“Somewhere over the rainbow, way up high, and the dreams that you dreamed of once in a lullaby. Oh, somewhere over the rainbow,”

“I do like that song, so simple, but beautiful.”

Auntie Lara used to sing it to Shango all the time when he first moved in with them to calm him down or soothe his temper when he was acting out. Since then, he always hummed it to calm himself when he felt he was about to do something out of character.

Humming it most of the time would ease his frustration. He had many songs that he would play in my head for different situation to put himself at ease. A defense mechanism, one would say.

And most of the time, they would help, but other times...

“Shango, Shango!” he could hear Ave shouting about something, so he turned to face her.

“Your hands, Shango, your hands!” Looking down, he could see his hands wrapped Thorn’s neck, squeezing ever so slightly as the seconds passed.

“Shango, release him now,” Rolla said as she tried to remove his hands from his neck.

He did not know how, but before he knew it, he already had his hands around Thorn’s neck, lifting him off the ground.

He could feel the chunks of meat and potatoes touching the edge of his lips. The strong alcoholic beverage was violating his nose, so much so that he nearly vomited himself.

He was not sure. He did not want to be sure, but it felt like he had tasted a bit of the concoction that was mixed in the belly of this drunk bastard.

Returning to his senses, he released the guy from his grip, dropping him to the floor with a loud thud. Ave ran over to check on him and tried to help him up.

He could hear him huffing, trying to regain his breath. He couldn’t have cared less if Thorn ever recovered his breath. In fact, at that moment, he believed the world would have been a lot better without him. At that moment, he only cared about one thing.

Pulling himself from Rolla’s grip, he said in a low voice, “Water.”

“Huh?” Rolla could barely hear him over the sound of Thorn coughing and Ave patting his back.

“Wa—ter.” he repeated, slower and louder.

He needed to take a hot bath. The longer he was covered in another man’s vomit, the more he wanted to bash the guy’s face in.

Finally understanding what he had said, Rolla replied, “Down the hall to the right, I will come to clean your clothing.”

“No need. Could I get some new clothing?” he knew that she could completely remove the stains and smell, but it would still upset him knowing that they were once dirtied in such a way.

While walking out, he heard Thorn shout, “Wait, you just got here!”

“Sir Thorn, please just be quiet.”

***

After returning from taking a nearly two-hour long hot bath and donning a white robe with a pair of matching pants that Rolla had given him, Shango was feeling much better, so he returned to the room. The trio were standing around the large floating book.

“Sorry about earlier. Sometimes the booze bites back. Now, like I was saying, my name is Thorn Freed, nice to meet you.” he said as he extended his hand once again.

Shango did not say anything, just staring at Thorn’s extended hand. A wide range of emotions passed over Shango’s face. The urge to slug him was running amok in his head.

Just before he had re-entered the room, Rolla had explained to him that Thorn got like that from time to time, mostly when negotiations failed. Shango knew the guy was going through a rough patch right now, but it did not stop the feeling of wanting to give him a dropkick to the chest he had.

Burying all of those thoughts deep down, he said, “Well, everyone has those types of days.” with a forced smile, reaching out his hand to shake Thorn’s hand.

“Ohh, you’re an okay guy. The last guy I vomited on held a grudge for days,” Thorn said with a wide grin.

Hearing his words caused a visible vein to appear near Shango’s temple. “Well, I’m quite the forgive guy.” he said while tightening his grip, wishing he could break Thorn’s fingers.

“What a fine man you are! Now, I heard you’re here to get yourself an Artifact Weapon.”

“Yes, I chose to become a Knight and was told I would need an Artifact Weapon, so I’m here. Show me what you got.” he said, tightening his grip more.

“Oh my, I like you. Let’s get started.” he said as he released Shango’s hand and started to flip through the floating grimoire.

“Now let’s see. Judging from your posture, the calluses on your hands and the force you used to wring my neck, you must specialize in some type of close combat. Am I right?” he asked as he continued to flip the pages in the grimoire.

“Yes, more or less.”

“Alright, then let’s try this one out first.”

The next moment, a bright yellow light emitted from the grimoire and a large spear slowly started to emerge from it. Gripping the center of the spear, Thorn tossed it towards Shango, the head of the spear landing in front of him.

“Here, try this out.”

“Yes, that’s a nice one,” Ave said. If Shango picked a spear, they could spend more time together training.

Shango took one look at it and shook his head. “Nope, I’m not touching that!” he said as he took a step back. “What the hell? I look like running spear around with a spear in my hand, next thing you know I’m chucking it, No just No.” Shango thought to himself.

“Why? This is a high-performance Artifact Weapon. Many great men have wielded this Spear,” Thorn said, Ave and Rolla nodding in agreement.

“I’m not telling you, just know I’m not touching that. No spears. On to the next one.”

Seeing that Shango was serious, Thorn tapped on the grimoire, which then sucked back in the spear. “Alright then, no spears.” Looks like we’re going to be here a while, he thought while reaching inside of his robe, pulling out a flask and taking a swig.