The Prince's Mark

Chapter Two

 A tall man with long blond hair had appeared next to Tracou. Pointed ears, angled slightly backward, jutted out from either side of the man's head. The humans Tracou had seen with blond hair were about as pale as Tracou was, but this man was tan. The man also had strangely shaped eyes—a shape Tracou had never seen before. This was particularly odd because, as a dezmek, Tracou was an expert on strange eyes. His clothes stood out, too. He was wearing white robes with green embroidery on the bottom and he was carrying a bag made from the same cloth.

"An elf?" Tracou spat, not realizing he had said it out loud.

The elf appeared flustered. He had difficulty making eye contact.

"Oh, um... excuse me," the elf said, sounding like he had to force each word out. His Aodehsh was accented. Oddly, he was still looking at Tracou and not the vendor.

"What?"

"Mm..." The elf grimaced. "I didn't realize you were a dezmek before I got close."

Tracou watched him, blinking slowly.

Now, it wasn't a surprise for someone to not know whether someone was a dezmek until they got close. The biggest marker of a dezmek, what separated them from other races on the continent, was their eyes. Unlike humans and elves, who had eyes with round pupils, dezmek had eyes with slit pupils. This allowed them to see in the dark better than humans and elves. Their irises took up the majority of their visible eyeball, which forced dezmek to stare straight at anything they wanted to see. Many dezmek had white hair, like Tracou did, but he was wearing a hat so that would be easy to miss.

Regardless, this elf had a lot of gall to come up to him and then say something more than, 'Oh, my mistake.'

Tracou huffed. "Why are you talking to me?"

"Well..." The elf trailed off with a frown. "You were arguing with this person about the price of this fabric, right?"

"Yes." Tracou said, wary. If it came down to it, he might end up buying this fabric at full price just so this elf couldn't get his hands on it.

"Can you not afford it?"

Tracou's face turned scarlet. Just who did this elf think he was, insulting him like this? In public, no less! He might not be a king, but Tracou wasn't some peasant.

"How dare you?! I'm not some vagabond! Do you think I'm accosting this man about his fabric, is that it?"

The elf wilted, expression pained. "No! No, that's not—"

"Maybe you're just stupid, then! Have you never heard of haggling?"

For several moments, the elf was quiet. Then he shook his head.

The majority of his anger fled Tracou's body. Not all of it, though. Part of that anger he held onto in the pit of his stomach, just in case.

"Haggling is when someone discusses the price with a merchant until they reach a price they both agree on. It's normal and even so I can afford it at full price, if I wanted!"

With a wince, the elf nodded. "I see... I didn't know that."

The clear regret on the elf's face made Tracou feel something he didn't care to put a name to. He ignored it, preferring the anger he had kept instead.

"But now I don't want it. I'll think about how I was accused of being penniless every time I look at it."

Without giving a second glance to the vendor, Tracou marched away.

"Ah, wait!"

The elf was following him.

Tracou sped up his pace, but he was no match for the elf's longer legs. Abruptly coming to a stop, Tracou whirled around just in time to see the elf nearly collide with him.