked to sleep outdoors and then be moved inside afterwards. And then they had to be very careful that she didn't suddenly wake in the middle of the night - sometimes night terrors jolted her from sleep, and she would find herself still surrounded by darkness on all sides.
It was difficult. Following the accident, she'd become deathly afraid of having walls and a roof over her head. Vi could still remember those first moments that they managed to unearth Ororo from the rubble of their small home. She'd been trapped in their mother's lifeless arms, protective even in death. Vivian shivered, closed her eyes to will the tears away. Father had managed to get her out of the house when it started crubling down on them but had gone back inside when they both realized Mother and Ororo were still trapped within. He never even made it to them.
Vivian shook herself from her thoughts. That was two years ago now. She and little 'Roro took to the streets after a few hard months in the orphanage. Not only did Ororo struggle with her phobia in the tiny, cramped building, but the other kids hadn't been kind to either of them. Vi couldn't understand; her sister was beautiful. She often stared in wonder at her white hair and blue eyes - Father had always called her his little snow angel. But others found it strange in its difference. They called her names, threw rocks, purposefully taunted her. Vi had been her protector, and in turn she had been tormented for being odd. Not wanting to put up with that kind of life, Vi decided with a fourteen year old's wisdom to take her six year old sister to the streets and make it out on their own. Surely it wouldn't be too hard... Escaping the orphanage was easy enough, and there were no social workers in this community to hunt them down. Two years later, they were still somehow getting by. Vi liked to believe that their parents were watching over them.
Soon she made it to the little hole in the wall that she and Roro were currently calling home. There were a handful of other street urchins in the area, but Vi did her best to keep away from them if she could. Work was hard, but someday she was going to get her sister out of the streets and into better company. She just needed to keep her chin up.
As usual, her sister wasn't in the ragged canvas tent propped up against a portion of wall that they'd claimed for their own. Vi sighed and looked around, wondering where she was this time. She understood her need to be outdoors, but really... it was so hard to keep track of her sometimes!
A few minutes of searching the labyrinth of stalls later, Vi caught sight of a familiar, tiny slip of a girl in one of the busier streets of the bazaar. There was a tuft of shockingly white hair escaping the similarly-colored pashmina scarf wrapped around her head. Vivian hurried her pace - Ororo's hair usually made her the victim of pointed stares, so she was always nagging her to keep it hidden - but it seemed like her sister had plans of her own. She was darting around the throng of people, left and right, here and there, with the grace of a cat - what on earth was she doing?
Finally, she saw her disappear into the shadows of an alley tucked between two stalls of imitation leather bags. Vi darted after her sister, wondering what had gotten into her if she was entering claustrophobically tiny alleys like she was now.
The alleyway widened marginally the further down it went, leading to a sight that was familiar to Vi by now. A few flickering lightbulbs lit the area, clearly lived in if the various canvas blankets, cardboard boxes, lightweight crates/tables that lined the walls were any indication. There was a creaky scaffold set up towards the end, covered with even more cheap yards of cloth. Ororo, scarf pulled down and hair in a loose braid, was sitting on the ground next to it, and there was a tall lanky teenager sitting beside her. They were studying what looked like...
"Ororo!" Vivian finally managed, aghast. Spread out before her sister and the stranger were an assortment of threadbare wallets, bangles of gold and silver, a few rings and a tarnished old pocketwatch.
"Dada!" Ororo looked up, surprised. "How, um, how did you find me?"
Several other children and teenagers had glanced up briefly, intrigued by the sudden disturbance. Vi only stalked forward, words spilling forth in rapid Arabic: "You weren't at the Wall, so of course I had to look for you! And here you are at some - some thieves' den with-" she paused to glare and vaguely shake her hand at the boy who was slowly getting up. "With some strange boy! Ororo, you know how dangerous the Khan can be at night! What on earth are you thinking?"
Ororo had shrunk back at her sister's words at first, but seeing the older boy stand over her protectively gave her some confidence. She managed to glare right back, blue eyes flashing in defiance. "Achmed wouldn't hurt me, dada! He's really nice!"
"Nice!" Vi exclaimed. "He's teaching you how to steal! Thieves are not nice people, Ororo!" She reached out to grab her younger sister's wrist, intent on pulling her back. But Ororo managed to avoid her grasp.
"Easy, aanisah," the boy was saying (at least he was polite, Vi thought, vaguely.) "Let's not have any trouble, hey?" Vi got a better look at him and realized he was older than she'd thought. He was lean, but had a little more muscle than the usual urchin, but then again, petty thieves and pickpockets probably ate better than most people on the street. And his eyes - a deep, commanding (and currently, cautious) brown - seemed to bore into her own.
"You are already in trouble!" Vi gestured at the gathered, stolen goods at their feet. "Stealing is a crime! I don't even want to know how you got into this, but-"
"I was hungry! You were taking so long to come back, and I was so hungry." Ororo protested, completely out of context. Vivian blinked in confusion.
Achmed, if that really was his name, chuckled dryly. "Ah, I think what she means, aanisah, is that she was hungry so she nicked an apple from me. If she had not hung around like she had to see if I noticed, I wouldn't have known." He grinned. "Not many who can do that anymore, you know? So I ask her if she wanted to see how she can get more apples..."
Ororo looked at her sister, shifting her weight from one leg to the other nervously. "And I said yes. And Achmed said there was more he could show me if I didn't want to be hungry anymore and he is a really good teacher, and he helps other people like us, see? He makes sure no one is hungry and everyone has a place to sleep and something to wear and," she swallowed and unconsciously shifted from Arabic to Swahili, "And I just wanted to help, because you work so hard and I didn't mean to lie, Vi, please please don't be mad at me!"
Vivian blinked twice more before she felt the last of her anger crumble away. She'd thought she was doing enough to keep her sister satisfied. Apparently not. Guiltily she remembered the days when she and Ororo barely had any food to eat if she couldn't find work, or how thin and threadbare the blanket Ororo slept in was (not that she seemed to mind much, she never had problems with heat or cold), or how all they had to claim for their own was a run down canvas sheet propped up by scrap-metal poles and a part of a dirty wall...
In hindsight, she wondered if all this time, she wasn't making herself believe that things were okay for them, that they were managing better than they actually were.
But she hadn't wanted it to come to this. Vivian could still hear their parents patiently teaching her what was right and what was wrong. And stealing - wasn't stealing wrong?
And yet, all she had to do was look at Ororo: far too thin, mocked for what she looked like, far more mentally scarred than an eight year old had any right to be... but still doing her best to be useful to her big sister, even if it meant petty thievery...
She felt a weight on her shoulder - Vi looked up to see that Achmed has come closer and placed a hand on her shoulder. "For what it's worth," he said, "Ororo feels a world of guilt when she pickpockets, so I don't ask her to, often. She isn't going to do this forever," he glanced back at the younger girl, lowered his voice to a murmur before looking back at Vivian.
"She's special, that one. You are, too. Both of you, you're meant for something better than the back alleys of the Khan."
"But to get to that life, you have to survive this one, yeah?" Even if it meant doing some things that they didn't want to.
Belatedly, Vi felt a wetness in her eyes, a track of tears running down her cheeks. A heartbeat later, Ororo was on her feet and winding her arms around her in a fierce embrace, a litany of apologies coming from her lips. Distantly, she thought she noticed Achmed stepping back, urging the small audience of curious children they'd attracted away from them.
Vi shook her head. "It's okay," she half-smiled, taking a step back from her little sister. "It's okay. I'm still not... I still don't know if this is right, but... We'll be okay, okay? I'm sorry for getting mad, too." She smoothed down Ororo's unruly hair with one hand, then raised the bag of now-cold shawarma and falafel dinner in apology. "Forgive me?"
Ororo sniffled, then gave Vivian a watery smile and another hug. "Okay."
I did a lot of homework for this chapter!
words to know
` shawarma - In this context, Arab streetfood consisting of thin cuts of meat with tomatoes, onions, a sauce of your choice (garlic or tahini) rolled into pita bread. In an unrelated context, it is the Avengers' choice of post-battle snack. ;)
` falafel - a deep-fried ball or patty made from ground chickpeas, fava beans, or both.
` galabeya - traditional Egyptian garment/clothing
` dada - Swahili (colloquial), older sister
` the Khan - short form of the Khan el Khalili, one of Cairo's main market districts
` aanisah - Egyptian Arabic (colloquial), "Miss" or an unmarried female
Ororo calls Vivian the Swahili term for "big sis" in this, because their mother made sure they knew the language (so she could lecture them in her native tongue, heh). Growing up in Cairo made it necessary to be fluent in Egyptian Arabic. And of course, their dad, being African American, taught them some English as well (which they picked up more of as they spent more time in the tourist-frequented Khan.) [/headcanon trivia about Vi and Ro]
In the comics, Ororo was taken in by an old man, a master thief by the name of Achmed el-Gibar following her parents' death. I decided to make him younger (think Rufio, from Hook) in this, because reasons.
Any similarities between Vi & Ororo and Katniss & Prim are unintentional!
Finally, in an effort to keep the characters developmentally appropriate, this chapter was written with Kohlberg in mind; what's your opinion on the morality of street children who steal to survive?