Banished - Alexandre Rivest (ebook reader for surface pro TXT) 📗

when school wasn't fun. I came her to relax. My little toes digged into the soft grass of a little hill that I found peace on. It was some steps outside my hometown named Deldra. It wasn't too big, had its own schools. The citizens weren't too rich, neither too poor. They all had their jobs, and when the boys grew up they would join the human army.

Yet another sigh fled out of my mouth. The wind stroked softly through my blonde hair. Some white highlights shimmered in the midday sun. The reason I often left school before it ended was that my friends I used to play with started rumours about myself and my family.They heard that my dad abandon our family as soon as he realized my mom was pregnant from him. I could hear my mom crying at night, repeatedly asking herself: 'Why?' I didn't know the answer to her question. I didn't even know what was wrong with our lives.

When I came home my mom asked me how my day was. I normally answered with a sloppy : 'it was okay...', then sat down at the table and ate the vegetable stew my mom was making every day. We didn't have much money for more. But sometimes my mom was able to buy some meat and add it to the stew.I didn't know the age of my mom, but she had blonde hair with grey highlights. She had some folds on her skin, honest blue eyes and a warm smile. However, I remember she looked more and more tired. Sometimes, she didn't even prepared food for me after school. I closed my eyes and softly stroked through my long hair.Life wasn't...nice.

**

When I was thinking about it, I do have to admit that I miss my mom. She's my own mother after all. Yet, I was happy when I ran away to a bigger city. Shym is the biggest of its region, and also the safest. The army was almost everywhere. Built on the north frontier of Llios, it was one of the main guarding post on the frontier. Even though humans hated demons I was able to live a calm life there. As long as I was hiding my physical belonging, I was safe. I can't risk myself to get a job at the market or somewhere else, so I create my own job. I pay myself, no bills, only raw money. Rich people don't need all that money anyway.

I was sitting on my tacky bed. My white hair was completely ruffled, I felt like I was stinking to everything I would have touched and my sore muscles were killing me.'Ugh...', I moaned as I wheeled myself to stand up, 'I should really get myself done...', I mumbled and went straight to the bathroom. When I moved into this housing, my lessor 'asssured' me that I would have warm water during the morning and the evening, provided by the homemade boiler.The 'boiler' was made of an open fire, but I rapidly learned that it didn't burn that day. I got myself undressed and started the shower. I could hear the old pipe snapping and a single cold water drop dropped on my white, long hair. I crunched my teeth. 'Are you fucking with me? Sometimes you work, sometimes you don't!', I groused against the shower pipe and hit it with my fist. Water immediately poured down the drain under my feet. I hated this place.

 

The sun was already sinking, covering Shym under a deep red sky. Time for me to work.

I stood right in front of my mirror and got myself changed. Since my hair got white when I was around ten years old, people looked at me with a weird expression on their faces. When I was eleven, horns began to grow on my forehead and when my pupils finally changed into a triangle form... Then, they understood.

I was not a normal human being, half of me was demonic. And people hated me for that fact. Maybe they were only afraid because of the great war between demons and humans wasn't forgotten at that time.

I poked my horns with my left hand while stroking back my bangs. The horns weren't that big of a problem when it came to disguise myself as a human. My white hair neither, but my bright green eyes with those demonic pupils were an issue.I bit my lip and let go of my hair. 'I should get ready', I said to myself and put on a black tank top, black pants and some black overknees. I put some sort of improvised belt around my thighs. It had little pockets fixed on them with some "working material" in it.Afterwards, I put on a robe which covered my shoulders. It had a big, round hood on it . I grabbed a frontlet with a dark red color and put it on my forehead. I didn't want to make it easy for others to see that I wasn't quite "normal". Lastly, I put a sheath on my belt with my rusted sword in it and pulled the hood of my robe over my head. With my reddish boots on, I left my apartment.

 

The streets in this part of Shym were slowly getting emptier, soon to be dead silent. Slowly, the streetlights started to shine as I went through some alleys. I was on my way to leave Shym, because stealing here would be a hard job. Almost everywhere there were some army soldiers on guarding duty and if a citizen would make alarm I wouldn't have time to flee. They would find me with ease and catch me. Since I had no business to do in this city and because I wanted to live here in peace, I always went outside the town walls.Around Shym were some smaller villages. By the time it took me to get to one of them, it was night. Mostly everyone was tight asleep. By going during this time of the day, I never got catched. Having a source of light to see where I was going wasn't even a problem : My demonic eyes allowed me to perfectly see in the dark.

To be able to do what I'm preparing for every time, I had to walk for at least two hours before reaching a village. Each time I didn't care about the name of the town. What was the point of it?

When I broke into homes, I tried not to take too much. They surely would realize that somebody took their money, but not all of it. Most of the time, I didn't touch stuff like jewelery or anything like that; I just went straight for bronze, silver and gold. I only took raw money; I never took objects that I would have to sell to get the money.

Traveling to the villages was also a way for me to calm down before acting precisely and silently. Shym was surrounded by woods, many fields and a quite large river. After a while doing this job, I was able to walk so silently that not even an old wood floor would realize I was even touching it. I had to admit that I was proud of this skill.

 

For this night, I reached the village after about half an hour earlier than typical, so there was still few people on the streets. I could smell beer, bad wine and sweat. I wrinkled up my nose. I didn't like this smell, but I did my best to ignore it. When I went further into the village, another smell creeped into my nose. It irritated me because I couldn't fit it in. Was I having issues with all those nasty smells, because of my well working nose? I bit my lip and stood still for a second. A weird feeling was overflowing me, but within a second I decided to ignore it and continued my way to a house which was standing quite isolated from the others.

It was fully dark already, but thanks to my eyes, I could perfectly see what I was looking at. The house didn't look too spectectular, but the fact it was standing a bit isolated made me think it was an old building. Maybe it was built first? Around the house, there was a high fence made of cast iron; no match for me.With some ingenious moves I reached the top of the fence and silently landed on the other side of it. I went forward in a stooping position, carefully watching where I was putting my feet.

I reached the backside of the house. Then, I scrabbled around in my pockets on my thighs to find some tools to break the lock of the veranda door.I made sure to move my tools carefully and to avoid any metallic sounds. With a sassy smile on the face I opened the porch door and slipped into the house."As I thought...", I mumbled as I realized that the interior decoration looked quite pricey. I would sure find some money here.

Silently, I made one step after another to look for a safe. I somehow was sure the dwellers weren't too dumb to openly present their goods.The floor was made of stone and a carpet was placed in front of a fireolace. The sofa looked like it was made out of real leather; its smell kind of confirmed it.The house even had a second floor I realized when I entered the corridor. On my right side was the kitchen. Maybe I should steal some food? I didn't have much to eat during the last few weeks...And I smelled pretty neat stuff...Even meat!"I shouldn't let myself be distracted...", I mumbled and grabbed the banisters of the wooden stairs.They squeaked when I slowly moved upstairs.

 

Upstairs, I could hear the residents snoring, so I was sure they were fast asleep.Right in front of me was a closed wooden door; the bedroom, according to the sound. On the left end of the second floor was a bathroom. The door was standing wide open.I couldn't see a safe anywhere though, so I guessed it would be in the bedroom."Shit...", I silently nagged and stroked my hair back. Pulling my hood into my face once again, I made sure to open the bedroom's door as softly as I could and slipped into the room. I let the door open a tiny bit to make sure I could leave fast after being done with business.

I cringed for a second when the sleeping pair moved around in their sleep. I silently lost a sigh and looked through the room. The bed was big and made of wood. It was standing on a carpet with a nice pattern. Left from the door was the window, underneath it there was standing a wooden drawer. On the right side, where I was crouching, stood a big wardrobe, also made from wood. I opened the wardrobe. I moved around some clothing and finally found what I was searching for: A safe. It was embedded in the wardrobe – not bad. They really seemed to have some interesting treasures there."Let's see...", I whispered to myself while putting a hand in my pocket. I searched for a picking tool and when I felt the sharp end of it I fished it out of it's vessel. As a thief, I was blessed with my ability to see everything at night. Light will never disturb my victims. I bent over to stick my tool into the lock and began to move it from right to left until I could feel a little drag. After making sure the married pair were still asleep, I let the lock crack and opened the safe.

 

"There you are...", I cheered softly as I discovered a lot of money. Gold coins, silver bars and two little rubies were just laying there, screaming: "Take us with you!"I wouldn't let them tell me a second time! I grabbed everything I wanted and put it into my