Collector of Oddities - A Stormlight Archive FanFiction

(Prologue) Iriali

[Ui]

Their golden hair flowed behind them as they forced their way through the streets of Kholinar. People stared at him as he passed, never having seen a man of his kind before. His skin was the golden tan, similar to that of his hair—a person of the Iriali and the land of Iri to the West. He avoided those stares, pushing forward without restraint through the waves of people. They wouldn't know it, but their spheres were being nicked from their pockets as he moved.

"Almighty forgive me, but I will need their Light for this heavenly mission." The Iriali would whisper each and every time before slipping their spheres into his own pouch. 

A serpent writhed along his back, poking its head up just over the Iri's shoulder, only visible to him. Where the vilespren looked otherwise like the average snake, its eyes were two red crystals, jutting out from the face. They glowed with faint Stormlight as the spren looked around. 

"Nalan will have your head for this, yet you still agree to steal such things? Simple circles that light up with the storms?" The spren hissed, exaggerating its 'sss' sounds as it spoke. "Justice, Ui, does not discriminate. Shoemaker, orphanage keeper, it does not matter."

Ui shooed off the spren with his hand, grumbling something to himself before speaking up. "Ah, what would you know, Coyle? You've got crystal for brains and- and-"

The Iriali looks off to a nearby market stand where an older fellow was selling pastries and meat-pies—Alethi food. Strange food. 

"Well? Crystal for brains and- what is it?" Coyle cocked his head off to the stand, as well, following the gaze of Ui. "Ah, that looks like him. No?"

Ui nodded. "Looks like, though I don't sense any Light or spren, beyond the windspren taking that orange roll." He watches as an orange roll lifts off from the stand and starts to float away: little blue leaves surrounding it to take it away, like ants that have found their prey. 

"And... that means?" 

"A sign of Justice, perhaps. We are closer than we think."