On the run in a strange world after pirates kill her parents, Elise plows into Dorothy Blainwick, a young and powerful witch with a monster inside her. Like fire and water, the two have to learn to get along as they try to escape the law, ancient ma...
Trussed like fowl and laid on their backs, the girls didn't get a good look at the place on the inside, which Dorothy surmised to be part of their plan. If they didn't know their way around, after all, they wouldn't find their way out. All she saw, and all they saw, were rich wooden rafters; murals of dragons, sea monsters, and merwomen; and hundreds of thousands of paper lanterns, none yet lit when natural light sufficed. They observed stairs and hallways of countless number.
"## ### ## ###."
I suffice this for words their captors spoke, because although I could interpolate Latin letters to mimic their sounds (if not with linguistic integrity), nothing else so clearly demonstrates how foreign the words sounded to the girls, and how far away it made them feel. They had stopped, and soon the girls were taken down, one by one, off the cart and situated in a row on the floor. They each knelt with bound hands, mouth, and feet.
On a large red-carpeted platform sat a picturesque man with ankle-length black hair, lupine black ears, and a large black wolf tail. He had yellow eyes and wore a blossom white robe, and looked at the girls very curiously. He had a small, winged creature on his shoulder that muttered naked opinions, and they clearly had a good rapport. Talking to his familiar and the frogman at length, though, gave the girls some time to observe their surroundings.
The man stood upon just one of several platforms, making him appear like a miniature on royal bleachers. The platforms rose like steps until they met the ceiling high above, while lifelike statues—monsters and men from the pleasant to grotesque—surrounded him on all sides. By the shape of the roof and the presence of windows high above, they ascertained they had reached the apex of the superstructure.
Bowing, the frogman hurried out of the room. They couldn't actually see the leaving part, however, for the door lay behind them and they dare not move.
"### ### ###."
The wolf man had a young, soothing voice, and gestured at the girls. The guards undid the cloths covering their mouths. While Dorothy, Giada, and Alexis never made eye contact with him, at one point Elise did; she had been looking at him. Her heart jumped and she looked down.
"##."
The frogman returned with a handful of red berries. He looked annoyed—as much as a frog could emote annoyance—but bowed and returned to the girls. He laid down a berry before each of them.
"##!" The frog made it clear he wanted them to eat. Although kneeling, it would not be a difficult task for any one of them to bend down and take it in her teeth; however, Dorothy wouldn't budge. Being captured had a way of upsetting her. The others followed the leader—or, in Alexis' case, someone she guessed had a better idea of what the heck was going on!
The wolf and the frog exchanged a few words and then the wolf stood up. With his robes billowing, softly like a wind he hopped down the few remaining steps of his strange display and joined the girls on the ground. When he knelt down in front of Elise and held the berry up to her mouth, Dorothy wanted to bite him, but instead just watched Elise, tentatively, take it from his fingers to eat.
"Can you understand me?" he asked Elise after a moment.
"Yes," said Elise, surprised. "I... can. How?"
To Dorothy, Giada, and Alexis, it sounded no different than before. It sounded like Elise spoke Wysterian.
"Tell your friends to eat as well. What you've eaten is a mogasha fruit. It gives she who eats it tongues, the ability to speak all languages at one time, at a level beyond mortal comprehension, for one hundred years."
"That sounds... very valuable," stammered Elise, feeling quite shy in the wolf's presence.
"It is, which is why Keitu advised it. However, I've never met one from your land before. I smelled the difference and became curious. Where is it?"
"It's through the Wall Cloud... Its name is Unum."
"And what is your name?"
"E-Elise..."
He nodded. "I am called Akayuri, and I am the master of this place."
"What... what is this place? I've never seen anything like it before."
He smiled a little. "You'll see. Now please, ask your friends to have their fruit."
"Everyone, please eat the fruit," whispered Elise, turning to the others. "You'll be able to understand them, too."
Eyes full of loathing and against her own judgment, Dorothy did as Elise asked. Giada and Alexis followed suit. When they had all consumed the mogasha, the wolf stood up.
"Now that you understand us," he said, "it's time we move forward." His eyes had darted toward something in the shadows. "This place is not for mortals, and unfitting as guests you must now be sent to work. Guards, unbind them and show them to Jakun. That is all."
The girls were unbound, and, just as quickly as they had been swept in, were swept out. When the door shut behind them, Akayuri trod into the shadows and picked up a particular stone that sat in a bracket near the wall. It glowed ominously red.
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