Heartbeats Amid Fire

8 - Festival

Alysa pov:

Several days had gone by in a blur in the routine I had set up since I opened my café, though with Rayner as an addition. As he had said on the day he had woken up in my store room, he helped around the café, sweeping and mopping the floors every morning, cleaning the kitchen counters and doing the dishes alternatively with me, and doing other odd jobs around the café. He was pleasant company, and it had my uneasiness of him slowly diminishing over the days that passed.

Rayner was mostly silent and we had barely had conversations that were more than one liners. I suppose he preferred to keep to himself and I was fine with that, though he did seem to spare casual, comfortable conversations with Lyle and Kian and another Zero named Asher who also worked in the fields and came to the café with his owners, Mr. Jason and his wife Mrs. Hilde, for lunch. It was obvious from that, that Rayner thoroughly disliked regular humans despite agreeing to be around me and help, and preferred not to be involved with us more than necessary. I did not mind it and usually didn't bother him unless really necessary - after all, with chores discussed and distributed, he took care of them without being reminded.

When he was free and by himself, I often found him in the store room or the back of the kitchen, staring into the distance through the window. He always seemed deep in thought in those moments, his eyes narrow and scrutinizing. It had me wondering if he was thinking of his family, if he still had one somewhere and had been in contact with them before he came here, or if he was thinking of what to do when he left from here. I was nearly certain that it was the latter since he had never spoken of his family before...not that there was any reason for him to tell me.

The others of the town who had all see Rayner treated him as they treated the other Zeros of the town - well, all except Arran and Mr. Luther. They were kind enough to sneak in extra snacks for Rayner and Ida when they wished to give me some, most of which were what remained unsold at the end of the day. It was better than throwing them away. Then again, I was beginning to consider refusing the treats because I was sure that I would become fat if I continued to eat so many carbs.

The jingle of the bells I had hung on the entrance door of the café broke my train of thought. It was early evening and usually a time when no one came for tea or coffee or food, and so had me wondering who had come. I saw Rose entering with a skip in her step and I greeted her with a cheerful smile in return.

"Rose, you're back from Eindter," I said when we were barely a foot from each other.

"Yup! Mother and I got back just a few hours ago," she answered. "So, he's the new Zero I heard about, huh?"

She had noticed Rayner who was restocking the supplies in the kitchen from what was stored in the store room. Upon noticing Rose and that she was talking about him, he paused what he was doing and regarded her with a formal bow with his hand over his chest.

"Well, it's good that he knows how to be respectful," she said with a slight sneer lacing her voice. "I heard that you were a knight but you're useless now. You must be a pathetic Zero to have lost your skill to fight. Well, it doesn't matter since you can be put to good use here in Amzell."

"Anyway, Rose, how did the sale go at the festival?" I changed the topic, not wishing to cause any more discomfort to Rayner. He was not happy with Rose's demeaning words - his expression said it all. In fact, I changed the topic more so because I was nearly certain that I could see menace in his eyes than just anger, and I was a little worried that he might snap at her if not hurt her in any way.

"It was great this year!" she beamed, her concentration no longer on Rayner. "We were able to sell nearly everything we had taken and we made a grand profit!"