Looking For A Lamb

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‘Are your wounds healing well?’ Kairi asked as they flew over the vast desert beneath them, almost a day after their battle.

Yuzdo looked at Kairi. His face had softened since their departure. ‘I think so,’ he said, looking at his arm and abdomen, thinking: ‘you can’t see through them anymore at least…’

‘You probably think of me as a monster,’ Kairi said.

‘Only because you try so hard to be one,’ Yuzdo said a bit too bluntly, having a ready answer.

‘Not scary enough to scare you, I suppose?’

‘I don’t want to die, but living isn’t what it used to be either. I see no reason to lie,’ Yuzdo said, ‘apart from saving the innocent from you,’ he thought after.

‘After the fall, I was just the same,’ Kairi said. ‘He destroyed all that I built, my present and legacy, and vanished into thin air shortly after, leaving not a single trace. The only thing he left me with, was time to think… I made so many mistakes.’

‘True,’ Yuzdo replied.

‘For a century, I roamed the lands I used to govern. In the end, the people looked at me with nothing but fear and hate. Only then I realized, they’d always been looking at me that way. The same way I looked at those who ruled during my youth.’

‘You were a tyrant with a kingdom, now you are one without. Don’t try to make your situation sound fancy, I’m not going to pity you.’

‘I want to make things right,’ Kairi said. ‘I’ll murder Cuma and rebuild my empire. I’m going to do it right this time.’

‘Yeah yeah, you already told me, it’s not funny the second time,’ Yuzdo said, but after seeing that the rage had yet again consumed the man beside him, he believed it would be better not to provoke him anymore.

‘Where is he,’ Kairi said with a fire in his eyes.

‘What do I do… what do I say? Should I just come clean? It’s been almost a day.’ Yuzdo thought, as he did, however, in the distance, the faint image of a village appeared.

‘Thank God, I knew we’d find some kind of civilization eventually…’ Yuzdo thought.

‘Finally,’ Kairi said, ‘show me which one he is and I’ll take care of the rest.’

‘Oh, but I don’t really know if I’ll be able to. It’s been so long, you know, I kinda forgot…’

‘No matter, it’ll be the whole village then.’

‘I think I remember now,’ Yuzdo said nervously as they moved to the ground, letting go of their wings, making them dissolve to particles of Yu. Every Demon has most likely seen an Ascended before, but seeing two foreign ones fly in town would still cause the village unease, so they knew to walk their final distance.

‘What will you do after?’ Yuzdo asked, but Kairi wasn’t in the state to think about that. He merely marched towards his goal, with nothing else but Cuma in mind.

‘Maybe this is a good time? Should I take my chance?’ Yuzdo thought, looking nervously at Kairi from the corner of his eye. The fierceness in the eyes of his former King sliced through Yuzdo’s doubt. Now he knew for sure it wasn’t the time. ‘Telling the truth or attacking now is practically suicide,’ he thought, but did so without fear, getting an eerie feeling of comfort that almost made him do it.

They arrived at the foot of a vaguely defined street, wooden houses placed sporadically around it. The homes were nothing alike, not in size or design. An aesthetic often seen in smaller villages, where the people design their own living, without the help of an architect. A handful of people glanced at them as they entered town, finding a sign.

The sign read: Green Bird Village.

‘I’ve never been here. Neither has Kairi, I’m guessing. I’m sure they know of us, just not the way we look. Thank God for that.’

‘Which one,’ Kairi said, putting his hand on Yuzdo’s shoulder.

‘There are probably around a couple hundred citizens living here. I need some time to find him. Why don’t you sit on that bench over there?’ Yuzdo said, pointing at a wooden bench placed in front of the first house to the left.

Yuzdo moved through the street, trying to figure out his next move.

‘Someone has to die… fuck-fuck-fuck! What do I do? I have to pick some poor bastard that’s going to be shredded to dust! Maybe I should’ve just let the kid die, that’d probably be better… There is no time for that, Yuzdo, think about the now! The moment you pick someone, all hell will break loose. These people probably know each other very well, so it won’t just be one corpse!’

‘Gather round everyone! Come get your drinks at Baskin’s Pub, the best in the Middle East! You there, Sir, care for some iced tea?’ an employee outside the pub said, trying to gather the attention of strangers and citizens alike.

‘No, thank you,’ Yuzdo said, thinking; ‘I’m about to indirectly kill someone, and this man’s trying to sell me iced tea. Wait a minute, he… he doesn’t know me, yet is standing there trying to lure me in a pub. That means there must be more people like me… tourists… I need to pick a tourist, someone the town doesn’t care about.’

Yuzdo walked over to the pub, his mind still in deep thought.

‘Couldn’t resist, huh?’ the man in front said.

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‘Yeah-yeah,’ Yuzdo replied, quickly moving past him.

Yuzdo entered the pub as if he was entering hell. The pub had a stone floor with in the middle a campfire.

‘How sad, couldn’t they find a single light-Demon? Even when the Demon controlling the flames puts the heat on low, it stays a fire. I guess the pub still wins, since the customers will be more eager to buy refreshments.’

Around the campfire were chairs and tables, with only the ones close to the flames being empty.

‘Have a seat, Sir,’ the waiter to his left said.

‘I’d rather not…’ Yuzdo thought, but he’s a man on a mission after all. He pulled the crooked chair, scratching the already scratch-filled floor even more, and took a seat behind the round table.

After Yuzdo took his seat, the waiter asked him; ‘what’d it be? We recommend the orange-lemon iced tea.’

‘Do I not get a menu? Nevermind, orange-lemon is fine,’ Yuzdo said, making the waiter leave, smiling from his eyes. Yuzdo looked around him, scanning the pub.

‘Hmm, there’s a handful of people… I need to find a traveler,’ he thought, ‘preferably someone alone.’

He searched for the reserved among the sociable, the alien within. He sharpened his ears, focusing his eyes on a single point, the center of the campfire.

‘Focus,’ he thought, even closing his eyes to concentrate harder.

After a minute, Yuzdo gave up. ‘They’re too loud, you’d have to be a freak like Cek or that kid to find the silent ones in a close-knit space like this.’

Gently, Yuzdo peeled a small bundle of wood off the table’s side. He turned his head a bit to the right, looking over the campfire’s flames to have the most amount of people in his sight. He flicked the chunk of wood and as it touched the ground, bouncing a few times; he got what he wanted.

From the crowd, while they all ignored the insignificant drop, a single man reacted to it. Yuzdo noticed, but before the stranger could meet eyes with him, he quickly looked away.

‘Gotcha,’ Yuzdo thought.

The instinct of being weary and on edge in foreign places is wise in most cases, but there are no absolutes in Alem.

‘No, wait, what if it’s just a coincidence? I can’t afford any mistakes,’ he thought with a sigh. ‘What else… what else.’

‘Sir, your orange-lemon,’ the waiter said.

‘Thank you,’ he said, without looking at him.

‘Alright, his clothes match those of the rest. He doesn’t really talk to anyone, even though he’s sitting among a whole bunch of people. Damn it, give me a hint.’

Yuzdo grabbed his drink and smelled it, then dipped his finger in quickly.

‘Guess my drink is clean. It’s rude to check for someone’s Yu in your drink, but I’m not the only bad man in these parts of Alem.’

He took a sip and exhaled a breath of disappointment. ‘Orange-lemon iced tea my ass… It’s practically water with a slice of orange and lemon each, fucking scammers.’

‘Oh! Maybe!’ he thought and quickly glanced over at the stranger’s table, faced with another disappointed at the sight of an empty glass. He didn’t give up, though. As if he dropped a thing, Yuzdo stood up from his chair and acted like he was picking something up from the ground. As he kneeled down, he peeked underneath the stranger’s table, seeing the peels of an orange and lemon.

‘They got you too, huh,’ he thought.

‘That’s mine,’ someone said from his right.

‘What?’ Yuzdo replied as he stood up again.

‘That thing you picked up, it’s mine, so cough it up,’ a tall, wide fellow said, a foot away from Yuzdo.

‘Sorry brother, I didn’t pick up anything,’ Yuzdo said, showing his empty palms.

‘Don’t play games with me! Give me the fucking money I dropped!’ the man said, grabbing Yuzdo by his collar.

Understanding what was going on, Yuzdo grabbed three coins from his pocket and gave it to the man. ‘There you go. Can we calm down now?’

The man took the coins and turned away, a look on his face surprised it worked.

Yuzdo went back to his seat, unfazed.

Scratching the back of his head, he thought: ‘man, what did I get myself into. In a sense, Cuma set us all free, but here I am, working again like the servant I never wanted to be.’

Yuzdo put his hand on the side of his chair and released a thin stream of water, letting it be absorbed by the wood as it glided from the chair’s leg into the floorboard. The dim light of the campfire made it nearly impossible to differentiate the damp wood from the dry. Like a cockroach, Yuzdo made the dampness move through the ground, picking a spot a few feet away from the stranger.

Taking another sip of his drink, with almost all of it still left, he decided he had enough. Noticing the waiter’s look at the empty glass on the stranger’s table, Yuzdo halted him. ‘I have somewhere to be,’ he said, placing his glass on his tray.

‘That’ll be eight and a split,’ the waiter said.

‘Wow… these people have no shame,’ Yuzdo thought, grabbing nine coins out of his pocket. After giving eight to the waiter, he put the last coin between his thumbs, bending until it broke.

With the waiter now on his way towards the stranger, Yuzdo watched his steps carefully. At the exact time the waiter put his feet on the damp spot, Yuzdo, with a gentle motion of his index-finger, raised the water to the surface and froze it in the shape of a flat dome, making the waiter fall flat on his face as Yuzdo’s drink lands on the stranger’s lap.

‘Perfect,’ Yuzdo thought, with the rest of the pub, after a second of silence, bursting out into laughter.

‘Now we’re even, mister Waiter,’ Yuzdo thought.

‘I-I’m so sorry, Sir!’ the waiter said to the stranger.

‘It’s alright, don’t worry about it,’ he said.

Yuzdo stood up. ‘Let’s head outside. I’ll wash your clothes for you,’ forming a ball of water in his palm to show him his affinity.

‘I’d appreciate that,’ the stranger said. Dressed in a simple robe and sandals, he followed Yuzdo out of the pub.

The stranger undressed his top half in the alley next to the pub and gave his clothes to Yuzdo, revealing a with gold encased emerald necklace hanging from his brown skin.

Yuzdo rinsed his clothes with a blast of water out of his palm, saying: ‘nice stone.’

‘It’s not for sale,’ the stranger said.

‘I wasn’t buying anyway,’ Yuzdo thought, having an odd feeling, as if he’d seen the necklace before.

‘Here you go,’ he said, giving him the drenched clothes, ‘let the sun dry them on your body.’

‘Thank you, really. I hate being sticky.’

Yuzdo scratched the back of his head. ‘I basically washed water with water, but ok,’ he thought.

‘Allow me to repay you,’ the stranger said, reaching for his pocket.

‘No,’ Yuzdo quickly said, ‘you can repay me with some company. I’m a foreigner in these lands and-‘

‘Nope,’ the stranger said, throwing three coins against Yuzdo’s chest and turning around to walk away.

‘What, hey!’

‘Listen, you’ve been eyeing me the whole time we were at the pub. No offence, but you’re just creeping me out a bit,’ he said and started walking.

Watching his prey move away, Yuzdo sighed, saying under his breath: ‘for six’s dark man…’

‘Did I just hear you right!?’ the stranger suddenly said with a wide smile and shining eyes, instantly turning around and getting way too close to Yuzdo’s personal space.

‘I…’

‘By six’s light, you’re from the Midwest! Me too!’ the stranger said.

Relieved, Yuzdo didn’t know if he was supposed to smile or not. ‘This is all I need, he’s all the way from the fucking Midwest! The village definitely won’t be willing to fight for his life. He’s the one who is meant to die.’

‘Let’s get back inside! I just have to chat with you now!’ the stranger said, grabbing Yuzdo’s arm and running back into the pub.

‘Wait, hey, stop!’