Red Roses

Chapter 5 (Introduction Arc)

The next few days for Ardit would have been painful, hiding out until the search for Ardit dies down to an extent. However, Ardit had something that kept his optimism up at a high point, that being the stolen money from several days ago. The sounds of those going about their day outside echoed through the halls of his mind. Eventually, Ardit decided to go out. He would have had to sooner or later, since today he planned to see the two people that he met a week ago.

Ardit felt the sun gently comfort his skin, noticing that the same flier for a current circus that was set up at the park he was headed to repeated a few times as he walked on his path. He thinks to himself, "Huh, I guess a few days in hiding makes you forget what's going on outside."

Eventually stepping into the park that he first met them at, his eyes arose when he noticed two familiar faces. More specifically, one familiar face and one face he saw for much less time. Approaching the park bench in which they sat on, he popped the question, "Room for one more?" The two of them moved to the sides of the bench, letting him sit down between them.

Zolio gave a mild glare, pushing her pointed finger into his chest. She told him off in a somewhat agitated tone, "Let's get one thing straight, I don't know what your deal is! First you help and save us, then I find out you're a criminal? Is there anything else that you aren't telling me?" Ardit was a bit stunned since this was how she decided to start the conversation. Taking a deep breath he responded, "First of all, that's pretty much it. Second of all, I don't have a choice but to steal. Third of all if I knew you for more than a couple of hours I would have told you on my own terms."

Zolio fell silent, feeling the weight of guilt on her for a brief moment, while they know that stealing isn't the only option, it isn't like she has an idea as to what it's like. Her friend leaned forward on the bench to look at her, nodding. She let her eyes wander away from Ardit, folding her arms and apologizing, "You're right, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to lose my cool." Ardit shrugged, resting his back against the bench, murmuring, "It's fine." Ardit turned to look up at her friend, smiling and waving. He did the same. It was a while of uncomfortable silence.

This made him consider something, turning to Zolio and questioning, "Have you decided on what to call her until you figure out her name by the way?" Zolio's eyes landed on her friend, she hadn't considered this before since she never needed to refer to her as anything, "Not really.." she responded. The two of them decided to ponder about potential things to refer to her as.

As they got lost in their own thoughts, her friend got up and left, eventually returning with something in her hand. As she tapped Zolio's shoulder, the two of them snapped back to reality. Zolio smiled at her friend, "Oh! Do you have something you'd like to show us?" she queried. Nodding, she sat back down and revealed the plastic gemstone from what seemed to be a toy set that she found on the floor of the park. Zolio looked closely, "I guess she's learning to steal like you, did you take that from someone?" Her friend shook her head, Ardit realized and spoke about it, "I think that's what she wants to be called!" Excitedly, her friend nodded.

"Alright Rocky! It's nice to meet you!" Ardit, clueless, held his hand out to shake hers before being smacked upside the head by Zolio, "Idiot, she wants to be called emerald!" Looking at the piece of plastic, Ardit shook his head, "That is NOT an emerald, It's probably a peridot!" Losing her patience, Zolio raised her voice, "Peridots have a yellow tint to them, and what kind of a name is Peridot?!" Ardit, matching her tone, exclaimed, "Oh and Emerald is a good name?!" Zolio's friend waited with patience for the two to finish arguing.

After a while of arguing and guessing, the two eventually reached a breaking point. Ardit yells, "Jade!" As Jade gives a thumbs up of approval and the two take a moment to breathe in and relax. Zolio groaned in displeasure, murmuring, "That was the hardest guessing game I've ever done, I hope we never have to do something like that again." As Ardit nodded, they decided to try and think of new conversation topics to help them know each other better.

Eventually Zolio thinks of an icebreaker question, "What type of people are you into? You can tell a lot about people's personality based on their type. For example, I think guys who can pull off facial hair are attractive." Ardit tilted his head in response, "You're supposed to use a razor you know."

After a while of idle conversation, Jade came to a realization and stood up, tugging on Zolio's arm. Zolio looked up at her and arose from the bench as Ardit followed. Zolio questioned, "Is there something you wanna show me?" Nodding, she grabbed her hand as well as Ardit's and led them away from the bench to one of the bulletin boards in the park, pointing to one of the fliers.

"You want to visit the circus they set up near here?" Zolio asked, Jade nodded and gave an excited hop. Ardit remembers seeing the fliers about it earlier, reading the flier in more detail this time. He notices something and decides to tell the other two, "It says here 'The Ringmaster' will be there. Isn't he the most powerful necromancer or something? What do you call those, a grandmaster?"

This excited Zolio as she exclaimed, "Ooh! We get to see a grandmaster in person! Also he's a necromancer! I wonder what kind of spirits he'll summon!" Ardit wasn't as fond of the idea of seeing a grandmaster. He knows some of them have ties to the higher ups in the government, but it probably would be a nice experience nonetheless. After making an agreement to follow the address location and wait for a show to start at the circus, the three made off to the location, taking a more indirect route so they wouldn't have to wait as long.

"So that's what they were setting up!" Zolio looked at the massive circus tent that took up the majority of the walking space from one of the main plaza's of the city. It had a striped yellow and red pattern up to the tip of the circus tent. Ardit realized he'd most likely have to pay for admission, which is an inconvenience since he wanted to use his money on necessities. As the three got in a line to pay for admission and enter the tent, they each paid the person at the booth the required Bristles to enter. That was until Ardit was stopped when reaching into his hip bag for money. The ticket booth cashier explained, "No need hotshot, the girl in front of you paid for your fee. A ganyma paying for a human-" the ganyma behind the booth let out a guffaw, "there's a first for everything!" Jade grabbed Ardit's hand as the three entered the circus.