O' children

Chapter 9: Friends and Enemies

A day on the road and Caysa wondered why exactly his predecessors ever bothered with foot travel through western Aradia. Caysa had been conditioned into being something of a pessimist in the years he had been alive. He did not typically make a habit of ignoring other's glares and sneers when they were directed his way and in the ten minutes since Caysa had stepped into this mercenary town's single lane free market, nearly every vagrant and hunter had stared or smiled at him in ways that were either implicitly or explicitly threatening.

Dead game, monstrous body parts or live animals were being bartered for or auctioned off with aggression and enough expletives that Caysa was surprised that no one had broken out in fisticuffs. Caysa pulled his scarf more securely over his face as he passed a black-market seller with huge slabs of pinkish-red meat, the skin of which was coated in large twinkling green scales. Butchered dragon. A lump formed in Caysa's throat; he didn't dare look any longer. Another sickly curious glance at the wares and Caysa's heart jumped when he saw a girl sitting on the floor behind staring at him, it wasn't that hungry glower of the others, it was knowing, she knew what Caysa was.

Caysa turned away to face a fruit seller, wares plagued by fruit flies. Caysa took a chance to glance over at her again, long, dark red hair, almost brown in the shade and warm brown skin. Her eyes were a vibrant amber colour, framed by heavy dark eyelashes. Caysa looked away as the poacher waved down a woman in black leathers, they started a rapport loudly laughing and swearing in the way old acquaintances were wont to do. Caysa looked over again, the woman on the ground moved her head enough the light caught on her neck, thick, tarnished metal across connected to a chain. Caysa's stomach dropped. The fruit seller had started glaring at Caysa now too.

"Pay or move it along, priest," The man grunted, Caysa nodded quickly. Stepping away from the stall. The poacher and the woman were bartering now, the woman pointing to the girl chained to the floor and as a result the girls' stare became harder when Caysa looked over again. Human or dragon, the implications of what would happen to her made Caysa's stomach clench painfully and like the fool Sola always claimed he was, Caysa removed one of the pins that kept his scarf secure to his hair and clenched it in his fist. Slowly, Caysa mapped out the most covert path to get to the girl and avoid the poacher.

With excruciating poise, Caysa made his path around the other side of the market, the residential houses had most of their windows shut, skinny children looked up as Caysa passed by and then looked away in disinterest when they saw the impoverished blue of an Imran devotee. Sliding through an alleyway that was blessedly person-free despite being piled with random detritus, Caysa spotted the back of the girl's head. The woman and seller had started laughing again. A bag of coins and a slip of paper on the table between them let Caysa know that the girl was already running out of time.

"Psst," Caysa hissed as quietly as possible, the woman scooted back agonisingly slowly, taking care not to rattle the chains. Caysa saw, her hands bound in iron chains and padlocked at the small of her back and went in for the lock. It was heavy and well-made but not complex, one pin after the other, calmly he made his way through the padlock until the blessed snickt sound of the latch releasing the shackle confirmed the lock had opened. Two mean faces looked over to Caysa and the woman, the moment of stillness was quickly broken by the woman roaring to life, bringing her hands to her neck, and bending the metal collar into disuse. Caysa fell back into the shadows of the alleyway.

"Now, what the fuc-" Both the poacher and his customer moved to attack, and the woman, grabbed the wooden stake that she had been connected to and pulled it out of the ground.

Inhumanly strong. Caysa froze as his subconscious mind caught up with his conscious stupidity. Loud shouting had begun to fill the street, and as Caysa caught up with himself, he grabbed her arm from where she was trying to beat the poachers head in and dragged her through the alley. Sprinting like a demon was chasing, Caysa could feel his lungs burning, the woman (the dragon) had already pulled ahead of him as they ran to the town exit.