A different perspective of the fateful encounter

Things were not always like this, there was a time where she was happier, more innocent and with bigger dreams. But one thing that she learned across the years is that everything in her life was already set up for ruin from the start and that all this time she never had anything that truly belonged to her, as everything that was given was later taken away, leaving her with nothing.

She was once a little girl called Trivia Vanille, born in the Vanille family, an affluent household in the city of Vale and daughter of Jimmy Vanille, the city planner for the council of Vale and Carmel Vanille his wife.

Her problems seemed have started from as far back as her birth, as different from her parents she was born with heterochromatic eyes with one eye being brown and the other being pink and the same color scheme being attributed to her hair which in of itself has caused a small seed of doubt to sprout on her father in regards to her origin that would later result in a conflict between her parents.

And due to their concerns in regards to her physical appearance, they decided to keep her away from the public eye during her infancy and later on made her use colored contacts and paint her hair completely brown in order to avoid any rumors from sprouting in regards to her appearance that doesn't resemble that of themselves since it could affect her father's career.

But even after doing that, her parents would still restrict her and zealously keep her away from entering the public eye more than necessary, which caused her to be lonely and isolated for her whole childhood as she kept being treated as a mistake, a shameful thing that her family had to keep hidden at all cost. She was already being sentenced for a crime that she so far hadn't known she'd committed.

Meanwhile as she grew older, her parents relationship became increasingly sour as they would to the public eye pretend to be the perfect family while when her parents were at home they would shout and threaten each other while the small Trivia would hear everything from her room and with her innocent mind she would only think to herself:

'Why are they hurting each other? Why can't they instead forgive each other and stop shouting? I learned out of a book that babies are born out of the love of a couple, so if they love each other then why can't we be a happy family?'

She would only later learn that not all couples are happy and many babies are born out of a different reason then just love. And she is very much one of those cases.

So, as her father started to throw himself into his work and her mother was becoming more and more depressed, the two of them had finally reached the point of no return when she was 8. Alcohol along with a lot of pent-up resentment had pushed the two of them into an horrible argument that ended up in both of them choosing to divorce.

It's safe to say that the next few months were very precarious for the young Trivia as she saw her imperfect but still cherished family be turned to shreds and her life became many times worse as the love that she once received was no longer anywhere to be found.

But it seemed that the world wasn't content to just stop it there, it was still not satisfied with everything it had already taken from her and was planning to take away even more over the next year.

After the divorce went through, Jimmy and Carmel started fighting in order to see who got to keep the family's processions, it was a unfair fight from the get go as her mother didn't have the money or influence to hold on in court, meanwhile her father hired famed lawyers and with a few bribes he managed to get a huge part of the family's fortune.

Her custody meanwhile went to her mother, only because her father never bothered to even try to fight for her and conceded without any hesitation.

So for the next year she and her mother would do what's necessary to survive, a single mother and her child living in the city of Vale. But if before the divorce their relationship as mother and daughter wasn't the best then after it their relationship would become much worse.

Shouting, beating, scolding. As the time passed she lost track of how many times she was called 'a burden', 'the damned reminder of that man' or 'the one responsible for all of this'. And it was around that time that she has lost her ability to speak, becoming incapable of releasing anything but raspy sounds from her throat and this made her mother increase her revulsion and treat her daughter even worse.

The exact events that made her this way are not clear, she has almost no recollection of that specific day and whenever she tries to remember she has huge headache and starts to feel nauseous. Her instincts seem to warn her that the day's events are better left forgotten so she stopped trying to recall them a long time ago.

But eventually their hardships seemed to be close to an end, as her mother which had very little professional qualification as the ex-wife of a rich man never gave up on searching for another man to sustain her instead of continuing to work by herself so she may one day return to her previous comfortable and easy life. And eventually she did find a man and Trivia had started thinking that this could be a second chance.

But there was no place for her: the reminder of an unpleasant past, the strange child that stuck out for both her appearance and being a mute and the product of a failed marriage in that new happy family.

Her mother didn't want her, she has made very clear up to that point how much she despises her child and she was eager to leave behind the unpleasant past and her child alongside it.

Her soon to be stepfather didn't want her, he had no affection for another man's child nor does he wish to shoulder such a burden.

Her soon to be stepsiblings didn't want her, everytime they met she would be ridiculed and looked down upon along with the fact that they didn't want one more person to contest for their parents attention.

Her biological father didn't want her, as he didn't even spare the slightest effort to win her custody and she doubted he would care after so much time having passed and he haven't tried to enter in contact even once.

So although very young, her experiences had matured her a lot and she already knew what would happen to her in a short time. So it came at no surprise that there were already plans to put her in an orphanage.

So in an act of rebellion, or sheer stupidity she ran away from home in the hope that she would find her own happiness in a place far from there.

At the time she had no idea of the hardships of living in the streets and thought that somehow everything would be alright in the end. So that became a very harsh lesson of the truth regarding society and one that she would never forget.

As Trivia experienced experienced hunger, cold and true scorn by society, she came to one conclusion about the nature of the world:

The world won't stop for you no matter what, people will continue with their lives and time will pass unhindered and uncaring, no one will extend a hand to help you if you end up falling and being left behind and you can only rely on your own legs to get yourself up and keep walking.

So after a while wondering the streets and realizing the extent of her naivety, she finally realized that things wouldn't change for the better no matter how much she waited and wandered.

So using the last of her hopes and quickly fading innocence, she snuck into the cargo of a ship and stowaway into even farther away hoping that something might change.

She ended up in a port in Anima, and in the next year she wandered villages and desperately tried to fit in, but in the end her exotic hair and eye color, her issues communicating and her appearance that was haggard and dirty after some time being homeless made sure that this was specially difficult.

That continued for the next year, until she after a lot of wandering and smuggling herself into a bullhead that ended up arriving in Mistral, that proved to be just another disappointment after a sequence of many, as she once again found herself in a place where her kind isn't welcomed. That marked the limit for her wishful thinking and the end of all hopes of ever finding someone who could accept her.

What followed was more of the usual, she had long acostumed herself with scavenging for any bit of food she could find or even steal from others, she had to endure many things thanks to being in the bottom of the power hierarchy since she was small and weak even compared to the other homeless children so she had to contend with the little she had being taken by others.

By that point she was already 10 years old, maybe? Her birthday was never something to be celebrated in her family and after so many years wandering she had completely forgotten the specific date.

And that all brought her to eventually meeting a certain someone in what started as possibly one of her worst days so far, but at the end became the exact opposite.

...

The day had initially started just as usual, she woke up in her makeshift home that was made of cardboard boxes and pieces of wood and after drinking some water from a nearby fountain she went out for her usual routine of trying to find some food.

She searched firstly in the usual places she tends to find them: dumpsters, near restaurants or in parks were people tend to trow leftovers away. Unfortunately for her, she had found that in this particular day that the competition for those spots were especially fierce and not being able to take on the bigger and stronger kids along with not being social enough to make an alliance with them had left her with very little options.

So the only alternative that she came up with on the moment was to try and go around asking for food in the nearby establishments. That has in the end of the day only gotten her a lot of insults and a still empty stomach.

So with all her options exhausted, she finally relented and turned to more criminal means to obtain any food. It wasn't the first time she dabbled in such acts but she prefers to leave than as a last options since if she gets labeled as a thief by the locals than her life will become much worse and she will endure even worse treatment and scorn by others.

After night came and she had considered her potential targets carefully she settled on a group of drunk man that with luck, considering how intoxicated and distracted with their conversation they were, she would be able to take their wallets and make her escape. They probably wouldn't notice anything wrong until she was already long gone.

But this was not meant to be, as after she had taken one of the men's wallet and having made a clean getaway, she was later found by those same three men and they just had under the influence of alcohol decided that they were the ones that would deal with the city's 'pests', and started to chase her until she was eventually cornered. After today events she would never again doubt the existence of 'karma'.

But she was prepared to endure it. As long as she managed to keep the money then she was willing to let those losers vent their frustrations on her since she was quite confident that they wouldn't go so far as to kill her.

As long as she can avoid dying of starvation, a few broken bones is a small price to be paid.

But was a that point that her day started changing for the better. Before those men had the chance to put their plans into action, a third party suddenly came out of nowhere and completely turned things around.

A boy with a messy blond hair and deep blue eyes aproached the alleyway with a curious expression, the three man didn't see him as they were too distracted with her, his clothes were plain but clean and tidy which clearly showed that he was pretty good family and certainly didn't belong in this part of the city.

But the thing that caught her attention is that for a brief moment his expression changed from confusion to shock and even for a brief moment some recognition while looking at her. The way his eyes coldly appraised her from head to toe gave her shivers, she felt like an small animal being cornered by a predator. She was honestly considering him more dangerous than the three men.

'Did I meet him in the past? No, his appearance is pretty distinctive especially in the places I've lived in. Perhaps I've once stolen from him or someone related to him? I'm pretty sure that when I'd still lived with my parents I haven't travelled to Mistral as far as I can remember so I couldn't have met him before that and I doubt he would have remembered me.' That's what I thought at the time.

So I just assumed that he was just another person looking for payback as I've not left many good impressions on the many places I've travelled to.

After the boy stopped and thought for a brief moment, he immediately adopted a serious expression and aproached the drunkards very carefully from behind.

The next scene was one that shocked her to the core: a small boy taking out an adult double it's size in a single attack, mind you it was a sneak attack and he must have aimed for a weak spot, but even then just the fact that he was strong enough to send the man to the ground grunting in pain is a testament to his skill.

What happened next was somehow even more incomprehensible as he started to shout and threaten the two remaining man, and it worked! Though it was pretty jarring to see him go from being determined and serious to being crazy and unhinged in such a short time, she would be lying if she said that seeing him like that hasn't scared the life out of her.

And she even got to learn something very useful from his display: 'If I am to get cornered like this again, instead of playing the pitiful persona and trying to earn sympathy I should instead go for the crazy persona just like he had and with any luck my aggressors might be intimidated. I might not appear as dangerous as him and I can't shout like he did but it's better than doing nothing.'

After all those man ran away, he once again shifted his attitude to a more gentle and amicable one, he acted as if he was genuinely concerned for my health and didn't get frustrated with my silence and decided to just recieve my gestures instead. He introduced himself as Jaune Arc and claimed to be just passing by before helping me.

'Yeah, and I was born yesterday! Might as well tell me what is it you want from me so we can just get it over with.'

He continued claiming that he had no second intentions and even mentioned the money that I was holding. That made me go cold for a moment until I realized that he must have known about it for a while and he apparently wasn't interested in it.

Before I agreed to answering his questions though, I made sure to take into consideration my situation to see if I had any other option.

'Can I run away from him if I try? No, all these years my instincts have never betrayed me and they are currently telling me that if I tried to escape I would be caught immediately. Fighting? Impossible! the boy was able to take out one of the men bare handed and with a single attack! It's obvious that I can't do anything to stop him if he wants something from me, I should just go along with whatever he says and wait for an opportunity to escape.'

So, feeling that she was in even greater danger than before she nodded and started answering his questions with gestures.

He first asked if she was really a mute, to witch she confirmed. And she was quite surprised to see that he had no reaction, as if he didn't care or already knew it, most reacted negatively and even those that didn't have a negative reaction have changed the way that they aproached her.

He then asked if she was wounded by those men, she must admit that seeing him showing his concern made her feel like she wasn't worth nothing like everyone else seems to constantly remind her. But her distrustful side simply told her that he was only concerned because he needed her body in the best condition for whatever he wanted.

And after looking at her old wounds, he offered to treat it himself, her paranoia and aversion to be touched by someone she just met had told her to reject the offer and that he would use this opportunity to appraise her body, but since he was stronger and therefore would get what he wanted anyway, then it was best to get it over with and don't make him impatient.

And besides, if he was interested in this kind of thing she would be the last person that someone would think of. Objectively speaking, she had no appeal for someone looking for such a thing and he would be better off looking for someone else.

So, with her consent he started treating her visible injuries by disinfecting them and wrapping them up, as he performed the task dutifully and without any unnecessary movements she was finding harder and harder to convince herself that he held any ulterior motives.

Lastly, he asked if she was hungry and offered to buy some food, she initially rejected intending to do it herself but he brought up an irrefutable argument that the money she stole would be useless if there was no merchant willing to accept it, she berated herself in her mind for being so shortsighted and started to despair thinking that she would once again sleep without food.

But he once again showed compassion and kindness by offering her a solution, he basically asked her to hand over the money so he could buy it for her. After hearing the proposition she was still hesitant and I mean really hesitant to part with the money, this would be the first time in 2 years that she trusted someone, but seeing that she had no other choice she relented and decided to trust him.

He then left after asking her to wait in the alleyway, she finally had the chance to reorganize her thoughts and think about the future.

'Why am I so worried and tense? If he wanted to take my money he could have done it a long time ago without any problems. Is it because I'm starting to actually trust him? In my time on the streets, he is the first to show such genuine compassion, I guess I'm worried because I really hope he doesn't turn out to be another disappointment.'

She groans in frustration and buries her head in her hands while thinking: 'Why does everything have to be so complicated! If only he told me what he wanted or what does he stand to gain by helping me from the start then I wouldn't be left guessing, otherwise I would have to admit that he is an altruist that is helping because of his conscience and my time on the streets has shown that the chance of finding such a person is almost zero!'

So after patiently waiting, he indeed returned with the promised food and gave it to me without any discussion or taking any for his own. And the only way I could describe the meat-skewers was heavenly! I was almost tempted to just eat everything and deal with the consequences but since Jaune was so sincere and kind, I decided to leave some for him just because of principle.

But he refused and even offered to buy more! A full stomach! How long was since I got the chance of eating such delicious food and sleep with a full stomach to boot? He must be a saint that is buying his way into heaven.

Then he offered to buy me some dessert called ice cream, I've already heard of it before but between having strict parents that didn't let me wander outside the house and living on the streets I never had a chance to try it out so I was curious if it was all that was made up to be.

And this time he brought me along and allowed me to watch from afar as he bought the treats, after receiving a cup with the creamy substance that had a suspicious resemblance with my own color scheme, I didn't waste any time and put a spoonful in my mouth.

What followed right after was a explosion of flavors in her mouth that mere words couldn't describe, what she ate could only be described as the food of the gods, what she tasted was pure happiness in the form of a cold and sweet treat. As she ate what was possibly the best thing she has eaten in her entire life she was incapable of stopping tears from flowing and body from shivering in ecstasy. Everything she had endured so far was worth it, just because it all allowed her to come to this moment.

'He isn't a saint, he's an angel! Maybe Oum sent him to make up for everything I had to endure so far. Ulterior motives? As long as I get to taste this once again I don't care what he wants from me I'll do it!' Is what I vividly remember thinking at the time.

So after finishing the cup he bought her another one and the two walked the streets in complete silence. Normally she would stick to the alleyways and wouldn't have the courage to walk somewhere so exposed but when he is nearby the looks others give her seem to matter much less.

And as she finished eating he dropped another bomb and actually invited her to his house. That had taken her by surprise and led her brain to start working on overdrive.

'What does he mean by it? My instincts are telling me that I'm not in danger and his actions had led her to believe that his intentions aren't bad. So can she dare to hope? Can this be the day that she escapes from the streets?' She tried to dampen her expectations but she couldn't stop the warm feeling that was increasing in her stomach.

She thought that this day couldn't be better, but Jaune Arc was determined to prove her wrong.

Such a fortuitous encounter can only be a play arranged by fate. And she was very glad to be a part of it.