When that man saw the three of them, he smiled brightly and rushed to them, before giving Bern and Ev each a deep bow. "Greetings, Mr. Compass, Mrs. Compass." He then turned towards Tar. "How's your leg, little guy?"
"Thanks for asking. It's a bit painful but I am hanging on." Tar said, with a hint of proudness in his voice. "It's Tar by the way."
"Well, that's great, Tar!" The man laughed.
"Anyway, here's for this year," he said as he gave the pouch to Bern and Ev. "Just tell me if you need more!"
It turned out that this man was Vidi Urn, the person who patched up Tar's broken leg. He was good friends with Dhar Compass and it was him who carried Dhar's body all the way from East Frey to here. Since then, Vidi had been sending a good amount of money to Bern and Ev every year. Bern and Ev initially declined his money but Vidi insisted. Although Bern and Ev were the ones who gave in in the end and accepted his offer, they were still embarrassed to receive his money even after three years.
"No, you really don't have to." Bern told Vidi.
"Oh, please don't go 'you don't have to' on me again. You especially need it. I mean, just look at Tar!" Vidi laughed. "It's the best I can do, Mr. and Mrs. Compass."
"Quick, Tar! What do you have to say to Mr Urn?" Bern whispered to Tar and gave him a little nudge on his shoulder.
"Right! Why did I forget?" Tar thought. He immediately gave Vidi a deep bow, which looked a little clumsy since Tar's leg was still healing and he had a hard time moving. "Thank you for patching up my leg, Mr. Urn! I am indebted to you. How can I repay your kindness?"
Vidi found the action of this child amusing and laughed heartily, "What are you even saying? Repaying kindness? A child shouldn't worry about something like that, haha!" Vidi then turned towards the couple. "Did Mr. and Mrs. Compass get caught up in the First Insurrection three weeks ago?"
"No, everything was fine for us," Bern replied. "How about you?"
Vidi leaned towards Bern and murmured, "Good. We got the two things we wanted."
"Anyway," Vidi cleared his voice and turned towards Tar. "I heard you were caught up in the First Insurrection."
"Yes, it was terrible. It was horrible!" Although Tar had had education most commoners can only dream of, his vocabulary was still lacking, and "terrible" and "horrible" were the strongest adjectives he could think of.
"Yes, it was… it was… regretful," Vidi said. "What happened was truly regretful."
Tar felt something stir up inside of him. "Regretful. Regretful?" He was racking his brain thinking about that word. "Not 'horrible', not 'terrible', not 'sad', not 'tragic'. But regretful?"
"No." Tar shook his head and mumbled. "No. No, no!" The three adults looked at him with questioning eyes. "What happened three weeks ago was undeniably horrible!" Tar raised his volume.
"Mhm. It was really, really regretful. I get you," Ev nodded.
"No! You don't understand!" Tar shouted. "I saw it! Everything was burning! How is it not horrible?"
"Oh, silly child… Yes, yes. It's just as you said, okay?" Ev chuckled.
"I'm saying whoever did this is horrible! They took my father away from me!" Tar continued, almost tearing up. "I heard a woman desperately scream for her child… 'Bel,' she said. 'Bel, where are you?' It's a horrible, horrible tragedy!"
"Silence!" A yell pierced the air.
Tar froze in place and looked at Vidi. Vidi's commanding presence made him gulp involuntarily, and the jarring contrast between Vidi's attitude before and after made him feel threatened.
"Child, you do not know of anything," Vidi spoke, as he looked at Tar with a piercing stare.
Tar felt like saying thousands of words but at the same time he subconsciously knew that if he said anything more, there would be no coming back. "I… I… Argh!" Tar bolted away. Bern and Ev tried to chase after him, but was stopped by Vidi.
"Tar will be back, don't worry. He lost his father and needs some time alone." That was the last thing Tar heard before looking back, and in doing so, he saw the house which he was just in shrink to a tiny square.
Tar panted and panted, and only stopped running once he felt an excruciating pain in his left leg. Unable to run anymore, he limped towards the nearby fence and sat down beside it, and only after the pain had mostly faded did he open his eyes to look at where he was.
It was a marketplace. All types of noises, and voices from all different people came from all different directions. Horses neighing, people bargaining, and children giggling. The rich, bready smell of shaobing* gushed into his nose, numbing his senses and momentarily making him forget his pain. There were hundreds of people walking in and out of his peripheral vision every second. Torc never allowed Tar to be in crowded places, so this was the first time he had seen this type of scene.
"Wow."
Tar did not know if he said that out loud or not. He was simply in awe.
"I never knew there were that many people in West Frey", he thought to himself, as he started walking around. "I wondered why Papa never took me here." Reminded of his father once again, he sighed deeply.
It was then he heard something coming from a narrow alleyway. It sounded like the quarrel of some children. Tar moved in closer to see what was happening.
The line of tall houses along the alleyway shielded it from the early afternoon sun, and it felt disconnected from the bright and busy market. Tar saw two grey-haired boys, roughly ten years old, kicking something on the ground. At first Tar couldn't see clearly what they were kicking, and he thought the two boys were playing some ball-kicking games. But what he saw afterwards startled him greatly.
They were kicking a group of children who were lying on the ground, most of them with light injuries. The age of those children ranged all the way from around his age to fifteen, sixteen years old. They all wore different clothes and had different physiques, and some of them were girls too. But they all had one thing in common – black hair.