|Goodbye Again| kazuscara

十二

A Pleasant Surprise

🍁☂️

Up ahead, some villages could be seen. There were chimneys rising up with smoke, welcoming cottages, and farmers passing through the roads with wagons. As they approached the quaint village, Kazuha took in the villagers' heavy layers of clothing, and the stares they gave them. The pair definitely stood out compared to the muted colours of the place.

"From an outsider's view, we look like a travelling part of knight and noble. I doubt there have been many from Inazuma travelling through these parts, especially by foot."

Even if Kazuha trusted Scara in guiding them through Snezhnaya and keeping them from deep trouble, he still had the suspicion someone might try to pick a fight or try to mug them, especially as Scara dressed in obvious expensive clothes and walked with confident steps.

Scara looked around the village as well, feeling the stares pierce through him, but this was no different from Inazuma; he was familiar with the kind of stares that humans would give him, treating him like an entirely different being of his own, which was the case, but it still bothered him at one point in his life.

"I'd rather not stick around to listen to what sort of gossip they have to make up," he nearly whispered to the other, even though there was a high chance none of the villagers even understood.

Only a few moments later, there were small footsteps following up on them. Scara braced for whoever it was, only to feel a small tug on his clothes. He turned, ready to scold whoever it was, before he dropped his guard.

"Hello, sirs. I've lost my brother. Can you help me find him? He had orange hair and blue eyes, just like me!" a little boy smiled up at them, speaking surprisingly well in their Inazuman language. Compared to the villagefolk, he didn't seem frightened at all by their attire, or the fact they weren't from around there.

"Well, hello there." Scara gave the child a warm smile as he crouched to his height. Even if he had been raised to learn all of the seven languages of Teyvat, he was quite impressed by the boy's fluency. "I'm sure we can find your brother if we look together, what do you say? He shouldn't be far off since you're here." It was an understatement to say that children always held a soft spot in his 'heart', but this encounter most definitely pulled him out of his somber mood.

The blue eyes of the boy widened as he smiled widely and clapped, "Thank you so much, Mister!" His freckles seemed to mimic the flurries of snow coming in, but he didn't pay any mind to them when they appeared.

"Do you remember where you last saw him?" Kazuha asked, also getting down to the height of the boy. He had noticed someone was following them for a while now, but he didn't sense any malice from the child.

The appearance of the child reminded Kazuha that Snezhnayans looked very different from Inazumans, with their bright coloured eyes and oftentimes blonde or ginger hair, but he too noticed how fluent the young lad was. He almost was reminded of how improper it was for him to hail from a noble family and, yet, not be able to speak more than two languages.

When they first walked through, there hadn't been anyone that had ginger hair, all that he took note of were elder villagers with blonde or brown hair. For some reason, he felt that being introduced to this little boy would lead to some trouble, even if he was only lost and looking for his brother.

"I last saw my brother down the road. Over there!" the boy pointed in the direction of the mountains and where the roofs of homes could be seen. "We were on our way to go fishing, so he must be somewhere near a lake."

Scara turned his attention to the road the boy pointed at before turning back to him. "You're quite welcome. Me and my friend here will do our best to find him," he said with the most confident voice he could muster. He recalled in one of his classes back in Tenshukaku that when losing a family member, the human child can feel helpless, scared, and lonely. But of course, he was familiar with all of those feelings even though he didn't have a heart of his own. So, he decided to comfort the child with enthusiastic body language and reassuring words to assure the boy.