05-10-2008, 09:37 PM
99. Alone
He felt so open; completely unprotected, as he walked into the marketplace in the satin uniform of the king's servant. In emphasis the symbol of the king's household was stiched onto the sleeve of the uniform.
It was altered however, like all clothing he wore now. It was made to reveal the black symbols stained onto his stomach. His criminal mark. It was this that made him feel uncomfortable. It was written there that he had killed the Duchess of the East.
Of course her people would be in the market. Traders from all over the land came to the capital to trade their wears. But it was those people, now leaderless save for the incompatant brother of her. They eyed him with loathing.
He knew what they thought. This role as servant that he had undertaken for the Prince was not a punishment but a reward, a privledge.
It stung, to be loathed by this people for a crime that he had not committed. Murasaki may understand, but there was no way to explain it to the common people. They would never believe the one who had apparantly commited the crime. And Murasaki could not speak against the criminal, against Totsu, without causing some sort of public scene.
Until then he would have to bare their snarls and glares.
"If only it were that simple," he said aloud. Eyes turned to him who had said the words. They were red eyes, like his own. The shieto man looked at him, the perfect features of his kind creasing in shame before he turned away.
"My brethren,"Shonasha thought as he walked on, "They bare the prejudice of it all."
They had previously been seen simply as other members of the community, but now...not it was different. The shieto who fed upon the flesh of mortals, cannibals, they were seen as uncontrollable now. Totsu had made sure that Shonasha had appeared completely mad when they "caught him in the act".
He looked back at the shietoman. He sat upon the filthy cobblestone speaking to a woman of the same race sitting beside him, a child wrapped in blankets in her arms. If these had been the old times, the father would not be living, eaten by the mother in order for her to survive. How could anyone believe them savage when they had passed that tradition?
He turned back and found himself caught by the shoulders.
"Watch your step," said a rugged voice that breathed out the thick smell of alcohol.
"Forgive me, it was my fa..." Shonasha's breath hissed in as the grip on his shoulders tightened. The man, men now as more had come, were Eastern from the look of them, they like so many others would want to enact their own form of punishment.
It stung. It stung to feel so alone, when he was surrounded by people in the midst of this market.
Totsu was laughing somewhere, knowing that someone else was taking the blame for his most heinous crime.
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