05-10-2008, 09:52 PM
27. Foreign
It was strange to be walking in this foreign place and have it look so familiar to her. As she walked in the simple blue dress that she had been lent, she could not help but pass her hands upon the broken stone of the decaying buildings.
Shonasha had said that their were dozens of villages like these, uprooted because of their disloyalty to the false king. She wandered if her father, the King of Lupnia had left the Elren villages like these. But she knew that in their forest homes, the devastation must be so much worse.
She fidled with the basket hanging on her arm, wanting to distract herself from the possiblity of her home country doing such terrible things. The Lupnians were a naive raise, not wanting to face the truth. Star had said it himself, almost three years back now. She regretted thinking of him then to, a wave of longing and homesickness brushed over her like a wave.
"Anya wi tyumovey" A woman's voice distracted Cato from her thoughts. It was a greeting, a formal one in the demon dialect.
"Anyum wey tyumovey," Cato replied easily back.
The woman looked back, for a moment surprised by the dialect of her people coming from a stranger. She laughed and Cato liked her for it. It was a light airy laugh that matched her somehow; dressed in colorful cloth garments that accented well on her darker shaded skin.
"Princess," the woman remarked, using the term lightly, "You've caught me off guard. For that," she pulled a deck of cards from the sash tied about her waist, "A free reading! Come, look, see what they say of you,"
The woman leaned forward on the balls of her feet and forcefully slapped the deck against the ground. Her hands nimbly spread them openly so that each card was at least half visible. "Touch three," She told Cato.
Cato readjusted her basket and sat on her heels to put a finger on three cards, one after the other before standing up again.
The woman nodded, the beads in her hair rattling as she gently flipped the cards Cato had chosen and those touching them. Each was written on with demonic characters, old one that Cato did not know how to read. "To translate then," The woman said, closing her eyes and placing a hand over the first of the cards.
"Cato!" Shonasha called out breathlessly.
"Shonasha," Cato said, turning around to face him, all of the sudden feeling like she had been doing something wrong. She glanced back to the woman and Shoansha looked to her as well.
"Illian! Havamo!" He said to her, stop.
"Illian The weavers?" Cato asked, not having recognized the peddlers like woman for one of holy status.
The woman looked up at Shonasha, her hand pressed firmly against the first card. Her expression was one of forced patience.
"This is the crowned princess of Lupnia, Totsu must not know she is here!" Shonasha near shouted at the woman.
She gasped, picking up her carda and scooping them together with a fearful look at the two of them. She had gathered them in her skirt and was readying to walk away when she dropped them on the cracked cobblestones, her hands coming up to cover her mouth.
Looking at the pile she could see why. In the midst of all the cards with mere writing was one with a picture forming on the front of it. Shonasha stooped to pick it up, giving the woman a look out of the corner of his eye. "It's yours," He said, handing the card to Cato.
She took the card uneasily, not understanding. The picture on the card was one of herself shrouded from behind by a dark figure, "What does it mean?"
"It means this woman has sealed. It can now appear in any Illian deck if one were to look for it." Shonasha picked up one of the blank cards, "That means that Heso, Totsu's Illian advisor will be aware of it..."
"And Totsu will know I've been here," Cato finished, realizing where he was going.
The Illian woman sobbed suddenly and offered an apology in demon.
Shonasha shook his head in rejection and dropped the card to the ground, but not before Cato had seen something appear on it.
"We can leave this country before they arrive, can we not?" Cato offered.
"If we leave now. However, that will not prevent destruction. They will look as long as they can get away with it, and use destruction as a means of search," The woman sobbed again, and Shonasha once again look at her out of the corner of his amytyst colored eyes, "But it is my fault. I brought you here and did not warn you of the dangers. I'll carry the burden of it."
"Please no," The Illian woman pleaded suddenly, grabbing hold of Shonasha's arm. "My fault," she said shaking her head, "No fault of yours,"
Shonasha ignored her, looking as if completely held by something else.
As much as it looked like her own home, Cato knew that this country was much different then her own. it was full of different customs and new dangers that she had never imagined. She looked at the card in her hand again, and the demonic character now displayed at the bottom, "The Betrayer."
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