Sarah walked confidently beetween the houses.
Alice followed her, ready to try fleeing as soon as something possible in the case that these people meant harm.
After all, they looked at her strangely. Maybe they wanted to eat her, just like Shapeshifter did ?
The young Lightbringer already had a plan, just in case. She could grab one of the very young children running around and threaten to kill him with her knife. If she did that, the people of the village would probably not try anything, fearing for the live of the young child.
And then, when she was far from these dangerous people, she would kill the child anyway. Just to show these guys that they shouldn't mess with her.
"Alice, I really think you need to get some help."
The black-haired girl completly ignored Killer. Help ? Of course she needed help, considering how hungry and tired she was !
While following Sarah, Alice understood a lot of interesting things in the village.
First of all, the architecture here looked way less impressive than the one used in the City of Flowers, with the housing made mostly of wood and leafs, and looking rough around the edges. Honestly, just looking at the clothes of the people here, it was obvious that they were several centuries behind in some fields. Which wasn't really that surprising, in a way.
The word of the Sky was probably not well... globalized, if that made sense. Beetween the whole Golden Door things that made traveling much more complex, the various abominations lurking, and the fact that some Rooms were just not suited for human life... Exchange beetween civilizations was several times harder here than it was on Earth.
Probably.
In any cases, Alice was probably in a rather empty corner of the Sky. She really doubted these people knew where the Temple of Light was, or even that it existed.
But she could be wrong.
Sarah was walking quickly, and Alice soon entered one of the bigger hut.
This one had two floors, which was highly unusual from what Alice saw.
Sarah screamed, startling Alice :
"Grimm !"
After a couple of seconds, someone came down from the second floor to the first one, using the ladder that linked the two.
This person... was strange.
First of all, he was young, probably less than fifteen. He had the same skin, hair and eyes color as Sarah, even though Alice was pretty sure they weren't related. He was wearing a coat that looked like it was made from of tiger's fur. Around his head, like a helmet, was the skull of some sort of giant snake.
But the most striking thing about him was his left hand.
Instead of a normal hand, made of skin, muscles, flesh and bones, there was only the last thing here. Grimm's hand looked like a skeleton's hand.
Alice understood immediatly.
Soul seller.
Grimm was a soul seller, and just like Mirror suffered from the side effect of aging, he suffered from the side effect of slowly becoming a skeleton.
This just made sense, since it would also explain was someone so young was living alone in the second biggest house of the whole village and was wearing this fancy outfit.
Yes, Grimm was young, but if Lotus said the truth back in the City of Flowers, then most humans soul sellers died before turning twenty anyway.
Was Grimm stronger than Mirror was ? Alice had no idea. Probably not. In any case, he looked way more intimidating, because of what he was wearing, and what his hand looked like.
Grimm and Sarah talked in the same damn language Alice didn't know. The young Lightbringer tried to say "Hello" to Grimm in english, but apparently he didn't understood her.
Then, Sarah left the house, leaving Alice alone with the soul seller.
The first thing Grimm did was to remove her clothes (except her underwear) to get a better look at her injuries. Then, he left and came back with a green paste. He applied the past to the scar on her arm, back from the Forest of Glass, and the much more serious wound on her face.
The paste was cold, and Alice really liked the feeling on it on her skin.
Grimm decided to take her dagger, which Alice obviously didn't like, but she complied anyway. Against a soul seller, a weapon like a dagger wasn't really useful, and Grimm seemed to be a nice guy.
Grimm then noticed how skinny she was, and did something Alice could only be grateful for.
He brought food.
It was just bunch of fruits Alice never saw before: some of them were red, other yellow, some greens, and there were even some black ones. There were the ones with funny shapes, and the ones that simply were round. There were some bigger than watermelon, other smaller than strawberries. Some tasty, other disgusting.
Alice ate them all.
This... was probably one of the best moment of her life. It felt so good to finally eat again, after weeks starving in the Sky.
"Thanks you." said Alice to Grimm, even though he was probably unable to understand her.
Grimm waited for his guest to finish eating, before giving her a bunch of clean clothes that looked like the ones used by most of the people in this village.
Grimm pointed the ladder with one of his skeletal finger, and Alice climbed it, and, when she got down, she was wearing the clothes the young man gave her.
While dressing, Alice examined the house she was in in greater details.
First of all, it wasn't that big. It was just that most of the huts in the village were way smaller.
Second of all, the house was messy. Really messy. Most of the furniture was in a sorry state, and Alice even saw a spider-like thing on the roof. There were bottles everywhere, even on the floor, sometimes full of some strange liquids, sometimes empty. Alice thought this was kind of weird. Glass wasn't something easy to make, after all, and she doubted the people of this village were capable of making it.
Third of all, the house was not protected against fire at all. It was made mainly of wood and leafs. If she ever needed to, Alice could put the house of fire easily.
But why would she need to do that ? The people here were nice after all... They didn't want to hurt Alice... right ?
Then, Grimm pointed a pile of leaves in a corner of the house. It looked like some sort of blanket.
"Does he want me to sleep here ?"
"I think so."
"But it's still daytime !"
Grimm insisted, and soon, Alice was laying down on the couch.
The young man then searched for a bit in his house, before fiding a bottle full of a strange red liquid.
Alice didn't think much of it, and drunk it willingly. And then, everything became dark.
The thing she drunk... made her sleep.