There is a lot about me you don't know -Tales of Arcadia ENG

14- Son of the Dragons

TRACK 14

They told you, fix your broken heart

You have no home

Get up kid, tell yourself the truth or you'll regret it

Oh, it can only get better

(From a Cage - Envoi)

********

Shenyang was a cluster of neon lights and incomprehensible signs.

Even at 3 a.m., the streets were not empty, quite the contrary. Cars kept passing by and more than a couple of people -not counting their little group, of course- continued to zigzag in his field of vision.

Jim tightened his hood, pulling it down slightly, not so much as to prevent himself from seeing or even to the point of being suspicious -not that he needed to. All the people passing by were either staring at their phones or looking straight ahead, moving forward in a hurry. And mostly he was on a trajectory that allowed him to be unseen, hidden by the figures of the other three boys and the Familiar who appeared human-looking again. Douxie and Archie were in front of Toby, he and Steve immediately behind. Jim was in the center so that he was covered from all fronts except for his shoulders. -But that didn't change his main instinct, it didn't change in the least the feeling of tension that enveloped his stomach as he passed almost side by side with unfamiliar people who, if they even turned their faces away, might have peeked between them and noticed something odd about him. Like the rather bizarre shape of his hood, due to the horns.

Jim had not taken the illusory potion. Douxie had said that he would appear differently for twenty-four hours and... well, that meant appearing differently in Merlin's eyes, too, when they eventually returned to Camelot. And that would have meant having to give him a minimum of explanations. Explanations that he doubted would end with a simple 'okay' and to proceed on the main mission with ease. No. Definitely not. The old Sorcerer never just ended a situation lightly. It did not seem to be in his DNA .

Despite the mild general concern, he, like Steve and Toby, couldn't help but look around with admiring expressions at even the smallest things. Those cities had a different atmosphere from these of small -or even large- American ones. Perhaps it was because of all that neon, scattered in even the smallest signs. Maybe it was because of the shape of certain buildings, built of pure wood... From a distance, it had not seemed so different from the photographs of New York, but it was. It certainly was. And it was almost bizarre to find themselves seeing it, not even if they had already ended up in a secondary dimension.

Steve and Toby's struggle to restrain themselves from pulling out their cell phones and starting to take pictures left and right was more than obvious. Jim himself wished he could have taken a few, but because of the very part of himself that demanded to not be noticed in any way, he turned off the requests and chased them away with all the determination he possessed.

He therefore simply moved forward, trying not to step on the feet of either of the two in front of him. Both of them advanced at a confident pace, slowing down from time to time, occasionally casting glances and nods at each other, turning their heads toward roads where they then ended. They did this with such ease that it made it seem as if they knew the place inside out instead of being there for the first time themselves.

After several refinements and changes of direction, Jim could not help but notice a kind of pattern: more or less, every time it happened they were in the vicinity of graffiti. The graffiti always depicted the same bizarre, almost abstract shapes overlying circles, resembling random inkblots. Of course, it didn't explain exactly how they understood where to find more of the same, but at least it was something. Better than just not figuring it out, and feeling like an utter idiot in between.