„Someone stop this monkey!“ The old man shouted over a crowd of indifferent people as he shook his fist angrily. A woman screeched from the other side of the crowd; some people scurried away from her but neither their eyes nor their hands were fast enough to hold on to even just the tail of the furry suspect. The little creature did not look back once, as he flew from the ruckus that he had caused himself. Off he went as panic filled his tiny heart with blood. He took the upper road because there was no way he would make it through a labyrinth of legs and extravagant dresses. Leaping from shoulder to shoulder, head to head of unwilling participants he left a trail of screeches, gasps, ruined hair and ripped skin. Hands swatted at him like he was some nasty fly but they were never quite fast enough to catch him.

If only he could get a moment to rest and listen…

His ears and nose twitched. He smelled food; warm food and cold food; sweet food and spicy food. There was the smell of sweat and sweet perfume, heavy in the summer heat.

Noises! There were so many noises! Before him and behind him. Pitchmen trying to sell their goods and angry customers complaining about the prices. People laughing and fighting; sometimes both at the same time.

Then – finally – there was music; a cheerful solo violin. It was not so much the melody that immediately struck a chord of the monkey’s instincts, but the way this instrument was being handled; every new note complimented the previous one; the bow perfectly caressed the strings. No second instrument was needed to perfect the tune. The sound emerging from the curved piece of wood was complete on its own.

And it stopped abruptly the second the monkey landed on the boy’s shoulders, knocking him out of his trance-like state in which he had completely melted into his own music. Using both arms to regain balance, the boy lowered the violin and bow, stumbling back a few steps. Nobody cared that the music had stopped. No one had been listening anyway and the violin case at the musician’s feet was still practically empty. It was time to move on.

“Speckles! Where have you been all day?” Fiddler carefully locked his instrument back into the case and ruffled the monkey’s head as soon as his hands were free. “Tough crowd today. I think everyone’s too busy to stop and listen. I could’ve done with a little more of your charms” He kept talking while the monkey had started absentmindedly picking the boy’s rust colored hair.

He sighed and got going, shouldering the violin case. “There sure are a lot of peace guards in town today, don’t you think?” He did not dive straight into the crowd, but kept at the side of the street. From here he could observe the guards in their white and gold uniforms, tactically positioned at every corner. They looked threatening despite their lack of actual weapons and the boy preferred to steer clear of them. Personally, he did not think of himself as a criminal but his dirty worn out clothes and his bare feet were not particularly welcome in Principia, Secratia’s pompous capital. No other province was home to this many Blessed. And Fiddler could not complain. He was one of them.

“Maybe we should try and get a bed in a shelter tonight” He whispered, always talking to his pet monkey rather than talking to himself. “I wouldn’t want to get into trouble”

Speckles’ silence was suspicious and concerning at the same time. Fiddler poked him lightly. “You didn’t already get into trouble, did you?” The monkey chirped in disagreement and Fiddler decided to believe him.

The sun between the golden towers of Principia was hanging low and it was probably late afternoon by now. With this many peace guards in town, the lines at the shelters were most likely already pretty long. Usually Fiddler did not mind spending the night outside in summer. Sometimes he would even pretend that it was a privilege to get to sleep underneath the open sky. He liked to count the stars and connect the dots until the sky was full of pictures and geometric shapes and his eyes were long tired.

It was hard to believe that Principia had some districts that were not all gold and flourish and fancy clothes. Tourists were not advised to come here and residents pretended they did not exist. Fiddler was born and raised in the parts where the bright paint of the walls was crumbling and the clothes of the people were torn. But even here, the sun still reflected from the rooftops, tinting them in a bright and golden light, especially at sunrise and at dawn. Principia was the golden city. And everything was a part of its beauty.

Fiddler nearly bumped into a group of kids in front of him. He stopped to find out why they were blocking his way until he realized that they marked the end of the line to the homeless shelter. Tonight’s demand was a lot higher than he had predicted.

“It’s looking bad” He mumbled, rummaging his pockets for some dry berries. He offered one of them to Speckles who was still sitting on his shoulder. “I’ll give you another one if you behave and stay with me, okay? And that’s gotta be it for dinner tonight”

He needed the little money that he had earned today to pay the small fee for a night in the shelter. Speckles did not complain – yet. He took the fruit and swallowed it whole.

The kids in front of them must have heard them talking, one of them turned around and that caught the attention of the other two as well. They were devastatingly young, Fiddler noticed. Maybe, at 17 years, he was getting too old for these shelters. He ought to be able to provide for himself. What if these kids needed them more than he did? What if the orphanages were bursting at the seams again like they did when he was young?

Fiddler smiled at the little group nontheless. “You wanna pet him?” He nodded towards Speckles.

The kids seemed a little frightened of the monkey and Fiddler chuckled, ruffling the fur on top of his pet’s head. “Don’t worry. He rarely bites. Well, he sometimes does. But it rarely actually ends up bleeding. So it’s okay”

It was not really okay and the kids shuffled back a little, shaking their heads. They were probably between the ages of 8 and 12, but at last one of them was bold enough to step forward. The way he reached out his hand was so demanding that Speckles actually shied away to hide behind Fiddler’s head. But his intention was not to pet the monkey. Instead, he pointed his dirty finger at the young man himself.

“Are you a pilot?”

Fiddler was confused for about a second. He awkwardly rubbed the back of his head until he remembered. He adjusted the goggles over his hair, smiling brightly. “Sadly, I’m not but…oh boy, I wish I was” He sighed, his proudly puffed up chest flattened down again. “I’ve been on a zeppelin once, though and-“

The kids were all eyes and ears now, but something else interrupted Fiddler before he even had the opportunity to really get into his story that was half true and half exaggerated, like most things he said. There was a general uproar in the crowd in front of them and Fiddler got distracted. He tried to stand on his toes to actually see what was going on, but he could barely make out the white uniforms of the guards rummaging through the lines of people. This was not normal. The peace guards never concerned themselves with this part of town.

“No Cursed allowed inside tonight” A commanding voice was carried over, immediately followed by loud objections from the crowd. Everyone stumbled backwards, they almost knocked each other over. Fiddler could hear a whistling, people cheering and booing. He was still too small and too far away to see anything until three peace guards forcefully pulled a man out of the crowd. He protested violently to the point where Fiddler felt inclined to just turn his head and look the other way. But he had already caught a very obvious glance of the leathery wings that were growing from the man’s back. He was a demon, one of the types of Cursed that had to carry a visible mark. They did not usually live in Principia. People here liked their streets clean and - most importantly - human.

But the message was sent. A bunch of people voluntarily left the line now, quiet protests leaving their tightly shut lips. Even if they did not have any obvious marks, they were still afraid of getting caught.

No one knew where the peace guards would carry the winged troublemaker tonight. Maybe he would be sent off to work in a factory in Aura. And it could be worse, right? He would make money there, have a roof above his head. It was better that way, Fiddler told himself. He did not belong here.

Fiddler swallowed hard. The kids in front of him looked beyond scared and his heart sank a little. He remembered the first time his orphanage was raided for Cursed to be taken away.

“Are you-?” He did not have to finish his sentence.

Two of the kids violently shook their heads but one little girl, the youngest, was suddenly staring at the ground.

Fiddler clutched the strap of the violin case over his shoulder a little tighter. If he took it out now and just played it for a little while, he could have the whole crowd dancing and laughing in less than five minutes, peace guards included. But he could not be standing here forever. He would have to stop eventually. And everything would go back to normal again.

“Wait…” He quickly fumbled with a golden pin at the chest pocket of his worn out vest. “You know the St. Bethe orphanage?”

The kids nodded in unison. “Yeah, but they don’t have any beds left to spare”

“I know, I know” Fiddler brushed off the concern quickly. He held out the pin to the girl who hesitated to raise her hand. Fiddler pressed the artifact into it and closed her fist around it. “Take this, ask for Mother Zynoa and show it to her. Tell her, Fiddler sends his love”

The girl’s eyes had widened and she was only now looking at the little pin in her palm. It was nothing special; a little circle with something that looked like wings on each side. But his favorite foster mom would know what to do with it. He wanted to believe it so badly that somehow his confidence was rubbing off on the girl. She was smiling.

“Go quick” He urged them and they shuffled away as fast as their short legs could carry them. The peace guards were coming closer now, they were pulling anyone out of the crowd who looked even just remotely suspicious.

And although Fiddler had nothing to hide himself, he did not want to stick around either. He did not want to see any more people being arrested and carried away while he was unable to do something about it or feared the one thing he could do.

He shook it off, secured the violin on his back and took off, an uneasy feeling weighing down on his stomach. Or perhaps it was just his gaping hunger. At least now he could use the money to maybe buy a piece of bread.

As if having read his thoughts, Speckles suddenly made a protesting noise as he pulled at Fiddler’s hair.

“I know, I know. I’ve promised you a second one” Fiddler drew another dried fruit from his pocket and lazily fed it to the monkey. “Any specific street you wanna sleep on tonight?”

There was no answer, except the sound of Speckle’s satisfied chewing.

“Yeah…me neither” Fiddler sighed. “I think the Moon Passage is always nice and quiet”