The curious turquoise awning at the building’s entry was a stark reminder of the kind of place Outworld was. In Embrayya, it would cost a fortune reserved for the Clan-Houses or incredibly wealthy merchants to afford the dye needed to create such brightly-colored paint. But here, on Outworld– Earth, as Auberon had come to learn the people there called it, it was cheap enough to use to decorate the front of a building dedicated solely to feeding the hungry.

Such places existed in Embrayya, of course. Orphan-homes would never deny a hungry beggar a meal, and even the Augurs were known to open the doors of their guild halls to the unfortunate.

He was waiting in a line-up outside of the building with the confusing name. Ezra had said it was called the Door is Open. He understood the words, of course. Both Ezra and Ziggy had taught him enough English to get by in the weeks since his arrival at the Park, and he was picking up more every day.

He felt strangely at ease being able to put a name to places. He was in a city called Vancouver. Vancouver was in a nation called Canada, and Canada was one of hundreds of nations on a world called Earth.

He was living with a small community of beggars in Stanley Park, and loathed coming into the city.

He’s insisted he could catch another rabbit in the park. There were also the wild dogs that roamed the area, or the raccoons. There was more than enough food there, but Ezra, especially, had insisted they go out for some real food. Reluctantly, Auberon agreed.

He still felt uncertain around all the buildings, and during the long walk they’d taken to the Door is Open had taken them directly past the tallest buildings in the city. Along the way, however, he pointed out various things he hadn’t quite learned the names of, and asked as to the nature of the strange wires that appeared to be stretched across every street.

That started Ezra on a tangent which Auberon could only partially understand. He knew it had to do with the force that powered their devices, and that they traveled along these wires, but had a hard time grasping it. He understood that it somehow worked, but hadn’t the slightest notion of how.

He then tried to explain radio to Auberon. How a sound could travel so far and still be heard spans away. What’s more, a moving image the likes of which he saw during his first morning after crossing over could be sent in the same way. He said a great many things about how quickly light travels, and how invisible waves travel through the air carrying these voices and pictures.

Auberon still didn’t get it, but he understood that whatever it was, it worked. Like their cars and their trucks, their airplanes and helicopters and ships that lacked any sort of sail and yet moved at amazing speeds. Like the lights that lit up the edges of Stanley Park at night.

It surprised him at how much these Canadians were capable of, but he suspected it was a norm across their world. Ezra would always react in amazement the first time Auberon came across a new device he’d never seen, and find it confusing that Auberon had never encountered it before.

Thankfully, he and the others at the Park camp seemed to attribute it to Auberon’s being from Eastern Europe. It was a convenient scapegoat. Truthfully, Auberon didn’t know the first thing about the place, and when Ezra or Ziggy tried to enquire about Auberon’s past, they were quick enough to realize it wasn’t Auberon’s ideal topic of conversation.

Home is in past, Auberon would explain. That seemed to be enough for them.

The doors to the Door is Open were closed. Even in a different language Auberon had to chuckle at the irony. The line-up that ran down the sidewalk was a mishmash of all sorts of people. Many were street beggars of various shapes and sizes. Some looked old, some young. Some healthy, some ill, and some looked to be close to death. Some of them moved erratically, as if afflicted by some unknown sickness of the mind, while others quietly sat against the wall and read a book.

He watched the young man reading for quite some time. Even Auberon could barely read, and he’d been trained as an Empyrean Rider. Reading was something reserved for Clan-members, Augurs and servants. Yet, in Canada, it appeared even the least fortunate among them could read.

Across the street was a green grass field surrounded by a metal fence. He found that to be curious. It was just a grassy field. It wasn’t a grand garden or anything special to look at, so he questioned why the need for the fence. There was nothing there to protect from outsiders.

Ezra explained it was there so that people wouldn’t camp in the field, and even that Ezra found confusing. The vast majority of the city’s beggars were set up in tents all along Hastings Street, set up on the hardened concrete. Auberon had slept rough a thousand times, but even he would not have slept on a rock. Yet, they were forced to sleep on sidewalks on the side of the road when there was a perfectly good grass field going to waste confused him.

What kind of people take care of the less fortunate the way these Canadians did, giving them free clothes and free food in so many ways, but force them to sleep on stones?

There were so many surprising similarities between Embrayya and Canada, and yet so many unexpected differences.

He realized something that made him uncomfortable. If even the least fortunate among Canadians could read, why weren’t they employed as scribes? A good scribe was paid handsomely in Embrayya, and yet in Canada they were discarded and ignored. Being able to read wasn’t a valued skill there– why? Was it because it was just an expectation that someone be able to read? Or was there more to it?

His reverie was interrupted by the sound of the doors of the building opening, and the host speaking to the crowd.

“We’ve got sandwiches and chili today, everyone!” he announced.

Sandwiches? Auberon had his first sandwich just the other day, and he had to admit they were surprisingly good. Bread stuffed with all sorts of meats, cheese, vegetables and sauces. Flavors so rich he could never have imagined. His stomach growled in anticipation. Perhaps coming into the city was not such a bad idea.

The smell of coffee quickly drew his attention. He was pleased to know that coffee was available on Earth, and that they had such an array of methods for how to prepare it. It was one of the few things that gave him comforting memories of home. He prepared himself a cup, and avoided the cream and sweetening agents.

Once he had his cup, he made his way into the food line-up behind Ezra, who handed him a tray. The scent of new types of food assaulted his senses. Nothing there smelled especially bad, but he still wasn’t certain about many of the foods on Earth. Many were sweet, some entirely too sweet, and others were made of substances that Auberon couldn’t identify– nor could Ezra explain.

Still, considering his last meal had been pulled out of a trash bag, he was willing to give it a try.

As he approached the first station, he found himself eye-to-eye with a young blonde woman. She wore a wide smile and gestured toward a platter of sandwiches and small packets of what he recognized to be potato chips, a deliciously salty snack he’d had the opportunity to enjoy a few times already.

“Thank you,” Auberon said to the girl.

“She can’t hear you,” Ezra said to him. “Lauren here is deaf. You gotta use sign language.” He then caught the girls attention and brought his hand to his chin, then pulled it away. “Like that. Thank you, Lauren.”

“I don’t get deaf,” Auberon said. He didn’t understand the word.

“She can’t hear,” Ziggy added.

Auberon looked to the girl, who was still smiling innocently, then understood. The girl had through birth or by fate lost the ability to hear. He’d known of beggars in Aidsen with the same affliction. But this girl was clean, well-groomed. Her eyes full of life with no apparent disdain for the world.

Auberon mimicked Ezra’s gesture toward her, and the girl– Lauren– responded with a sweep of her hand.

“Lauren says you’re welcome,” Ezra added. For whatever reason, it brought a smile to Auberon’s lips.

As they pulled away to the next station, Auberon let his gaze linger on her a moment longer. She was pretty. Very pretty by Embrayyan standards, and while he’d seen attractive Earth women before, he’d never really been so close to one. Finally, he turned to Ezra.

“Sign language,” he began. “Is language of hands, yes?”

Ezra nodded. “Yeah, it’s how deaf people communicate. You don’t have deaf people back home?”

“Yes. Few. Many die young,” Auberon explained. “But not use language of signs.”

“That’s messed up,” Ezra responded.

“Language of signs used for other things,” Auberon explained in broken English. “To speak far without words. I use. Is language of signs… hard?”

“Sign language,” Ezra correct.

“Yes, sorry. Sign language,” Auberon said.

“It takes time to learn. My brother was deaf, so I know a bit,” Ezra explained. “I know the alphabet, a few signs here and there.”

Auberon looked back at the girl for a moment. He did use hand signals regularly as an Empyrean Rider. Hand signals were how he summoned Vetzsche and communicated with other riders. Voices didn’t carry very well on the wind, but a signal was always understood.

“Yeah, she’s cute,” Ezra said, laughing. “But she’s from a different world than we are, Obie. Don’t go getting ideas.”

Auberon looked to Ezra and wore a defensive look. If only he knew just how different of a world he was from. “Not ideas,” Auberon responded. “Not me.”

They moved further down the line and Ezra made him take a bowl of the sweet-smelling stew they called chili. He inspected it closely. He had to admit he was skeptical about the ground bits of meat, but Ezra had already assured him there was no human meat to be had in Vancouver, and for what it was worth, he trusted the man’s words.

They sat at the table and Auberon started by sipping his coffee as it had cooled. After a brief inspection of his sandwich and finding himself satisfied nothing in it was poisonous or disgusting, he took a bite. The sauces in the sandwich were sharp, but added greatly to the flavor. Such a simple thing– meat and cheese and leafy vegetables between two slices of bread. He wondered if such a thing would catch on in Embrayya, then resigned himself to the fact that he’d never find out.

Next was the chili. He started by dipping the end of his spoon in it, then tasting it with the end of his tongue.

Spices! He couldn’t identify them, but to think that variety of spices would be just given to beggars was another wonder of Earth. A collection of spices like that could only be found in the highest echelon of eateries in Tyrant’s Fall, and would cost a ransom.

He savoured each mouthful of the sweet, spicy stew slowly.

Then a sudden clatter on the floor nearby broke his concentration.

“You fuckin’ retard!” a man at the next table yelled at a young man. He couldn’t have been more than seventeen summers. “I was eating that!”

Suddenly, the boy emitted a loud wail that pierced his eardrums. It was a familiar wail that struck him.

It was the wail of one of the Touched. Auberon instinctively stood and looked toward the boy. He wore the look of the Touched. 

The Touched were considered a gift to the Ayndir by the Great Dragon himself. Boys and girls born with a unique ability to commune with the Elder Law, but lacking in what was needed to survive by themselves independently.

As such, the Touched were cared for, their communion with the Elder Law fostered, and respected across all the lands for their selfless gifts to the peoples of Ayndir. The Touched had a strange mastery of the Elder Law, but were devoid of the trappings of self-importance and personal ambition.

They were the healers of the damned. Those who could, with their sacrifices, bring life back to the near-dead. During Auberon’s first aerial battle at Torrelan’s Gate, he’d been shot through the collar with a poisoned arrow. If not for one of the Touched, Auberon’s first battle would have been his last.

The man who yelled at the Touched boy was now standing over him menacingly while the wailing boy attempted to pick up the tray he’d knocked over. Auberon knew there were none who could use the Elder Law on Earth, but the very sight of someone threatening one of the Touched drew Auberon’s rage.

Within moments, he crossed the distance between his table and stood before the angry man.

“Stop,” he commanded.

“The fuck are you?” the man asked, his attention turned toward Auberon.

“The fuck am Auberon,” he stated, then only looked back at the man, challenging him to try something. “Was mistake. You go. Get more.” He pointed to the line-up.

The man, for a moment, looked as though he were going to accept Auberon’s challenge. But then, his posture deflated. Instead, he muttered to himself and turned toward the stations offering food.

Once Auberon was satisfied the man wouldn’t try anything, he turned and began to help the Touched boy gather up the mess.

“Is okay,” Auberon said to the boy.

The boy still wailed, but as Auberon placed a comforting hand on his shoulder, he began to calm. Eventually his look of anguish met Auberon’s gaze and started to turn into a crooked-tooth smile.

Once he’d helped the boy clean up, Auberon returned to his table. He looked to Ezra.

“What is retard?” he asked.

Ezra laughed. “It means… uhh. Slow. You know. Not all there upstairs?” He tapped his head, then pointed to the boy. “That’s Bryan. He’s here every week. He’s got– ah shit, what was it, Ziggy?”

“Chromosomal defiency,” Ziggy said.

“Right, yeah. He wasn’t born normal.”

Auberon sighed. “Don’t like retard,” he said. “In my language we call Aseni. Aseni is… gift to the world. Respected.”

“Shit sure is weird in Eastern Europe,” Ziggy commented. 

“Weird for you,” Auberon said. “Is normal for Auberon.”

He suddenly felt a tap on his shoulder and tensed up, preparing for a fight, but when he realized it was the blonde girl– Lauren, he relaxed. She looked Auberon in the eye and made her thank you gesture at him in sign language.

Auberon blinked at her in surprised. Why was she thanking him?

She then pointed at the boy, then to herself. She extended the thumb and forefinger of each hand and pointed one toward him, and drew the other from her forehead to meet the other hand.

“She says Bryan’s her brother,” Ezra explained. “She’s thanking you for helping.”

Auberon then nodded toward her and repeated the sign he’d seen her use earlier.

Lauren smiled then reached into a pocket and pulled something out, handing it to him.

Auberon took what she had.

He recognized it. It was a small chocolate package.

He had to admit, chocolate was going to be a serious weakness of his on Earth.

He nodded graciously and smiled at the girl, who smiled back, then walked away.

“Oh shit,” Ezra said. “Obie’s got a crush.”

Auberon looked back at Ezra inquisitively. “Why crush her?” He shook his head. “She not.. Danger, not threat.”

Both Ezra and Ziggy only laughed at him. Auberon decided to shrug it off, then slipped the chocolate into his pocket before continuing his meal.