‘Should I feel happy that so many remember me? I don’t know what this feeling is.’ His thoughts mingled with the confusion he met earlier. Once again, Lutiel found himself mindlessly staring at the city, unable to come up with a concise decision.
‘It feels like more has happened this past week than the past few years before losing to him,’ he mused while a sudden turbulence caught him off guard.
“Ah! We’re here,” the maid exclaimed suddenly, raising herself from the seat while he blinked at the place, filled with stalls all around, different sorts of demons running and walking along the street.
Following her reactions, he stood up before grabbing onto the basket. Having already opened the doors on his left, she awaited the man.
His white hair swayed immediately, but he had no plans to correct them. Standing on the bricks from the steps of the carriage, Lutiel heard the doors click behind him before the maid took hold of his right arm.
“Our stall is that one right there,” she said before he could react to the jolt around his bicep. Upon the sudden force, his legs almost staggered out into the ground, but he quickly found his footing, treading along with the lady.
A completely empty stand fitted itself amongst a sea of competitors, shining like a star through a gloomy night, waiting for those who strode through towards the market able to fit two streets inside.
Barely dodging the demons they passed by, he started having thoughts of speaking out to the maid, but with eyes kept on the back of her shoulders, Lutiel simply followed.
He didn’t look at anyone other Raeyine, however, much to his surprise, the blaring glances didn’t come out despite his deepest beliefs. No, he saw them graze his collar, but only for a breath before they had gone back to themselves.
So, the man raised his head, a horde of demons all around. Although not dense enough to the point of not being able to move, their numbers were still imposing.
From dresses and gowns to suits and cloaks, all of them blended in with the same shade while moving through all the different stalls.
Suddenly, he glanced to the side, where a small child with dark blue scales kept staring at him, especially his marking of a slave. Yet, before long, their parents lowered themselves to them, turning the child around before speaking something intangible through the racket spreading in the crowd.
Similar throughout the space, he felt as though the gazes only blinked at him momentarily, quickly blending with the winds.
Still, as he recalled the words of the maid next to him, the man could only solemnly clench his jaw before matching their pace.
Placed along the facades of buildings, all of the stalls had similar, yet different items. Themed after the two most important people, Lutiel’s eyebrows rose as he saw a small wooden figure of a human male, standing in armor whilst a spear hailed the heavens.
Wavering in his steps as the girl pulled onto him, quickly, the stand disappeared from his sight, much to his dismay. Looking back quickly, however, he could no longer see it, the demons behind them blocking his sight.
Nonetheless, he shook himself up internally, getting rid of the pointless feelings. Instead, he observed another stand from ahead.
A fine cloth reminiscent of the sky fell on top of the stall, unbothered by the piercing wafts. Empty of any item except for trays, a purple fabric sprawled itself across the table, covering the front of the stall down to the ground.
Soon, they stopped before it, placing the basket on top of the table while Raeyine walked around. Following her on the side, he soon stood next to the basket, taking the fritters out of the basket onto the wooden trays.
However, before Lutiel could take even ten of them out, his eyebrows creased as the unknown tongue creeped inside his ears.
“Tomi tis yast cin?” Quickly, his eyes followed the high-pitched voice, but he couldn’t find the owner no matter what, at least in the vicinity of their stall.
‘Magic?’ A suspicion alarmed the man’s head, swiftly stretching out his vision along the market. Yet, seeing nothing except for merchants and their stands in the middle and on the sidewalks, Lutiel soon heard a voice coming from his right.
“Un visce,” her voice beamed while he stared at her face, a happy smile looking down at something.
Quickly, the sole man with a collar leaned to the side vaguely, looking at the small fingers grasping onto the purple cloth near the edge of the table. A small, green head with large, glimmering eyes stared up to the left, but mainly, the focus of the little girl was placed on the steaming potato fritter in the hands of the tall lady.
With a shiny gleam, the snack reflected itself in her eyes while Raeyine took a soft, brown paper sheet from beneath the stand before wrapping it around the bottom so the little girl wouldn’t burn her fingers.
“Nuen ges gan,” Raeyine spoke while handing it over to the small hands, making the girl with muddy eyes stand there for a second. Feeling the warmth come out of the food in her palms, she quickly looked up at the maid with glasses, a prominent grin welcoming her.
“Tanki ges!” Her soft voice escaped the lips as she abruptly stormed off under the stands, trotting between the legs of the demons.
With a somewhat refreshed mind, the man no longer tensed himself as much, returning to placing the fritters on the trays while voices similar to the first girl started to pour out from beyond the stand.
Kids began lining up in waves beyond the basket he stood behind. Varied in practically everything, the one thing that connected them all were the shabby clothes. Even then, as they awaited for the free food, Lutiel could see their black attire, which looked like different dark rags sewn together amateurishly.The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
Turning his head to the right, he focused on the one lady with the black and white uniform, once again halting the task at hand.
With a smile on her face, she replied to the boy with dark scales sparsely covering his neck along with two sharp fangs resting on the upper lip.
“Nuen li ges’e,” her gentle voice reached the ears of the kid, who briskly stretched out his arms, nodding his head repeatedly in gratitude.
“Tanki ges, Panyi,” he muttered under his breath, leaving space for other orphans to get their share.
“Arn inli balle,” she spoke whilst her head was turned to the left, on the man she came here with.
“Yes?” He asked, starting to work on distributing the fritters once again. With a quick glance at the action, she promptly sprung back up at his face.
Suddenly, something flashed in the corner of his eyes, but before he even knew it, his hand had already sprawled out, three silver circles inside his palm. Slightly bigger than what he was usually given, he looked at the girl with his habitual, blank face.
“You don’t have to help me. Go around and have some fun today. Also, you don’t need to pay me back, it’s just fifteen dracars,” she said, slightly shrugging her shoulders as her head turned back to the kids.
“Is that fine?” He asked in confirmation, to which she didn’t even turn around.
“Yes, I’m just as fast by myself here.”
“When should I get back?”
“In about two hours?”
“Okay,” with a concise voice, Lutiel’s right arm quickly left the basket while he simply left the stand to wander off on his own. Staring at his back the moment he turned around, Raeyine ignored the voices coming from beneath for a while, snapping back with a smile a couple breaths later.
…
Just as Raeyine advised him, he had trailed outside of their stall and gone around the market for a long while, experiencing the festival. Walking along the square, glancing at all the different vendors with countless options of hot foods, as well as many different shops with normal items, he eventually crumbled to his own curiosity.
Standing still a couple of steps away from a certain, busy stall stuck inside his mind, his head pointed towards the ground, where he could see two wooden figures inside his right hand.
Clattering against each other as he held them, his sight first focused on the left one. Truthfully, it was the one that had remained inside his head once he witnessed it being sold to countless demons. Under an adroit hand, it had been carved expertly, to the minute details.
‘I don’t remember ever being painted.’ A thought lingered inside his head whilst looking at the face of the armored figurine. With hair flowing right about to his chin, he took a clearer look at its posture. Thrusting to the heavens, his right hand grasped tightly onto the spear’s handle.
With a right foot forward and his body tilted, the sight became clouded when his eyes couldn’t go anywhere else. ‘It’s me right before I attacked Magon’s hideout, huh?’ He concluded, his purple eyes lingering at the figure a few last seconds before changing to the one on the right.
Immediately, the atmosphere changed. From a soft, welcoming look of the human sculpture, an erratic scenery engulfed him.
Feeling the scraggly, sharp scales scratch against his palm, Lutiel saw the miniature version of Magon, which was still larger compared to his past self. Painted as black as the night, the protruding, natural armor revealed bony white skin underneath, similar to the one around his neck and face.
With his back unswerving, the demon lord stood tall, legs spread out from each other while the left arm remained low at the hips. The other, sprawled out along with the claws, seemingly pointed towards something.
However, as much as his mind wanted to venture around the past, he knew there was no point in doing so. ‘We’ve both died in the end, no?’
Nothing but the sole thought outlined itself, Lutiel moving promptly. Squeezing himself through the traffic of tens of demons walking down the street, he heard some squeals he couldn’t understand, but he didn’t really try to be apologetic.
The sound of two dolls falling to the ground of bricks was completely devoured by the cacophony of steps and voices, the previous owner dropping them there in his stead.
He may have paid a full silver dracar for both him and Magon, though in the end, it was only to satiate his curiosity. Since he had done that, there wasn’t really anything else for him to do in this space. The one they mourned was right in front of them, but he had no plans of revealing that.
Glancing ahead of him, he looked at the street going uphill ever so slightly. Glancing at the signs covered in decapitated heads, all belonging to Magon, as well as different decorations plastered all across the buildings, his attention quickly left them in search of new ones.
In a long, black line, wide cloths connected the facades of the street’s dated buildings. Running through the masses, costumes of large, inanimate demons caught his eyes before looking ahead a second later, walking towards the only stall in his mind.
‘I’ve looked around for long enough,’ He mused to himself while finally arriving where the place was. Or at least should have been.
The inner parts of his eyebrows creased together as he looked to his right, standing near the supposed stall belonging to Lady Zyponia. The colors were the same, however, seeing the mass of adult demons standing beside it, he quickly came up to see what had happened.
Raeyine was no longer behind the purple clothed table, some demonic man with a rotund, bubbly face replacing her. Spread out on the table were plain looking, wooden sticks, each roughly the same length.
As odd as it appeared for the man, seeing as a dainty lady in a black dress observed one of them closely, he quickly turned away from the place, going back to where he disposed of the figures.
Although she wasn’t there anymore, he would simply go back to the carriage since it wasn’t too far away from the place.
Once again, under the irritated moans, the human slave battled around through the ongoing demons. Their shoulders grazed against each other, but Lutiel didn’t care, even if a few of them intentionally pushed harder.
Looking at what lay behind, his eyes scoured through the place, but no matter how far his sight extended, he couldn’t see the carriage.
‘Did he move it while we were gone?’ The man wondered to himself, slowing down considerably. With a leisurely pace, he moved his legs, eyeing any resemblance of the girl he came with. Nonetheless, the demons before him were far too eye-catching.
The dim colors of their skins and hairs sharpened themselves under the dark covers they wore. Together with their special features, it was hard to tell apart anything in the horde of hundreds of demons in one place.
‘Should I just wait somewhere?’ Walking along a few buildings where no stalls stood, he thought to himself beneath the eased clamor in the space.
Yet, a prickling sensation grabbed the hold of him, drilling at his nape. Standing a few steps away from the buildings divided by an alleyway, his body became inert all of a sudden.
‘Huh?’ He wondered while the left cheek met some sort of a wall before quickly disintegrating, going right through it towards the darkness without any explanations. Unable to realize what was happening, Lutiel swiftly felt his left side radiate with pain as the body fell to the ground.
His face skidded through the bricks while a red patch grazed itself onto his cheek, blood glistening dimly in the murky, narrow alley.