Foxfire || A Nine-tailed Fox Fantasy

🎐[2] The Beauty and the Beast

There's a park map displayed on the e-board outside the Emerald Grove park gates. To you, a person coming from Selene Avenue, the gates near the e-board would be the Eastern Gates. According to the map, to hit your apartment in Chiho Street through the Western Gates, the shortest path would be the one along the diameter of the circular park. You pull out the phone in your coat pocket and snap a quick picture of the map for further reference. The time is five P.M., a rather unusual exit time for you.

You ignore the long line of notifications popping up on the upper bar. You're surprised by the Chatterbug app's tolerance to drunken spamming when you see Sienna's name floating near a whopping forty five. You switch off and drop the phone into your coat pockets.

She'll probably delete them once she wakes up, she usually does, you think. Mom's going to be dejected to see her in this state when she comes here. Her star-student and head chef back at Hausenhoff wasting herself away on champagne. I wonder if she remembers how she had taught me to shell shrimps? Ah, the good old days.

You wait for the sweetcorn kernels in your corn-plastic cup to cool down as you queue up before the ticket-booths. Three long lines of people are seperated by stainless steel stanchions, connected to each other with thinner steel bars. You stir the hot kernels and inhale the scent of oregano, chilli, salt and butter. It has been one week since the whole punching in the stomach incident. The nursing student living in the apartment opposite to yours had upbraided you for not getting to a hospital after the blunt trauma.

The clouds overhead rain on, spraying snow on everything, like a child armed with a whole jar of powdered sugar does on its cookies. Couples interlocking arms, families eager for their outdoor reunions, hobos looking for a place to sleep for the night and so on line before you.

A baby peeks over the shoulder of woman standing in your immediate front. Drool drips from its mouth onto their mother's fur hoodie. It gives you a twin-toothed smile and waves its chubby arms at you. You cross your eyes and stick out your tongue. When you wiggle it, the baby bursts into giggles that shake its little frame. The mother looks over her shoulder and catches you doing your antics. You blush and continue stirring your corn, deciding to focus on the people up ahead. Your stomach now sports a red bruise after the blow underneath all the layers of clothing. You resist the urge to rub it as per the nursing student's instruction.

You dig your coat pockets for a five mirre coin when you reach the ticket booth. Once you pull it out, you re-check the capital M and the five on one side and the coat of arms on the other. The platinum blonde ticket-lady at the booth smiles at you as you slide the nickel coin across the smooth wood. You can see features of the ancient Aelvenfolk in her, in the tapering tips of her ears and the lavender undertones of her white locks. She rips a yellow ticket off the machine and hands it over to you.

"Welcome to the Emerald Glades Shrine and Park. Enjoy you time here!"

"Yeah, hi," you begin. "Can I buy a daily pass ticket?"