Edgar and Caroline walked side by side in the market, keeping to themselves their distance and the silence that ensued. They entered deeper into the market, to the part where the butchery was situated. Meat of different varieties, pork, venison, mutton, chevon, and beef, laid on tables with the sellers calling out from behind the tables to tangible customers.
Caroline followed without a word uttered, wondering as to what they were doing in the deeper part of the market. They had passed the roads, the paths she saw could lead them to another village or to the inn or cavern where they could rest and be replenished. She saw him come to stand in front of one of the tables, before the meat seller that sold beef.
" What is the cost of a kilo? ". She heard him ask the meat seller. Whatt would they be needing a kilo of meat for where the stove and woods were not available?
" Three silver coins and a copper ". Caroline almost choked at the price. Meat was sold in her district for two bronze coins, even the poor could have meat in their meals. Here, it was sold at a price worth a steed and if the cost was this expensive, she wondered how the poor survived in the village. She continued to see him bring out a porch from his inner cloak. He removed three silver coins and a copper, placed them on the seller's palm, and kept the porch back.
Caroline offered to help him carry the bag of meat after the butcher wrapped it up, but he refused, Edgar, and walked again with her by his side.
The market became noisy and filled with people as they left the butchery. The crowd made it hard for them to pass, but in the end they forced their way through to get to the other side of the market. Caroline and Edgar proceeded till they got to a road where two roads met
She watched in the now disturbing quietude, him, cross the roads and into the woods ahead before she followed suit.
They walked in the woods, far away from the humans' residence into the darkest part of the forest where the trees clustered in numbers with branches filled with leaves casting shade on the ground.
" Where are we going? ". Caroline asked when the silence became unbearable and the darkness, frightening. The significance of the meat and darkness were unknown to her, sending chills down her spine as she pondered on what they could be used for.
He stopped. At the edge of the woods where the brightness of day was in fullest. She saw a little lake. White ducks swarm on it, quacking their way around with their ducklings lining up behind them. At the bottom of the fresh lake, she saw pebbles of green, of blue, pink, and of white. A rock stayed at the bank of the lake with white lilies growing around it and butterflies of different colors flying about. Her eyes wandered with mesmerization at the beauty of the environment. Things she was not permitted to see when she lived with the Elvins. Deeply, she inhaled the air.
The tearing of the wrap reminded her of why she was there. She had followed the vampire into the woods. Edgar, her enemy clouded in savior attire, yet she couldn't think it that way.
He had saved her. He had saved her from Primrose, from the Lady that possessed her, the Vampires on the cliff, and then from falling. His kind had killed her mother and consumed their district yet she did not have the heart to say it.
She watched him remove the wrap. The meat dripped with the blood as he held it. Her eyes trailed from his hands to his face. The eye patch on his left eye stood apart on his face, drawing her attention as to why he would be wearing an eyepatch. What was wrong with his left eye?
Edgar with his teeth tore the meat, a part remained in his mouth with the blood that flowed down his teeth, his fangs, his lips, and his neck. Caroline watched in horror as he licked the blood off his lips. She felt the food she had eaten the previous day move to her mouth. She rushed to the other side of the woods to puke.
From where she stood, she heard him chewing it. Her insides turned more making her to vomit again. The air around the surroundings did her no good, even when it beat her face, the freshness, and the airiness. She couldn't but puke more, imaging him chewing the meat and licking the blood.
So that was why he went to the market?. Why they had come this far?. He was hungry and blood thirsty and did not want the people of the village to know he was cannibal and a bloodsucker. He was a vampire and his kind were hunted down by the vampire hunters.
She puked again and cleaned her mouth.
Edgar finished the meat in his hands and licked of the blood before going down to the lake to wash his face and his hands.
From the evening, the night, and the early hours of the morning, he was starved and in need of blood. With Caroline in his arms and with her wound, fresh and bleeding, it took all his energy to hold himself back and not dig his fangs into her neck. He had made himself a promise to not drink her blood. She was innocent and having witnessed the way she was treated in the arms of her young Mistress, one of her kind, and the way his men went after her, he vowed to protect with his all might, Caroline, from her people and his kind. She was not safe with either of them.
Moreover, when he became tired and lazed inside, bodily and mind, famished and thirsty, raw meat became an option on sighting the market from the infirmary.
He cupped water with his palm and washed his face and neck, wetting his hair in the process. In successions, he did it till he was sure no one would see the blood on his face or his body.
Satisfied, he peeked at his reflection in the mirror. Water dripped down his hair and to his cloak. His reflection wavered a little in the water and came to become clear. The raven black hair and thick brows, his long lashes, his red-tinted lips, and edged jaw, and his fangs that rested on both sides of his mouth, long and sharp. He looked at his reflection with revulsion.