‘’Rakenia, the desert city in the lush plains’’

‘We’ve finally arrived!!!’ I nearly scream out from the top of my lungs. Evander strokes his beard as he smiles to himself. We put our carriage at a nearby stable, and head out to find an inn. Evander was planning on staying for a few days, since the trip to Rakenia was a horrifying experience. I quickly agreed with his idea.

We search around, and quickly find an inn. We almost run inside and secure a table. A waiter calmly comes to us, while we look like hungry coyotes. ‘Uhm…can I have your order?’ The waiter looks a bit afraid at us. Evander places a big bag of coins on the table.

‘All the food, water and wine I can get with this amount!’ Evander doesn’t know how to hold back.

‘Uhm, mister waiter, can you leave the wine out? I don’t need him drunk.’ Evander grumbles at my request but doesn’t fight back. Soon after, a large board with weird, long, thin yellowish food, finished with a red sauce on top of it is placed before us. ‘E-Evander? What am I looking at? I asked for food…not for some weird thing.’ I will admit, it looks very appetizing, and the smell is just to die for. The vegetables and meat can easily be smelled, accommodated with spices I probably have no idea what they are.

‘Wha? It’s jhust postou…,’ he says with his mouth already full, and his mouth and beard turning red. He already has eaten half of his plate. He suddenly reminds me off myself back at his home. ‘Uhm…calm down, Evander. Or you might cho-.’ I didn’t even finish my sentence, and he starts beating on his chest. He choked…how lame. If he’s beating on his chest, I could help him out. I could just give him water, but that’ll be no fun. While everyone is looking weirdly at our direction, I take a stance. ‘Ha!’ I give him a straight, hard punch on his chest.

‘GAH!’ He flies of his chair. People looks shocked at the events centering on our table.

‘That felt good…for multiple reasons.’ I let out a sigh of relief.

‘You wanted payback?!’ Evander looks scared at me. ‘Anyway, you’re not going to eat it? I thought you would be hungry enough to eat everything. Considering you-!‘

I quickly close his mouth. He still remembers last days on the road, where we had so little food with us that I accidently mistook grass for bread. It was the most shameful thing I ever could’ve done. My face turns red just by thinking about it. ‘We don’t talk about that, you bastard!’ I let him go and sit back in my seat. ‘No matter how appetizing it looks, I do need to know what I am eating. What if I eat something impure…’

‘I-Impure? What are you even talking about?’ Evander says while grabs his chair I punched him from and sits back on it. ‘Pasta is impure?’

I look at the plate of ‘’pasta’’. ‘I have never heard of that. Does it come from an animal like a snake?’

Evander shakes his head. ‘It’s made of wheat…and the sauce it made with beef.’

‘I see… I pray first, and quickly start eating the pasta in front of me. I slurp the pasta in, while taking bites of the sauce with my spoon. ‘This is…’ It’s incredible. It’s spicy herbs, the texture of the pasta, the bombastically tasting sauce! The melted cheese that lies perfectly molten on top of it! Everything just falls in harmony! I cannot believe I missed something like this in my entire life. I need to know how to make this. I need a recipe to take home, so I can have my chefs make this. ‘Evander! I demand an audience with the master chef who has brought forth this delightfully tasting cuisine!’

Evander holds his head, while a wry laugh escapes his mouth. ‘Yes, yes. I will ask the owner to have you get ‘’your audience with the master chef who has brought forth this delightfully tasting cuisine’’. Leave it to me, your majesty,’ Evander says mockingly. I ignore the fact that he tried to do that, and continue eating, while Evander starts talking with someone that presumably is the owner. The man leaves, and as I finish my plate, another man in white cooking clothes arrives in front of us.

‘Can I help you with something, sir?’ the man asks slightly nervous.

‘Can you help me? How?! This dish is amazing! The meat, the pasta, the cheese, the herbs…everything just falls in balance! I want to know how to make it! I must know how to make it! I fear that if I don’t, I will never lay hands on this beautifully crafted dish again!’ I look passionate at the chef, who looks slightly worried and afraid at me.

‘S-Sure…I know you’re exaggerating a lot right now, but I’ll show you how its done…’ I have Evander pays the bills, while I follow the chef.

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We leave the inn, and head to the market to get some supplies. ‘You look happy, Brandr…’ Evander says tired. He probably got bored while I had the chef talk me through the dish called ‘’Spaghetti Bolognese’’. He eventually gave me a written document for it, so I can show my chefs at home how to prepare this. I’m actually quite surprised that Edelweiss never thought about preparing wheat like that…

‘It shows, doesn’t it? I’m delighted to have tried something like that. My tummy is full, and I feel like I can take on the entire world!’ I almost shout while I pump my fists up. It raises the attention of a few people around me, but I don’t mind…until Evander suddenly pushes my arms back down.

‘I’d rather not do that if I were you. Not in this city.’ I look surprised at Evander, who tells me that he’ll explain later what he meant by that.

If you ride through the beautiful plains that head to Rakenia, you’d never expect Rakenia is the state it is right now. The city gives more of a feeling of a city in a desolate country, rather than one in beautiful, lush plains. For starters, the roads are completely made of sand and gravel, with only the main street being slightly bricked. All the buildings have the color of sand, as if they were made from them, and hundreds of people sitting and walking around with a bit of a gloomy expression doesn’t lift the spirit of the city at all. It looks like a city found in my world, rather than one in Illuminia. Not that I have seen every country here, but basing it of Lamia and Rotson Village, you’d expect something more…green? Lushes? Beautiful? I don’t know what I expected, but I can tell myself it was more uplifting than this...

////Rakenia's Inspiration. It didn't look like this in my mind, but I hope it can give more depth. The plains surrounding the city are also desertlike, but only for a short period, as the rest is covered in lush plains.////

We continue to our resupplying journey, buying some wood and some other tools, in order to reinforce the sides and back of the cart, so the supplies won’t fall off, or be visible to others, to avoid tragedies like people stealing our cargo. As we walk to the stables, I notice something around the city. I talk to Evander in a hushed voice. ‘Say Evander, have you already noticed?’ He slightly nods, but he doesn’t look around at all. There’s a huge amount of homeless people here in the alleys. It’s completely the opposite from the capital. Not even fairy-tale like countries like Illuminia can be as perfect as taking care of every single citizen. They cannot let everyone live with a smile on their face, or a roof above their head. Homeless people are everyone, no matter where you go. The only difference is the amount of homeless people.

‘If I remember clearly, it wasn’t like this all the time. It was okay, but that was before the governor got assassinated. After that, nobody wanted to take the role over due to the fear of assassination, and this is the result of it,’ Evander tells me.

I notice something in the corner of my eyes as Evander talk to me. ‘A deal…’ I laugh a little in myself.

‘What’s wrong, Brandr?’ Evander can’t guess why I’m laughing.

‘Evander, did you know that around one of a fourth of the homeless isn’t actually homeless?’ He looks weird at me, clearly not understanding what I meant with that. I give him a lengthy explanation. I feel kind of proud now that I’m informing him, rather than the other way around.

‘In Edelweiss, but of course more in other city-state in my world, homeless people can be a fraud. Of course, there are multiple ways of doing it. The easiest way is doing it yourself. A rich person dresses and acts like a beggar, to get money. If you know who the generous are, and you know the good spots, you can get quite the amount by just acting. Of course, that isn’t necessarily efficient, and there is a big penalty if you get caught. So, you take path number 2. You let someone else do it for you. For rich people, that might be a butler or a maid. Dress them like homeless and have them collect money for you. Butlers and Maids aren’t as easy detectable as masters and deploying multiple of them can get you a good income. Of course, there’s an even more organized fashion to it. Entire organizations and people centering on making money this way exist.’ He looks at me as if I’ve shown him humans’ most ugly side. Yet it’s only a fraction on how cruel humans can be…that was dark coming from my own thoughts…

‘I don’t doubt that such things happen here in Illuminia and if they did, that would be a real problem,’ Evander says to himself. ‘It would be hard to find such beggars though…’

‘Nah, there are easy to notice here.’ Their disguises are horrible. You can separate a real and a fake easily here. I would’ve had more of a challenge in the other city-states, but even in my world there are real homeless people, which does sadden me, of course.

I can’t shake this thought out of my head, even when we arrive at the stables. Evander starts unpacking the tools. ‘Brandr, can you drop these good of the inn we just were. I already rented a room while you weren’t looking. Just place it in our room and can back.’ I nod, as I grab the bags of supplies.

After I dropped the supplies, I take a quiet stroll through town. I look around and see a lot of homeless people again. Only most of them are real here. I can’t help but empathize. I take a turn and stand still. At my sight, I see a girl around my age, maybe just a bit older. The only reason she caught my eye is because she was stunningly pretty. My eyes were captivated by her natural beauty, which is ruined by the state of her body and her clothing. Her clothes are horrible, half destroyed and filthy. Her reddish hair is a mess, and she even smells a lot. I’m about to cry. She looks up at me. I look directly in her eyes. We stare like this for a moment, but something quickly breaks it. Her stomach starts rumbling in front of me. She looks a little embarrassed by it. I smile a little. ‘Wait for me here, I’ll be right back.’ I rush to a nearby food stall. I buy a few sandwiches, filled with vegetables and what I think is chicken and return to the girl. I hand her one with a bright smile. She looks at me, and then at the sandwich. Before I even notice, the sandwich is out of my hand, and already in her mouth. She’s the real deal, I think that to myself. A real homeless one, and by the looks of it, for a really long time. I sit down next to me. She already finished her bread, so I hand her another one. I eat one calmly as well. I hand her my flask of water as well, and she gulps in it. This is quite nice actually. We don’t say anything to each other. I feel like she’d run away if I speak a word. I just sit on the roadside with an innocent young girl. I inspect her a little bit more out of the corner of my eye. She’s probably just as tall as me, if not slightly shorter. She has broken metal cuffs around her arms and legs, as if she broke them while she was still in slavery. Her legs and arms aren’t necessarily thin, but not muscular either. She lacks almost no fat, given from someone who hasn’t eaten anything. Her red, amber hair grows till her shoulder, but it’s really messy as well, so it might be slightly longer. She has a stern, sharp expression while she hands me back the water bottle, completely drained from its content. We sit like this for a while, until she suddenly stands up.

‘I’m very thankful to you. If I can ever repay your kindness, let me know…’ She runs super-fast through the alley and disappears from my sight.

She will probably never pay me back…but I don’t mind that. I quickly return to Evander.

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‘Where the hell have you been the whole time? Thanks to you, I had to fix the entire carriage by myself.’ Evander gives me a lengthy lecture. It was my fault, but I couldn’t leave that girl alone. Even if she’s only one of the hundred others.

It wasn’t because she was female, right? Am I that easily to manipulate? Besides, Astra-! ‘Why am I thinking about her suddenly?!’ I start bashing my head against a nearby post. It’s only because I don’t know any other girl! I try to tell myself that.

‘Calm down, damn fool!’ He kicks me in my calf and grabs me up. ‘Something’s seriously wrong with you…’ Evander looks at me like I’m a hopeless creature.

‘No, no, no…I don’t!’ I’m having some internal conflicts.

‘Since I’m already done, we’re going back.’ Evander drags me back to the inn, while I’m still thinking about the same thing.