[Undómë]

A tall, slender figure unfolded itself from the space between the dustbin and the cardboard boxes piled near the thick painted end of the metal receptacle. In one fluid, graceful movement, Jack rose up, stretching his whip thin body even as he pulled the old tan greatcoat tight about him. His jeans were raggedy at the ankles, faded and dirty, thin spots and holes here and there about them. Not from fashion, though, but from long use. And long as they were, the legs of them barely covered the silver high-top sneakers he’d recently liberated from an unwatched delivery van. He wore, also, a long sleeved, cotton pullover, the sleeves of it barely to his wrists. It was scarce proof against the cool of the late evening.

And little he cared that it might be cold. His fair cheeks never bore the crimson stains of it, nor did his long, slender fingers pale at the advent of this chilly part of the year. These same fingers that now reached up to run themselves through his short dark spiky hair, black as a raven’s wing, and as shiny.

He was all of seventeen, this alleyway figure. At least he looked so at first glance and even perhaps at a second or third. It was his eyes, though, that belied such youth. Dark grey they were like some stormy sky and in them swirled silver’d glints of ancient stars.

Jack jammed his hands deep in his coat pockets, looking first one way and then the other down the alley. He’d seen the little folk moving in the shadows, heard their whispered argument. And down the other way, the group of neighborhood denizens gathered about their little fire.

He stepped out from the shadows, decision made, walking leisurely toward the light and the flickering tongues of flame.