The Lotus House

The Exchange Day

The setting sun shoned down on the roofs of various bizarre and odd looking stalls, in a secluded field away from the town. A black market.

Murmurs could be heard here and there. Everyone talks below the usual conversation volume. The shady sellers, the nobles who looks in disgust at everything but buys everything, the nervous buyers who saved money for who knows how long to shop here for whatever they're up to, and the occasional just-looking-around-curiously who stops by every stall to look around curiously.

Amongst all of them, a pair of yellow eyes scans everything around her wonderstrucken.

The people passing by. The creepy stalls as the sky gets darker. A glowing eyeball in a murky jar. Something covered in bright colored fur and is continuously moving. Some misfigured frogs that doesn't look like frogs anymore. And a smile of someone, from the back of one of the stall, directed at her.

She stops her scanning activity and fixed her eyes on the smile owner. A tall man with a hat, neat-looking clothes with embroidery on the vest, and dimples on the ends of his smile, still targeted at her. Confused, she smiles back at the unknown man.

They smiled at each other for a minute until the growling voice of her owner pulled her back to reality.

"Oi! Keep those feet moving! And put your hood on!" He grumbled, "Snuffy kid."

At this time, she realized that people were staring at her. She quickly looked down and puts up her hood, covering her black with white ends hair and glowing yellow eyes. Of course, that kind of appearance would attract people's attention. Especially in a black market. Like a witch, the people in her town would often say. Well, who wouldn't want to be in contact with a rare clairvoyant, or maybe just have a bit of their hair strand, flesh, or glowing eyeball?

Uncomfortable with the stares from the merchants, she speeds up her walk. Maybe the man smiling from before was a merchant too, and was thinking of how he can get an ampoule of her blood. Maybe that's why he was smiling at her. She shivered at that thought.

She stops her feet when the chubby man with stylish suit set, her owner, stops in front of her, in front of a slightly better looking stall, in the shape of a purple and green striped tent. They walked in.

"Hello, hello!" The man inside, with a circus-owner-like suit in the color of green and purple, greeted them. He puts his pipe down, letting the smoke fills the tent air, and lets them sit in an empty table.

"A trade, eh?" The man asked them. "Hope it's fulfilling, for both sides." He chuckled. "Candy?" He handed a jar of suspicious colored candy to the girl, and she shakes her head immediately.

He shrugs, "Well, suit yourself. Your companion should be here any minute now," and left their table.

Upon having a longer look inside, she saw many people like them, an owner and their to-be-traded goods, sitting on the tables scattered inside the medium sized tent. Some still waiting, some are talking to the soon to be new owner and money source, and some traded already, looking at their gains in content. But no one brought in another human as their trading goods.

While she was looking around, her owner grumbled beside her, "This better be good." He plays with his fancy looking carved button on his suit anxiously.

Without saying a word, the girl knows that this is going to be her usual goodbyes with this chubby noble man. That means, someone with even more money or power is going to buy her and be her new owner. Aside from the fact about this that she received since they stepped in to the black market, this isn't the first time it happened. Let's say, formally and legally, this chubby noble man is her third owner. Although he says some pretty harsh word to her, he is the one who beats her the least out of her other owners. Maybe she'll miss him. Just kidding.