So few?

Anxiety and worry filled his heart as he counted just a handful of other Drunaeda within the area. When it came to religious events, even if they were loath to participate it was absolutely necessary for his kind to attend them. If they didn’t, it would only worsen public opinion of them despite the fact that their presence would be unwelcome even if they did attend.

“Mr. Herst!”

He hadn’t made it far down South Street when two of his sometime-students appeared out of the crowd, good friends of Alistar’s and warm souls for certain.

“Oh no…” The taller of the two drew closer to wipe at his shirt with a handkerchief of her own, a resolute girl with bright brown eyes and hay-coloured hair. “People are so terrible.”

“Thank you, Helen. It’s no matter, really.”

“It is!” said the other girl, who was a head shorter than her friend with a little rabbit resting calmly in her loving grasp. “You should watch the delegation with us! Alistar will be here soon, and the rest of our friends are already here, just up the way.” Her innocent, doe eyes showed that she was very upset, a display of emotion that warmed Enquin’s heart.

“That’s a great idea, Emily.” Helen straightened up and grabbed him by the sleeve of his white shirt, which was sodden in several spots. “We won’t let anyone bother you, Mr. Herst.”

Though he was tempted, he knew that his presence would only bring trouble to the youths and so he kindly declined their offer.

“Are you sure?”

He nodded, hoping that the girls would accept his decision. Aside from Alistar, the young lass, Emely, was one of the only people that ever thought to pay a visit to his lonely little cabin. The fact that she had been graced with nature’s blessing assured that she was already destined to have a difficult life, and he was reluctant to contribute to such sadnesses even in the minutest of ways.

“I am.” Changing the subject, he said, “So Alistar’s the only one of your friends that isn’t here, then. That’s quite surprising.”

“We were going to ask if you’d seen him,” said Helen, who glared at a man that purposely bumped shoulders with Enquin in passing. “Anne said he left home hours ago. I wonder where he is?”

“I’m sure he’ll be here.”

Enquin spoke to the girls for a short while, though he eventually excused himself and began to approach some of the nearby Drunaeda with the intent of encouraging them to not let the day’s events keep them down. He was interrupted, however, as the wife of one of the local brewmasters stepped out of the many throngs of people that filled the streets and waved at him with a smile. She was a homely woman of short and stout stature, her bushy hair combed neatly beneath a wide-brimmed sunhat that was bound around its midsection with a long ribbon of heavenly white fabric.

Speaking loudly over the commotion, she said, “Enquin, it’s a pleasure to see you here.”

“You too, Mrs. Lawson.”

The woman glanced at the bare, wrinkled skin of his scalp, which was hot from the sun’s uninterrupted gaze. “Here,” she said, proffering up a second sunhat that had been carefully woven from dried straw. “Zech was mortified when I tried to give this to him in front of his friends. Kids really do tend to underestimate the effects of sunshine.”

He hardly heard her, for even though they were still within a stone’s throw of the southern gates their voices were easily overshadowed by the hundreds of conversations that surrounded them. Before he could respond, her husband’s stocky figure appeared at her back, immediately recognizable by the receding hairline of wispy blond strands and his wide, bulbous nose. Without even glancing at Enquin, he grasped her by the forearm and abruptly dragged her towards another area of the street while ignoring her heartfelt protests.

The action stung, since he’d always been on good terms with the local Lawson family.

“Don’t mind them, Enquin.” He turned to see a short woman with peppered hair and a kind face that was filled with the sort of wrinkles that one only achieves after a lifetime of smiles and laughter, with eyes a gentle shade of blue. “I’m sure the townsfolk will calm down once the visit is finished with.”

“Ms. May,” he said with a forced smile, an attempt at conveying his appreciation of her words. “Thank you, but I’m afraid that might not be the case…”

Sensing the surrounding sentiments, he kindly excused himself before walking away from the kind-hearted woman that ran the local orphanage. The least he could do, he reasoned, was to distance himself from the few good people that he’d met in this county lest they suffer for the sake of their mutual affiliations. He would leave here in the coming days, he decided, though how he might manage to do so in a safe manner was beyond him now that he’d gifted his crystallized essence to Alistar.

Approaching a discreet alleyway with heavy, tired steps, Enquin wondered if there was even a point in trying to continue on with the tragic tale that was his life’s story. After centuries of misery, he felt that a conclusion would be more fitting.

I hope…I hope I’ll be able to see everyone again.

For the next several minutes, he sulked in silence within the shade of the alleyway as emotion rushed through his veins like liquid ice. He was old now, likely older than any other person alive today. His bones were brittle, his flesh wrinkled and tender, his eyes set with permanent marks of fatigue after all of the contemptable sights that had been burned into them over the years. If he set off for the Free Kingdom of Alta in the coming days, would he even make it there in his current condition?

As he fell further and further into the depths of his depression, he belatedly became aware that something was drawing the attention of the celebrants that occupied this area of South Street. Gazes shifted, fingers pointed, and gossip ensued.

Has the delegation arrived?

His body went rigid as an ominous aura appeared on the peripherals of his limited magical awareness, which was all that remained of his once energetic bloodline. The energy signal dug up countless memories that had been buried deep within his psyche, some good, some bad, and many that fell between both extremes.

Enquin stumbled out of the alleyway and shouldered his way into the centre of the street, caring not for the curses that some sent his way and ignoring the discreet shoves and knuckle-jabs that caught him as he worked his way through the congested crowd. The owner of this aura was someone that he’d treated on a near-daily basis for the latter half of the Inverted Wars, a man that had taken on the role of his guardian after both of his parents had perished at a pivotal battle that had also claimed the lives of the majority of his siblings.

Short as he was, it wasn’t until Enquin had wormed his way down most of South Street that he caught sight of the object of everyone’s attention.

“It can’t be… It can’t be!”

There, stumbling down the road as he made his way through Mayhaven’s southern gates on unsteady feet, was Ar’Daul, King of the Dauls and one of the most respected members of the various races of Drunaeda to ever walk the earth. Ar’Daul, who’d inexplicably gone missing during the final weeks of the war, whose absence had spelled the beginning of the end for the United Coalition’s armies and whose presumed death had been but another dismal chapter in Enquin’s endless tragedy.

Ignoring the protests of his aged body, Enquin rushed over to the man that had been a mentor, a friend and something of a father to him in the early years of his life, eyes beginning to water as he spied Ar’Daul’s famous birthmark, a ring of tiny flame-like markings that sat at the centre of his chest.

“Ar’Daul!” breathed Enquin as he hurried down the street, his necklace coming undone and its holy oval falling to the cobblestones with an inconsequential clatter. “Ar’Daul, where…where have you been?”

He made to hug the man, though immediately noticed that something wasn’t right. There was no awareness in Ar’Daul’s eyes and his once-proud posture had been replaced by slumped shoulders and lumbering steps. Rather than a living being, he seemed more like an animated doll. Eyes flashing with menacing memories, Enquin belatedly recognized the evil magic at play. Discreetly so that nobody else would notice, he slipped a hand into one of his pockets and grasped the little blue magic crystal that Alistar had gifted to him, resting his other hand on the scaly, armour-like skin of Ar’Daul’s chest and casting a subtle mind cleansing spell in the exact same manner that he’d done countless times in his boyhood.