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Jungaar's Fort City was bustling with life when he arrived. |
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As he passed through the heavy, splintering wooden gates into the massive, walled city, his eyes were met with a flash of clashing colors: pale blues and vibrant reds, gentle saffrons and sage greens, and a steady hum of buzzing nonsense gibberish filled his ears. It had been a long time since he'd heard anyone speak the language, and he could almost feel his brain scanning memories long since past for a list of words he'd spoken in this language, something to bring the familiar movements of his tongue into something the locals would understand. It was a silly language full of abrupt stops and accentuated consonants, harsh and ugly and completely unlike the smooth Solaurian he'd learned as a child. The language was a product of the people, a people characterized by their zest for life and noted for their sense of humor. Perhaps this is why the language seemed so ridiculous; it took an awful long time to say the word "ice" (z'en-orft'er-wa a'a't-th k'es-ma h'eth e'th-te m'b-n'u) and no time at all to ask for a night's stay at a local in ( "E'n-ed s'l-pehe" wink . It was a completely unecessary humor, but humor nonetheless.
Aramis was sure his old friend Andrew would have found this language absolutely hysterical.
Dealing out polite nods and smiles to every passerby that locked eyes with him, Aramis didn't notice the incredibly large figure he was making a bee-line for until it was too late. His gaze fixed on a young lady with the most dazzling green eyes he'd seen since his days in Solauria, he ran face-first into a gleaming aluminum tent pole, the resulting clang of his skull against the metal echoing despite the bee-like frenzy of people pushing past each other to the different displays. A few children pointed and laughed. And old woman asked if he was all right, then did the same. With his pride wounded much more than his forehead, Aramis gave a simple, "Uh-huh" and tried his best to disappear into the crowd once again in order to avoid further humilation. Let's not do that again, he thought to himself as he sought out a less-crowded area to gather his thoughts. After a while of searching, he spotted a not-so-congested area near the Vollan temple to Deus. On a market day, the temples weren't as crowded, thankfully, and so the few people actually at the temple were usually just sitting on the steps and watching the commotion, as Aramis was about to do.
He sat down upon the gleaming white marble steps with a loud, exhausted sigh. He'd been walking all day for nearly a week now, only stopping to rest when it when his knees threatened to give out from the strain. Sitting, and especially sitting amongst other people, was a blessing. He took a moment to observe his surroundings. The sky overhead was a light coal gray, typical for this region, and the air was thick with smoke from roasting pits and unbearably humid with fog. There was always a fog in Villimaroon, and he absolutely hated that about the country. On the cooler days, it would invite sickness into his body and he'd be sneezing and coughing for weeks on end. In the summer, the humidity was so unbearable that he'd often been tempted to strip down to nothing and walk about as naked as the day he was born. Still, it was a cool day and the fog wasn't so bad for this time of year. From this distance from the crowd, perhaps only twenty feet, he tried to estimate the number of people present. It was surely over five hundred, as small as the area was. With all the crowding and pushing, it would be simple to "accidentally" bump into someone and steal their coin purse. Hell, if I'm thinking this, some other theif must be thinking the same thing, Aramis mused, stroking his imaginary beard. As a precaution, he let his hand wander absent-mindedly to his right hip where he kept his coin pouch tightly fastened... only to discover that it was gone.
He blinked. No, it couldn't be gone, he wasn't in the city for more than ten minutes! Aramis stood up and began frantically patting himself down, hands roaming his body for the long-gone coin purse and damned himself for being so foolish with every unsucessful press of his hand to his skin. He cursed aloud. Loud enough, in fact, to have several people throw him a disapproving and disgusted glance. "Where the hell is it?!" he wondered aloud, turning around in tight circles several times and with such velocity that he nearly became dizzy. "Where's my money?!"
That's when a familiar smooth yet powerful, milky-white hand settled on his shoulder.
"Calm down," the all-too-well-known voice said to him. "I've got your money right here. You'd better keep an eye on your things a little more closely, Grudges."
Aramis almost hesitated in turning around.
"...Punishment?" he asked in a hushed voice.
Not waiting for an answer, he turned around and looked up into the eyes of the very same man he'd said goodbye to all those months ago. The man he swore never to speak to again. The man who both made him feel like a slave to his whims and exhalted high above Deus herself. Yes. It was Punishment. It was almost like seeing a ghost that no one else could see; there he was, in plain sight, with no one paying attention, no one caring enough to look but Aramis himself. And in that moment when he saw Punishment's face again, a rush of old feelings crested and broke on the shore of his consciousness and he fought valiantly to supress them.
"Punishment," he said again, as if trying to convince himself.
"Yes, it's me," Punishment said with a laugh, throwing up the little bag into the air and catching it again. "I didn't think I'd see your ugly face again. What the hell are you doing anyway, following me?" Those thin lips twisted into that wicked, mischievous little grin that Aramis both detested and adored, and those glacier-blye eyes gleamed with potential malice. But just as he was a year ago, Aramis was drawn to those eyes and was powerless to stop himself from following them to the ends of the earth. Still, he couldn't let Punishment know that. Not yet, anyway. It's time to put on the mask of the tough guy again.
"Yeah, I've been following you," Aramis answered back smartly, snatching his money from Punishment's opened hand. "And you're still the filthy thief I always knew you were."
"You never were too good at giving compliments," Punishment counterd with a sneer, a sneer that melted into an enticing smirk. "Well... since we're both here, how about we get something to drink? I'm paying."
"Yeah, with money you stole from me, I'll bet," Aramis growled. "Of course it's your money, Grudges; you think I'd waste mine on you?" He reached a powerful hand forward to ruffle Aramis' hair, a gesture he'd done a thousand times before but had never felt so welcomed. He closed his eyes for a moment, then took up his bag and nodded.
Sure, why not have a drink with Punishment? What could go wrong?
 Bleeding Apocalypse · Tue Apr 18, 2006 @ 02:22am · 0 Comments |
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