Angelique's Forgotten Kin (Neo Angelique Abyss Fan-Fiction)

Chapter Two

I had managed to receive a carriage ride from a kind elderly man who sported a bit of stubble on his jaw. He told me to climb in back and that we would arrive in Leiss in about a quarter of the day, so I hunkered into the rickety wagon that was piled to the seams with barley. The straws of gold dug into my fair skin, leaving an irritated itchy red mark in their wake.

As the wagon set into motion I heard the elderly man humming a sorrowful tune. I soon recognized it as a lullaby my mother use to serenade me with each night. The song itself soon found it's way upon my lips as I subconsciously sung along in a haunting tone.

"Close your eyes my sweet child,

Let your dreams run free and wild

Sing softly to me my dear,

Let me take away all your fears

Graceful and gentle swaying,

Listen to what I am saying

Please do not be afraid,

Or I will have you slayed

When you awaken you see,

Your mother and father hung from a tree.

Then you will cry for thousands of years,

Spilling billions on tears"

As the song came to the end the man piped up. "Ah, you know that haunting lullaby then? I knew there was something about you, and beautiful vocals you have there girl." I saw a bit of a crooked smile on the man's lips although I was only able to see the side of him.

"Aye, my mother use to sing it to my sister and I before we went to bed. I can recall her telling us it was to scare away the monsters that lived under our beds." I gazed down at the floor of the wagon lost in memories. "Of course there never was any monsters, only the Thanatos, but the tune never lured them away from our village." I shook the dark thoughts from my head and stared forwards in fear I said too much.

"Ah, my Yukama had a voice like that once, vocals that would lure sailors to their deaths I assure you. She even had beauty as well, the fairest maiden in all of Arcadia as I'd tell her." The man's voice broke off near the end in remembrance, his head hanging low. "Thanatos murdered her along with our four children, our precious angels."

My heart hurt for the man behind me, for I too had lost my entire family. I decided the best way to soothe his despair would be to keep silent, to let good memories of his wife and children fill him. I knew from experience that it's best to let them take over your mind instead of battling them away, sometimes it even lessened a smidge of the pain.

I looked towards the location I had come from in a bit of a daze. In the distance lay the town of Farian where I had spent most of my childhood. Foreigners or other Arcadians always said the town would fall off into the rolling waves that nearly surrounded all of Farian, but the people who lived there denied their wagers. A small smile teased my lips at a memory that played in my mind.

Yamashita and I were playing a game of take-uma, a competitive pastime where you would take two bamboo sticks and tie them around your legs or other areas in hope to outdo the other's acrobatic skills. I remember Yamashita once attempted to balance one bamboo stick upon his head and to hop on the other due to the fact that I had a larger score than he. But in the end he fell into a heap of limbs and dislocated his shoulder for a week till we were able to take squeeze him in to see the Doctor because he was fairly busy with others.

There aren't many doctors for people who live in poverty at this time, but there was one in particular that never made anyone pay. Us people in the rough side of Farian referred to him as the Doctor because he was the only one who would help us, but his true name is Hamata Yumi. I suppose that even if there were other doctors available to us, they wouldn't want such rugged patrons barging into their clinic scaring off their important paying customers with our filth. As dramatic as the whole ordeal sounds, it is how us who live in slums get treated.