Fanfare

Otherworldly

Pierce makes a small sound of bewildered confusion. Trenna freezes. The man stops, his arm half-way into the road, all the way up to his elbow. The silver flows around his arm like liquid metal, smooth mercury that does not burn or scald. He tilts his head to the side, listening, then turns his body slowly, keeping his arm in the puddle of molten silver as he searches for the source of the noise. Trenna finds that she is holding her breath. Her heart beats shallowly inside of her, and her fingers grip Pierce's shoulder. She doesn't even remember moving, but her fingers dig into the tense muscle. They are quiet. The man is quiet. The street is quiet. It seems as if, apart from the distant, omnipresent roar of the fire, the whole world is quiet.

The man's head snaps towards the car. Trenna can imagine the silence of the world, can see the quiet whip of the flames that is the only sound as even her heart ceases to beat. The man stares through narrowed, dark eyes at the car they hide behind for agonising moments. Her lungs begin to burn from lack of oxygen, and her head begins to spin. But, finally, the man looks away. Her heart starts beating and her breaths are short and quick and quiet. Pierce's whole body relaxes beneath her hand, and she lets go, shooting him a fierce glare. He ignores it, jerking his chin towards the underbelly of the car, and they lie down on their stomachs and look beneath once more.

The man is reaching even deeper. Soon, his arm is buried in the road up to his shoulder. Trenna watches as he strains, his chin millimetres from the surface, his jaw clenched as he tries to reach in further. And then he jerks. It reminds her of an old book she once found. The bottom corner of each page had a small picture and, when flipped quickly, it looked as if the picture was moving. The picture was of a man with a stick in the water, doing what was called fishing. The stick was jerked down and the man fought back, pulling up a fish. Trenna knows what fish and fishing are, but, in a place like the one she lives, she finds it hard to believe in this creature and this sport. Though learning of magic has made her slightly more prone to believe, she is still a sceptic at heart. And she does not think that such a large body of water can exist, having seen so little of it herself.

But the man jerks, and his arm is tugged down before he slowly, ever so slowly, begins to straighten. And pull his arm out of the silver puddle. The shining substance clings to the black of his coat in large, reflective patches as he rises. He gets to his feet and puts his other hand into the puddle, grabs onto something, and pulls, bracing his feet on either side of the circle.

Trenna and Pierce watch with bated breath as he steps backward and heaves, his face going bright red with the strain. Until, with a sound not unlike the one made at the compound when she enters, a sucking pop, the man falls backward. And out of the puddle he pulls a girl.

She is small, at least ten years old, and covered in the same silver as the man. From head to toe it coats her, so that she looks like a shining statue. The man gets to his feet and brushes the silver from his coat, and it drops to the ground and slithers back into the main body. He then moves on to the girl, brushing the silver from her small form. Bit by bit, a tiny creature is revealed. The girl is pale-skinned and pale-haired; everything about her is white as snow, down to the thick lashes that brush her cheeks and her paper-thin eyelids. Trenna can see everything as if she were mere centimetres away, even the slim, curved shape of her nails at the end of each tiny, perfect finger. She hears Pierce suck in a startled breath as he crawls a little closer beneath the car to better view the man and the strange child.

Trenna holds back a scream as her eyes snap open, because now the girl is nothing close to angelic, and she can't help but wish she had kept her eyes closed and maintained the illusion, if only for the sake of the eyes of her watchers. "Stop touching me," the girl snaps. Her voice is the same as her eyes; a seemingly sweet pit of venom. They are bright and golden where the puddle was silver, and seem to emit their own light. But this light is unlike any Trenna has ever seen, and only reminds her why she loves the dark so much. She wishes it hadn't been taken from her by her magic. She wishes she had not taken something as simple as the dark for granted, for though it has only been days, she can hardly remember what it feels like to be cloaked in shadow. To feel safe. She finds it hard to sleep when the terrors of brightness surround her.

She breathes deeply and looks away from the child's eyes. The man stops brushing the silver from her, leaving her to do it by herself. Once all of the liquid has crawled back into place, a perfect circle on the ground, the man reaches beneath his coat and pulls out a small, thin baton, which he extends out towards the puddle. When he taps the point to the surface, the silver flows upwards along the metal, winding around the length of it like a sinuous snake before disappearing into his fingertips. This continues until there is none left, and he snaps the baton closed, returning it to its place in his coat.

The man turns to the girl and waits expectantly. The girl looks at him distastefully before speaking. "Take me to the source, Coat. I'm hungry," she tells him. The man turns on his heel, robotic in his movements, and starts off down the street, back towards the market. And Trenna watches until the man and girl have long passed out of sight, until she needs Pierce's hand on her shoulder to wake her from her stupor.

"Trenna. We have to go. Come on." She stands with his prompting and follows him through the streets.

"What was that?" she asks, her voice rising as she tries to makes sense of what she has seen.

Pierce glances back at her, his gaze unreadable. "Strange that you didn't ask, 'Who was that?'" he says.

"Clearly, that wasn't a 'who'. That was an 'it'."

"Why? Wasn't it human?" Pierce asks.

"It might have looked human. But then it opened its eyes." Trenna shudders, remembering the shining glow. Then she stops, frowning; why is he asking her this? She repeats her question aloud, and Pierce stops, turning to face her.

His fingers flicker at his sleeve, where she knows he hides a small, sharp dagger. "Now you're asking the right questions," he says. He turns and starts to walk again.

Trenna jogs to catch up. "Are you going to answer them?" she asks, exasperated.

Pierce shakes his head. "It's taken me a while to learn, Trenna. But questions don't always give you the answers you want. Or need."

She stands still for a moment, til the space between them grows and she jogs to catch up. In her head, she scolds herself, for she knows her curiosity is again leading her into something as terrible as the child with her unnatural golden eyes. And you can only play with fire for so long until you get burnt.