Dancing Under the Moonlight

Chapter 3

Aesop arrives at the village panting and sweating bullets. He can't believe he saw the nobles in the forest, in this forest. This is bad, this is bad! His breathing gets faster and faster, he starts to choke, his heartbeat unsteady and hammering against his rib cage and he feels nauseous. His vision starts to blur as stars begin to scatter across his field of vision. Finally, everything turns pitch black and he passes out.

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A young boy in a green hood sits next to a sleeping silver-haired male. The room had dull grey walls, a small grey desk, and a white bed. The walls had painted portraits of the village and the nearby clearing. The small desk had many wooden figurines, some completed, some unfinished. The silver-haired male lies asleep on the white bed, covered by a patched up grey blanket.

Naib feels guilty. He left his friend in the presence of two nobles and didn't even take the deer carcasses with him when one of them was distracted by Aesop. He sits by the bed and thinks. That's it! He can take the two deer by himself and ask Violetta to cook some deer stew.

He rises to his feet and travels north of the village to a pink cottage by Helena and Tracy's cottage. The cottage was decorated with religious symbols and primate skulls. He knocks on the door, and a few seconds later a dark-skinned woman opens the door and leans against the door frame, her face decorated with tribal and voodoo tattoos as well as golden eyes outlined by white eyeliner. She wears a black top and a big red skirt, her black dreadlocks held back by a hairband.

"What do you want, Naib?"

"Let me in, Patricia. I need to see Fiona."

Patricia is Fiona's mate. She was a beta trader from the southeast that came to trade voodoo witchcraft for food and some of Aesop's wooden crafts, when she locked gazes with the purple eyes of the village's priestess and falls head over heels in love. The two got along immediately, sometimes they'd be found walking around the village hand-in-hand and sometimes Naib would find them braiding each others' hair in the clearing. They got mated not long after and lived together in Fiona's pink cottage.

"She's praying right now. Come in. I'll go get her."

Naib steps into the cottage, a strong smell of thyme fills his senses and the smoke floating in thin small clouds in the air. The walls are covered with religious symbols and painted primate skulls with crystal eyes, 'It's a symbol of protection' as Fiona and Patricia would say. Naib steps over to the burgundy couch covered by a brown cloth with tribal patterns and sits down, the soft cushion making him sleepy as he starts to doze off, tired from the hunting.

His rest was stopped abruptly as a pair of delicate, manicured hands gently shakes him awake. Naib blinks tiredly and stares at the owner of the hands, purple eyes stare back at him, an amused glint in those indigo orbs. The woman wears a magenta hood with gold patterns, a pair of long, curled horns stick out from the fabric. She was wearing a black sleeveless dress that had a cut down the sides. On her head is a gold chain crown with a bright green emerald that hangs down the center. It was the courting gift that Patricia gave her.

"O-oh, Fiona! I'm sorry, I'm still a bit tired from hunting earlier." Naib sits up, flustered and a bit drowsy.

"That's fine." She giggles, " What do you need, Naib?"

"Aesop and I were out hunting before and we caught two deer. Unfortunately, we ran into some nobles near the entrance of the forest so we had to abandon the carcasses and run away. Aesop had a panic attack and passed out because of it," he groans and hides his face in his hands.

"Oh no. Nobles? What are they doing here? Eli and I made sure this forest was hidden from the world. Did they say anything about using the forest?"