Chapter Two Hundred and Eighty-Two — Finally Playing Tourist
Chapter Two Hundred and Eighty-Two — Finally Playing Tourist Crossing the city with a bunch of cervid was a bit strange.For one, talking to them was a bit hard on the neck. I kept having to look up since they were all pretty tall. If ears counted for height, then I figured it was only fair that antlers count too, and that made Rowan and Nathan very tall indeed.For another, we couldn’t exactly go roof-hopping, so that meant that all of our travelling was done on the ground. We walked past a lot of sylph who’d stop to stare, and the roads, while well-labelled, didn’t exactly tell us where we were. There were some helpful signs that pointed people towards clinics, and some that pointed towards dragon shelters, but otherwise we had to guess our way across Goldenalden.I did try to stop a few sylph to ask for directions, but they tended to ignore me or walk away faster.Still, we did eventually make it all the way over to the parade grounds.The street was long and wide, made of something that felt a lot like cement underfoot, but that was a bit darker. The sidewalks were elevated a step, and there were a few stalls setting themselves up along the road.I glanced around, but I couldn’t see any armies walking around in formation, though there were some sylph in uniform here and there. “Well, this isn’t what I expected,” I said.“They can hardly be parading around all day,” Amaryllis said.Ellie giggled. “Are you sure? That sounds like a very sylph thing to do.”Amaryllis squawked a laugh. “Oh, it does, doesn’t it? Well, in either case, they’re not here parading now, so it’s a moot point.”“Ah,” Awen said. It was that particular sort of ‘ah’ that someone shy said when they wanted people to listen to them, but didn’t want to raise a fuss. I turned the way and smiled encouragingly. “The stalls are still set up. I think if it was all over and there was nothing else happening, they’d be packing up.”“You’ve got good eyes,” Rowan said. He scanned the area, then trotted over to one of the nearby stands. He had to lean in carefully to make sure his antlers didn’t poke holes into the canopy hanging above the stall.I ran over, just in case he needed some help. I wasn’t even sure if the sylph here spoke some other language than... whatever language the cervid spoke.“Excuse me, sir,” Rowan said to the lady behind the stall’s counter. One of her eyebrows curled up, and she beat her wings once. “Do you know when the next parade is going to start?”“There’s one in the morning, one in the afternoon, and another in the early evening. You have about an hour to wait.”“Oh, shoot,” I said. “That’s a while. Thanks miss,” I said with my biggest, most apologetic grin.“Ah, that’s a woman sylph,” Rowan said as he backed out and started heading over to the others. I stayed by his side and hoped the stall-lady didn’t hear. “It’s always hard to tell with sylph.”“Really?” I asked.“Well, they mostly look the same. There’s the facial hair, of course, but not all men have that. And none of the men have antlers,” Rowan explained.“Uh,” I said.“We don’t spend too much time talking to them,” he added, a little defensively.“Ah, that’s a shame, they’ve been pretty nice so far. For the most part. Actually, I think most people are nice by default, regardless of their species. It’s all about being nice if you expect others to be nice in return.”“If you say so,” Rowan replied. I don’t think he really believed me.“The show’s not for another hour or so,” I said to everyone as we returned. “What should we do until then?”“Eat?” Amaryllis asked. “The park isn’t far, and those of us who are feeling a little more adventurous can try some of the foods they’re serving here.” She gestured a talon towards one of the nearby stalls where a sylph was dipping balls of batter into a deep-fryer being kept warm by a magical element on its bottom. The smell wafting around was enough to make my tummy plead for a taste.“That’s a fine idea,” Nathan said. “I’ve been meaning to try some of the local cuisine.”“They told us not to at the embassy,” Ellie objected. “In case the food was tampered with.”Rowan laughed. “I doubt a street vendor would be equipped to tamper with anything. And besides, half the reason we left the embassy today was to see and try new things. Come on, Ellie, it can’t hurt. It’ll even give you something to buy. We all know how much you like spending your family’s gold.”Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.Ellie sniffed, but she didn’t complain as we went from stall to stall, picking out whatever food looked tastiest. The sylph, for all that they seemed to mostly be in good shape and have a fixation on military readiness, did seem to have quite the sweet-tooth.Most of the things we grabbed were pastries, usually of the sweet and gooey variety. A few stalls had some meat skewers, which Amaryllis zero’d in on, and one had something like a blender which was serving up smoothies with ice and some green stuff. They were the healthy, un-fun kind of smoothies.Once we had enough junk food to last six teenagers exactly one afternoon, we walked off with our bounties to the park in the next district over. There were a few others around, but we found a park table large enough for all of us. The cervid just sort of stood next to it though since they weren’t built for the sort of seats the sylph had.I frowned. “Do cervid have chairs?” I asked.Ellie laughed. “No one asks that! And no, we don’t have chairs. What we do have are these big cushions to lay down on. They’re filled with soft stuff. It’s nice. Though we can just lay down on the grass too.”“Oh, neat,” I said.It was strange, but I never quite appreciated the ability to just... sit, before. I was happy I’d turned into a bun, which meant that I still have two legs and a butt for sitting.“Broccoli,” Amaryllis said.“Yes?”“You’re thinking stupid things again,” she said. “I can feel it in my feathers. They itch.”I pouted, then comforted myself with another bite from some of the street food we’d grabbed.Nathan dropped his panniers onto the table, opening them and beginning to set down some foods onto the table. I stared at the little glass jars and paper-wrapped contents. There were strange sandwich-like things, and jars filled with plump berries.“What’s that?” I asked as I pointed to one of the sandwiches. The bread looked really strange.“Oh, that’s a great snack is what it is,” Ellie said. “It’s a mushroom and ivy sandwich.” She opened the wrapper and revealed the sandwich within. It was two large mushrooms with some green leaves stuck between them, as well as some sort of sauce. “There are crushed acorns in there too. Want a bite?”“Can I?” I asked.Nathan sighed and pushed Ellie’s offering down. “No, you can’t. No offence, but you literally don’t have the stomach for it.”“I don’t?” I asked.Nathan shook his head. “No. Your teeth aren’t quite right for it either. Cervid have flatter, blunter teeth for crushing, and we have more than one stomach that’s specialised in digesting plants and the like.”“Oh,” I said. “So you’re all vegetarians?”“Oh no, we can eat meat,” Ellie said. “But it needs to be prepared specially. Mushrooms and nuts and berries keep better.”Nathan pushed a box of berries my way. “Here, these are blueberries. You can eat those.”“Thanks,” I said. We talked about food some more, because talking about food was easy. Most everyone liked eating and nearly everyone liked complaining, so it wasn’t hard to steer the conversation to keep everyone talking.Once we’d scarfed everything down, and Nathan repacked his things, we all stood and stretched and the boys roughhoused a bit before we took off again. It had been nearly an hour since we’d left the road where the parade was supposed to take place, and in that time a few more stalls had appeared and there were more people milling around the sides of the road.“Come on,” Rowan said. He gestured to the other side of the road, where the homes and businesses stopped and the area was left open next to what I figured was the actual military academy. “Let’s get a closer view.”We did a bit of jaywalking (after looking both ways) then installed ourselves to see the show.We didn’t have to wait long. Soon sylph in neat uniforms were walking out of the academy and forming up into neat rows under the screamed instructions of a very angry instructor. A marching band grouped up as well, and soon the entire formation started to march out, with a second group forming up behind the first.I clapped and cheered along with some of the civilians, though I refrained from making faces or silly noises at the stoic soldiers as they moved past.A tug at my sleeve had me turning towards Awen. “Hey, where’s Rowan?”I spun, counted two cervid, then felt a deep sinking feeling in my tummy.
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Chapter Two Hundred and Eighty-Three — Are You Trying to Get Arrested
Chapter Two Hundred and Eighty-Three — Are You Trying to Get Arrested “Where’s Rowan?” I asked.Amaryllis, Nathan, and Ellie didn't seem to hear me and kept watching the parade. There had to be a few thousand sylph out on the road, all resplendent and marching with perfect synchronisation under the watchful eyes of drill sergeants.I glanced to Awen, who shrugged. “I didn’t see when he left,” she said. “I turned, and he was just gone.”I chewed on the inside of my lip as I searched the crowds lining the street. I didn’t want to scream out Rowan’s name. Not that my screaming would help much. A marching band was stomping along in the middle of the formation of soldiers, brass horns and drums and cymbals hooting and banging in time to a marching beat. I wouldn’t be heard over that.“Guys!” I said as I ran up to Amaryllis and the others. I tugged on Nathan’s arm to get his attention. “Rowan’s missing.”Nathan looked at me, then glanced around to look for his friend. He had a height advantage, I was sure he’d see Rowan, and we’d all discover that the cervid had wandered over to a street vendor, or maybe the washroom, and everything would be fine.“I can’t see him,” Nathan said, poking a hole right through my hopes.“Probably just taking a walk,” Ellie said dismissively. “Look, they’re doing aerial parades too.”I glanced at the sylph zipping through the air in tight formations, but that was all the attention I spared them. “I’m still worried,” I said. “We’re responsible for keeping you three safe, you know?”“Just relax,” Ellie said.Nathan made a deep, growly noise. “Ellie, you’re hiding something,” he said. “I’ve known you long enough to tell. Where’s Rowan gone?”Ellie stepped to the side slightly, her arms crossing. “How would I know?” she said. It did sound rather defensive.“You’re all morons,” Amaryllis snapped. She gestured to the side with a wing, pointing towards the large military base right next to us. “Rowan’s the one that wanted to stand so close to the base, and now he’s missing. He’s probably snooping in there right now. Right, Ellie?”Ellie pouted for just a moment before she glared at Amaryllis. “We’re not spies,” she said.“I didn’t accuse you of anything of the sort,” Amaryllis said. “But I sure did think it.”“Amaryllis. We’re trying to be friends here,” I said with a warning look. “Nathan, Ellie, where did Rowan go?”“If he did go to the base,” Nathan said with a rather pointed glance at Ellie. “Then it’ll be against the orders of the embassy. Which means that he’d be under a different set of orders.”“I don’t really know much about Trenten Flats politics,” I said.“I mean that it’s likely that if he is trying to see what can be seen in that base, then he’s doing so under the polite suggestion from a superior in the army. Rowan’s always been ambitious, it wouldn’t surprise me to hear of him taking this kind of risk to earn a bit of favour.”“Are there any cervid military types here in Goldenalden?” Amaryllis asked.Nathan shook his head. “No. Well, yes. There’s an escort, and guards who are under the orders of a commissar, but the summit is meant to be a peace talk, and the sylph discouraged the presence of non-diplomatic military personnel. Which is all the military personnel in the Trenten Flats. We keep the army and politics far apart, as a rule.”“So, assuming we believe you, if Rowan is being a moron, then he’s being a moron under either the orders of someone that’s nowhere near here, or he’s doing it of his own free will to score points,” Amaryllis summarised.“Rowan’s not a moron,” Ellie said.I butted in before Amaryllis could say anything else, because I knew that her next words weren’t going to be all that polite. It took some time for people to get used to Amaryllis’ Amaryllis-ness, and the cervid weren’t quite ready for that. “Let’s look for him,” I said. “Just a poke around the base. Around it. We can’t get into trouble for taking an enthusiastic walk, I don’t think.”“What if he comes back?” Ellie asked.I hesitated. “What if we split up, then? Some of us stay here, the rest go looking for Rowan?”“I’ll go with you,” Awen said. “Amaryllis can stay with Ellie.”Amaryllis squawked. “Why should I stay?”“Because you’re a harpy. They’ll think you’re more suspicious than Broccoli and I, and if we get into big trouble, you’re better backup than I would be.”Amaryllis sufficiently placated, I turned to Nathan and nodded. I tried my best to make it one of those serious boy-nods that guys sometimes gave each other, but I wasn’t too sure if I pulled it off. Still, when I started walking towards the base, he followed right along with me.The base itself had a yard all around it, probably something of a luxury in a place like Goldenalden where space was such a premium. There were plain buildings on either side though, homes, or maybe discrete offices. And behind the base was a sheer wall of stone, part of the mountain that had been carved out so that the base could be laid on even ground.All that meant that there was really no reason for someone to cross the base to try to get to the other side, nor was there much room to move in next to the base without being right out in the open.Despite all that, I could see Rowan anywhere. “Do you think he really went towards the base?” I asked.“It’s possible,” Nathan said.I chewed on my bottom lips for a moment. I couldn’t just walk up to the base. I’d be spotted and someone would tell me off. But maybe we could circle around it? If he wasn’t there, then we’d widen our search.“Look, there’s a sort of passage there,” Awen said. She pointed towards the back of the buildings next to the base. There was a gap between them and the stone wall. An alleyway?“And I bet the alley between any two buildings leads right up to that one,” I said. “Well spotted, Awen.”“It will be that much less suspicious, I hope,” Nathan said as we ducked into the nearest alleyway. It did, indeed, meet up with the passage at the back.“How did Rowan get around sneakily if he didn’t come through here?” I asked.Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.Nathan sighed. I didn’t know if it was a big sigh because he was a big guy, or if he really just felt like sighing big. “Rowan has a few stealth-based skills. Part of his great ambitions.”“You need those to become a military person?” I asked.“The Trenten Flats’ army has always put a lot of stock in stealth. For every brash soldier who thinks that the grand charge is the finest act of heroism, there’s another who has invested years in learning the great bow and who can hide in the middle of an empty field.”“Oh,” I said. That was rather impressive. “Rowan’s that sort?”“He thinks that charging at a line of spears and shields is a very dumb thing to do. So yes, he’s the sort who dreams of becoming another... ah, you probably wouldn’t know the names of our folk heroes.”“Sorry,” I said.Nathan shook his head. “It’s no matter.”We reached the end of the surprisingly clean alley (of all the dark alleys I’d been in, this was the cleanest so far), and stuck our heads out to look both ways. Nothing but cleared space. Some of the homes further out clearly had some private backyards, with little fences around them, but otherwise it was a boring old alleyway.We moved towards the base, then stared out at it again. This time from the rear. The base had a few buildings, basically a complex of what looked like dorms and gymnasiums and classrooms. Really, I could only tell that much because they had large signs above the doors. Otherwise, the buildings didn’t have much decoration, they were just tall but still squat buildings made of dark stone, with windows here and there and a bunch of entrances on the ground floor. Rowan was at one of those windows, peeking in.“Oh no,” I muttered.“Well, nothing for it,” Nathan said as he started to walk out of the alley.I jogged after him, Awen by my side. “What are you going to do?” I asked.“Give him an earful, after I drag him back to the street,” Nathan said. “Just ditching us like that, it’s not the kind of behaviour anyone should exhibit. Especially when we’re meant to be acting at our best.”“Right, but maybe we can be a little more subtle?” I asked.“Too late for that,” Awen said.I turned in time to see a pair of sylph jogging our way. They both had armbands on, with an eye-like symbol on it, and they carried batons instead of swords by their hips. “Hey, you three,” the smaller of the two sylph said. “What are you doing out here?”“Uh,” I said. I had to come up with something other than ‘we’re here to stop our buddy from spying on you.’ That would have been way too suspicious!Before I could say the first lie that I thought up, Awen stepped before me and smiled. “Hi there! We’re lost.”“You’re lost,” the officer repeated.Awen nodded. “Yup! The two of us girls needed to use the little lady’s room, and then we wanted to see the parade, but now we can’t find it at all.”“There aren’t any ‘little lady’s rooms’ around here” the officer said.“Well, I didn’t say that we had used one, just that we needed to use one,” Awen pointed out. “Do you know where there’s a little lady’s room?”The officer didn’t look amused. “Really?” he asked.“We could use a boy’s room in a pinch,” Awen said. She shrugged. “You know us, us humans and buns, we just need to wash up a lot.”“And what about the cervid?” the officer asked.Awen glanced back at Nathan, then at me. “Uh,” she said.“They’re our chaperones,” I said hurriedly.“That’s right,” Awen said. “Nathan here’s our chaperone.”“One of them,” I added. “We have two.”The officer looked at Nathan, who stood a little taller. “You have two?” he asked.I nodded, then pointed to Rowan. “See. There’s our other one. Hey! Rowan!” I called. “Did you find a bathroom yet?”The officer blinked, turning his head to follow the imaginary line of my finger, and saw Rowan with his face smooshed against a window. "Hey!" he shouted, reaching for his club. "This is a restricted area! You can't be looking in there!"Rowan jumped, spun, then stared at us all wide-eyed. When the officer started moving towards him we followed, Awen and I making ‘calm down’ sorts of gestures at him. Rowan looked like he wanted to run away, but Nathan shook his head and he stayed on the spot.“Did you find a little lady’s room?” Awen asked before the officer could start grilling Rowan.“No?” Rowan tried.The officer glared at Rowan, then at us. “Okay, I don’t know what kind of funny-business is going on here, but I don’t like it.”“We don’t like bathroom business either, sir,” Awen said. “But it’s a necessary evil.”The taller officer snickered until his partner levelled his glare on him. He looked at us again, and I tried extra-hard to look innocent. “Get out of here. Find a washroom elsewhere. Not... not here.”The nice officer escorted the four of us for a while until we could walk off on our own.“Damned tourists,” he muttered before walking off.Nathan waited until we were back on the sidewalk and heading towards the others before he rounded on Rowan. “What in the World’s own sacred Dirt did you think you were doing back there?” he asked.“I... got lost,” Rowan said.“Oh, were you looking for a washroom?” Nathan asked with biting sarcasm. “You idiot. You could have gotten us all in a heap of trouble.”“I needed to,” Rowan said.“Needed to what? Get arrested? I don’t entirely disagree,” Nathan said. “But you getting in trouble would put me and these girls in trouble too.”“The sylph are a threat to our nation,” Rowan hissed.“And you’re a threat to my sanity,” Nathan bit back.I cleared my throat. “Um. Can we... not do this? Friends shouldn’t argue. Come on, Rowan will tell us everything, I’m sure, but it would be nicer if we didn’t have a big argument right on the sidewalk. Also, arguing when tempers are high already isn’t great. I’m sure we can make an effort to be nice to each other.”The boys were silent until we reached Ellie and Amaryllis who were both waiting with their arms crossed. “So, where did you find the moron?” Amaryllis asked.I smacked myself in the face.
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