Click-
As Emily locked the door to the room that we were not planning on coming back to, I looked at the empty hallway I was in that gained a history like no other.
As we walked down the hallway, both our hands twitched. We both knew that we would normally be holding hands by now.
Tak- Tak- Tak-
The lonely steps of us descending down the stairs echoed, as if trying to spite the hallway of what it did to us since the last time we stomped on it. Suddenly, the familiar smell of alcohol once again made its way to me, and the loud chatter of the drunkards that had originally been like white noise to me, made itself known.
I hated it. I hated how different this sequence was compared to when we first entered the inn, despite being so similiar.
Even after she told me not to let it affect us, I was… being selfish again.
Before we reached the bottom of the stairs, I sped up my steps, in order to make the gap between us smaller, and reached for her right hand.
It felt awkward. After all, it was a narrow stairway, and we were moving, but I didn't care. Infact, I kind of liked it more. I wanted her to know that I wasn't going to be selfish anymore, and was going to do what she wanted, even if she didn't think of it like that.
Her hand flinched, and then quickly adjusted her hand to make a more comfortable position, and gripped even harder than I was gripping.
I didn't look at her face, worried it would make things even more awkward than it already was, but I could tell she was glad right now, maybe even on the verge of crying. And just the thought of that made me smile helplessly.
We made it to the bottom of the stairs, and immediately swirved ourselves to the direction of the front desk, where the same receptionist that I've seen so much of in the times I was awake, was, smiling at his approaching crush, that was… holding hands… with her son?
"Good morning, Miss Emily." He said, still gazing at the weird position the mother and son pair were walking in.
"Yes, good morning to you too, umm…" Emily replied, realising she didn't know the name of the man that saved her.
"Daniel, is my name. Daniel Beastie." He answered, knowing what she was trying to get at.
"…also, why are you guys walking like that?" He asked, hinting at the peculiar way our hands had been since we came from the stairs.
Emily looked down, and I looked up, tracing my right shoulder to my hand, and realising how uncomfortable I was right now. I accidentally grabbed her right hand with my right hand earlier… I was so happy that I didn't even realise…
I quickly fixed this and let go, moving my sweaty left hand towards the now unoccupied hand of Emily's and holding it. I looked up and saw Emily's face staring at the weird scene with a thoughtful look on her face.
We met eyes for a few seconds, and then both let out a small chuckle, as we turned to the receptionist with a weird look on his face, still smiling.
"Ah, by the way, thank you for yesterday, Daniel. There's no one in the world that I'm more grateful to right now." Emily thanked him, now with a much more cheerful voice than before.
I also decided to thank him, by nodding my head, even though I've already thanked him by telling him whether Emily was wedded or not.
"Oh no, it's nothing. Anyone would do the same in that situation." He said, trying to look humble for his crush.
"Also, where are you planning to go now? You've only stayed for one day so I assume you're travelling." He asked.
Oh? He seems to have gotten a bit better at hiding things. Or maybe he just planned this conversation overnight… yeah, it's that isn't it.
"We're going to Esavale, and we've come from the neighbouring village, Pewter Village." She answered, which was further replied to by an empty smile by Daniel, as he seemed to be etching her reply in his head.
After a few seconds of loading, Daniel opened his mouth, "Ah, Esavale, huh? I see." He said, which was followed by an awkward silence as we realised there was nothing else to say to eachother.
And so, we left the shop after the familiar chime of the doorbell. We didn't wait for anything and began walking, tracing back the same path that we used to come here, I'm guessing to change direction midway.
After a few seconds of walking, the same humming silence that I felt before began following us. Both of our grips on eachother relaxed, and we realised that both of us shared the same thoughts on the atmosphere.
It felt like every single bit of my suffering toda- no, in both of my lives, we're worth it. If every bit of my life was necessary to guide the winds of the butterfly effect towards this moment, I can even look at my agonising death in a good light.
So this is why I slept so long… I probably couldn't even keep up with my exhaustion because the atmosphere was so relaxing.
As we were about to swirve away from the same path we came to the inn by, a struggling voice reached us.
"Hey! Cool boy!" We both turned around to see the source of the loud noise, only to realise that the struggling granny was looking directly at us.
After we both locked eyes with her for a few seconds, we began walking towards her. Only when I was halfway there did I realise what was written on the painted cloth hanging from the table.
Fortune Telling, it read.
Seeing this, my steps slowed down a little, but it seemed Emily didn't have any intention of doing the same, so I also kept walking.
When we got there, she swiped an azure orb that was sitting on the edge of the table, towards the centre of the table, in front of her.
"Would you like to get your future told, boy?" I looked towards Emily, to see if she wanted to or not, and to my surprise, she nodded to me.
To be honest, I also thought this would be a good idea, even though we both knew this was a scam. After all, the mood wasn't completely good yet, and maybe it would be small things like this that would hopefully restore that mood.
"How much is it?" Emily asked.
"56 Dung." The granny replied, to our surprise.
"Oh? That's quite cheap actually." Emily admitted, as she reached for her money pouch, ending up just giving her one dong instead. "I don't need the change." She said, which was followed by a smile on the granny's face.
"Alright then, boy, come here." She ordered, to which I complied.
When I was within arms reach to her, she began doing her job. She reached her hands dangerously close to eyes, and pulled apart both of my eyeslids a moderate amount. She then started staring at my eyes extremely intensely. This went on for a few seconds, until she stopped staring, and moved her hands onto the azure ball opposite her.
What happened next caused a little shock in both me and Emily. The ball that she was holding began emitting a slight glow. But I dismissed all of my thoughts, after just labelling the granny as crafty. She's probably been doing this job for decades, she's bound to learn a few tricks along the way.
After a few seconds, she let go of the orb, which lost its glow shortly, and began looking at me in a daze. She then averted her eyes to slightly above my hair, where there was nothing, except a wall.
Her eyes gained colour, and she stood up. Her body twitched, and she began poking the air, sluggishly yet eagerly, seemingly without goal.
It was as if she was seeing something that we weren't. Definitely an illusion, though.
Both me and Emily looked at eachother, and shrugged. I was tempted on taking back the money sitting on the table that Emily just payed the 'Fortune Teller', but I decided not to.
And so we just walked away without saying anything, leaving the bonkers woman by herself. I sniggered at the fact that when we turn the corner she would probably just sit back down after cutting the act as if nothing happened, and call someone else to scam.
But little did I know…
Nothing. I knew everything. Haha.
|
The brown pouch found itself being searched once again by its owner, as Emily walked towards a sir standing on front of a few carriages.
After paying for transport, we walked towards a carriage a few meters from us, and vaulted onto it. I needed to be picked up though.
There were lots I wanted to ask, like what we were planning to do for money when we get there, and other stuff, but I didn't want to interrupt the beautiful hums that were playing, worried that they would find it hard to pick up where they left off…
5 hours later…
Drr- Drr- Drr-
The rolling of the carriages wheels played repeatedly enough to be completely ignored, as Emily's head leaned onto mine, both gazing at the beautiful landscape of a large moor covered in a serene orange, the source of which was the retreating sun.
Her face was more beautiful than ever right now, lit from the sunset. She couldn't be anything but an angel.
She breathed in a breath that was so gentle that it tickled my heart, and began speaking in the most calming voice that ended up fuzzing up my mind.
"Thank you for holding my hand back then. If you didn't…" she said, hinting at how we probably wouldn't be looking at the sunset together like this if it weren't for that.
"You're… comparing someone simply reaching towards a hand, to someone almost gouging their own eye out." I told her.
Emily chuckled, without me. Even after she told me not to let it affect us, I thought laughing at that would be too out of line.
Seeing as the silence was already broken, I decided to ask one of the questions that were on my mind.
"So what are we going to do for money when we get there?"
"I'm planning on becoming a dungeon raider." She replied, followed by a twitch of my hand.
"Is that… the only way?" I asked, worried about the countless things that can go wrong from being a dungeon raider.
"Don't worry, Vormet. I'm only going to challenge the low tiered ones. That much is enough in order to make a living, a bit more than enough actually." She replied as she caressed the side of my hair, comforting me.
"But… still. What about double dungeons?" I asked.
"You worry too much Vormet," She chuckled. "Most dungeon raiders have gone their entire life without seeing even one double dungeon, let alone one of concern." She told me.
"But you don't get it, Emily. I'm the main character, rare scenarios like this are bound to find their way to me." Is what I wanted to tell her.
So, so bad.