The man sat back in his seat, an empty ceramic bowl beautifully painted with an illustrious lightning blue in front of him. He had tilted his hat forwards, covering his eyes with it as he sunk into his seat with his hands behind his head. By all indications, he appeared to be asleep. Even still, the very air around him felt tenuous.
After a while of looking around, the three of them decided on a table further up the central walkway, large enough for them and their bags while still being out-of-the-way enough to not warrant any unwanted attention.
Pallas turned around immediately, signalling to the other two to leave as well.
“Why? What happened?” Soleiman asked.
She tilted her head silently, gesturing to the slumbering Officer.
“Oh, I see,” he said. “But there weren’t any other diners on the way here that said they sold durian.”
“I’ll have my durian some other time,” she whispered back. “Whenever that time comes.”
“It’s okay, Pallas,” Qingxi said. “He isn’t going to pick a fight with you for no reason.”
“Yeah,” Soleiman added. “Especially since we have a foreigner with us. Two, actually, counting me.”
Qingxi nodded. “He wouldn’t want to anger the dojo.”
Pallas sighed.
“Alright then, if you say so.”
As they got to setting their bags down, a young waitress, her short and wavy golden hair complimented by the warm lights of the diner, emerged from a swinging door located on the far end of the room, presumably leading to the kitchen. She hurriedly walked past the door, slipping past the bar and approached the three of them as they sat down in their seats.
She handed them a little piece of paper each, each one with a list of the dishes and drinks the diner served, paired with their prices and approximated waiting times. As the three of them got to perusing the varied drinks and dishes at their disposal, the waitress produced a worn-out notebook and a stout pencil from her apron, readying herself to take down their orders.
“M-May I interest you in some of our bar’s refreshments?” the waitress asked, shrinking slightly as she stumbled on her words.
“Ooh, drinks,” Soleiman flipped the piece of paper over and over again, contrasting each side’s assortment against the other.
Though ‘Strawberry Surprise’ and ‘Mango Mania’ sounded pleasant enough, almost every single drink listed on the menu demanded a price well over their budget. Granted, they did come in with the intent of indulging themselves, but even then they maintained at least some semblance of restraint.
Soleiman peeled his eyes off of the menu, glancing a look at both Pallas and Qingxi.
“It’s alright, I’ll pass.”
“Me too,” Qingxi added.
The waitress looked at Pallas, though the eye contact they held felt so fragile it was as if it would shatter in the face of a gust of wind.
“I…” Pallas returned to the menu, descending down the list of drinks until she got to the cheapest of the bunch. “I’ll have the… Durian Duke’s Desire.”
The waitress nodded enthusiastically, scribbling the drink down onto her notebook. “And what dishes would you like?”
“Wanna share the… Broth of Brosperity?” Pallas asked the two of them.
“Prosperity?” Soleiman asked.
“No, Brosperity. Prosperity with a ‘b’.”
“What the heck is a Brosperity?” Soleiman asked, raising his eyebrow inquisitively as he turned to inspect the menu.
“Oh! Uh…” the waitress exclaimed, though she deflated once their eyes fell onto her. “I-It’s… Chef’s specialty. It’s very filling!”
Pallas looked back at the two of them expectantly.
“Alright, sure.”
Qingxi nodded along.
“We’ll have the Proth of Prosperity.”
“Okay!” she responded, scribbling onto her notebook before handing them a hand-written note of how much it would set them back.
“Seriously though, what the heck is the Proth of Brosperity?” Soleiman asked again, fishing out a handful of coins and fiddling about with counting them.
“All it says on the menu is,” Pallas picked up the menu, pointing out the description under the dish’s peculiar name, “Will not disappoint.”
“Well, if that isn’t ominous.” He handed the correct amount of coins over to the waitress to save her the hussle, and she disappeared back into the kitchen before he could even put the leftovers back into his bag.
“It was the cheapest. They even put a star right next to it! It has to be good.”
She pointed out the cute little drawing of a star that had been placed right next to the dish’s name. Given that it looked significantly more grey and shiny than the other text on the menu, it almost seemed as though it had been drawn in by hand as an afterthought.
As the three of them waited for the arrival of their drink, they spent some time lounging in their solid wooden chairs, spared from the discomfort by a singular thin cushion covering the seat and backrest. They abandoned any attempt at conversation then, instead simply spending the time soaking in the warm atmosphere of the diner. As far as they knew, it would be a while since they’d be able to feel this kind of quiet again- however tenuous.
After a while, they were roused from their restful trance by an extremely pungent, overwhelming musk that Pallas and Soleiman knew all too well to be the scent of durian.
Pallas loved it, the stink of the fruit invoking a feeling of fullness in the very depths of her lungs.
Soleiman was less partial, willing to bear it given his sister’s love for the fruit. He had learnt to accustom himself to the stink, smelling it as just any other fragrance.
Qingxi, though. Well, she was much less impressed.
As soon the scent hit her nostrils, it assaulted her olfactory senses and provoked her face into scrounging up in retaliation. She physically recoiled in her seat, jumping back slightly as she buried her face into her sleeves.
“W-What?”
She tried to formulate a question, instead stumbling on her words as her vocabulary failed to fully encapsulate the sheer bewildering intensity of the drink’s stench. Why would a drink of all things stink, anyway?
She ended up mumbling a string of expletives and profanities into her sleeve, finally gathering herself and managing to point accusingly at the offending drink.
“What is that?”
Pallas and Soleiman exchange glances.
“You’ve never smelt durian before?” Pallas said, taking her first sip of the creamy yellow elixir.
“What… What is a durian?”
“It’s like a large fruit,” Soleiman said, gesturing with his hands to emulate holding a fruit of formidable stature. “Around about the size of my forearm, but bigger.”
“Yeah, five times as big.”
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“It… it has these…” Soleiman struggled, his train of thought knocked on its side by Pallas’ quip. “Spikes, essentially, all over it. And coming out from the top it has these razor sharp leaves that you can absolutely cut someone with.”
“Can confirm.”
Qingxi sat in befuddled silence for a brief moment, her nose still buried in her sleeve and her arm still stuck out pointing at the heinous stink-bomb that she couldn’t believe passed for a drink.
“Are… you sure it smells like that?”
“To be fair, it does stink a little bit more than usual.”
Pallas herself took a closer whiff, reevaluating the situation.
“Yeah, definitely on the stinkier side,” Pallas looked at Qingxi, still hiding away from the drink’s rank, eyes fixated on the liquid while her feline ears remained pressed to her head.
“I can throw it away… if you want.”
Qingxi shook her head. Slowly, she rose from her sleeve, very gradually accustoming herself to the feeling of having her nostrils empested by what she felt was revolting enough to make rotten meat smell like a treat.
“It’s ok.” she managed, sounding very nearly as though she teetered on the verge of gagging. “I’ll bear with it.”
“Sorry.”
“It’s alright. You’ve bought it now, so you might as well drink it.”
Across the central walkway, they heard a noise. The creak of a chair and the groggy groan of a man interrupted the voices of their conversation and the noises of merchants across the diner privately slurping down their soups.
Pallas and Soleiman froze in place, their eyes on Qingxi as they refused to turn around and run the risk of grabbing a Gravitas Officer’s attention. Their eyes told her all she needed to know, and in response, she nodded in silent confirmation.
The Officer in purple stirred from his slumber, his nose flaring and his face scrounging in disgust as he waved his hands about his face.
Most other patrons almost simultaneously seemed to shrink into their dishes, burying their faces in their meals and engrossing themselves so deeply into their food so as to not draw the Officer’s attention.
Pallas and Soleiman tensed up slightly, knowingly precisely that in all likelihood it was the stench of Pallas’ Durian Duke’s Desire that had roused the Officer from his slumber.
They recalled what their mother had told them about the Gravitas. That they were the greatest enemies to the Minervan people and by extension, her, too. That they were the ones whom she had dedicated her life to resisting, and that they were the ones Pallas and Soleiman knew they would one day have to confront and drive out of their homeland.
And in the name of Liberation, truly, they would one day fulfil their destiny.
Though she rarely elaborated on the supposed sins of these invaders, they understood well enough from the change in their mother’s mood after each day of liaising and cooperating with her allies that it couldn’t have been any good. And besides, what stories she told them about how they forced themselves onto the Minervan people and extorted them for their Edenberries were potent enough to do the convincing.
The stink of the durian hung guiltily in the diner’s stuffy atmosphere, its tendrils spreading out across the diner and pointing back to the very source of the smell.
“What in the name of the Lord is that stench?” he said, deep and resounding enough to feel as though it had crawled its way through the air and into their ears.
Pallas’ face reddened, gradually growing in intensity as her heart raced faster and faster, pounding harder and harder like the roar of the drums of war rallying men to face their death.
The Officer rose from his seat, surveying the diner around him.
They heard a gagging noise, followed by a frustrated grunt.
“Oi, you!”
The three of them froze.
But Qingxi had no luxury of ignorance, having sat facing the Officer, and her eyes defiantly rose to meet his.
She gathered herself, steadying her breath as the rest of the diner fell to silence, the air filled only by the lingering reek of the durian drink.
“Yes?”
The Officer moved from his table, sliding his way past chairs, his black-and-purple cloak nearly dragging across the floor itself.
“Would you care to explain, exactly,” he said, kicking chairs in his way back under their tables, “Why it reeks of manure in this fine establishment?”
“It’s a drink, Sir. A drink we ordered.” Qingxi held her ground, though the same could not be said for Pallas- her fingers quivering as they clutched the drink’s glass.
“Oh, a drink, you say?” He said, now storming his way across the central aisle. “And why exactly does a drink smell like the inside of a septic tank?”
Soleiman shook visibly in his seat, eyes locked in a thousand yard stare as he grappled with his fear.
“Uh, it…” her feline ears twitched slightly. “It’s made of durian-”
The Officer now stood directly behind Pallas, her face beet red. He leaned over her shoulders, his glare nearly boring its way through her skull.
“Don’t you think it’s a little inconsiderate to be ordering something that reeks of sick?”
Qingxi and Soleiman remained quiet, their eyes now fixated on Pallas.
“Y-yes, Sir. I… I apologise.”
The Officer almost seemed to have been riled up by the response, though just as soon as he had opened his mouth, he decidedly backed away.
Looking closer, Pallas’ eyes had gleaned over with a thin sheet of tears.
The Officer, his eyes still exuberating that sheer overwhelming intensity, continued.
“Drink it.”
Pallas wiped the sheen of tears from her eyes, staring blankly at the drink. Her mind was a conflicted mess, streaks of panic and fear intermingling with the backdrop of frustration and a tinge of rebellion that all set the stage for a dilemma that held her still.
After all, she could lash out at him. A well-timed shot of coagulating blood down his windpipe would do the trick. Or perhaps maybe even a drawn out strangulation. Why couldn’t she?
“Since you ordered the sewage, it’s only right that your mouth be the cesspool, no?”
What was stopping her?
“Drink it, and keep your mouth shut.”
But she downed it instead.
The drink itself wasn’t bad at all, its taste a familiar and welcoming one that Pallas had learned to associate with special nights where Rei had given them a slightly larger budget to fashion dinner out of.
One, two and then three gulps later, and the drink had been drained to the very bottom of the glass, its sweet, cold contents sliding down her throat.
She set it back down onto the table as she gasped for air, the stink now completely transferred to her breath.
“Good.”
The Officer spun on his heels, his cloak flowing around and brushing against Pallas’ back, as if to taunt her. And as he walked back to his seat, Pallas was left staring blankly into the distance, unresponsive to the concerned looks of her fellows.
She sat in simple silence, very visibly. Never before had they provoked a Gravitas official so directly, and never before had they had to face one down in terrified compliance.
“Hey,” Soleiman whispered. Gently, he put an arm around Pallas consolingly. He shook her slightly before moving to hug her.
“It’s okay, it’s over now.”
Pallas remained lifeless, though his words stirred her from her dissociative stupor. Her face still sunken and blank, her eyes lifted to meet Qingxi’s concern.
Qingxi nodded in affirmation. “Mm, we’re fine,” she said, reaching a hand out to hold one of Pallas’. “That’s all he’ll do to you.”
To Pallas and Soleiman, seeing and even encountering a Gravitas official was no novel experience. They visited cities regularly as Rei traversed the allied countryside, and though the incidence of these officials was low given the high autonomy of the allied duchies, they nevertheless still had a non-negligible presence. That being said, though, they had never actually done anything that could’ve provoked a direct response, either accidental or on purpose.
Perhaps it was the lingering anxiety about their plan to take flight from Gravitas Minerva, the novelty of having a new fellow in their team of three or maybe even it was a sense of folly that came with the fact that they’d navigated past encounters with no problem that led them to lowering their guard. Maybe she just really was that excited to have durian again.
Or maybe she wanted a reason to cave the Officer’s skull in. If she even could, thinking about it again without the fumes of rage and the mists of fear clouding her judgement.
She rubbed the tears from her eyes, the redness in her face now fading back into the natural lily white of her skin.
“Yeah, yeah.”
Admittedly, she hated this aspect of her power. Whether it be in a dream or in real life, blood would rush to her skin whenever she found herself in a stressful situation. Though likely just her subconscious’ attempt at protecting her, it did no more good than the panic attacks one might get when presented with the prospect of carrying out a public address.
Eventually, the heat in her eyes that forced her tears to the surface receded, the pounding of her heart in her head and ears slowly sinking back into her chest.
“I’m sorry. Shouldn’t have bought this drink.”
Qingxi patted her hand slightly.
It almost felt as though she herself was losing control sometimes, as though a primal force within her more connected to the flesh and bone and instinct of the primordial Man was taking charge of her, overcoming her rationality.
She slowed and deepened her breath, remembering what Rei told her about the importance of remaining level, about keeping oneself on top of one’s emotions. She told her about how that set Man aside from Beast, and that if one could not get a hold of their emotions, were they really so much different from an animal acting on instinct?
Pallas soon managed to calm herself down, and both Soleiman and Qingxi returned to sitting properly back in their seats in patient anticipation of the Broth of Brosperity to come.
“Oh, Qingxi.”
“Hmm?”
“This,” she said, gesturing to her now only slightly red face, her eyes darkened by the tears. “This just happens whenever I get stressed. Next time you don’t have to worry too much about me, okay?”
“Okay.”