Blink of an Eye - a Guild Wars 2 Fanfiction

Chapter 16 - Found and Lost

A cracking sound echoed in my ears, as loud as if every single bone inside my body would crash at once, and it turned my face into a grimace.

"In case we ever face such a decision again, please keep me from repeating it, okay?" I muttered with rough voice while I tried to stretch my limbs without too much pain. I had just woken up while the sun rose above the highest buildings of Lion's Arch, and I had felt as if my body had been turned into stone. The night before, I had been too tired to worry too much about the hard ground I was sleeping on, but after some hours on solid concrete, my bones really did not feel too well.

Kesh lolled her feline figure extensively and yawned, portraying all her more than sharp teeth clearly to me, and she didn't seem to mind the rough circumstances of sleep at all. Must be one of the advantages of using ones fur as a bed.

"Ooh well, I slept fabulously! You didn't?"

My only answer was a glance that came closer to a pout than to a wannabe-grim stare. Kesh laughed good-naturedly and hit my shoulder while getting up. I flinched with a whimper and massaged the spots that hurt the most, while at the same time, an unquestionable grumble could be heard from both our stomachs.

My glance moved over the rooftops of Lion's Arch and stopped at a place that had long become kind of our regular haunt. "Does the Crow's Nest serve breakfast as well?"

"Sure they do! Have the best fried eggs of the city – and if you ask politely enough, they even add some shrimps on top of that."

A shake of my head was the only reaction I could muster. Both grossed out and fascinated how someone could be so heavily possessed by shrimps, I begun to descend the Landing together with Kesh and climbed down rung after rung of the ladder that had been put into the concrete of Macha's Landing. Doing so was usually the easiest thing of many, but today it was a challenge to me, since every little movement reminded me that I was not built to sleep on hard grounds. And this ladder made me feel muscles inside my body that I would have never thought existed at all.

No one else paid us any attention, since the harbor was a popular location for tourists to gather and the city was still too occupied dealing with the refugees. Already so early, despite morning had just begun, I could see the first groups of new arrivals strolling through the streets, and a creepy Charr and a grumpy Asura didn't attract attention within all that.

Reactions to the current situation of the city were split in two very different groups: one side took the newcomers in with open arms, while others watched the scene with clear doubts and wondered how long it would take for chaos to break completely loose within the town.

It won't take long until everyone can return to their home, I made myself believe with surprising optimism, but a hint of wariness remained. Only because the Pact had defeated Zhaitan the way I had experienced ingame didn't mean that the complete history of Tyria would stick to the chronological order of the game...

I tried to focus on what had happened after Zhaitan. It was connected to Lion's Arch and it wouldn't exactly bode well for the independent city, but the more I tried to grasp that thought, the more it slipped away.

Before the headache could return, I shrugged and stretched carefully to loosen my muscles at least a bit. I would find out early enough what we could expect to happen – right now, there were other problems to solve. One of them the beastly grumble in my stomach that wanted to be soothed.

With a sigh, I carefully watched the stairs once we reached the building containing the Crow's Nest. It was quite busy here as well, since under the tavern lay the Captain's Council, and mostly because of the refugees, many people were seeking audiences and consultations. Not that it would have been much different under other circumstances, since there was always someone seeking answers from the council, no matter if it was about rights of residence, openings and theft reports. The queue winding down the stairs from the council was so long that it continued on the square, making it hard for us to find space on the steps to get up while Norn and Charr blocked the way, all of them driven out of their homes by Scarlet.