Because I Love You✔️

Chapter 175: Memories

Chapter One Hundred and Seventy Five: Memories

"Ella, can we go look at human cloth today?" Adariel asked, squeezing her hand as they walked down Chisago's cobblestone streets. "Windal said that some human cloth has every color you could possible think of, and that others are even made by people's hands! Without magic!"

"Sure," Ella murmured, smiling down at him kindly. "I'll show you after I make sure that a very important purchase I made back in Ordin was properly delivered."

"Important purchase?" Adariel quipped, ears bobbing in curiosity. "In Ordin?"

"Yes, from the first time we were there," she told him, looking at the early morning sky with a dazed feeling in her belly. "With everything that's happened, I'm sure your brother's forgotten all about it... and that's why I want to make sure that it's here. I'd like to surprise him with it!"

"Surprise him?" the little boy asked, squeezing her hand. "What is it?"

"Something very special," Ella secretively told him, tipping him a rare wink. "I won't tell you yet."

Adariel nodded, then turned his attention on the buildings around him, tail wagging back and forth. Ella let out a sigh, feeling completely at peace: the previous evening had been one of the best in her entire life. Everyone had eaten dinner together, and for once, they'd been able to enjoy each other's company instead of worrying about everything.

Best of all, Xaphile hadn't taken his eyes off her: all throughout dinner, he'd looked at her in a very intense way, obviously lost in his own head, but his eyes had held... something.

Something different, something not so cold and sad, something that made her pulse pound even now.

She'd left them after dinner and had gone to the barracks, where she'd gotten a good night's rest, but that morning she'd headed back over only to find that Xaphile was working with the Sysh brothers to help everyone fix things up in town.

During a brief moment of respite, he'd asked her to show Adariel around for him, since the kid apparently wanted to explore the village but didn't feel comfortable going places all alone... not that Ella really blamed him, since she still had trouble thinking about her time in Spack's dungeon. 

"I smell something," Adariel suddenly said. "It smells... yummy, but... strange."

Ella blinked, then glanced at his wide blue-green eyes before curiously sniffing the air.

To her surprise, the smell of cooking food met her nose.

"Huh, it really does," she said, feeling slightly amused by the eager twinge that rippled through his kitten-like irises. "Care to grab a bite to eat?"

"Yes, please!"

She instantly headed towards the smell of food, pulling him toward the market stalls past countless people who blatantly stared at them.

Ella kept her eyes ahead, but she heard a few things.

"Look how he limps... the poor dear!" an elderly woman whispered, shaking her head. "I can't believe they would do something so awful to a child so young! It tears me apart!"

"How do we know if what she said is the truth?" someone else said. "This seems fishy."

"True," a man muttered. "Perhaps she's under some sort of spell... she hated that strange creature when they left, but she comes back only three months later with a bunch more and declares that she's in love with him? 'Tis unnatural."