Project: iaseki

Chapter 3: Elle

It was at the break of dawn when he finally saw a gated made by steel bars and connected to a long brick wall on either side of it. If the signboard right in front of him didn't lie to him, he arrived at the small, growing city of Elle.

Lu paused in his tracks and asked, "Hey Esther, do you know what this is?" he showed the "0/8" mark on his wrist.

Esther skipped and hopped her way back to him, and looked at where Lu was staring. "I don't get it, what am I supposed to be looking at?"

"This", Lu pointed at the set of numbers, then quickly tried rubbing it off. Through this, he figured out that it wasn't written in ink because not even a small part of it would come off.

"Are you making fun of me?" Esther furrowed her eyebrows and looked into his eyes.

Lu shook his head. "No, I'm not. You really can't see it?"

Esther looked away, noticing the sincerity of his words. "My first friend is a crazy person! Uwaahh" Lu could feel tears about to fall even without seeing her face.

Panicked again, Lu tried to calm her down. "Hey, what do you know! Why don't we forget about it and move on, shall we?", he said and led the way, shaking off the previous topic.

Thankfully, the little naive girl just went along with it as if nothing happened a moment ago.

As he they drew closer to the city gates, Lu worried he was yet again going to be persectued for the color of his features.

Thinking of the same thing, Esther ran up to a small rock and tried to pick it up. However, it only phased right through her so instead she scratched her head and pointed at it. "Smash this and put it on your hair", she said. "Black hair bad, right?"

Lu summoned his feathers and sent their steely sharp heads to converge on the poor stone. He used the fine powder to cover the darkness of his strands and put a piece of the rock in his pocket for later. He felt the magnitude of having black hair and eyes when even a spirit fox girl knew about what it is. Then again it begged the question.

"You knew about it?" Lu asked.

Esther nodded cutely and smiled.

Lu raised his eyebrow, "Why did you want to be friends with me then?" he asked. He was about to add "Didn't your parents teach you about stranger danger" but retracted his tongue before it added any more due to how messed up it would be if he did, so he left it at that. Instead, he added after a long pause, "Don't you think it's bad?".

She shook her head. "I've heard your kind eats other humans, but I'm not a human, am I? I can't even pick up a rock".

Lu laughed a little, "I guess you're right" he said after, then looked at his hand and told himself in his thoughts.

Eats humans, huh.

Lu gained a little more understanding of the gravity of his situation even more, and thought of the old man he met even kinder, to be able talk to him up close despite his appearance. He was also releived that he didn't think of people when he was starving, which proves to himself that he isn't one of those "aurums".

Amidst his thoughts, a silly question presented itself in Lu's mind and he turned to Esther once more. "Wait, if you just go through things, how can you walk on the ground?"

Esther stared at him blankly and blinked twice. "Oh. That's because I float" she levitated and sat cross-legged on nothing mid-air.

Such disappointment had never taken over Lu's face before. "Then why do you even walk!?" he shouted.