"Ugh, why does it always has to end like this…"
"Always running…"
"Always hungry…"
"I hate my life…"
"Why is everything so harsh?"
"I'm so hungry…"
These were the thoughts that often wandered across the young mind of Rose, a girl born in the suburbs of the City of Aqua, within the Aquaias Archipelago. A beautiful pink haired mermaid girl that had the beauty of a princess, yet she was born in the middle of poverty.
She never meet her mother nor her father, and since she had memory of herself that she lived in the streets eating whatever she could find and trying to live in the nasty water of her surroundings.
She often wandered in the streets, taking peeks at the brighter areas of the city, seeing children walking with their parents happily, and envying them for being happy while she had nothing…
The only thing she ever had was a strange tattoo in her left hand, in the weird shape of a sharp-toothed fish of black color. Whatever it was, people called it a "Stigma" something often said to be a mark of "an ancestor's sin" which those that are born with must carry.
People with Stigmas were very rare, but those that held them were discriminated severely by everyone else, often called "Sin Carriers". A strange phenomenon that happened in this island, for motives that some even said were a punishment by the "Ancient Sea God" to the families of the " Great Sinners".
"Look, a Sinner!"
"Such a little girl…"
"Don't get close to her! She might be cute, but she carries a grave sin of her ancestors!"
"Don't get closer to her…"
"Disgusting… A Stigma Carrier…"
Before her bright pink eyes, the rejection and disgust of people was common. She lived in a world of darkness, hunger, and loneliness for the first years of her life… Being hated for sins she didn't committed and living a life she didn't deserved.
Such was the world.
However, although the conditions were bad, it wasn't as if she was alone forever. She found many kids like her, lost and alone, without parents to love them and take care of them. She slowly became friends with many of them, some fought with her though, but others offered her what little they had.
In those younger years, she meet a boy nicknamed Coral. His body was that of a mermen with faint fish-like appearance, but he was born with a strange disease where coral would grow over his body. To not let it overgrow, he had to cut it constantly. He lived in pain and was feared as a monster by many.
But to her, he was the gentlest boy she had ever met.
Although many thought a sickly boy like him would only get his sickness stuck to anybody that came closer to him, Rose didn't cared. Wasn't she already born with a Stigma? It wasn't as if things could get any worse anyways.
"Why are you getting closer to me? I am sick… Coral never stops growing over my body… I am sick… I am cursed…" Coral often cried whenever Rose got close to him.
"You're the only one that speaks to me without lying." Sighed Rose.
"Without… lying?" Coral wondered.
Rose's eyes shone brightly… she had been born with a power connected to her Stigma, the power to see the heart of people. Through them, she could detect lies from truth, and see the true intentions of people's hearts.
Amongst everyone she had ever meet, Coral's heart was the most purest and innocent, a soul hated by everyone like her. Within him, she found an equal she could empathize with.
"You have a nice heart, it is shiny…" She gently extended her hands towards Coral. "We are both cursed… So it doesn't matter if we stick together, right?"
"You're… cursed like me…?" Coral felt perplexed.
However, his young and lonely heart craved company, as time went by, he opened up to Rose and so did she. Over time, the two became good friends, always together, while forming a band of children. Eventually, they joined an overly populated orphanage where there were many kids like them.
Abandoned, and left to die on their own, a few people with good harts build a place for them to live and eat, but their conditions were more than just deplorable. There was a severe lack of food and they couldn't really live well there, rooms were overpopulated and not many could live in there.
Yet… in that place is where they ate their first warm meal, where they meet the smiles of the nuns attending it, and where they saw everyone smile, even if faintly, and even if temporarily.
"I'm sorry for not having a meal for you all the time, Rose… We always have so many kids, and we must prioritize the smaller and weaker ones so they can survive…" The nun that took care of most things always apologized whenever she offered Rose a small amount of soup made of fish heads and a small piece of bread.
"It's fine Lady Aylen, thanks for everything you've done for us…"
Although she was only ten years of age, her mentality had maturated faster than most children, and Rose slowly began to think that the only way she could get everyone in here out of their situation was that if she could find money… a lot of it.
"We are small and nimble, and I've got plenty of magic myself… Do I really have to do this? Will Lady Aylen ever forgive me?" She wondered once.
"So we're doing it?" Asked Coral.
"Coral, are you okay with it?" Sighed Rose.
"I don't really care as long as it get us some food, I'm starving… And well… as long as I get to help you out." Coral smiled back.
"You're way too nice with someone like me…" Rose sighed.
Like that, Rose and a band of brave kids started to rob. They began stealing fruits in the market, sometimes fish in the port, and other times, the wallets of unsuspected tourists. Fooling them with their cuteness asking for money and food, while one of them would sneak behind the person they targeted, stripping them off their stuff.
