The Dark Ages brought along with it a vast dying.
Not just of people, but faith as well.
The Hammerites and Mechanists began to turn their back to their Master Builder in pursuit of other means of guidance and enlightenment.
The only people not so horribly affected by the Dark Ages were the Pagans.
With the death of Viktoria, they were weakened yes, but as the Hammerites and Mechanists fell to time and doubt, the Pagans began to regrow.
Many of the forest folk saw the Dark Ages as a blessing, brought unto them by the Sneak Thief.
And so, a figurehead of sorts he became, an entity to be respected and upheld, not as a prophet or god, but as an ally.
The histories were scant with details when it came to what occurred during the Dark Ages, the Haven and Keepers having fallen almost immediately, but the Sneak Thief's original journals held ripe insights which modern Keepers devoured hungrily.
The cause of the Sneak Thief's death was unknown, and how or why he ended up buried within the ruins of an old cathedral remained a mystery, many beggars speculated that the Sneak Thief had been buried within the Olde Pagan Forest, a vast and sprawling metropolis of trees and life, and the city had simply grown, forcing both the forests and Pagans back.
The Pagans never confirmed or denied the claim, though Garrett had yet to ask one outright, and he doubted any of the Queen's beggars had either.
Regardless of how the cathedral became the resting place of the Sneak Thief, regardless of how far said cathedral stood within the city borders, and regardless of the risks and consequences…
Many, many Pagans dared to breach the outer limits of the city to journey to the Sneak Thief's tomb and pay their respects, offering the long dead thief flowers and offerings, never in the shape of coin.
Needless to say, the day a small band of Pagans making the pilgrimage to the Sneak Thief's resting place discovered the cathedral to be overrun by street rats and gutter urchins was nearly nothing shy of a bloodbath.
Nearly being the critical word…
The Queen's beggars were no warriors, they were hardly fighters in fact, they would cling to shadows and scurry beneath gazes, desperate to remain unseen, unnoticed.
Meanwhile the Pagans stemmed from a history of betrayal and bloodshed, all were eager to not have the past repeat itself, and if that meant culling those who would seek to do them harm then so be it.
But, there was one common, albeit, unspoken law among the city vermin.
To be seen by a beggar is to be unseen.
Beggars and urchins and all other manors of homeless folk were often as prosecuted as the muggers and rapists that ran rampant in the streets.
Beggars knew how to keep their heads down, how to stay out of mind, how to keep their mouths shut, after all, if the authorities of the city were just as likely to order a beggar to hang, then why should a beggar risk their life for the lady laying bloody in an alley two streets down the way?
That unspoken law was all that saved the Queen and her beggars that day, and every day a Pagan came to visit thereafter.
And when the time was right, the young Queen offered a lone Pagan a seat at her table and a cup of tea in exchange for a story.
A story which she held onto for years and years.