Still mere inches away from the boy's face, Billy's eyes still blazed with that same, fierce anger. How dare him! Nothing would ever change if people like him were the ones fighting. Billy opened his mouth, just about to give the boy an earful and possibly a good whack, when his next words came out. Billy's eyes softened and his mouth opened in surprise. His grip on the boy's shirt loosened until he was barely touching him anymore, and he appeared speechless. He felt pity mingled with disgust, not necessarily towards the boy, but to this whole damned world that they lived in.

Finally, Billy's hand loosened and he let go, backing away from the boy's face. He lowered himself and stared directly into the boy's eyes at a gentle distance. Billy's eyes shined with pity, and even more surprising, fear. "Listen kid, neither of us'll be dying, not now. You can't give up like this, ya hear? I know you don' have an easy life, hell, not a living soul in this city does, bar the nobles. But I promise you this; things will get better. No matter how horrible the curren' situation may seem, hope is never lost until you admit that it is. I promise that things will get better, and until then, I promise that you'll be safe, ya hear?"

Whirling around at the sudden voice, Billy put himself in a fighting stance and prepared to face down the mouth of a soldier's gun. Instead, he stood face to face with a boy around his age, along with a girl. They had a chest ahead of them too. It was the same damned chest that he'd tripped over while fleeing from the soldiers, Billy realized. Throwing this thought aside, he looked them up and down. They had a chest, perhaps they were siblings forced out of their house into this cruel world? They didn't look all that similar, though... When the boy asked him what was going on, Billy didn't exactly know how to go about explaining it all, so instead of an actual explanation, his only response was, "This whole god damned city."