98

--The Enclave--

“Ha!” Cynth went, hands on her hips. “Coward! We showed him, didn’t we, Miko!”

The green and yellow garule man frowned. “We did,” he agreed. Concern filled his inky black eyes and he looked Guin over. “But I’m not sure I’d be quite so happy about that, considering.”

“Considering?” Cynth asked, her eyes narrowing. “Clearly he was harassing her and needed to be dealt with. So. I. Did.”

“Didn’t you hear what he said, Cynth?” Miko asked, pointing to the empty spot where the man had stood. “That was a warning, not a threat.”

“What’s the difference?” Cynth muttered. “What did that masked jerk want with you anyway, girlie? Stupid valkyrians think they own the place…”

“Guin,” Miko said, tilting his head towards her. “Are you in trouble?”

The tivarys girl rolled up her sleeves. “If you are, just let us know! Hammer and Katsu and us, we’ve designated ourselves to being a player based city watch,” she said with considerable arrogance as she pointed at her chest. “If there is a problem, just leave it to us!”

“A-Ahhh,” Guin went, holding up her hands. “It’s alright. He was just asking me... something.” She wasn’t really sure what all that was about, but she knew she didn’t want anyone worrying about her. The jackal mask that the man was wearing gave her pause, however. Grim told her to keep him updated on things, but he was very explicit about telling him about the man in the jackal mask. Even more worrying: of all the people that had been there during questioning, including Miko and Cynth, was it coincidence that she was the one he was looking for? Why Grim pulled her aside before?

Her heart plummeted. Did he know?

If he did, what were the connotations of that? Was it that the police knew more than they were saying? Was there something about her that made her a target? Or…

“Guin?” Miko touched her arm lightly.

“I’m… I’m okay.”

“You’ve gone white,” Cynth observed, and touched her cheek. “C’mon, let’s bring you over to our booth. I’ll get you some tea, how about that?”

Guin let the tivarys girl take her arm and lead her over to where the barrels they had been standing on were. Cynth took out her brewing equipment and made her a cup of tea. The scent of mint and chamomile instantly calmed her. Guin took the cup gratefully, and curled up on a nest of barrels.

The sun was warm. Beyond the scent of the tea, the street smelled of meat and spices and fruits. The market buzzed around them as she replayed the interaction in her head.

He had found her. That implied he’d been looking for her. There was frustration in his voice — she’d been ‘different’. There’d been others — of course there had been; Ollie Bear at the least, but it didn’t sound like he meant just one or two — and he had found them. But her, he’d had a hard time finding her — that meant something.

What did it mean?

It means you could be a dead girl walking, that’s what it means, the pessimistic angel on her shoulder told her. And we aren’t just talking about TheirWorld. Ollie Bear was dead, yes, but more importantly, 46-year-old Olidian Blanc was dead. There was no coming back for him — and while Guin needn’t have feared for her life in TheirWorld, she needed to move for Hadassah Graydon, now.

How… odd, she thought, watching a paladin barter with a vendor across the street. Thinking of myself as if I were someone completely different. But when Dassah’s life ended, so too would Guin’s. The idea didn’t sit well.

“Tsk,” she went, throwing her head back to finish off her tea. It bitter went as it went down.

She liked playing the role of ‘Guin’ precisely so that she didn’t have to worry about about her life. Why couldn’t the world just leave her alone?

“Y-You good there, Guin?” Cynth asked from the side. “You look a little bit riled up — but I like that face of yours! You look like you are off to battle!”

Guin snorted. “I’m off to battle, all right,” she grumbled. Off to battle with the delusional rationalizations of my alter-ego.

“Ho! Fight well!” the tivarys girl nodded her approval as Miko laughed.

A young woman — a mid-level caster class, from the look of her humble, yet decent quality robes — came up looking at bit frightened.

“Hey, Cynth, do you have any Timbus Weed?” she asked. “I don’t mean to be a bother, but I need it for my flying spell…”

“Oh! Don’t worry about it,” Cynth said, waving a hand in the air. “Give me a second — Guin, I’ll be back in a few — Miko?”

“I got her,” Miko said, sitting on a barrel next to Guin as Cynth went back to tending her shop.

Guin sighed and leaned back. She world, she saw, went on so peacefully around her that it was hard to believe that her very insignificant life could be in real danger. It could all be a joke, she supposed. That masked man was an earar, just like Grim. Maybe it was Grim. Maybe he was testing her. Did he have that much free time? If he does, he really needs a hobby.

“For all her brilliance, Cynth has a bit of a short memory,” Miko started saying. His voice was quiet as he flipped his tail. “Though, I’m not sure she knows what a ‘jackal’ is. A lot of languages just translate it as a generic word for ‘canine’ — and there are a lot of those around.” His inky eyes were pensive as he looked out into the crowd. “Ollie was the one who taught me,” he told her. “He showed me a picture of the animal and a similar mask. He said that some humans associate it with the God of Death. Is that true?”

“A jackal god? There is one — Anubis,” Guin acknowledged half-heartedly. “God of the Dead and the Underworld, in Egyptian mythology.”

“He’s... evil?”

Chuckling, she asked, “Is death ‘evil’?”

“To that valkyrian it is.”

“And to the garuli?”

Miko tilted his head. “Death… is the end of life.”

“But does that mean that it is evil?”

He fidgeted. “Not… really,” he answered. “But we don’t have gods of things like your people do. Gathori is a small world, and our people don’t have as much cultural separation as many other species do. There is no good or evil — only nature. All of us worship the Mother Mountain. We belong to her. And life… is a cycle of spirits born of the Mother Mountain. They serve and feed the Mother Mountain so that the Mother Mountain can maintain the cycle for all eternity. Life is a blessing — but so is death. Death is when we return to spirithood.” Miko laughed and scratched the back of his head. “I-I don’t know if that makes sense — I’m not really the best to try to explain it.”

“I think I understand. I don’t think we are all so different as we like to think we are — even me. Maybe that’s what divides us, in the end,” Guin said quietly, then told him: “Anubis was neither good nor was he evil — At least, not from what I know. He was guardian for the helpless, and a guide for the lost. He was the judge of those worthy to be chosen to live for all eternity. He wasn’t just a god of the dead — he cared for them. One of his roles was to perform a process called ‘embalming’, where a body is especially cared for so that it will be preserved and protected in this life and the next.”

“Do you fear him?”

“Not really. I find the story quite romantic, actually.”

“Do you fear death?”

She wanted to say ‘no’. “I do.”

“Even if it’s Anubis who’s waiting for you at the end?”

“...I guess that’s the magic of faith,” she told him. “I guess the problem is that… I don’t believe that he would be.”

Miko looked thoughtful. “What if the man in the jackal mask was like this ‘Anubis’?”

Guin couldn’t help but laugh. “For starters, he was an earar — even if he’s half valkyrian, it would take a lot to convince me that he’s ever heard of Anubis,” she said. “And if he has —”

“That’s not what I meant,” the garule man said, shaking his head. “I heard some of what he said. He told you that your life was in danger; that you should seek help. We kind of treated him as a bad guy, but what if…”

“What if he’s trying to save me?” Guin asked, playing with the empty cup in her hand. She was surprised it hadn't disappeared yet. Maybe she could leave it for Cynth to take back so she could reuse it. It dawned on her that she didn’t know much about other crafting skills. “The thought had occurred to me,” she said, then smirked. “It’s just… When you don’t know who’s out to kill you, who do you go to for help? I can pray to any god I want — but only mortals are around to help me.”

“You can trust everyone, or you can trust no one,” Miko scoffed. “One option will definitely get you killed.”

“The worth of ‘trust’ is just about as vague as the worth of the gods,” Guin mused.

The garule man tsked at her with narrowed eyes. “Is it a human trait to not to believe in people?”

“Just mine,” she told him. “I’ll learn to get over it one day,” Guin promised. “I just fear that that’s the day I’ll be betrayed.”

“Of course,” Miko muttered. “You can’t be betrayed when you don’t trust anyone. But there is a whole range of emotions you’ll be lacking in experience with if you don’t learn how to put your faith in others.”

Guin stared back into the sea of people that swam in currents before them. It was a picture of life. People talking. People laughing. People walking arm-in-arm with friends and lovers. It all looked so easy for them — but for Guin? She longed to know what it was like to live that easily, to trust that easily. People always used to tell her that one day, one day she would know. One day it would all make sense.

But that day never seemed to come.

“You never messaged that GM guy,” Miko observed. “You don’t trust him.”

“I want to,” she said quietly. She wanted to trust him, just like she wanted to trust Tea and Bahena and Sathuren. Why was it so hard for her? She even held Stella and Elric at arms length.

“Message him, Guin,” Miko told her, matching her tone.

“...I will.”

“No,” he went, black eyes wide and glimmering as he tilted his head at better angle to look at her with. “You’ll message him now.”