Algernon Black || The Rise of a God ||

(Chapter 3) The City of the Old, Ready for the New

Lucy and her brother had to travel through miles of swampy forest to finally reach their destination. Atexul was an old city—one they had to cross an ocean and an amazon to find, but the local head had asked for her brother's help specifically.

Lucy didn't think Jared's reputation as a traveling horticulturists had gotten renown enough to reach a country so far away, she hadn't even known it existed, but she assumed not many people were so willing and expertly ready to go through mud and shit as him.

Lucy winced at the state of his crusted-up clothes. Jared refused to stop at their campsite for a change, saying it wouldn't be wise to add on any extra time the detour would take with a storm on the horizon.

"This city is one of the oldest standing cities in the world," Jared said as they got to the first stone-paved road they had walked on in days. "From what I read the locals take much pride in the fact almost all of the buildings are originals."

Though Lucy wondered if his information was as outdated as the withered limestone homes looked to be. Some had even collapsed in on themselves and were just piles of rock between barely standing stone houses.

Lucy made eye contact with a woman coming out of one of those homes through a canvas blanket that functioned as the door. Her heavily harden eyes made Lucy immediately withdraw her gaze. Nearly every man and woman they passed on the outskirts of the town carried a stark grimace as if the weathered buildings seeped from their surroundings and into their appearance just like the red stone used for all of the buildings seemed too, because in some way or another, red seeped into the color of every person they passed, either in the undertones of their skin or the color of their hair, a dark red hair that could almost be mistaken for brown, while others, had light shades of auburn with whitewashed highlights.

Jared's own hair was of a similar hue but stood somewhere between the darkest and lightest shades of the townspeople. It made him stand out, but not as much as Lucy's golden yellow hair did.

A few children playing with a faded ball stopped to stare at the strange sight of foreigners. Lucy waved at them, not at all offended by their gawking, but happy to be acknowledged, which she often never was, as living the life of a traveler meant people were a rare sighting, all but her brother. 

Jared pressed Lucy ahead with a hand to her back—guiding her away from too many eyes.

Lucy tried to wave a goodbye, but the children's attention had already turned back to their game and a familiar dulling ache pinched at her heart.

The farther in they walked, the lusher in life and luxury the city bloomed. A central marketplace housed hundreds of vendors selling vast arrays of local commerce. Lucy lingered longest at the shops advertising the traditional long woven dresses of the land.

She looked down to her own outfit, a loose cotton shirt, that had once been white, now dyed a dull gray by sweat and dirt, a color to match her eyes. Her long brown pants were just as tattered and at the end of their time together after six months of wear. Any of the few outfits she did own were all of a similar ilk. Everything had to fit into the bag on her back, where there was never enough room for dresses as beautiful as the ones she admired now. Not when the most interesting part of her week was trekking through a pool of mud. Such activities led to them having to buy new clothes every few months. Jared would burn the old ones saying it was an atrocity to leave anything so disgusting around to pollute the world. Lucy would agree.

Through the pathway of the busiest market street sat their destination. A flat-topped pyramid of the same red stone that composed all the other buildings. But sat was not exactly appropriate. The ancient building, made of thousands of tons of stone, hovered yards above the ground as each corner of the pyramid rested in a giant stone palm.