Thánatos

Chapter Five

Chapter Five

The Warning

Kiren

The man roamed through the city, searching for the right narrow street to take him to his destination. He's been walking for a while now, exhausted and frustrated. He did not anticipate his first impression of Lavern to be getting robbed and losing his ride around the city, yet here he was. Dressed in a purple cloak lined with golden stitching, white robes and heeled boots that clacked loudly against the cobblestone streets. It was obvious to anyone who looked at him that Kiren Ova did not belong here, the rich clothes he wore, the way he walked. It screamed foreign wealth. Kiren however was neither rich nor foreign to Arcon, he often spent his younger years here with his father who did philanthropy work. It was part of the reason he was here now. 

Kiren turned down another empty street and came to what seemed to be the city square, where the city came to life. A hub for trade and commerce with stalls full of food, beverages and rare materials. Lavern had tall buildings made to make the most of the hilly terrain, its architecture relying mostly on stone and marble. It looked like something out of a dream, lines of lanterns hung from balconies to join at the centre, making a spiral-like pattern over the square's fountain. Music played somewhere from a street performer, children played with ribbons and wooden swords. He stood on the outskirts of it, watching crowds of people pass through without a care in the world. Kiren tried to think of the last time he saw so many people lively in one place, but he found he could not.

"Come! Try the pastries!" A stall owner called out; her enthusiasm could not be shared with Kiren as she waved him over. "Come on lad try some! Day old bread is fifty percent of." He took in her stall, a wooden table out front covered by a gazebo made from sheets. Behind her was a large oven and another woman working away at a large slab of dough, the baker waited for his response.

"What do you do with so much food?" his accent was thick, a rich heavy sound made to pronounce long syllables.

"Sell it, eat it, what else do you do with food?" she looked at him funny as Kiren studied the various pastries for sale, half of them he'd never heard of before. Containing ingredients that looked hard to pronounce.

"Need something kid?" the lady asked placing a hand on her hip.

"I needed to find an old friend, I'm here to warn him of a matter most urgent." He replied, "I haven't seen him in years, I wouldn't know where to go."

The lady looked him up and down "Looking for someone? Ask them" she pointed across the square to a group of guards guarding a large gate, closing off a path that led up the hill.

"Thank you" Kiren offered to which the lady waved off. However, Kiren didn't make his way over, his body tense at the idea of getting recognised before finding his friend, he couldn't let that happen, not yet. He tugged his hood free of his robes pulling it over his head, the purple mesh material obscuring his face from view and padded across the square past the palaces gate and into an alley. Kiren knew the Arcon palace well, it was smaller than the one he used to work in, it's mostly built into itself, with floors of rooms and towers overlapping one another. It's beautiful in an impossible way. 

Kiren hadn't seen this place since he was small, he can recall running through the palace gardens with his friend as their fathers conversed. Back then Kiren didn't know how to speak Myria, the language of the many tongues, Arcon's national language. He could only speak Old Verx so the two had a blast trying to communicate between language barriers.