Blended Wallflowers, MALTROU

[Guiliana Trovatelli]

Gia was weaving her way through the streets to try and get to that one spot that she liked the best. The spot where she could disappear from the crowd and just watch the people and the water perfectly. It was this wonderful little spot by one of the bridges that she could just sit and watch everything. She had a managed to sneak some bread and dried fruit from the kitchen without anyone noticing her or the food missing.

Staying as close to the walls as possible she kept her head down and kept moving around the people and towards where she wanted to go. She just wanted to avoid people and get to her spot as quickly as possible. The last time she had been trying to get there someone had noticed her but thankfully, she had been saved before anything horrible could happen. Not that she still didn't have nightmares about what might have happened.

Finally seeing the bridge up ahead, she smiled to herself and crossed the pathway till she was able to move down and around to sit on the ledge of the bridge were she was able to see everything that she wanted to see. Settling in she pulled out the bread and started to slowly breaking off small pieces of it and nibbled while just people watching.

[Maltrou]

Maltrou picked his way through the crowd, mostly unnoticed and certainly unmolested. Just another homeless and forgotten young man as far as anyone else was concerned. He kept his eyes down and his hand firmly on his piece of slate in case some oddball decided the stray offended their sensibilities. He was fine as long as he never got too close to anyone else and was entirely nonthreatening in his repeatedly patched clothes and bare feet.

It was almost amusing and a little empowering knowing how easily a casual observer could be misled as such. No one would suspect him of having three very carefully hidden daggers on his person at this moment or capable of breaking into some of the finest estates in the area. Most of the people in this street had likely never even seen the quantities of wealth he had.

Still, those bits of skills and value were best spent elsewhere. Maltrou often ended up begging for his daily bread from time to time. He passed one of the bridges spanning a city canal, it was much like many of the others in the city but this particular one was where one of the few people Maltrou could consider a friend liked to lunch. A sweet girl whom a well timed application of a plank and a mad dash had saved from some remarkably unsavory characters. She knew next to nothing about Maltrou and he perfectly happy with this arrangement.

Without a word, not by choice of course, he sauntered to her side and plopped down on the cobblestones just below her own seat. He pulled out his slate and rapidly scribbled on it in Italian.

Hello, Little Miss