World of Io

3. The Tavern

Milo gritted his teeth, irritation hovering closer again. Helping the girl had been a mistake, but it was too late to change things. He refused to look at the girl in his arms, but he felt her heat and weight and was unable to ignore her. She was still naked, shivering slightly as she clung to his body. He paused to wrap his long coat around her before moving on, pointedly looking everywhere but at her. He felt stupid, and rash. What was he supposed to do now? He would have to take responsibility for someone other than himself, something he had fled from his entire life.

He had no real goal, he was just wandering, pacing. He decided that he would continue until his head cleared, so step by step he left the bay behind.

"Where are you taking me?"

Her soft words annoyed him to no end. He didn't want to interact.

"I don't know. Where should I take you?" 

Perhaps she did have somewhere safe to go, somewhere he could dump her off, he thought, hoping in vain.

"I don't know," she replied.

His mind roared when he heard her words. Fuck!  He wanted to get rid of her, but then his foolish rescue would be for naught. He was fuming, pissed at himself.

He continued to ignore her, continued to walk without aim, continued to walk away.

As the sun started to brighten the sky, he carried her out of the city together with the earliest morning traffic. There were more people coming into the city than going out, so he had to weave his way through a chaos of carts and wagons, people, horses and oxes. Fortunately, most of the farmers on their way to the city markets knew to keep away from a Nyx, so they were left relatively undisturbed apart from some stares flying their way.

He still hadn't looked at the girl properly since he picked her up, and for some reason he hoped that she was ugly just so this cliché would be less...well cliché. He exhaled in exasperation and forced himself to look down at her; he would have to at some point, and sooner would be better than later. His eyes swept across her face; she was sleeping. His frown settled as he saw her closed eyes, and he allowed himself to study her with more care.

She was tiny, delicate. Her long tousled hair was dirty but somewhere he could see a light red color. She had some freckles on her cheeks but otherwise she seemed to be pale beneath the grime that covered her. Pale enough to look white next to his black skin. She smelled really bad, but considering how she looked it wasn't strange. 

He refused to think of her as beautiful although he guessed that she was.

She opened her eyes, as if she had sensed that he was staring. He turned away but not soon enough. He noted that her eyes were green, like his.

"You're a Gaian, aren't you?"

Of all the questions she could have asked him, she chose this one? Her tone was curious, and as he was a bit surprised to hear: not scared. He had carried her away from her home, and she wasn't scared? She wasn't whining? She didn't even ask where they were going. He shook his head. 

"I'm a Nyx'gaian, you should be scared."

He didn't know why he tried to intimidate her, and for some reason he wasn't all that surprised when she didn't react.

"Ah, so you're a Nyx then, you're going to have to try a lot harder to make me afraid of you. You just saved my life."

He couldn't help himself then, his eyes strayed down towards hers and he cringed a little at the gratitude he saw resting like as a hazy mist across them. He didn't do this, he didn't save: he killed!