Longing

Chapter Eleven

The Creature's Court was swarming with every kind of monster imaginable. It hadn't been this packed for some time. In fact, it hadn't been this congested since the very first time Kendo had arrived in Olden. That seemed like such a long time ago now. Melanie floated behind him, half real and half not, flickering. Kendo's eyes were glazed as he trudged through the crowd, past a green-eyed woman wearing a toga and twisted maze necklace who dragged a Minotaur by a chain, past a seemingly normal Chinese man with a water dragon lizard on his shoulder and a polished golden knife sheathed in his sash, past the usual goblins and ghouls, past a kappa, a mule that had fire for feet, and a pale woman in a blood red kimono carrying both a katana and its twin partner kodachi. Both swords had a white marble dragon for a helm and a ruby red sheath to match the woman's attire. She smirked at Kendo as she passed him, not saying a word. Distracted by the woman's unsettling charm, he tripped over a three foot tall snail that made a gurgled, squeaky noise at him.

That kind of thing happened so often in Olden that Kendo didn't bother to think twice about it. He scooted out of the snail's way and walked onward with Melanie dangling behind him. He could feel the fastitocalon scales dim inside his pocket, more and more each day. Ever since Grivgas' death two days ago, Kendo couldn't help but feel Melanie really was nothing more than a figment of his imagination. She had just started acting so...fake. Something broke in Kendo that day, whether he was going to admit it or not.

To Kendo, Melanie wasn't a person anymore. She was a memory, and she was fading like one. Nonetheless, he couldn't bear to force himself not to think about her. But at the same time, he felt guilty about keeping her memory with him, like he was preventing her from moving on. Well, he supposed he didn't really know how that worked. He let out a grunt and shuffled past a zombie wearing a red baseball cap.

Frank, that was the zombie's name, Kendo remembered. Kendo had seen him around the Court before. He was always playing poker with three other zombies in the back corner table of Victor's hut. It was Victor's same hut that he was currently entering; it was practically the only one in the Court that wasn't eating itself or burning or being torn to pieces by some form of unearthly parasite. Wilfred had been emotionally unresponsive for some time now and Kendo wasn't so sure the old jerk was going to get over Grivgas' passing without some outside help. And if there was anything obvious about Wilfred, it was that Victor was the only person (well, creature) able to pull him out of a stupor.

On his way inside, Kendo nearly stepped on a little black gerbil. It gave him an irritated twitch of its nose. "Excuse me! I'm walking here," said the gerbil in the tone of a spoiled child. It scuttled away just as Kendo was about to squash it, but it wasn't worth chasing after. Kendo sighed and moved the bamboo curtain aside, entering the hut.

The monsters in this hut were mourning. Kendo couldn't think of a time, shy of when Wilfred broke down, that he had seen anyone in Olden cry. Still, he couldn't deny that's what was going on here. A flock of paper-thin dragons made of leaves whimpered and sniveled in one corner, twirling around each other in some ceremonial dance. That purple-haired chick sat mortified at the bar, swirling her finger around her goblet so it made an awful ringing sound. It made Kendo cringe; it was so high pitched his ears wouldn't stop ringing even when she stopped rubbing the rim and dropped her hands hopelessly into her lap. A wild boar with black jewels for eyes held its mouth in an open gape and groaned and whined and cried. Kendo wondered why he hadn't heard the wailing from outside. Some kind of magic, he guessed. He was getting used to Olden and its strange, nonsensical ways. Victor was in the back mixing someone a foul-smelling drink and Kendo made his way over there, passing the stools and tables that were dripping tears and hoards upon hoards of creatures moaning and sniffling and making all sorts of incomprehensible nasal sounds. The air was thick inside the hut, like Kendo had walked into invisible, suffocating smoke.