When Garrett first learned of the grave robbing incident, he immediately brought it to his father's attention.
Of course, by the time the Haven was informed, they were some century too late. And even if the theft had occurred within the last week, First Keeper Orland seemed largely disinterested in the robbery.
In fact, no one paid the century old incident much mind, not the Haven nor the Queen's beggars, robbing graves was practically a hobby among the most desperate in the city.
After all, a corpse so often wore a fine set of clothing that would be squandered in the dirt, and if the deceased had anything of value in life, they often took it with them to the grave.
The only people who made any sort of fuss over the defilement of the Sneak Thief's grave were the most devoted of Pagans who would breach the city limits to pay their respects to the Sneak Thief by moonlight.
But not even they could do all that much about the robbery, the beggars had trailed the grave robber until they reached the edge of the noble district but they dared go no further.
They should have.
For what was stolen that night would prove to be the single most significant treasure the city would ever come to know.
The Final Glyph, drawn by the Sneak Thief, mere moments before the Dark Ages fell upon the city, severed the tides of the Primordial Sea and all of humankind.
But the Final Glyph could not cut the binding webs connecting the Sneak Thief and the Leviathan.
From the moment the Leviathan blessed the Sneak Thief with It's boon, the Sneak Thief was tied to the Primordial Sea, tethered to the Tides of Time, acting as an anchor between the two worlds.
While he lived, the Sneak Thief utilized his boon to conquer impossible foes and achieve incredible feats, for the Primal residing within the Sneak Thief was a wild and restless thing, desperate and hungry for unfathomable things.
Things that the Sneak Thief refused to provide.
So for years, the Primal resided within the Sneak Thief, avidly awaiting the day it would be released from it's prison.
And when the death of the Sneak Thief failed to free the Primal, it continued to slumber, patient in it's dreaming did it wait.
It wasn't until the worms within the dirt finish devouring Sneak Thief's skin, and his bones turned to stone did the Primal rise once more, for the crystalline eye of ice, forged from the very waters of the Primordial Sea, gifted to the Sneak Thief by the great Leviathan himself, found itself finally free.
The eye itself was not the Primal, nor was it a means of control. It was however tied directly to the Primordial sea, to the Tides of Time.
The Anchor that tied together two worlds, even beyond death.
And that was what interested the Northcrest family most...
The Primal Eye was to be the epicenter of the ritual, the key to draw the very essence of time to the hands of men.
By itself however, the eye was but a window into the endlessness that was time.
The Leviathan watched from his world as the men stood around the ancient eye crafted by his hands, chanting their little prayers, wearing their silly robes.
The Leviathan worried not for his domain, he had seen all outcomes of the eve, he knew he would survive…
He worried rather for what would remain.
For when the younger thief fell down, down, down into that swirling abyss, she had unknowingly made herself the final, missing piece of the ritual.
A living body, fit to wield the Primal.
The Leviathan could only watch from It's domain as the Primordial Sea churned and flowed around Them, reacting to the newest vessel of time, flowing through her, in her, around her…
Something was horribly wrong.
The Primordial Sea, the home of the Leviathan, the Child of Change, seemed to fall away from the god, aiming to resettle within her… The thief.
Before all could be lost, and with what little dredges of primordial influence remained at the Leviathan's fingertips.
The ties between men and sea were severed once again.
Unlike the severance of the Final Glyph however, the Leviathan had full control over the separation, and, as easily as the connection had been cut, it could be resurrected…
What the Leviathan had failed to take into consideration however was the exact bond the thief would form with the Primordial Sea during her time floating in its waters.
Rather than become a mere passage between the worlds as the few before had, Erin had become her own ocean, a Primordial Basin of sorts…
An embodiment of balance in its purest form…
The Primal which the thief had unknowingly stolen became a thing all on its own, born of the temporal sea and the Leviathan's own hands, young, naïve and very, very hungry…
The Leviathan knew that should the ties between the Primordial Sea and the world be restrung, that small, starving sliver residing within the thief would no doubt devour the rest of the Primordial Sea without thought, shame or care.
For the small sliver of Time's Tide within the thief was an ageless, timeless, ancient thing, yet so, so, so very young.
Young enough to mistake itself a babe and settle into a foreign womb.
However, no one, not even the Leviathan, could have predicted what was to come…