More Than A Man

He is a bad man. The thoughts flashed through Penelope's head as she watched the War Hero General parade around to the cheers of the people surrounding him. She would have liked to think that she was mistaken in her quick judgment of the man, but she knew she wasn't. Her father had told her to trust her instincts, he told her that it was the only thing she could trust in life, and right now, her instincts told her that this man in front of her was no good.  

Of course, her instincts had caused her to do some foolish things too, like running away from home and winding up in the lion's den because she had thought it would be safer. From her crime, yes, but for her survival? She was doing a pretty poor job. It had barely been three months since she left home and came to the empire capital, and yet she was already half-starved to death, her bones showing. But the good thing about her new appearance was that she had lost some of the baby fat she had on her, and that made her look more like a street boy—which is what she was pretending to be. 

The streets are no place for girls. She knew this fact more than she should. Penelope closed her eyes as she tried to block out the scene she had witnessed a week ago from invading her mind, the scene giving her sleepless nights, but she couldn't.

A slave was raped in her presence by a gang of boys, people she stayed on the street with. She could do nothing other than report it to the guards she saw, but by the time they returned, the girl was already half dead. Penelope heard later on that the girl had died when she was returned to her master's house. Her wrists were slit, and the case was deemed a suicide.

Penelope knew better.

"Watch where you are going, Fly." A big bully spat at Penelope, shoving her aside even though she had done nothing to him. When Penelope glared at him, he turned to face her.

"What? You have something to say?" He taunted.

Penelope gritted her teeth, gave a stiff head shake, and turned to leave. This particular bully had been after her since she arrived to join his gang of followers, and Penelope knew she couldn't keep anybody close, not when they were the ones who were going to sell her out if she slipped up and mistakenly let them see that she was a girl.

"General Cain is amazing. He will go down as the best prime minister in history." Penelope stopped as she heard those words from two middle-class girls who were gushing and gossiping. She had been just like them, full of hopes and dreams, opinions that didn't matter, a best friend who was thick just like her, and then she caught the attention of one wrong person and everything went down the drain.

"What are you staring at?" One of them noticed Penelope lost in thought, looking in their direction.

Her words jolted Penelope back into herself. "Nothing, Milady, please spare a coin for a hungry fellow." Penelope bowed her head and used a pitiful tone to say her words.

"Go… we don't have coins for the likes of you…" one of them started in a pride-filled tone.

"Wait, he is hungry. Surely we can spare something?" The other said with some sympathy and reached into her bag to give Penelope a leftover sandwich.

It was more food than Penelope had eaten in two days. "Thank you," she whispered with tears in her eyes as she snatched it out of the girl's hand and hurried away from the fringes of the crowd to the empty stalls. There she sat down and continued to eat the meal she had already started to eat on her way. Her cheeks were growing wetter as she ate in a hurry, but she didn't care.

"Poor boy." She heard one of the girls whisper.

"I am sure that all he ever did wrong was be an orphan. Come, the emperor is giving a speech." The other tutted as they moved on.

Penelope chewed slowly, her mood sinking at their words. My parents are very much alive. The only thing I ever did wrong was kill a man. 

She continued with her food as she watched the crowd hurrying forward to hear the emperor's words, even though it wasn't possible—they were too far away—but whatever the emperor said would be passed mouth to mouth and it would get to her ears soon enough. She watched the crowd move around her; that was how she saw the symbol from her father's amour, back when he still had it. The golden raven. It was on the cane of an old man who was slowly walking in the opposite direction with some men walking behind him listening to every word he was saying.

As they passed her, she caught the tail end of their discussion. "…the emperor is making a mistake, he shouldn't have done what he just did, there is no need for us to listen to more. The new Prime minister is out to get us…"

"The golden raven." She whispered as her mind took her back to when she was little.

"Papa. What is that?" a younger version of herself asked the man who had always and would always have her back. 

"That, my dear little one, is the symbol of the brave men who uphold justice at any cost. They are the real heroes. The ones who suffer behind the scenes." Her father replied with a limp as he sat down beside her. He couldn't keep standing very long then, not unless he wanted to destroy his leg completely. 

"Like you, papa?" Penelope peered at her father, who nodded his reply with a smile playing on his lips. 

"Boy, I asked you a question. Do you know the symbol?" The man stopped and asked her as Penelope's cheeks turned red.

"No, Sire, what does a lowly nobody like me know of a symbol like that?" Penelope bowed her head, holding her breath and hoping that the man would leave. She shouldn't draw attention to herself in any way.

"Your status doesn't affect your knowledge. So how will I know what you know if you don't tell me, boy?" The man replied.

"The golden Raven is the symbol of the men who uphold justice no matter the temptation not to, the ones who are the real heroes," Penelope stated as the man snorted.

"You know the tempered truth, the one that is easier to swallow. Let me allow you to keep your rose-colored view of the world."

"My view of the world is not rose colored, I have gone through so many things that you cannot even imagine." Penelope flared.

"This brat… how dare you?" One of the men following the man started forward like he would like to thrash Penelope, who shrank back from him.

"Leave him alone, he is right after all. What is your name, boy?" the man asked.

"Penn," Penelope replied.

"That is a very unusual name, Penn." The man said as Penelope just nodded but didn't say anything again. "What are the things you have gone through that you think I wouldn't understand?" The man asked in a patronizing tone, which made Penelope's temper flare up again.

"I live on the streets because of something I had no control over. I experience hunger, a feeling that I am always plagued by. I battle every day for my life, and at the end of it all, I am not welcomed home as a hero or given the right to have a golden raven as a show of status because the battles I fight every day have become my twisted version of a home, through no choice of my own." Penelope finished ranting only to shrink back away from the man, apologizing.

"I am sorry, Sire, please let me go. I will never appear in front of you again."

"You are right. I like your spirit, boy, I think you will do better in a good environment. Let me take you." The man offered, but she shifted back, bumping into the walls. She couldn't accept it, not when it meant that her secret would have a bigger chance of being exposed, and then she would die in the way she often had nightmares about. No! The streets were a necessary danger. The offer sounded like a liberation… it would have been one if she was a guy, but no, she was a girl. It was not salvation for her, but doom.

Penelope shook her head. "No, Sire, I won't. I am where I need to be." With those words, she lowered her head in a bow to the man as she darted to the side. She needed to take a bath, remind herself that she was a woman and that she had no place with him.

The man liked her spirit because she was a boy. The only thing men like about women is their bodies. And they take it by force when a woman has no man to fight or defend her honor. She felt the man watching her. She just hoped that he didn't feel affronted by her refusal. She knew that it was far from the last time she would see that man.

After bathing and getting a little cleaner, Penelope wandered close to the crowd, wondering why people were there until she started to hear the booming voice of the new prime minister, General Cain.

“These children will no longer be on the street. I will create a safe place where they will be given work and earn their way to food and shelter.” The man continues as people cheered but Penelope shook her head. Hope, that is what this man is selling, nothing else, it would be a miracle if he did deliver on his promises but maybe she was just the one who was being unnecessarily bitter. She had lost hope a while ago and she doesn’t plan on getting it back anytime soon, not when it means that she would open herself to be hurt by others.

“For the plans to be in motion, it will take some time but know this, I will do everything in my capability to make that time and its effects short for you lot. No more going to bed hungry.” The man boomed as the crowd cheers again.

Penelope watched with vivid interest as the man brought out a sack of something heavy, thrust his hand inside, and threw some of the contents on the people gathered.

He is crazy… was… was that… Gold? Penelope couldn’t believe her eyes. It took the crowd a minute to register what happened before pandemonium broke out as people started to fight their neighbors who managed to gain just a handful of coins.

General Cain did the same move more times and the last time was to her direction and this time she was ready, she had rushed to the other directions like others did so she had some precious seconds to pick a few coins before hands started to reach for her. Using her thin figure to her advantage, she broke free from the hold of others on her and raced as far as she could from the crowd, some people broke into a run after her but Penelope didn’t stop to check, she just continued to run until she felt she was far enough from the scene in an alleyway where she was paused to take a breather.

“Who do we have here?” a nasty voice said as she cringed, why didn’t she look around before stopping?

“I didn’t know that anybody was here, let me get out of your hair,” Penelope said stiffly as she turned to make her escape from the same group of boys who confronted her in the crowd earlier.

“Not so fast Fly.” The Bully said as one of his gang stepped in front of her to block her exit and she had no other option than to turn and face the bully.

“I don’t have anything. The food I was eating earlier was given to me by some girls, I begged for it.” Penelope explained in case he had seen her eating earlier, it was not the first time she was being cornered because of something that must have happened and she had just shrugged it off.

“Not that… Empty your pockets.”

Penelope blanched at the order, the coins, which she already had big plans for. “Look I have got nothing on me.”

“Then you will have no reason not to empty your pockets, let’s see if those girls gave you anything more than just food or the rich nobleman you spoke with later on.” The bully said as Penelope contemplate, taking her chances with the boy guarding her escape route.

“No.” Penelope's voice shook but she couldn’t give the coins away. Those were her ticket to eating well for the next two weeks.

“I was not giving you an option. Pad.” The bully called and before Penelope knew what was going on, the one behind her gripped her arms as another gave her a punch on her face that left her disoriented. “Search his pockets, quick before somebody comes along.”

The boys let of exclamations of shock when they finally saw her coins, all three of them. “Jackpot, we will eat well for a while on this.”

“Leave them, they are mine.” Penelope protested as the leader struck her with his foot in a kick that left her winded.

“Guys, I think Fly here needs to be taught a lesson in sharing. Are you boys up to it?” Penelope could only curl in on herself as she was kicked from all angles before they finally left her alone, crying and moaning in pain.

“It took a while before Penelope could crawl to a sitting position and then stand up and slowly make her way to the place where she called home, a special place where she hid her clothes and anything that still held meaning to her, hidden behind one of the many alleys. When she got there she saw the gang that robbed her was already there scattering her things.

“He has to have moved, find them.” The bully gritted out as he kicked her bags of rags which she used to staunch the flow of blood every month. “What is he using all these rags for?” he added disgusted at the sight of the rags.

Penelope quickly hobbled away from the place before they would see her and give her another set of beating. Her new home has been destroyed, she would return during daylight to see if there is anything that she can salvage from the mess those people were making so she could find a new hideout and a place that is far away from these group of boys as possible. It won’t be long before they start to connect the dots and so she needed to disappear, maybe to another district in the capital, or she might just have to leave the capital entirely.

It was long after dark before Penelope found a new place for the night, it was not as secure as she would have liked it to be but it was also the best she could see, she was too tired to go and to look for a better place especially since she was bone-weary.

She crashed on the ground as she fell asleep to the good times in her life when all she had to worry about was which of her mother debts to rich customers does she need to draw. The three golden coins which would have saved from weeks of hunger now was what her mother used to give her every month to buy anything she wanted as long as it would enhance her beauty as a girl. She was just seventeen and yet she had seen so much more than others her age. She looked more like a fifteen-year-old boy, but she preferred that over being a girl almost ripe for marriage.

Her family was her happy thoughts and when she slept, she let herself believe that maybe she would be united with them in the future and could go back to that simple lifestyle. It wasn’t long after her eyes closed that her sleep was disturbed by a noise, which made her jerk awake and then lay as still as possible as she watched the scene that unfolded before her very own eyes.

“No, please. I didn’t mean to do it.” The boy, who for all intents could have been her because of his lean stature, dirty clothes, and bruised body, begged the person who stood in front of him, his face cast in shadow by the moon, but all the boy's attention was on the man, not the two behemoths who were pinning him to the wall.

“You didn’t mean to steal from me? …because you did. You street children should be exterminated and I planned to do just that. I would be doing the empire a great service by ridding it of scum like you who just give it a bad name.” The voice, which could only belong to the Prime Minister, said as Penelope's eyes widened at what she was witnessing.

“Please my lord, my life will be yours if you just spare me, I will never try it again.” The boy begs with tears and snorts running down his face.

“And what use will I have for your like? I want nothing to do with you.” The prime minister shifted and the moon cast its light on his face. A face that currently held hard eyes with an unforgiving glint and lips that were stretched in a grin, speaking of nothing but ill will. “But you are right about one thing. Your life is mine and I decided if you should have it or not.”

“Please….” The boy begs but the Prime Minister took out a jeweled dagger.

“And I chose not.” The prime minister said just as he dug the knife into the boy's chest, removed it, and plunged it in again.

Penelope couldn’t control her gasp of shock, she was heard and when they look towards her direction, she stood up and took off in a dead sprint, ignoring her pain, she could feel the pain if she was alive, she wouldn’t be alive if she had remained there and the man next words confirmed the conclusion she had just arrived at.

“Kill that Urchin!”