The year is 1867; the place, Paris, France. The prince is the soon-to-be draconian member of a royal family, Prince Nendros Axel Xenon, a rather good-looking and even-tempered fellow who could use a friend or two, for at the moment he has a grand total of zero. The thief is a considerably less personable, a pickpocket and mercenary who's scrappier than a street rat and wilier than a fox.
It's not the match either of them expected nor even wished for, but it's the one that fate bestowed upon them and that neither one can say no to.
~**~
Candlelight flickered in the dim tavern, petite spires of smoke twisting towards the ceiling. It was a place that could only be described as dingy: from its creaking oaken floorboards to its uneven stools, it was the absolute image of a dive bar. Downtown Paris wasn't the worst place to be, in a dingy bar or otherwise, and it was certainly better than Berlin or Italy, but that didn't mean Engel liked it. Quite the opposite, in fact; he found it wholly distasteful and largely unentertaining.
He was there for a single, exceedingly simple, reason: it offered alcohol. The young man sat in the far corner of the pub with a large mug of beer cradled in his fingers. The look in his icy eyes was one filled with defiance to hide the truth of his shattered heart and haunted mind, and the way he scanned the room all but dared any man to pick a fight. The numerous scars on his face and arms told the tale of many such circumstances despite his relatively short, skinny stature--the boy was every bit as scrappy as he was scrawny.
He sighed, staring into the murky liquid of his beverage before tipping his head back and chugging half of it in a single go in some hope of it drowning what was left of his heart in liberal amounts of alcohol. No sooner had the mug hit the table, however, than he caught a flicker of color out of the corner of his eye and turned to see a strange man dressed all in blue, like some sort of rich merchant, but the style was horrendously outdated.
Engel blinked in surprise, looking the young man over. Had he even been there a moment ago...?!
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