William followed his pack mates out into the streets of the city. It was still early and he wasn’t ready to go back to his room just yet. He looked out over the city toward the Tower. The black obelisk of the building still brought back unpleasant memories but with all he had been through, his trials there had taken a low number on his bad experience list.
He turned to his right and let his feet walk. The city was quiet and that alone was enough to dampen his mood. He knew how massive the city was. The number of beings it would take to fill it was incomprehensible in solid terms. He could say around one and a half million could probably live here comfortably. The number was real but trying to visualize that many shape shifters in one place was at once a majestic dream that just put the somber present into a glum perspective. The glory that the City under the Mountain once had would not be returned to it for a very a long time, if ever.
He scratched at his head as he tried to fully comprehend what it was that Katherine and Nicolas had said. He had been the last new shape shifter to come into the city. He had been reborn on his own, something that not many shape shifters can survive through. It must have been some time since a new shape shifter had entered the city when he came here, because of the excitement that surrounded his arrival.
With his mind thus occupied, he was slow to recognize the part of the city that he had traveled to. It was a part of the city that he had visited often and knew very well because of its inhabitant. William glanced around and found the building that his subconscious had wanted him to find since leaving the cafeteria. He started up a ramp and stopped at a familiar second floor doorway. Without knocking or otherwise announcing his presence he walked in.
The room was about as bare as his own, with a few exceptions. The far wall of the room had a single wooden mask hanging on it. The face was angular, like an upside down triangle. The eyes were topped with curvy thick black eyebrows. The nose shot down from between the eyes to end several inches lower. The mouth was open with a mustache and a small beard surrounding an open lipped expression which, to this day, William could not decipher. Above the eye brows there was a thick band of black that could have been meant to signify a crown or some other such head dressing. And even above the thick swath of color the mask extended itself a good six inches above it. The mask was gold with everything else highlighted in black, no other colors were used. The mask had always been of interest to William. But as to the true meaning of the thing, its owner would not expand upon. William knew that it was of great value to the owner and had learned quickly not to press him about it.
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The two other things in the room, were a plain wooden dresser, not unlike his own, and a bed. Over the bed hung a great mosquito net. The net was more decoration than anything and the long folds of the wispy material flowed around the occupant sitting up on the thick furs that covered the mattress.
William smiled widely at his friend, “Hey! How’s the sick life treating you?”
A long black skinned arm reached out from below the mosquito net and pulled the light fabric up. The net moved up like a stage curtain revealing a midnight black face and two pearl white eyes. The face split open like a rift in the earth as a broad smile spread across the bed ridden man’s face. “Will! What brings a guy like you to a place like this?”
William took an exaggerated look around the room and nodded to himself, “Yeah, your right. What is a fine upstanding guy like me doing in such a dump like this? I’m sorry Charles,” William took a step backwards toward the open doorway, “but if you want me to visit you anymore you’re going to have to move to better part of the city. I can’t be seen here.” William couldn’t help the smile from breaking free on his face as he finished laughing, “What would my upscale friends think?”
Charles joined in and laughed with him, “Your upscale friends!? Your right, your reputation would be totally destroyed.” He laughed heartily, “You keep coming here and what’s next, a fine upstanding white boy like you might get shacked up with a good black woman and then where would the world be?”
William stifled his laughter to a snicker as he thought about that for just a moment, “Hey, God is in his heaven…”
“and we’re stuck here.” Charles finished.
William walked over to the bed and grasped his friends arm. “How’ve you been?”
Charles smiled back at him from the bed, “Will, you’re acting like you haven’t seen me in years. I’m fine.”
William backed up and sat down on the floor away from the bed. “I know. I’m sorry, man. I’m just really glad to see you.”
Charles could read into William behavior better than William gave him credit for. “You are still worried that one day you might find this room empty and an Elder come to tell you that I’m ‘no longer here’, aren’t you?”
William looked down at the black mirrored surface of the room’s floor. He saw himself reflected there in the deep surface. His face was one of worry, relief, and guilt. He looked up and met Charles’s eyes. “Yeah, Yeah I do worry… a lot.” Covering for the gay moment, he quickly added, “Aceso was mentioning Achelois today.”
Charles sat back and leaned heavily against the wall, his tall frame carrying his head upwards to be obscured by the hanging mosquito net. William could just make out the man nodding his head. “That would be consistent.”
William cocked his head to the side, “What do you mean, ‘consistent’?”