The little girl shrieked upon hearing this, "Sleep?"
Chisa was the most healthy and good-looking of all of the kids, looking like the daughter of some beautiful lady or lord. "Daughter of a prostitute for sure..."
Her hands were far more tender and the look of peace shone on her body and her silk dress. "I asked if you want somebody to see you? Do their eyes scare you?" Mercy kneeled down to the little girl.
The children's group turned around their eyes and so did the people staring at them.
"um...." the girl was hesitant but not distrustful, poor kids couldn't act discourteous to anyone who offered them money. They do favours if you ask them, like Mercy was doing now.
"They do. I want something from me, even though I have nothing. I think they are after my dress."
"You know that very well, they are not after your dress, they hate your face."
"My face?! What's wrong with it?" Chisa covered her cheeks. Mercy began to whisper to her.
"They envy how beautiful you are. Look at that woman near the pot shop, who was looking at you. She is envious of how beautiful you are compared to her even though you are poor, the man near with his kids carrying his daughter near the window." Chisa turned to look at the man, and the latter turned his gaze with the in his hands.
"What does he want on my face too?"
"No, he wants his daughter to look as beautiful as you are. In this world the most miserable lives are of the poor and ugly, when you are free of either of them, good things come your way more often. You are wonderful...but young, good things turn bad when they come to you."
"Why?"
"I will tell you after my tour ends... Love. I think we move to the next street, somewhere even more buzzing with people. I want to see what people love in this district."
The day moved after as did the group after that, they whiffed into the food district for a good meal. There were banners and guards blocking anyone even remotely poor from entering the streets.
So, they moved to some stall that might have some lower standards. A journey through the garden made for fountains made in the centre of the district and the small stall was at their face.
Even there Mercy and Chisa were the only ones allowed in the food shop, due to their attire. Chisa had noted what each of them wanted to eat before going into the shop.
Chisa ordered food like beans, meatballs, beef, honey cakes and some new dish called noodles, Mercy took noodles for himself. The group moved to the back alley to eat their share of meals.
"I don't know if you help people tour, they give you free rich food. I am thinking of becoming a tourist guide or something like that..." Love thought of his brilliant idea in his mind, while eating his honey cakes.
All while Eva was sharing some noodles with Chisa. Sana had her meatballs being chewed down, saying 'yummy' after each bite with her mouth filled. Lisa was quiet as ever eating some roasted beans with added lemons and salt, while Romeo was lost inside the juices of his beef.
Meanwhile, Mercy was enjoying something from the future, the noodles were something, he had a mixed opinion of.
"Although the smooth noodles and their gravy were quite well flavoured, he could not say that about stomach fulfilment, he needed at least 4 more bowls of this for a full stomach and the cost of nearly half the cost of meatballs which were more filling." He thought to himself, considering it a waste of money.
The tour team munched, chewed and slurped down food, while they could.
"That was the best thing of my life." Love said it out loud when he finished the bowl for himself.
"Hey mister, why don't you come here every day? I will give you a tour everybody for one bowl of noodles." Love was not hesitant to speak frankly.
"I won't be coming to this city every day to see the same thing, if you have something new to show me each day then I will give you a bowl of noodles, otherwise I don't think you will get anything for free. And nobody like will ever come here again, so enjoy this meal for one last time."
Love and all of his friends besides Lisa stopped eating, and a feeling of sad realization took them over.
"We won't be eating food like this for a long time, and I don't want to sleep each night craving that one meal," Lisa spoke up.
The girl chewing on her roasted beans available at nearly every corner of the city, won't be craving that dish for the rest of her life, unlike all her friends, "You are a cunning one, you know that." Mercy complimented.
"My legs are not long enough to move fast." Lisa finished her roasted beans and threw away the paper bag they were in. "Everybody finish fast, it's almost time to go," she ordered her sad companions.
The group moved without much excitement after that, they visited the churches, prayer halls and different artists.
Mercy looked at the artistic works with curiosity. There were different statues representing the different forms of the god in the form of art and objects in different shops, an all-seeing eye, a cloud with shining radiance, and a male human with a book in his hand there was no limit to human imagination.
"Do you want to buy anything? There is a wooden statue maker in the street nearby." Lisa, who was now leading the group, asked.
"You mean a sculptor? hmm… If he has anything good to offer I might just consider it. We are near the edge of the market, is your sculptor's store in a safe place?" The saddened small spirits stayed cold, wherelse Lisa returned a little smile. "The place is safe, but if you dare to come. People get scared when they see the street and place."
Lisa began to guide the way next, they came out from the denseness of the city to the more obscure area, one where nobles dared to walk and it definitely didn't feel safe.
There was no source of light nearby, sunlight was barely keeping the room lit
There was a group of young boys walking towards them, with thin faces and bodies. None of them had eyes of joy, only hangovers, anger and maybe greed…
A stroke of wind came into the narrow street brushing away the dust, and it revealed the handle of the knife poorly hidden at the man's waist, Mercy shifted his eye away to avoid meeting the man's eye. As the two group
*clang
-The sound of metal striking against the ground made every person stop in their tracks. Mercy looked at the knife fallen on the stone pavement, and then towards the people who dropped it.
"Run!!!"
Lisa screamed, all the children kick started their feet and ran away into the street leaving Mercy behind in a whiff of a second.
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