Esten Valquez-Criminal Arrest Record: Incident #1

[Esten]

Ten years old, the kid was ten years old...

 

Well let's start from the beginning. His little friend (and fellow gang member) the one they call 'Chip', due to his chipped tooth, would say that he had known the perp their entire lives. They had grown up together in the back alleyways of Ul'dah, (you know, those seedy places just off the Saph, where you're more likely to get your throat cut than fetch a good deal) and the two would do what they could to survive. Before long they had a nice little group of orphans running all around, picking pockets, lifting from stalls, all manner of petty little crimes. The authorities knew about them, but we'd never gone after them cause they didn't take much and trying to catch the little bastards was damn near impossible. They could always slip through a crack, or fence, or grating. Drop into sewers like magicians and scale walls like a gecko. They were just another nuisance in the glossed over world that is the 'Golden City'.

 

And then came today...

 

The merchant in the stall would tell me the usual. "Business was going well, it is a beautiful day out! Perfect day to shop!" as if we have rainy days all the time around here. He would notice the children about ten stalls down, bouncing their way through the crowd, rushing up to stalls to shove each other over for a better look at all the wares. 

 

"They seemed to be only looking at the merchants who were selling food. I remember this well! For it was then that I saw they had no escort! Not an adult in sight to watch these children! They were quite a nuisance!"

 

When the children approached his stall (as it happens our merchant friend is a grocer, today he had a fresh shipment of produce from Gridania Farms) they were "Quite a nuisance! Every time I turned my attention away for a moment! One of their greedy little hands would reach forward! So-"

 

So...our merchant friend would swat their hands with a little curved piece of maple wood he used to collect gil with. "I would say 'No! no touching without a parent!' His constant swatting seemed to antagonize the youths (of which he counted 'four or five! Certainly no more than seven! Though what few witnesses could be found would say the number was between ten and upwards of twenty-five youths) some of the older children wandered off leaving behind three suspects. Esten, 'Chip', and a third yet unidentified youth who evaded custody.

 

The three had fallen back from the stall but kept a close watch. When the moment came, they made their move. The merchant had engaged in transaction over some grapes and was in the process of receiving the gil via his custom made wooden gil spoon. 'Chip' went in first, with lightning quick reflexes he lifted two apples from the stand. With the merchant suddenly taken off guard, Esten stepped up and knocked the piece of wood up from the bottom.

 

"I saw the gil pop up for just a moment...then his greedy little hand moved in a blur...and it was all gone!"

 

Esten had pocketed the gil and was already running after 'Chip' when he heard a woman scream behind him.

 

'My wallet! It's been stolen!' she cried and the whole market came alive. Cries of 'It's them! Those kids!' and 'Stop them! Thief! Call the guards!'

With the crowd now growing and coming after the children, they panicked and did what any animal does when trapped....look for a way out. They went up, climbing onto a nearby stall and scrambling along until they could dive into the first alleyway they saw.

The chase continued through the back alley's of the Saph as the now alerted guards closed in on the two.

 

All in all, the incident lasted less than ten minutes. Two children were caught, a total of twenty-five gil, two red apples, a rusty dull letter opener, and an inappropriate picture was all they had between them. It is assumed that, if they took the wallet, they must have tossed it away or handed it off at some point. Or, like Eseten and 'Chip' would claim, the third suspect took the wallet without their knowledge and used them to escape. This is the most probable answer as the wallet was said to have contained several thousand gil.

 

Still, without the suspect or evidence of the wallet, there is no choice but to charge Esten and 'Chip' with the crime of theft. They will most likely be convicted and sentenced to a couple of years in a boys home. Ten years old...it's a shame...

 

-Detective Lucius Septimus, Department for Sapphire Avenue Exchange Oversight and Loss Prevention.

[Esten]

(Feel free to comment, critique, post your opinion.)

[Ihsan997]

I like this! It’s reported like a journalistic piece, or as I see at work sometimes, a real Loss Prevention incident report.

 

Did this scene occur in the current time, or are Esten and ‘Chip’ now grown up?