Gray Skies

Prologue- Sweeter Days

 "It was all very surprising", the baker said, and lifted his gaze heavenward, "I have never heard of such a case. Not now, not ever". 

  Afternoon rays of sunlight lit up the bakery with undisguised laziness. Summer was starting to gnaw at people's patience and the kingdom of light was undoubtedly in for months of brain addling heat and inflamed moods. The beloved Aladeen's bakery was overrun with customers, both new and familiar, and the counter was jam-packed with sweet and savory samples that made noses twitch and fingers wander. 

  The baker, Aladeen, was not a man to be rushed. His frame towered over most and his hands were roughly the size of a good sized toddler. Despite it all, he was a kind-hearted and delicate man, and if his physique did nothing to support the fact, his pastries and homemade jams spoke volumes for him. He was talking to a favorite customer of his, a wheezy man who spoke not one word but allowed the baker to ramble on as much as he liked. 

"What will become of us, I wonder," Aladeen mused, pointedly and slowly picking up a pastry puff, "Letting in criminals in, have our hearts grown too soft? I worry, you know, Mr. Summerby, oh yes, I worry." Here Aladeen dropped a pastry puff in a cloth bag and slowly went for a second one; Mr. Summerby glared, for he had ordered eighteen of these delicacies. 

"I'm just as worried as you," an annoyed woman with a pointed nose and a sharp glance piped in, fidgeting at the sight of a crisp apple tart being brought to the display counter, "My daughter turns eight soon, and I worry for the future the King has for her, you know? I worry greatly."

Aladeen snuck a look behind his mute customer and shrugged.

"The King is our leader, Velma," Aladeen scolded the annoyed woman gently, but his eyes were taunt and disapproving, "He does everything in his power to keep us safe- especially from the dark kingdom."

 A lone cloud, gray and burly and adamant, drifted towards the sun and  blocked the hot, dusty light that had been creeping up on people's backs. The light that flowed in through the bakery's windows onto the goods and display windows disappeared, and Aladeen sighed as he struggled to find change in the now-dimly-lit counter. 

 "Isn't that a little hypocritical?" one of Aladeen's newer customers, a thin, lanky fellow with unfortunately sized ears, shot back, "You worry about the kingdom's state, and our King is the leader. To criticize his decisions would be to criticize him."  

A heavy silence filled the bakery for a second or so, and then Aladeen gave his now-fuming mute customer his sweet delicacies and wished him well. 

"I suppose," Aladeen finally spoke, giving a warm, apologetic smile to his new customer, "Blaming and questioning are, within reason, very different from each other, do you not agree?" 

The whole bakery erupted into undisguised and good-hearted, jovial laughs. "Oh, Aladeen," said an elderly customer, "Still trying to leave some good quotes behind, eh?"

Aladeen laughed, and his booming, genuine laughter filled the bakery with a warm, different kind of summery light. 

"They'll quote me one day!" he joked, picking up his ladle to stuff an extra strawberry cream roll into a customer's order. 

The cloud that had previously blocked the light was pushed away. The bakery yet again was filled with a harmonious, lazy light that made people fan themselves and complain while secretly enjoying its stifling embrace. All was well, all was good- but Aladeen, while conversing with yet another customer, could feel something lodged in his throat, muddy, murky and altogether unpleasant. 

Aladeen was a humble man, of humble origin, humble beginnings. He had never considered himself anything but a baker. His instincts were limited to knowing how long the blueberry tartes needed airing, or how much onion could one meat pastry hold without being too much. 

But it seemed (and this surprised Aladeen greatly) that he had instincts on things that were not baking. 

For Aladeen, even before his bakery burnt down and even before all the pastry puffs and cinnamon puddings disappeared forever- he had known that bad things were about to befall him, and he had known on that day, with the dimming light, the mute customer, and the eighteen pastry puffs that these things would, inevitably, be no more.