His eyes slowly opened up as the endless darkness dissipated, and the world, the room Sigiwaer slept peacefully for the past week. The bloody bandage soaked to blackness pressured onto his skin and hair, while a hint of dread risen within him in tandem. He cried from the top of his lungs, the sheets and his soft white clothes soiled as he lunged up, wanting to be rid of the bandages.
“Sigi!” A familiar, calming voice shouted at the same time heavy thuds upon the wooden floor permeated their home. As he turned sobbing at the door, arms held out to embrace, his mother, his beautiful mother rushed and locked her tender arms around his frail body as he wept in no pain over her shoulders. Her worried face changing calmed him a little as relief settled down her beating heart – expressed now on her enchanting aevhen visage.
“MOM? I’m sorry mom!” His voice broke as snot and pearly tears converged on his soft, damaged face. Her raven black hair touched his left cheek like a tender brush, expelling the dreadful memories of the undead charging at him with graven shriek.
“I know. I was too my Little Prince.” Mirdbruil said as her soft palms gently caressed his dark hair not under the restraints of bandages. Pearly tears started streaming forth once more from her azure eyes in a gentle almond shape, while her lips trembled in a smile as worry slowly shifted into joy and relief.
“Do not weep my Little Prince, here nothing can hurt you ever more I promise you.” Their forehead touched as she whispered to him while sobbing.
“Now, let’s get some water to clean your clothes.” She said while gently freeing him from her embrace. He sobbed for a bit while, then his hands moved onto the bandage as the absence of his one eye registered. Yet his vision wasn’t for the worse, it was even better, sharper. He now saw the unseen floating like silent wisps in the air, floating playfully left and right, up and down, towards and away from him in all colors one could imagine.
Seeing these pushed the preceding negative emotions, memories away, replaced them with a joy which source evaded his thought. “Reach out!” A tender whisper entered his mind, beckoning him. And as told he lifted his small hands, palm out and unknowingly forced those wisps, those particles to follow his simple will. In unity, they converged into his palms, filling him with soothing cold feeling, like a cure to the heated body.
“Sigi?” As the particles of many hues each turned to a darker hue, so dark they swallowed the light around them, Mirdbruil returned with a look of surprise plastered onto her alluring kind face.
“What are those floating flakes mom?” At that moment, his voice, his tone was eerily calm as reality blurred in front of his palm while pointing forward. She rushed to him and at that moment the blur disappeared as quickly as it came to be.
“The Almodo has blessed you.” She whispered with wonder mingled with pride in her eyes. “That is mana my Little Prince. Mana that permeates the air all around us.”
“Mom, can you teach me too?” He asked with an innocent tone while his attention remained on the particles floating all around them.
“We will talk about that once your Father and siblings return.” She said while once again clutching him in her embrace. Then she snapped her fingers and a bucket of water hovered into the air as if invisible hands lifted it high in the air. The truth did not lie far, as Sigi watched as the particles of myriad hues danced into the shape of hands and grabbed the wooden bucket and effortlessly raised it in the air and brought it to his beautiful mother’s arms.
**
“Hey I thought you wanted to visit the market?” Ulrich spoke while they walked down the muddy steps. He noticed the gloomy expression on Eadwald’s face.
“I did, but…” Eadwald’s words drowned at the end as they stopped for a moment.
“Hey, Sigi will be fine. All the Deossos and the Almodo will make sure of that.” Ulrich got down on to one of his knees and offered a hopeful smile as he touched his right shoulder.
He always knew what ailed Eadwald ever since he too ventured beyond the boundaries of the village with his friends. The dread filled teary eyes of his first son burned into his mind, his small frail body covered in scars and torn clothing, with his flesh blackened around the claw marks. And just like Eadwald right now, Ulrich was drenched in guilt and terror for once again watching one of his child on the brink of death.
“How do you know that?” Eadwald asked, forcing those words out as his throat turned heavy.
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“Well, because they have always looked after our family. They protected my father when he ventured into the forest, they did so with me one too many times, and you and your brother too.” Their eyes met as he spoke to him in tandem with offering a prayer to all of them to protect and save Sigi.
With that Eadwald showed him a smile as he noticed his sister trying to uplift his mood too. “Say father, will they also help us in taking care of Aunt Muriel?”
“Well, there are things they can’t help with. Kids with penalties sadly fall into this category. And on the other hand, if not for her blessed, vigilant eyes, we may had been a moment late.” Ulrich said as the two put their growing hands into his and walked towards the market brimming with people as the symphony of bustling reached their ears as they approached slowly.
This week it had been different. While usually the market was quite a busy place on the weekends, when caravans from the nearby fortresses arrived to trade, now it seemed like more had arrived. According to Gna’Yrg a wandering caravan consisted of central and far southern wandering peddlers.
And true to his words, their eyes gleamed with wonder as soon as they witnessed the deep mahogany carts lined up in the center. On both sides, lines of tents with deep pomegranate and amber hued tents. Dwarves with skin tones tanned by the flames of the forge offered strange copper automatons shaped like spiders, flies and even some smaller animals, mauve and indigo gems embedded in their various sockets.
“Oh greetings there!” A haebrian man greeted them as soon as he noticed them from the edge of his vision. His azure scaled body draped in layers of robes and shawls glinted under the white northern light, a smile on his fish-like face with dreads flowing out from his bright red veils, colored like the corals ornamenting the southern shores. His wares, various sea treasures, both natural and folk-made lost to time and depth, repaired to an extent.
The two rushed, their eyes wandering from a necklace made of pure white pearls, ancient aevhen runes engraved in their pristine surface. A wooden toy, partly covered in sea-moss carved to resemble a fierce dragon knight of the Empire atop his winged mount. A long handled axe, its blade made from the hardened bones of a scylla, a monster with numerous lupine head stalking straits where merchant ships pass by. Its pristine bone surface reflected a vile luster right into Ulrich’s eye for a moment.
“Dad, can I get this?” Eadwald asked as he lifted the toy up with puppy eyes.
“Sure.” Then he threw down the large sack he carried to here and offered a view to the merchant. For a while his eyes, a large dark pupils encircled by the hue of southern dusk looked in with great interest.
His eyes lit up with wonder as he noticed a sculpted figure of a Vharolgian, carved from a transparent, pristine stone that resembles hardened ice almost. The face peeking from the gap of the helmet, every strand of the long, thick beard converging with the figure’s hair flowing out from under it.
Eyes that gleamed with a fearlessness only one can express after a facing the Silent Shepherd numerous times. The plates and fur encompassing the arms, the torso, the shoulders, the legs in their perfect asymmetricities covering his well-honed body. The angles of the axe’s blade, handle, even the runes must had been the result of tireless precision the merchant concluded within his mind, in the span of a few seconds.
The two man then smiled at each other and shook hands concluding the transaction. Ulrich dropped the bag over his shoulders then led the two further into the market after confirming Amiriniel doesn’t desired the necklace.
“Thank you, father! But won’t you miss that?” Eadwald asked as he finally took his eyes off his new prized possession.
“Not necessarily. I will miss it for sure, but if it can bring a smile akin to yours to a child’s than it was a worthy trade. And I did plan to gift it to Sigi, but well he aims to follow in your mother’s steps too.” Ulrich said as they passed by the dwarven artificers, an aurevhen merchant dealing in baked goods native to his homeland.
Then as they reached further into, the crowd grew in mass. People from the village, legionaries from the fort that accompanied the merchants, and the mercenaries they hired as protection while traversing the continent of Vhalleryon.
“What’s happening here?” Ulrich asked Aelfsigior, an old aevhen friend of his standing at the back of the crowd, towering over the rest.
Aelfsigior was a tall, slender aevhe whom lived in Autharsovath for at least four centuries. Like most of his kin, he was blessed with graceful features perfectly aligned with each other that included even a fine, thick beard that hid his sharp, symmetrical jawline and soft, fair cheeks.
“Oh just some artist accompanied the southern merchants this time around. From what I heard and seen he seems to be offering a free painting for each of us.” He said as their arms locked together in greetings. As he turned around, his crystal blue eyes noticed Eadwald and Amirinel. He lifted them each as his massive arms wrapped around their frail bodies.
“Really. Seems to good to be true.” Ulrich said while scraping his chin.
“Thought so too, but from what I can see here, he is making a portrait of the old man’s grandson. And it looks like a fine piece of work.” He said as his aevhen eyes saw above the crowd, seeing every sharp detail. Including the grandson, a dwarf no older than fifteen with already a thick moustache adorning his rough face.
And said artist itself, a bald man with ears with faint aevhen features, almost round eyes with the outer corners slightly sharper and both perfectly aligned, with bright silver pearls in them. Fine thick winter attire in vibrant hues of mauve and amber that filled anyone with a sense of warmth as they gazed upon them.
“Maybe then tomorrow we check him out. For now let’s look around at the other stalls before we head home. The two of you still have to make amends for not calling us.” With that they left. Said artist stopped for a moment to stretch his tired arms out. In that moment he noticed Ulrich and the two leaving, and the thought, the desire to paint his figure nestled itself into his mind.