What Makes A Monster - Chapter 21

“Where I’m from, Imyra, freeloading is for lowlifes.”

“Not freeloaders. Guests, Olivia. We are guests.”

The two adolescents sporting matching peach blond hair sat opposite each other on the rooftop garden caf of the Time Centre.

The people called it the Time Centre because of the utharil swimming through the pattern of grooves in its exterior walls; the simple circular patterns on the building’s exterior switched between shades of the rainbow according to the time of day; the location of the sun in the sky.

In an attempt to pull in more tourists and expand the town, the Time Centre was the most expensive venture the town remembered sponsoring. The older generations may still secretly refer to the ruling Sugratzye at the time as a foolish spendthrift, but it had indeed become the venue most frequented by locals and tourists alike. What few tourists the little town of Detzlane got, anyway. Mostly, the town was a service stop for long distance travellers.

The province of Edael Clan Sugratzye’s territory was small and out of the way and neighboured the perilous Lrustonian forests, but it did in fact receive many travellers who passed through to arrive at more exciting destinations like the western Wernande or the eastern Telmae, but few stopped at Detzlane. Legrath, a neighbouring town slightly larger, enjoyed a higher count of tourists each season. They had better hotel reviews.

When Olivia had heard the history of the colour-changing building, her scepticism pointed immediately to how redundant it was to for the exterior of a building to indicate the colour of day. One might as well look towards the sky for it. If she recalled correctly, utharil was initially developed for underground societies that didn’t see the light of sun too often.

Since she had to journey through the Empire anyway on her way to her destination, Olivia had decided it would be silly not to see enjoy the many sights along the way. It was easier to enjoy oneself once the prospect of returning home was no longer completely impossible. And so, with a tourist’s spirit, she pushed away words like ‘idiotic’ and ‘nonsensical’ that threatened to jump off the tip of her tongue in comment towards the five-storey structure and instead replaced them with ‘endearing’ and ‘charming’. After all, redundant or no, the gradual shift of colour made the for-all-intents-and-purposes clock-tower/shopping centre a rather pretty sight as it stood out in the centre of a sea of earth brown two storey building.

“Broke guests, freeloaders, pish, posh, two sides of a coin,” Olivia said.

“We are not broke. I just can’t access my accounts right now. There is a difference.”

“We have no money. That means we are broke and living off the charity of your friend.”

“If you find my solution to the problem so detestable,” Imyra retorted with a pointed look, “we could use your stash for accommodation and the like.”

“Vera’s pity fund is the sum total of my worldly assets. I am not about to waste it on bad food and small town inns with equally bad service,” Olivia said as she stabbed at one of the numerous dough balls on her plate with the finger-length stick that came with. The balls were bite sized and glazed with a light green sauce. When the stick pierced through the centre, peach coloured jelly oozed out.

With a silent snicker she noted the similarities between the pierced dough ball on her plate and the girl sitting opposite her. Olivia had always found the fact that Imyra had green skin hopelessly ironic. Aliens having green skin wasn’t just a Hollywood thing.

Olivia lifted the stick and popped the whole negaezt, as the menu and waiter had called it, into her mouth.

Ignorant of the musings in Olivia’s head, Imyra gave the plate of piled green balls a pointed glance. “So she says stuffing her face with the aforementioned ‘bad food’.”

Olivia chewed and gulped with a straight face before explaining, “It’s a numbing-your-taste-buds exercise. The plan is to torture my tongue until it stops expecting Vera gourmet.”

These negaezt were a local delicacy designed to be a side dish, to be enjoyed with a healthy serving of carbs to soften its strong flavour. Olivia had ordered a main meal-sized portion of just those green balls.

Imyra’s apple-green nose scrunched up as she watched Olivia pop another into her mouth, “Is that really necessary?”

“You have a better idea? What do you do when you have to switch to common food? As in when you’re away from your whatever-palace.”

“I don’t switch. I keep a good chef around.”

Even now, Imyra had ordered a serving of cut fruit for lunch; something any chef would have to work hard at getting wrong.

“You don’t even give the local specialties a chance?” Olivia was incredulous.

Imyra responded matter-of-factly, “I don’t trust outside food.”

“Whether the food is good or bad, that is no way to live.” Olivia shook her head at her companion and pushed her own plate to the middle of the table, “Looks like you’re joining me in my quest of lowering our tongue’s standards.”

Imyra laughed at the suggestion. “My, what cute delusions you have.”

Olivia did not give up and instead pushed the plate further by an inch.

“Kind as it was, I refuse your offer.”

Olivia pushed it towards her by another inch.

“Stop. Your whole idea is stupid and crazy. I am not joining you.”

Olivia pursed her lips. “I’ve been thinking, ImyI mean, Myra, I’ve heard, I mean, read, I’ve read about some experimental exercises, procedures that could potentially help un-paralyse your legs. Sure, there’s some pain involved, as they say, no pain no gain, but no”

“Stop there. Fine. Fine.” Imyra reached out and grabbed a negaetz from the plate that threatened to push her own bowl of fruit off the table. She scrunched up her face. “Happy?”

Olivia nodded shortly before starting, “so I’ve been thinking…”

“I hate it when you start a sentence with ‘I’ve been thinking’,” Imyra interrupted with a tortured expression as she tried to chew quickly. “Oh Neira, this is sour.”

“It’s about the lantern girl. Can you do something to make her stop being so eager to please? It’s really irritating.”

Imyra corrected, “it’s Lataena, not Lantern.”

“My brain lacks the space to remember names of insignificant side characters.”

“You complain about freeloading but you can’t extend the courtesy of remembering the name of the person you’re freeloading off?”

“I don’t like freeloading because of a matter of principles, not courtesy or morals. Besides, do you remember how long it took me to remember your name?”

“Point taken.”

It had actually only taken Olivia two weeks to get used to her newest teacher/gopher being called Imyra instead of ‘green-faced minion’ as she had gotten to calling her in her mind. A vast improvement from how long it took to remember the names of Unaani or Lexara. She had thought of them as ‘purple-haired onion’ and ‘pink-faced lexicon’ respectively for a long time before she’d gotten used to everyone else calling them by their proper names. It hadn’t been so much a case of learning the names, as a case of remembering because of the unavoidable repetition of the names.

“Can you make her stop?” Olivia raised the subject again, later, when they were browsing through a jewellery store.

The sore and numb feeling on her tongue from the many negaetz she had downed earlier was fading as she spoke. It was the feeling of eating too much pineapple but magnified five-fold. It had effectively destroyed her tongue for a while, but the sting had already become a fading memory. She wondered if she’d succeeded in pushing the memory of Vera’s food out of her mouth’s mind. She couldn’t hope to tour the empire if she couldn’t even have a chance to appreciate crass street food.

Imyra did not spare her a glance as she busied herself by admiring the jewellery on display before her. She lifted an earring against her ear and admired herself in the mirror hung beside them.

“Are you listening to me? She’s literally paying for everything we show an interest in. Did you tell her we were broke?” Olivia hissed beside her, shooting a glance at the adolescent girl standing at the entrance of the shop speaking to the shop owner and then to her guards.

Their eager to please host and the reason Olivia found herself feeling like a charity case; the mayor’s daughter, Mint Lantern, whose real name Olivia had long forgotten. Her wavy mint locks were an anomaly amongst the sea of redheads and occasional blondes that populated the town, hence the name.

“Of course not,” Imyra replied offhand as she picked up a bracelet and examined its central gem piece. “I’d lose my credibility if she did. She’s trying to bribe us. Buy our goodwill. Why refuse all that effortstop right there.”

Dejected, Olivia pulled her hands back. She had been about to lift a pair of earrings from its stand. “That’s metal, not glass. It won’t break that easily.”

Imyra was still sour about the negaetz affair no pun intended. When she didn’t complain about the fact that she wouldn’t be able to taste anything for the next few days, she found other things to needle Olivia with.

“I’d rather not chance it,” the green-faced, no-longer-really-her-minion Imyra snapped. “After all that chaos back at the Residence, I want our short stay here to be peaceful. Relaxing. A well-deserved vacation.”

Olivia smiled innocently. “Exactly what I had in mind.”

“You’re only going to attract unnecessary attention if you flex your inhuman strength and go around breaking everything you touch.”

“And emptying out every shop we enter doesn’t attract attention?” Olivia raised an eyebrow as she indicated at the empty store around them.

Indeed, the reason they were the only patrons within the jewellery store was because its customers had been evicted prior to their arrival. Just like all the previous shops they’d patronised. As well as the rooftop caf’s garden where they had lunched earlier.

“As it is apart from the lantern, I haven’t felt a very welcoming vibe from the locals even before they were kicked out. And evicting them from every shop we enter only antagonised them even more. It’s not a very vacationy atmosphere here.”

Imyra was dubious as she pondered, “Surely, they’re used to such treatment? I thought this was the usual practice of noble ladies… I mean, most of this is glipher,” she lifted the dangly light blue metal of a shoulder piece in demonstration, “and maybe some vertim here and there. It’s not the most exclusive store, I bet even commoners shop here. Kicking people out of a commoner’s as a security measure seems pretty normal.”

“If you say so. You would know better than I.”

Olivia had no idea about the different names of the blue metals or even how much they might cost. All she knew was that the darker the blue, the more zorne it could store.

“Maybe she thinks that’s what we expect of her,” Imyra suggested.

“Did you even tell her we wanted to stay low profile? With this flashy procession of guards and constant showering of bribes, we might as well give up on fake names.”

“Nah, I mean, just because we have to travel incognito doesn’t mean we have to pretend to be insignificant.”

Olivia raised an eyebrow.

Imyra sighed, “We’ll ask Lataena to tone it down a little.”