Talon Island was never a place for dreams. Dreams needed hope to grow, and there was none of that here. Crushed under the weight of pirates, Fat fucker Lords, crooked merchants, and Marines who enforced the law with iron fists, life on the island was a slow grind toward survival, nothing more. The cliffs that surrounded it weren't protection; they were walls. The forests weren't shelter. They were places where people disappeared and were never found.
For Riven Caelum, Talon Island was the only home he had ever known, and he hated it with every bone in his body.
He had been five when the world taught him what kind of place this was. His parents, Kaelen and Saraya, were simple, quiet people, farmers who asked for nothing but a patch of soil and a chance to raise their son in peace. But peace was futile. It only took one pirate raid to burn their dreams to the ground. Riven could still hear the shouts, the crackle of flames, the way his mother screamed his name just before the world went black.
Since then he would survive the only way this shit-hole of an island taught you, by being harder, sharper, and faster than the next desperate soul. Before he even learned to read he was stealing things from people pockets. He knew which streets to avoid when the pirates were drunk and which alleys the Marines would shake down for a few extra coins.
By the time he was ten, Riven had a reputation, the kid with fast hands and a faster temper, carrying a stolen golden dirk tucked into his worn boots.
The villagers in Wyrmsreach, what passed for the island's capital town, didn't look at him with kindness or pity. They just looked away. Everyone here was too busy surviving to care about a half wild kleptomaniac orphan. It wasn't that they were cruel, not exactly. It was just that after years of broken promises and bloody reminders of who really ran things, people learned to stop looking at things they couldn't fix.
He was rather crazy looking kid to say the least, he was just barely a teenager, looked like any other street kid on Talon Island. Barefoot, bruised, and lean. His skin was sun kissed and dirt-streaked, his lean frame wrapped in loose, tattered pants and a cloth bandage slung across his chest, hiding more than just injuries. His hair, wild and ash blond, fell messily over his sharp eyes that held a quiet sort of defiance.
Money was hard to come buy for Riven the docks were dangerous for thievery, thats were the big bad pirates were! however higher risk means higher reward. The docks are where all the rich merchants come to restock. Which means theres a higher risk of being caught, but a good chance at some moolah!
Thats where we find 14 year old Riven, crouched like bat-man on a rock wall above the docks, observing his next victim! his clock blowing in the wind making him look dramatic.