[The Unlucky Game Master]

Arc 3.5 End

Alastair lightly lands on the wooden floor of "Maggies shop" and walks towards the desk.Upon reaching it, he turns around to gracefully sit back on top of it as he crosses his legs over each other while facing the shop entrance, conjuring a cup a tea.He watches as Halim and Faerin lift themselves up off the floor with differing expressions and is entertained from seeing Halims indigence while only feeling boredom from Faerins submissive reaction.

He lowers his eyes to look at his reflection in the cup of tea, before lightly asking, no one in particular.

"Questions?"

"Why would you need that old man, when you could just deal with the Vernooks yourself Alastair?"

He immediately hides the mirth in his eyes when he hears Halim questioning him in a quiet and calm voice, he looks away from his reflection in the tea, as he places the cup down on the wooden desk before jumping down with ease.

He may never have noticed anything strange about Halims agitation, concealed in his quiet voice without being Alastair.

He grabs Halims wrist while ignoring Faerins surprised expression as he chants shortly and leaves the shop with him.

He lets go of Halim in front of an otherworldly but familiar place.As he breathes in the fresh air, he looks towards the ground, while his boots step on the grass still wet with glistening water droplets.

He remembers the first time Halim brought him here when he first tried to kill him, but he never truly could understand the beauty of it nor cared.

He hears his own indistinct breathing, as he breathes lightly with his red hair covering his eyes and walks towards the only house without looking back.

He opens the door, and is assaulted with a heavy sense of archaic nostalgia.

He walks over to a table filled with papers strewn all over it, left untouched from the moment Halim left them there, and touches them lightly while not caring about the dust on his fingertips.

He leaned back with his arms crossed and one leg on the wall, watching as Halim scribbled unknown things with his head lowered in deep concentration on the pieces of blank paper.

He raised one eyebrow and joked with feigned humor,

"How great must it be, to have you of all people so focused on it?"

He watches as Halim stills before calmly putting his pen down and pushes the papers away, then looks at him with a gentle smile on his beautiful features.

"It's nothing, where's Faerin?"

He removes his leg on the wall and relaxes his posture to speak indifferently, while ignoring Halims obvious change of subject.

"Who cares, she's probably still trying to complete the assignment I gave her?"

He lowers his to laugh as if remembering something amusing and continues speaking in light banter with Halim, while ignoring his dulling golden eyes.

He hears footsteps reaching the opened door and looks up at Halim watching him quietly.

"You really should clean this house."He says while removing his fingertips from the paper and mouthing a short chant to remove the dust while rubbing them together, as he looks down at them.When he lifts his head back up, the house already looks no different than from the past.

He moves to sit on one side of the cozy looking couches.Speaking of which, he never truly did get to enjoy such comfort.

He forces Halim to sit next to him when he sees him look with hesitancy at the spot, before trying to sit opposite of him.He leans to his right side and unhurriedly starts to speak while pushing Halim down.