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The blistering heat of the desert sun struck down upon the lively streets of Medina.
People hurriedly made their way across the vast road network of the city, everybody seemingly having some place to be, somewhere to belong to.
And in the middle of it all, or more accurately to the side, something hid in one of the tight alleys between the tall sandstone buildings. A hungry little 12 year old girl dug through a trash can that was posted up next to a small cafe. Her name was Renarin, Renarin Kalashor, although nobody would actually bother to ask her name.
To the few people that happened to see her rummaging through the trash, she stood out immediately. Her skin was darker than the average Medinians, her clothes worn and tainted by the grime of the streets and alleys she lived in. One look at her was enough to classify her as an illegal immigrant, that she wasn't supposed to be there.
She jumped out of the trash can with nothing in hand. Unluckily for her, it seems like the bin was emptied yesterday, and they hadn't thrown away anything edible today. There was barely anything inside. She sat with her back against the dumpster, her head angled to look up at the sliver of blue sky she could see between the rooftops.
She stretched out her hand, opening and closing her palm at the sky repeatedly, before finding it too exhausting to even keep her arms raised up in the air. She let herself fall to the ground, letting out a small groan of misery before shakily getting back onto her feet, moving deeper into the alley, hoping to find another dumpster with something she could eat.
Soon enough, she was leaned against one of the walls as she crept down the alley, even standing up straight with nothing to hold onto or lean on having become too hard for her. She saw light at the end, which meant that direction was back into the street, back into the sun, back into people.
One good thing about the alleys was that there was always shade- and nobody to judge her.
With how she was doing right now though, her best bet was to simply hope that a passerby would take pity on her.
And so she continued moving forwards, no matter how badly it hurt, eventually making it out the alleyway. Her eyes were having a hard time adjusting to the light, she was barely able to keep them open as she sat down on the side of the road. Spending almost all of her time in dark alleys made her eyes quite sensitive to the light. Her gaze naturally gravitated towards the lower half of the people walking by. She didn't like seeing their faces when they looked at her. Without even looking up at them, she could still tell exactly what they all thought of her.
She was in the middle of an internal monologue, thinking about going back into the alley to look for something to eat, crawling around if she had to, til her train of thought was interrupted by a voice.
"Hey, little girl. What are you doing out here?" She heard from above her, in a deep, masculine voice. As her eyes focused, she noticed two pairs of legs in front of her. "Do you need help? You don't seem to be doing well." A second voice rang out, this one higher in pitch. It reminded Renarin of her mother.
Renarin's head tilted up to look at the people in front of her. It was a pair of two teenagers, which Renarin assumed to be a boy and a girl, probably no more than four years older than her. They were both dressed in the same fashion, purple cloaks hung on their shoulders and shiny rings adorned their fingers. The boy wore a crown on his head, whilst the girl seemed to have gold-plated sunglasses on her face. "h-hungry..." The little girl cried, her voice barely above a whisper.
"Marzi, what should we.. do?" The boy asked, his head turned around to the girl beside him. "Well, we're gonna help her, obviously. She's probably got nobody else to go to." The girl, probably named Marzi, replied, quickly flicking her head over to the boy before dropping down into a crouching position. "We're gonna take you to get some food, okay?" Marzi stretched her hand out, Renarin quickly grabbing onto it as she rose to her feet again.
"Let's take her to that café you like, Zak." She said, taking the boys hand into her own as she began dragging the both of them through the street, not bothering to wait for a response. As Renarin looked around, she noticed that she was still getting some very strange looks. Stranger than usual, even. She could swear that everybody they passed looked at them, even moving out of the way for Marzi as she approached. Just who were these people to command such respect?
Slowly, they approached the same café that Renarin was next to earlier that day. The three of them sat down at an outside table, with a waiter immediately coming to their service.
"We'll have one slice of your delicious chocolate cake, two coffees and a glass of water, please." Marzi ordered, the waiter hurrying back into the kitchen after attentively writing down their order.
Renarin's eyes were still having a hard time adjusting to the bright sun, although she was doing her very best to try and keep them open, which Marzi seemed to notice. "Hey, kid, what's up with your eyes?" She asked, leaning over to Renarin slightly.
"..it's.. really bright." Renarin spoke, her voice still shaky and rough, from both a lack of experience with speaking and the dehydration that was causing her throat to go dry.
In one swift motion, Marzi took her sunglasses off and placed them on Renarin's face. "There, that should help." She smiled at her.
Renarin was finally able to open her eyes fully and comfortably through the tinted lenses of the sunglasses. They were slightly too big for her, but they fit her well enough that they didn't fall off her head. The waiter soon came back, bringing their order to the table on a platter, before leaving again as Marzieh and Zakariya gave their thanks.
Marzieh lifted a plate with one of the pieces of cake and a fork on it, and the glass of water, before placing it down in front of Renarin. "Here you go, all yours."
She looked at the glass of water first, taking a long, good look at it before shakily lifting up the glass and bringing it to her mouth. In only a few moments, she drained the glass of all its contents, a few droplets of water spilling onto her raggedy pants.
"Zak, can you get her a refill, please? Just ask them for a whole jug of water, actually." Marzieh politely asked, Zakariya standing up and making his way inside the café as requested.
In the meantime, Renarin grabbed the fork, holding it by wrapping her entire hand around it. "Hold on- it's a lot easier if you hold it like this." Marzieh scooted her chair closer to her, holding Renarin's hand in her left palm as she used her right hand to correct her fingers position on the fork. "Look, like this." She let go of Renarin's hand, smiling at her once more.
Renarin looked back at her, and then down at the older girl's hands. They had gotten dirty from the direct contact with her, but she didn't seem to care. "Go ahead, take a bite!" Marzi encouraged her, a vibrant smile playing on her face. Renarin cut a piece of her slice of cake off with the fork, then impaling it and bringing it up to her mouth. It smelled nice, much nicer than anything she'd had in her entire life.
She opened her mouth, bringing the piece of cake inside and taking it off the forks with her lips. It tasted nice, as well, sweeter than anything she'd ever had before. She rolled it from her tongue to her teeth, and began chewing. Before she had swallowed, she was already cutting off the next piece with her fork.
"It tastes.. really good." Renarin uttered as she put down the fork. Her voice was a lot less raspy now, thanks to the glass of water. "..Thank.. you." She said as Zakariya returned from the inside of a café, placing the jug of water that the older girl had requested onto the table.
"By the way, what's your name? Mine's Marzieh, and this cute guy over here is Zakariya." Marzieh lightly nudged Zakariya's shoulder with her fist, causing his face to go a little red. "You can call me Marzi, though." The older girl poured more water into her glass.
"I'm Renarin.. my last name's Kalashor, I think.." She murmured with a subtle hint of embarrassment in her voice, bringing the glass to her mouth once more.
"Renarin, huh? I like it!" Marzieh took a sip of her coffee. "Can I call you Rena?"
"Okay, Rena's... fine."