Crystal Magic Adventure: A Tale of Discovery

Chapter 9: Family Ties Part II.

"I'm talking to you! Where did you get that hat?!" The owner of the voice yelled as his strong yank threw Lila backwards onto the ground. Who was this man, anyway? Lila hadn't done anything wrong ever since she arrived in Rath, and she most certainly didn't hurt anyone either. Lila stumbled to get up from the ground, ready to fulminate today's frustrations on this sorry fool.

Yet her face went pale as if she'd seen a ghost once she looked at her would-be aggressor. It was the very ghost that had haunted her thoughts since the day she left its owner alone in the woods. It was Nosdramo who stood in front of her eyes, back from the grave, seeking vengeance. Although he looked decrepit and barely sober enough to stay up on his feet...

"I said, where did you get that hat?!"

The man's loud question snapped Lila out of her dreadful dream. The man wasn't Nosdramo himself but most likely a relative of his, which would explain the shocking resemblance. She managed to regain her balance and straighten her posture, now staring directly at the man before her, ready to stand her ground. This scuffle, however, caught the attention of the entire tavern, and it wasn't long before Mardro made his way between the drunk man and the pale girl, shielding her from the man's rage.

Pushing the drunkard back, Mardro addressed him: "What the hell are you doing, Tuel? I get that you are worried, but I can't excuse you for harassing my customers!"

Without taking his eyes off Lila, Tuel yelled at Mardro, "She has my son's hat, Mardro!" Ask her why she has it! Ask her now!"

After Tuel finished, the entirety of the tavern went dead silent, with Mardro turning to Lila; his eyes were full of curiosity. Now that he mentioned it, that hat looked exactly like the one Tuel bought for Nosdramo's coming of age.

"Why do you have that hat, Lila?" Mardro calmly asked.

All eyes were on Lila at this point; their long wait for gossip was finally paying off. Every single individual in the tavern asked the same question in their minds: Why did she have that hat? The entire town heard about Nosdramo's hat since he made such a big deal out of it for weeks due to the braided band on top being too feminine for his taste. However what he didn't know was that his father, Tuel, worked tooth and nail to get him that hat.

Lila looked around herself and saw everyone's gaze fixated on her. Her face went through a wide variety of emotions in a matter of seconds, unsure of what to say to defend herself. He wasn't wrong; the hat indeed belonged to the alchemist, and now it sat comfortably on her head. At first, she opened her mouth to speak the truth, which was immediately closed by Crystal since it would certainly spell her banishment or worse.

Pondering what to say for a moment, Lila said, "I-I found it in the forest. The man wearing it... He... He had blood all over his head..."

Lila was painfully aware of the details she intentionally left out this time. She was lying. She had to lie. Yet simultaneously, she was scared that any falsehood she uttered would be seen right through since her mother had always caught her when she tried to lie. Everyone in the tavern gasped at the same time, although their surprise was cut short by the sorrow of a mournful father.

"No... NO! My boy... My dear boy..." Tuel cried as he clutched his chest.

What Tuel felt at that moment could not be felt by anyone else, lest they have a child of their own. A father losing a son, not even saying his final goodbyes before letting him go...

However, such a story with no one to blame for his son's demise was hard to accept for Tuel. Amidst his drunken, pain-filled haze, he found a brief window of clarity.
"How did you even stumble across him? No... No... That's bullshit..."
He stumbled around for a while before rushing past the human shield that was Mardro, and he would have reached his target too if the barkeep hadn't pulled him away from the girl in the nick of time.

Tuel thrashed around Mardro's strong arms as he kept trying to reach the girl. With pain and sorrow in his voice, "YOU'RE LYING! YOU KILLED MY BOY AND THEN ROBBED HIM! YOU MURDERED MY BOY FOR A FUCKING HAT!"

Lila was struck mightily by his words, they were not lies but the whole truth was far worse. She did much more than that. She tied him up and left him to fend for himself, with monsters and wildlife roaming around for easy prey. But the worst of all was that she called it giving him a chance. What chance? All she did was seal his fate by ensuring him a gruesome death. No... She did give him a chance; he wasn't dead when she left him there. If he didn't survive, that wasn't her fault.

As these thoughts ran in her head, she decided to harden her heart. She did leave him there; that part was true, but he was the aggressor, not her. He was the one who was ready to strike down a helpless, starving girl. If Crystal hadn't knocked him out with that rock, he would have murdered her in cold blood without giving it a second thought. And even though he was the aggressor, she still gave him a chance.

She took a deep breath and continued, "I only wanted to spare the details from a grieving father... When I found his body, he didn't look like I needed to check if he was alive."

"And the hat was on the ground, a dozen steps away from... whatever was left of him... He didn't need it anymore," Lila said while pointing to the hat she wore.

Lila's excuses only fueled Tuel's anger. He completely lost control after hearing the fate of his son, making him flail wildly and scream obscenities that were unheard of. However, he began to lose his strength the more he kept struggling in Mardro's arms, which finally slowed him down to the point that he no longer had the strength to even stand up. Seeing that he was out of juice, the barkeep let go of the man.

Tuel's world was shattered. After his wife's untimely death, his son was his only family left, and now he was gone too. His legs felt limp, and he fell to the ground in a pitiful state, his speech barely intelligible as he sobbed hysterically, "You... You killed my son... You looted his remains... and stole his hat... You are nothing but a murderer..."

Before Lila could answer, Mardro stopped her. He grabbed the broken man on the ground, he carried him over to an empty chair by a table and then returned to face Lila.

With his arms crossed, Mardro towered over Lila. Speaking in a stern tone, "Just ignore the drunken fool and give the man his hat back, girl." After saying his piece, he then turned to Tuel and said, "Look at her, Tuel. She looks like a twig. How could she possibly kill your son?"

Lila grabbed the hat tightly and thought about what to do. It was a gorgeous hat after all, much better than what passed as hats back in Gladeside. Any game they skinned usually had its hide preserved with the fur still on it for keeping warm in the winter. She hated how they smelled from the brains used for tanning. This one did not have that repugnant odour, not even a slight presence of it. She definitely wanted to keep such a big find.
But wouldn't that confirm his accusations against her? If she were to be branded as a thief, would she be called a murderer too? Would that nice guard at the gate start hating her?

"Lila?" Mardro called, waking her up from her daze. She was silent for too long. Now, the whole tavern was sharing that long silence. They were all looking at her, waiting for her next move. She walked over to his table and pushed the hat toward the grieving father. Her head was bowed, asking for forgiveness. She finally realized what she had done... "Sorry for your loss."

Gerda's greed was one thing, but this? This was entirely different... Lila could no longer lie to herself about Nodramo's chances of survival. She reminisced about how she couldn't part ways with the clothes her mom had sewn, and here she was, almost denying a father his son's last memory, all because she wanted to keep it for herself. In the end, she wasn't better than any of them.

Tuel was not reaching for the hat; he wasn't even looking at the pale girl. So she left it on the table and ran out of the taproom whilst trying to ignore the judgmental gazes. She dashed up the stairs to her room, locking the door behind her. She leaned back on the thick wooden door, as if bracing it, slowly sliding down to the ground.