Elves Are Sleeping Beauties

The sun dips behind moored vessels at sea, reflecting in the harbour's water an easing sunlight that's cool on your skin. You've kept an eye on Lucien's Chapter House for hours. Sometimes, you'll catch a whiff of street food from where you sit, together with the distant chatter and fading notes of instruments in the wind.

Shadows stretch, and their sunset tint fades to black as evening twilight comes upon the city, then you hear a click. Filaments flare to life on a lamp pole near the storefront. You watch more than thirty streetlamps brighten the esplanade, and see at the other end, the same incandescence rise from where the boulevard is, now with a tall column of smoke that was not there during the day.

The gas lamps you knew in the Old World were not nearly as bright. Electric lamps? This is the first time you've seen it in person. You look at the windows of storefronts and homes on the second storey as people switch on their lamps after the city has power, and you also catch the light inside Lucien's Chapter House turn on with an annoyed look. Your stomach protests, but it only hardens your patience.

You sit on a bench in an unlit corner of the esplanade, your fountain pen reflects the distant incandescent lamps between your fingers, and underneath it, a page filled with notes has gone to dim to see without straining your eyes. You close your journal, and tap its cover, looking at that lit, but unchanging storefront with a regretful feeling.

The text you thought was a grammatical exception wasn't that at all. It really did mean trading cosmetics for half-human, half-animal people, and not for their pets. Damn it. The copy you made is in a separate notebook left in the old home. You pack your things and worry with tense eyebrows.

Are the relics still a secret? You're helpless, but all the more desperate to remove the people around them, which will be difficult since they're likely here for the adventurers' guild's business in the first place. An hour elapses in your thoughts, and a familiar bell's chime returns you to the doorway of Lucien's Chapter House with renewed anticipation.

They leave the store one by one. First is a slim, vertical figure, who glides onto the esplanade without the slightest sway of her garments, wearing a thin, short sleeve blouse that frames her cleavage with a drape around her waist, tightened on the rump where her human pelvis and vestigial femurs grafts to the ribs of her serpentine lower half. She stretches her torso in a sigh, her long, scintillating onyx spine stirring from a coil.

The second is a shorter and thinner figure, pinching her scapulas, one for her arms and another for her wings, narrowing their span behind herself to clear the doorway. She wears drawers under what you think is a maid's muslin apron. What? You doubt her fashion at first, but it does seem quite practical for her wings. Once through, she spreads her feathered limbs to each side with arms reaching forward, stretching her tight back and appendages also sighing with relief.

The third is a figure who's taller than the two, and he clears the doorway with two horns on his head of black curly hair, wearing a tucked shirt with wide sleeves that are cuffed on his wrists. You stare at them on the esplanade, but there's none of the commotion you expect.

People keep to themselves. It appears that their non-human appendages are no longer a novelty at the harbour city. You frown at that idea. So, they're adventurers? You can at least glean from people's small talk that they train in the outskirts every morning.

The rest have less obtrusive appendages and clear the human doorway without difficulty. The feline woman you saw earlier walks through, and to her side is a tall figure with wolfish ears on his unkempt hair, his floor-length cloak fraying on the ground trailing his greaves.

Behind them is another tall figure whose hair has grown out to her waist. Her two tusks part her lips, pitching the top lip upward and accentuating the shape of her philtrum. She wears a blouse with bare shoulders, and a drape around her thighs and knees, covering the start of her firm buttocks but leaving her abdomen and lower back bare.

The store's incandescent light turns off, and the last one to leave, Lucien, locks the door behind him, placing a sign on the door. Lucien faces the group on the esplanade and asks, "So, have we decided on what we'll have for dinner tonight?" He gestures to the tusked woman. "Velmarie."

"I'll have a South continent meal served on a platter, do we all agree?"

"The South continent?" asks the winged woman with intrigue. The group starts a discussion in a language that you don't understand except for their code switches. Lucien, though, speaks both languages of the group.

"The South continent's cuisine is different from the North's. There's also North-Eastern cuisine, but there's no establishment yet in the city," says Lucien, explaining the ethnic cuisines in the Old World. So, they're learning our language and culture? You wonder, taking out your journal and pen once more to write your observations.

With Lucien urging for the tusked woman's suggestion, everyone agrees, and he asks the group to follow him to the boulevard. After they make enough distance from the store, you approach Lucien's Chapter House once more to intrude, though the white sign catches your eyes on an otherwise unlit and empty storefront.

On the doorstep with your journal under your arm, you pick up the sign and read, we're closed. You frown. He could have put that up earlier, and on the inside of his window. Idiots. Turning to the back, you find Lucien's elegant handwriting and raise an eyebrow. Not bad. You trace the script, then remember to read it.

Dear customer, I invite you to dinner, it'll most likely be at the Southern restaurant on Promise Street, I'll save you a seat. You can't miss it. You laugh shortly and consider it, looking between the empty store and writing. Ultimately, you frown, confused as to why Lucien is cautious of you when you don't believe you did anything unordinary.

People in the boulevard are more talkative. Out of everyone, the winged and snake women catch the attention for their non-human appearance, but people no longer bother them for it, only watching them from afar in either awe or aversion.

They arrive outside the restaurant and Lucien says to the waiter, "We have eight people. Can we be seated here?"

"We'll seat you right away."

The winged woman counts seven in their group. "Oh, the lady from the adventurers' guild!" she says with excitement.

Lucien smiles. "Well of course Nìxié."

Waiters set the table with polished platters, over a hundred empty bowls, cutlery and cups for each person. Once they finish, everyone sits in their usual arrangement plus one seat. The two who need more space, the half-human serpent and winged women are at each end of the table, with the empty seat next to the winged woman, much to her excitement.

You find Promise Street. How troublesome. You initially meant to record their schedule, sabotaging their cooperation with the adventurers' guild whether they know about the relics or not, however, Lucien has already put his guard up. You still doubt you revealed anything.

Why? You keep replaying today's events with no luck, but what's better than to ask him that directly? Besides, your stomach is grumbling, the spices, fat and roast wafting out the establishment is too alluring. You, agree with Lucien there, you can't miss this even if you tried.

The winged woman searching for the adventure's guild's lady finds you approach instead. "Lucien's customer?"

The man with horns squints in your direction. "Who?" When your figure breaks through the crowd, he frowns. "Him? why is the trespasser following us?"

Your eye twitches. The door was open, idiot. Not sparing him a glance, you face Lucien who smiles back at you.

"Thanks for coming dear customer," he says. You don't talk. He continues, "as you can see these are my guests, but I won't inconvenience you any longer as well. Can our business wait after dinner?"

You nod and take your seat between the tusked and winged women, removing your knapsack and other equipment. The tusked woman laughs at the man with horns next to her, talking in their language. She also says to you, "Good job!" joining her index finger and thumb in a circle with a tusky grin.

The man with horns scoffs, while the winged woman next to you asks with excitement, "How did you break Rāvokh's ward?"

Ward? You don't talk, looking at the man with horns who's probably Rāvokh, his eyes glaring at you also inquiring. Your face is unperturbed.

"It was weak," you say in a measured, monotone voice. You lie that you even felt it in the slightest, but you're observing the table's reaction. Lucien lifts an eyebrow, and the winged woman exclaims in awe. Similarly, everyone on the table is surprised, except the man with horns, he glares at you the same.

The tusked woman laughs. "Oh. Haha! Good one Scruffy!" she says and slaps your back.

You grit your teeth with a growl. Fuck. That was hard.

"My name is Milarch," you say with a glare, but she laughs again and rests her hand on your shoulder.

"Alright Scruffy. It's nice to meet you, I'm Velmarie."

You sigh and catch Lucien's sterling spectacles in the light. His smirk annoys you, though your empty stomach hardens your patience once more, albeit for a different reason, in anticipation for a delicious platter of food.

"It's kind of you to invite me, Lucien."

"My pleasure. You're my dear customer after all."

You nod. As if you didn't kick me out, bastard.