Our group of three began to move throughout the city. I stood in the shadow of Gero, similarly to how my little sister would hide behind me when she was scared. Most of the people were dark skinned like Gero, however I did see a few people with skin my color and even a few others with skin the color of milk. I also saw a man with bright blue skin, but I was sure that was because of one of his Cards.

The blue person wasn’t the only thing I had seen that was odd. There was a woman that stood almost twice the height of the second tallest person. A building that Gero informed me was a bakery that was constantly moving, as in the building itself was swaying side to side like a tree despite being made of stone. A man was followed by a pack of dogs as tall as I was, and when the man spoke to the dogs they would bark back in very complex patterns which had to mean they were literately speaking, just in dog language.

The city was a wonder to behold, but a core part of me that grew up in a small tribe exploring the wilderness did not like this place.

Too many people, too many eyes, there was too much personality that seemed to drown out my own. I passed by dozens of people that were likely more powerful than me and I didn’t even know their names and faces, and it seemed like that was the norm here. There were a few friendly greetings, but a lot of people didn’t seem to interact with one another the same way it had been in the tribe.

People held small bags close to their bodies that jingled, coin. I had seen a few in the tribe but most of the time they were worthless and we preferred trading in goods and services. A sense of slight suspicion and distrust seemed to be on every person, both giving and receiving. Back in the FallingBird tribe if something like my family tent being ripped up in a storm or us not having enough blankets for the winter were to happen then any tribe member that could would help us out, even letting us sleep in their tent if needed.

We went up a few layers of the tiered city, and with each tier the buildings got bigger, the streets less crowded and the people better dressed. We only went up about halfway before we turned off the main street. There seemed to be less street vendors and businesses the further we got from the main street and more homes and warehouses.

In only a few more minutes we arrived at something I had been able to pick out in the distance. There were a ring of trees that towered high above most of the surrounding buildings, but instead of being the wild disorder of the Labyrinth they were in symmetrical rows.

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When we actually got to the location I saw that there wasn’t just the trees, but a whole garden of different plant life, and there even looked to be a few animals grazing.

The plants themselves were wildly different from one another. I watched as what looked to be a large amount of vines hanging on wooden posts spat out prismatic bubbles. Another was a small tree no taller than myself that was just… walking, like a human person. In fact it walked with a sort of swagger, like it was the baddest bitch in the garden and knew it.

Jaharv turned to me with a feral grin, at some point he had taken a bite out of his shirt and was still chewing on the cloth. He said something with excitement, spreading his hands out wide.

I still didn’t understand him at all, so I just put my hand on my hip and raised my eyebrow, the one connected to my functioning eye of course.

‘Welcome to your new home.’ Gero supplied.

Gero had already told me that they would let me stay with them for as long as needed, but still, calling it my home was more than I had been expecting. Maybe the translation was off.

The building that was attached to the garden was a two story home that seemed to have a small house off to the side. Made of wood and stone the building had a homely feel to it as green fines with orange leaves crawled up the sides and smaller plants were outside the windows.

They beckoned me inside and Gero moved to another room that seemed to have cooking utensils while Jaharv took me to a separate room with a table and chairs.

‘Now we will talk about you.’ Jaharv signed.

The old man had barely signed anything to me during our entire trip, leaving it all to Gero to actually explain things to me. Honestly I had been expecting him to barely know Toke at all.

‘I can give you two months of laziness, but you will either need to become my apprentice or begin to look for a way for you to eventually take care of yourself. Regardless I will not be kicking you out, but most girls your age are already apprenticed to someone.’

I nodded, the idea of me living off them for nothing let alone doing nothing myself was never a real possibility. Who knew when Tario would come back.

The city was something I had needed, a place for me to rest, not in constant danger, but it could also be the place where I stagnated and died because of that. I didn’t have some delusion that killing random people to gain Cards was well looked on here.

This place would let me rest, but I needed to go back out into the Labyrinth if I wanted to Evolve my Cards.

‘I have a few skills that may come in handy.’ I signed to the old man.