In a tavern sits a woman.

She has dark hair, running in wild curls over her shoulders and down her back. She is wearing a dress both well-worn and well taken care of, the bodice tough leather and the skirts a patchwork of faded fabric in a hundred different shades of green. From far away, they all blend together into a swirl of movement that calls to mind tall grass swaying in a breeze.

There is a battered instrument case hanging off the seatback behind her, and a wooden cane is resting on the bar beside her. She is clearly young, her skin smooth and dotted with freckles, but there is a weight to her that demands attention. It demands the kind of respect that comes with age, reflected in the deference offered by each patron as they nod her way, floating in and out of the dark, smoky space.

She knows the name, family, and hometown of every face that passes by, has helped their sons and daughters learn arithmetic, has negotiated property disputes and trade deals for every merchant packing up on the streets. She came to this country five years ago with no money or friends to speak of, just kindness and wit held out to the world in equal measure. She made connections and acquaintances, collected debts owed and paid until her ledger ran black for pages and pages, and she always smiled when someone looked her way with a question on their lips.

Now, though, no one is looking for a favor, and her shields lower beneath the cover of darkness. Her hazel eyes stare blankly ahead, and though the barkeep glances at her with concern, it’s nothing he hasn’t seen before. He wonders if he should ask, offer… something.

Instead, he tops off her ale and moves towards a rowdy couple shouting drunken insults at each other. There is more life between the feuding men than beside this ghost of a woman, whose hands shake as she lifts her drink.

* * * *

Outside, prowling the streets of the city, is a girl.

She isn’t much younger than the woman in the tavern, but she looks it. Everything about her is small and powerful; her sinewy arms remain close to her sides, fingers twitching back towards the thin staff strapped to her back. She is several shades darker than any native, but this is a port town, by its very nature a collage of a million colors and cultures, and so she blends.

There is a dangerous air to her, a tense aura that tastes almost of violence, hanging like a threat in every calculated movement. She looks like trouble; not the kind that steals your wallet or children, but the kind that starts fights with each and every perceived slight, that targets your tall sons before they’ve had a chance to do wrong.

She is young and untested, and it shows in all of the blind spots she forgets to check, the confidence coming off her in waves. Still, though, not a person passes her and thinks easy target or weak.

Conquerors came for her people with torches and cannons, and though they held their ground, they were not without casualties. There is magic on her shores, older than the machines they use to set villages on fire. The elders speak and the very waves on which the ships float rise up and destroy them. But she knows, feels in her bones, that this will not be the last time they try. She learns of other, less fortunate shores where these boats have landed, greedy fingers outstretched, uniforms soaked in blood that is not their own.

She will throw herself against walls over and over again until either she or the wall breaks, and she has yet to fall before a challenge.

* * * *

Upstairs from the tavern, in a small flat cheerily furnished, a boy with tightly coiled hair reads a book.

His warm, dark eyes are concentrating on the text before him, his left hand flying as he takes notes without looking (they are neater than any of the drafts scattered about the other half of the small living room, products of his roommate’s midnight bursts of creativity). They are big, soft, chocolate brown things that shine even in the darkness of his nighttime studies with their wide openness to the world. He looks hungry for everything. His eyes search, and search, and search, as if he can find every answer to every questions between the lines of text about chemical properties and thermodynamics.

Beneath the scent of the city and the briny taste of the ocean, he still smells like cedar and freshly overturned dirt. He is two years away from home and still finding pine needles at the bottom of drawers and in all of his bags; his roommate has complained no fewer than six times about the jagged edges of his childhood trees poking her every time she sits on their sofa.

He came to this bustling city in search of knowledge, with exactly enough money to pay his first year’s tuition. He collided with a young woman and her cane his very first hour in the city, and within moments she had sized him up. She asked him where he was headed, informed him that he’d been going the wrong direction for dozens of blocks now, and offered to show him the way.

She took his hand and led him through the city; he did not look to her for a favor, and so she took him in without hesitation.

He smiles at his textbook, remembering, his face as wide open as the fields behind his childhood home.

* * * *

On a rooftop overlooking the darkening city, miles from the tavern and the flat, the boy and the girl and the woman, there is a young man. His hands itch for all of the treasures below, checking each pocket for his tools: three different sets of lock picks, vanishing powder, a knife in case things get too sticky (they haven’t yet). They are all of the finest quality, including the vanishing powder, perfectly formulated courtesy of the boy studying half a city away.

He carries himself with all of the arrogance his position warrants, the second son of the country’s most powerful merchant, but there is a glimmer of mischief about him. His mouth is almost always curved into a slight smirk, his movements smooth and deliberately casual.

He stands on this rooftop having scaled 10 stories of brick and mortar (only his third highest climb of the week), his long limbs roped with the kind of undefined muscle you find on thieves of his caliber.

His father is rich, accomplished, and well-respected. So is his eldest brother, though he lacks the cruel streak running wide and deep in every man of their line six generations back.

Standing over the city with poor intentions, he feels powerful. The bruises on his arms fade away, the disappointment of parents who excepted something better dying in the warm glow of the city’s lamplight. Up here, away from the noise and the people, he means something more than failure.

He pulls his preferred set of lock picks free and leaps gently off the roof toward a balcony across the way, exhilaration buzzing all the way down to his toes.

* * * *

In a castle, nestled in the center of a city a hundred miles away, another young woman works. She is drafting letters, her work in dozens of neat stacks along the three desks of her sitting room. One is a formal commendation for her finest ambassador, another thinly veiled threats for a foreign leader. Each is written with emerald green ink, the penmanship impeccable, the signature as perfect and sharp as the woman to whom it belongs.

A strand of silky, straight black hair falls before almond-shaped eyes and is roughly pushed away. The acting Queen of a kingdom cannot abide such laziness as loose hair. She is still in her court dress, an intricately embroidered thing that closely hugs her frame and accentuates her perfect posture.

She grew up in the shadow of royalty, and it is etched in every line of her erect spine and the sharp point of her carefully applied eyeliner. Her parents raised her to be the best, never missing an opportunity to parade her before the world as their crowning achievement. At 16 she stood before her parents, her hands conspicuously still, and asked for greater responsibilities. They handed her domestic trade, first. Then, on her 18th birthday, they placed her in charge of foreign affairs. At the young age of 21, her hair elegantly twisted into a chignon, she is queen in all but name, an inheritance handed down decades too early.

She begged for the world on her shoulders, and her parents obliged. In the midst of drafting a treaty between two feuding families, she is unsure whether or not this is a gift. 

* * * *

They are all still children, in their own way. The world-weary bard, the eager alchemist, the fierce crusader; the ambitious princess and the lazy thief. They will all face war before the year is up. They will all face death, pain, and bitter disappointment. But they will find light, too. Love, family, purpose; these will push them forward when things seem darkest, will rally supporters when the quintet finds itself low on supplies or fighters or places to lay their heads each night.

But for now, each sits in their own silent solitude. They are anxious, weary, excited. They are younger than even they know.

This is their story.