“Welcome, Nikola of Troy! I already have dinner prepared. I am adding it to your rent, don’t worry. But do you look handsome now! Like a cultivating immortal, yes!” Nikola knew what that was, and he looked like, and he straightened his robes a little.
“Well, this was what the seamstress made me. I think she was trying to make me the most expensive thing she could out of cotton,” he was wearing a dark robe with green trims and his under robe was a nice blue color.
All in all, he rather liked his look. He patted his sleeve in which his feather was, and he sat down in front of the small table. There was rice with seaweed for dinner, but steam was rising from the food, so he was sure he could appreciate it.
“Now, tomorrow when we go out to sell buns, you have to show new tricks. Can you break boulders on your chest?” Asked the old woman all business like and Nikola winced. That sounded positively painful. Is that what the people around here did to pass the time?
“I can’t. Although I can dance with fire,” Penemue had taught him how to be graceful with a torch in hand. They had danced together like that more than once, the angel liking the danger of catching fire.
“Oh? Show me!” Said the old woman, and she picked up a candle from the table and handed it to Nikola.
Nikola removed the little plate from the candle and stood up. Then he began to dance. He imagined it was for a festival for the birth of one of his grandchildren.
Or better yet, the harvest festival. He threw the candle, and it flipped a couple of times before it fell in his hand again, still lit. He quickened his tempo and imagined a festival for Tangra. Even though the people knew of the God that the angels served, they still worshiped their totems.
And Nikola was never one to deny free worship. His leg made a circular motion and the candle was in the air again. He spans wildly and then knelt down in one swift motion to catch it.
Then he jumped up and placed his arms around himself as if he were about to hug Penemue, and he spun, candle still in his hand. His leg extended forward, and his arms moved as if to hold the invisible body of his lover lower so that he could kiss him. But his nose neared the warm candle, and he blinked.
The old lady was up on her feet with her hands clasped in front of her.
“Can you do this with a lantern? One on a chain?” She asked excitedly, and Nikola placed the candle back in its place.
“It would be easier for me, in fact. But the lantern could ignite. It would be better if we keep it to candles.”
The old woman pouted and then pointed at the rice.
“You finish this and then go straight to bed. If we make twenty silvers tomorrow with your dancing, I’ll lower your rent to ten coppers.”
Nikola groaned. That meant he’d be dancing the whole day. He finished his rice and then received a blanket which he put on the wooden floor, and he went to sleep.
The morning after he washed up and went to the seamstress, who had worked after closing hours to make him another change of clothes, to dress, and then he was back at the stall.
The old lady excitedly gave him a candle, and he began his dance. Soon a crowd gathered to stare at him. All captivated that the candle was not going off, which he managed with magic, and at how he would twist and bend and catch it every time.
In an hour all the buns were sold, and the old lady had another sign which prompted people to leave a copper or two if they enjoyed the show. He was balancing the candle on his nose, body bend backwards and leg raised high behind him when he heard the commotion.
A man in a litter had his servants push their way to the front. Many grumbled as they saw that, but the man took out a gold piece and had a servant woman give it to old granny Nuo Nuying.
“Don’t stop now!” Scolded him, the old woman when she noticed that Nikola wasn’t moving. “Spin around and do that thing where you almost hold someone. The same as you did last night!”
Nikola didn’t like this. He had seen the same look the man was giving him many times at court. It had driven Penemue to jealous bouts every time and had resulted in more than one duel. The angel winning each time.
Still, he did as he was told, and he ended up balancing the candle on his closed hands. The man in the litter clapped and suddenly, everyone was clapping. Another gold piece was given to the old granny, and the man left just as he had appeared.
Nikola was still staring at the candle’s flame when a woman moved forward, a flower in her hand.
“Do you have a woman at home, Gege?” She asked and she blushed. She was pretty enough; Nikola wasn’t blind, and so he could admit it. With her soft hazel eyes and golden skin, she would have made an uproar on the island of Atlantis.
So, unlike the local beauties and yet, the same. Then Nikola thought of Penemue. A Beautiful Penemue who liked to wear purple and have his long brown hair loose so that his curls could fool everyone that he was a gorgeous, albeit flat chested, woman. The feather was a reassuring weight against his skin as he spoke with certainty.
“I do. The wisest and most beautiful of all. Although she is back at Troy,” the woman’s face fell at this, then she smiled gently and extended the flower.
“Then take this for her and dry it. Give it to her when next you see her.”
“That may never come to pass. But thank you,” the sadness bled from his voice as he took the flower.
He would indeed keep it, but he feared it would fall apart before Penemue answered his prayers. The woman stepped back into the crowd, and he handed the flower to Nuo Nuying.
She put it inside her sleeve and Nikola begun to dance again. Just before nightfall he left the crowd, sweaty all over, to go pick tomorrow’s clothes from the seamstress.
He could always change into yesterday’s clothes for dinner after he washed. He hadn’t washed them yet. Furthermore, he was yet to find a washerwoman in this village, and it was strange to have to do his washing when he had never had to do it. Perhaps Nuo Nuying would teach him? He made her a killing today, after all.
Dinner was a happy affair as Nuo Nuying counted her winnings. Thirty silvers, eighty-six coppers and the two gold pieces.
“You were sent to be my grandson! You are a gentleman. Can you also play an instrument?”
“I can’t, I’m sorry,” Penemue had tried to teach him many a time, but Nikola simply couldn’t understand the notes well enough to produce a melody. But he could sing. Although he didn’t tell the old woman that. He didn’t want anyone recognizing an old Atlantean tune and ousting him.
“Well, you can’t do everything,” said the woman, slight disappointment coloring her voice.
“But it’s ok. If you keep dancing, then the noble Wei Caihong will keep coming back. He is the magistrate of our village. Although he was sent here as a punishment by the emperor. He’s been seen speaking with that lover of that undying wretch, the Emerald Emperor of Atlantis. That fallen angel: Penemue.”
Nikola’s head snapped towards the woman. He was on his feet and gripping her hand in desperation before he had time to consider how that looked.
“I have to speak with Wei Caihong! Where does he live?” Nuo Nuying coughed in his face and shook her head.
“No, you really don’t. Nothing good comes from speaking about the Watchers. It's a good thing they no longer have their powers. It appears that the Emerald Emperor stole it from them when he sunk that dung filled island. When he caused the flood that nearly wiped all life from the land away. He was rotten to his last breath; may he rot in Hell.”
“He was trying to stop the Nephilim!” Defended himself, Nikola, and then the old lady’s face scrunched up in disgust.
“Oh, is that so? Is that what his lickspittles in Troy say about him? My grandmother lived in the Valley. But there is no Valley now. It’s below the weaves now, and this village grew from all the refugees. There used to be a lot less water before. Why did the folks of the desert in the land of the hundred volcanos have to all drown? Why is there a new sea between the distant continents of Europe and Africa? I’ll tell you why! The shit filled emperor didn’t want to pass the crown to his heir, the giant Pallas because his lover cheated on him with a slip of a girl. One of his many grandchildren, at that! How must have he raged when he found the girl pregnant! Oh, what a happy day that must have been!”
Nikola sat down, all fight draining from him. He hadn’t raged. He had been worried. Furthermore, he loved all his grandchildren as if they were his own and he had told Penemue to give Nikola’s immortality to Vasiliki even.
So that she could survive the birth. But the angel hadn’t done so, no matter how much Nikola had begged him. And Vasiliki had still died. Just as his sister had died all those centuries ago when he hadn’t known about the danger involved in birthing a Nephilim.
“I still need to speak to Wei Caihong, granny,” the old woman sends him a pitying look, but then she nods.
“You’ll need an invitation to his palace at the outstrips of the village. A couple more days of dancing will grant you it. But you be careful when you meet him, Nikola of Troy. He is on the lookout for another lover. Nothing good happens to those he takes. Especially those he can’t marry.”
Nikola had figured as much. However, he didn’t need to keep the man’s attention on him for too long. Just enough to find out where Penemue was. He had, or at least will have, money now.
And he could spend quite a lot of time manning the antique shop and earning a profit from it. He could provide for both himself and Penemue and when people became suspicious about why they weren’t aging they would simply move.
With this thought, he went back to his dinner, a simple fare of steamed vegetables and more rice, and watched as granny Nuo Nuying looked at the coins they had gathered today lovingly.
