coin, district ten. cb one.

I'm too old for the regular game anymore.

I feel like I need to make that clear from the beginning. I started sprouting a scrappy little beard when I was fourteen and it’s been downhill in terms of convincing families they should adopt me into their homes ever since then. It works better when Hilda lets Palace and I work together; she’s got a knack for getting into people’s hearts that I was barely successful at doing even when I was a doe eyed little kid. 

The thing is, I swear I remember eating a popsicle, remember hating how sticky it made my hands. So someone loved me enough once upon a time to buy me one, and think it was hilarious when I pouted about not being able to see how it turned my tongue blue. That kid seems like he'd have turned out alright, or at least better than the person I'm watching myself become under the roof of DeVille Manor.

I hate to think I’d have been a better thief for Hilda if she’d only loved me better.

That was always my fatal flaw in the early days. No one ever gave me anything willingly. No one loved me enough. My debt was added to in bits and pieces; expensive jewelry stolen in the night, blocks of gold from lockpicked safe boxes, rolled up originals carefully stashed in tubes for transport. I was too anxious to convince anyone to love me at first.

I remember being so disappointed by the first duffle bag of cash I brought back after stopping off at a casino before bringing my winnings home. Paying off my own debt seems daunting, impossible, not when the others all loom over me still.

Making cash is easier now—sleeping with people for money wasn't something I pictured for myself when I was dreaming up who I'd be, but there's something to be said for how much easier it would be to convince someone you've slept with to give you their life savings than it would be to convince a stranger to do the same. You get what I'm saying?