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\f0\i\b\fs24 \cf0 Escape
\f1\i0\b0 \
\
"Master Huros, wake up," spoke a gentle voice, a gentle prod accompanying it. It was the sweetest of voices, observed the juggler as he turned over, keeping his eyes shut. The vocal incarnation of honey. Sweet like the voice that had sung that song about the South, Jeuni realized, and his eyes snapped open. He sat up, pushing the sheets aside, and looked for her. There she was, by the open door, smiling. Standing next to her was an old friend of the juggler's.\
\
"Where am I, Gyurot?" Jeuni asked of his friend, having deducted from the fact that he was in a real bed that this was not his shack. Gazing around the room, he took in the decor\'d1extravagant floral murals covered the walls. By the bed, atop a gilded night stand, was an oil lamp, a true luxury in the town in which he lived.\
\
"A place called The Golden Swan, Master Huros," piped the girl.\
\
"The room's on your manager, Jeuni," said the man in the doorway. "I sent him a message when this girl turned up with your half-dead body, and he said he would take care of any expenses, so you can rest all you want."\
\
"Rest, eh?" asked Jeuni. "Why wake me up, then?"\
\
"Kihara here thought you should have some food and drink," replied Gyurot. "She told me you hadn't eaten in more than two days, and that you had collapsed from dehydration and hunger." \
\
"Kihara?" asked the juggler. "That's your name?"\
\
"Yes," replied the girl cheerfully. Though her mouth showed a smile, her eyes still held the desperation and sorrow that Jeuni recalled seeing in them before. "So, would Master Huros like to have a little breakfast?"\
\
"That may be a good idea," said the juggler.\
\
"Wait here, I'll go get it!" So declaring, Kihara turned and dashed from the room, her slim feet falling softly on the scarlet carpeting of the hall.\
\
"Sweet girl," Gyurot observed. "You did a good job, Jeuni!" The juggler's friend cracked a smile. He was lean, and of average height, and fairly plain through and through with his ordinary skin tone (slightly bronze), ordinary eye color (hazel), and ordinary hair color (light brown). Of course, most of the town's inhabitants had similar features. Jeuni only marveled at the plainness\'d1which he shared\'d1because he had recently encountered two people with exceptional physical traits\'d1first, the beast-man, now, Kihara.\
\
"Good job at what?" grumbled the juggler, non too pleased to be left alone with his old friend, who was known for making bad jokes and being generally unpleasant.\
\
"With that girl. She's completely infatuated with you, man." Gyurot chuckled. "I wish someone like her would drag
\f2\i me
\f1\i0 to a hotel."\
\
"Stuff it, Gyurot," Jeuni growled. He would have reprimanded his friend further were it not for those red eyes, everything they held embedded in his mind. He didn't want to joke and laugh with Gyurot; he wanted to answer the crimson question of those eyes.\
\
"What's wrong, Jeuni?" the man asked, stepping closer to the juggler's bed. "You don't seem your usual self."\
\
"Go to hell, man-whore," Jeuni muttered.\
\
"That's harsh," laughed Gyurot. "You know I'm only a janitor here!"\
\
"Go to hell."\
\
"Yeesh. That's how you talk to someone who had a part in saving your life? You know, Jeuni, you were really half-dead when she brought you here. Though admittedly I haven't been watching the whole time; maybe she worked some magic on you or something."\
\
"Damn it, Gyurot, shut the hell up. She can't be more than thirteen or fourteen."\
\
"Hasn't stopped you before," prodded the janitor.\
\
"You say that like I've been in this position before. Listen, Gyurot, I know you work here and that you clean up after all kinds of unspeakable things\'d1" Gyurot smiled like he was about to challenge how unspeakable those things were "\'d1and that it's probably affected your mind an awful lot, but please try to be normal for once? Consider things. She's
\f2\i weird
\f1\i0 ."\
\
"Don't lecture me about careers," Gyurot warned. "I remember a time when you weren't a renowned drunk." Jeuni didn't respond. After a moment's pause, Gyurot's smile disappeared and he furrowed his brow. "But yeah, she's weird, alright. Kihara? I don't know what region that name is from, but it's sure not anywhere in the midlands. And her hair's odd, and\'d1"\
\
"Her eyes," muttered Jeuni, shivering as he thought of them. Before Gyurot could respond, Kihara came back in through the open door, a tray full of food in her hands.\
\
"Breakfast!" she exclaimed cheerfully, looking straight into Jeuni's eyes. Gyurot excused himself without a word, brandishing a mop he had plucked from the corner to indicate that he had work to get to. Jeuni almost didn't notice his friend leaving as his gaze was absorbed by the girl's red pupils. Kihara stepped over to the juggler's bedside and placed the tray on his lap, keeping her eyes locked on his. "Eat," she cooed, and it was more than just a suggestion. Jeuni began eating, tearing into the roll and sausage. He didn't taste a thing as he consumed the meal but he felt his previously empty stomach filling and was content with the food.\
\
He reached for the pitcher of water on the tray and, as he poured the cool liquid down his throat, he realized he hadn't had water in ages. All he drank these days was alcohol. Suddenly, the thought came to him to go over to the tavern, to drink himself into oblivion with cheap Western gin, and that thought seemed rather nice. Especially with Kihara's eyes boring into his so intensely.\
\
Don't look at me, he mouthed. Don't look at me! He found voice and put it behind his words:\
\
"Don't look at me with those eyes."\
\
Jeuni couldn't take Kihara's gaze any longer. He snapped his eyes shut and leapt from bed, knocking the tray and its remaining contents over. Water, butter, and a few scraps of sausage fell to the floor. Kihara's immediate response was to kneel down and begin cleaning the mess. Jeuni, taking advantage of her occupation with the spilled food, grabbed his boots from the foot of the bed, slipped them on, and ran from the room as best he could with his somewhat stiff legs.\
\
The juggler limped out of The Golden Swan, making a note to himself never to enter it again, and hopefully not to have to talk to Gyurot again. The man really was unpleasant. But despite this complaint, Jeuni was inwardly grateful to his manager for covering the hotel expenses, and to his old friend for watching out for him. He liked to think he would do the same. In fact, he liked to think
\f2\i anything
\f1\i0 , because any thought to keep his mind off Kihara's eyes\'d1\
\
Anything to keep his mind off what Kihara's eyes held\'d1\
\
Jeuni shook his head furiously as he ran, headed for the tavern at which he worked. The juggler noticed that though he had just eaten breakfast, it was dark out. It was nighttime, dark out (and damn freezing, according to Jeuni), past the usual time of his juggling act. This would be the third day of his absence; he would need to apologize to anyone he saw there for skipping out on work for several days in a row. The reason for his delinquency came back to him, and he remembered lying on his cot in a fevered sleep, waking every so often only to see the armor of the man he had killed. With this in mind, and the conscious thought that he needed to forget Kihara's eyes, he doubled his speed, breaking into the tavern like a madman and seating himself at the bar with little elegance.\
\
"Not yourself today," the bartender observed wryly.\
\
"No," answered Jeuni, "which is why I am going to return to normal now."\
\
"Drinking like usual, eh?" chuckled the bartender, dropping his rag and pouring a glass full of the juggler's hated Western gin. "Your manager seemed pretty upset when he heard the news, you know. He 's probably going to come down on you hard for missing work."\
\
"Probably," agreed Jeuni before downing the glass and belching. "Damn good stuff."\
\
"I thought you hated it?" asked the bartender as he prepared a second glass. He didn't need to be asked for one; the man knew that Jeuni intended to drink until he couldn't today.\
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"Haven't had a drink in days," breathed Jeuni after he had emptied his second glass. "I don't think I can afford hate. Alcohol is alcohol!" With this, he smiled, much to the chagrin of the bartender, who noted that the juggler was not becoming more like himself. Where were the curses, the complaints, the funny jokes, he wondered. Jeuni was not himself, not himself at all.\
\
"Is she the cause?" the bartender wondered aloud, more to himself than anyone, alerting Jeuni to the presence of the blue-haired girl. She stood just inside the tavern, leaning back against the door frame and looking calm as ever, even though Jeuni figured she must have had to run like hell to catch up to him. The juggler, though short, was taller than the girl, and reasoned that there was no way she could have reached him in this time by natural means. The fact that he reached this conclusion frightened him almost as much as her presence.\
\
Seeing that she had been noticed, she straightened herself and took a step toward the bar, opening her mouth to address the juggler.\
\
Jeuni was vaguely aware of the edge of the counter digging into his lower back as the toes of his boots pushed desperately against the slick tavern floor. The bartender was saying something he could not make out. Kihara's lips were moving but if they were forming words, Jeuni did not know in what language. Her eyes were the only thing Jeuni was sure of; they alone in the scene remained static, reflecting the still sorrow and despair that so frightened the juggler. Suddenly the pain in the juggler's back became acute and he realized that, in shrinking away from the blue-haired girl, he was concurrently doing a fair job of shoving his back toward the breaking point.\
\
Deciding that he needed an alternative route away from Kihara, he bounded forward and past the girl in a flash, his back aching as he ran. He hadn't left the tavern far behind by the time he started hobbling, though he hobbled as fast he could, sure that the girl wouldn't be able to keep up. Sure that those eyes wouldn't be able to keep up. Jeuni didn't consider the consequences of not meeting with his manager. He didn't consider the consequences of leaving his last couple drinks unpaid for. All he could think about was how terrifying those red eyes were, for they held something he hadn't seen before: his death.\
\
And the worst thing, he felt, was that he wanted to look into those eyes. He wanted to spend hours gazing into them, listening to their silent story with his own eyes. It was a terrible desire and he hobbled faster, as if running from his own thoughts. He aimed for his little shack near the town's outskirts. He reasoned that his abode wasn't some public establishment; that Kihara surely would not be able to enter there unbidden. He cherished the thought of peace, of having time and space to himself. Though he wanted to look into Kihara's eyes, that desire was something he was not ready to accept, and he fled from it instead. \
\
But when Jeuni entered his shack, what he found was not peace. He found the empty suit of blue plate mail, a color that reminded him of Kihara's light hair. The blood splotches marring the armor brought the girl's eyes to mind. He turned back to the door so as to not be facing the armor only to see that girl with her indomitable smile and terrifying red eyes standing just outside his shack. He had forgotten to close the door upon entering, and now it was too late. He was too frightened to move closer to the girl, so frightened that he could not reach out and slam the door shut.\
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Kihara, still smiling, first put one foot in the doorway, and then the other. Her arms dangled by her sides, hidden in the sleeves of her oversized white coat. The wind that affected nothing else still hung around her hair, blowing it this way and that as she entered Jeuni's tiny home. His room was so small that just by standing inside it at the same time, their bodies were almost touching. The juggler couldn't back away, so paralyzed was he by the contents of Kihara's eyes. He also couldn't back away because his heel was against the beast-man's armor, which was in turn against the wall. His shack was simply too small; he had nowhere to run.\
\
There was no escape, he realized as he peered into Kihara's eyes. They were all he could see, giant pools into which to dive. Her smile, a faint blur at the bottom of his field of vision, was an invitation to enter. Jeuni's thought:
\f2\i Does she not blink?\
\
\f1\i0 Jeuni's thought:
\f2\i Perhaps no one can find peace in these war-torn midlands.
\f1\i0 \
\
And she said, silently, with her eyes:
\f2\i Peace is here.
\f1\i0 \
\
Jeuni replied, silently, through her eyes:
\f2\i You don't know what I've seen.
\f1\i0 \
\
Kihara's eyes moved as she peered over the juggler's shoulder, standing on tiptoes. He could feel her breath on his neck. The girl confirmed something, sighed, and returned her eyes to where they needed to be, in front of Jeuni's. She wasn't really looking up at the juggler and he realized that they were about the same height. For the first time in over a decade, he felt a twinge of embarrassment over his height.\
\
\f2\i Don't you want to see it?
\f1\i0 she asked.\
\f2\i \
It's not what I thought it was,
\f1\i0 he answered.\
\f2\i \
Neither is this place.\
\
I know that now.\
\
You want to run away.\
\
Not to the South.\
\
You used to.\
\
I tried.
\f1\i0 \
\
\f2\i Everyone has tried at least once. What distinguishes you from your peers is that you didn't truly fail. You can try again.
\f1\i0 \
\
"Why am I talking to you?" Jeuni asked, but the question he thought he was asking was with a "how." He took a step back, his foot landing prematurely on the pile of armor. He stumbled, fell sideways, landed on his cot, massaged his head where it hit the wall. The juggler moved his hands to his eyes and rubbed them as though he were waking from a deep slumber. He was neither perfectly sober nor entirely collected.\
\
"Because I came to show you the South," was Kihara's answer, and once again Jeuni saw that scene with the letters of blood written out on the broken cobblestones. It flashed by in a hurry and left him sweating, still lying on the cot in the corner. \
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"Leave me alone," he whispered, the pain of his previous fevered sleep returning. "I can find peace alone. I will find peace! Peace from this god-damned freezing winter, and\'d1"\
\
"Master Huros, it's not wintertime\'d1"\
\
"Shut up! It's fucking
\f2\i cold
\f1\i0 . And these goddamn wars all the time! Byhr and its better world. Well I say
\f2\i damn
\f1\i0
\f2\i
\f1\i0 its better world.
\f2\i Damn
\f1\i0
\f2\i
\f1\i0 it to
\f2\i
\f1\i0
\f2\i hell
\f1\i0 . Damn these midlands. Damn Harnecia. Damn this town!"\
\
"Master Huros, that's enough\'d1" Kihara's voice resonated with concern but Jeuni was free of its spell. He wasn't going to listen to the blue-haired girl; he wasn't going to calm down. He was going to find his peace, and he wouldn't let anyone\'d1not even this girl and the promise in her eyes\'d1stop him.\
\
Or maybe.\
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He was accepting what her eyes held as he produced a knife from his sleeve and pointed it at his own heart.\
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"Master Huros! That's a bit much! Calm down!" Looking up at the girl, she seemed impressively tall. She was no longer smiling and her eyes were no longer static; her face expressed more worry than she warranted having for the little juggler she'd only just met. Jeuni smiled as he tightened his grip on the dagger. He was going to die with what his best friend called "a good job" watching over him. As he stretched his arm out, preparing for the plunge, he remembered the girl's song and its beautiful, pained melody. All that beauty, all that sweetness, worried about him? The juggler chuckled as he drove the dagger toward his chest.\
\
"The curtain falls."\
\
Jeuni never felt the blade. He watched in horror as his cloak was stained red with blood that wasn't his. He watched Kihara's arms wrap around him, watched her face reach toward his. He watched her crimson eyes, inches from his, glaze over. He watched her die until the breeze around her head died too and silver-blue locks blocked his vision. He felt her body spasm against his, against the dagger in his hand. He couldn't let go of it and she couldn't let go of him.\
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Unable to form any coherent mental reaction to this turn of events, much less do anything in response, the juggler simply laid there, upon his cot, the blue-haired girl upon him, them both soaked in her blood.}