The Blood Prince's Curiosity

II

                    Air regulations were established a few years back due to the excessive smoke in the atmosphere which emanated from the multiple manufacturing companies in Mardelle, so the use of gas masks weren't needed as much as before. However, seeing the light fog of smoke surrounding parts of Crescentfall, Nicolae thought otherwise.

                   He hasn't been far from the castle in quite a while and overestimating how much the air quality improved in most cities was a mistake. The cities that housed affluential residents, such as Obsidius, followed through with the regulations. Which left the impoverished areas in Mardelle to deal with the harsh environmental conditions that the industries brought to the land.

                      Nicolae never saw it as fair to leave the poor with the dirt that held up Mardelle's economy and had argued about it with his brother, to which Grigore responded that it was 'an easier decision to make' for the meantime. Crescentfall wasn't completely indigent due to it being utilized often for cargo shipment and travel by the majority of the inhabitants of Mardelle, and a few aristocrats were said to have resided around here, so the young prince didn't think twice about bringing a gas mask. It wasn't too awful to the point where he was coughing his lungs out, but still, the smell of burning oil which was very eminent in the air was revolting to him.

                       He just wasn't used to it like most and during the past years, the only places he'd traveled to after his mother's death was Lunardelle; a city crawling with aristocratic families. 'Perverted shoe-lickers' as to what Marcel had called most of them behind closed doors. Assuming that most parts of Mardelle that wasn't totally pauperized had improved significantly in terms of air condition was a mistake on the young royalty's part.

                     Nicolae passed through the crowd of other masked bodies that were adorned in thick coats and flamboyant ruffles. From the distance, he could hear the roaring engines of steam carriages and the heavy throttles of propellers from hovering airships.

                          There were vendors nearby with their stalls set up near the docks shouting their advertisements at bystanders. Children with faces strapped with gas masks ran amok somewhere around the dark alleys by spiraling metal towers, screaming and shouting in glee. A shop owner shouted profanities at an obese cat who stole some rations, again.

                       At a closer radius, the prince could hear the thoughts of everyone that crowded around him. Thoughts of a man who is wondering whether he made the best decision of leaving his wife for his mistress who he'd impregnated. A female inventor was calculating the amount of oil that needed to fill a five-hundred meter battleship. There were thoughts of thirst from a starving little boy who seemed to move rather closer to him than the rest.

                        Nicolae looked around him, using his sensitivity in his surroundings to pinpoint where he was in the throng of masked figures. From the right, he instinctively side-stepped the barreling entity coming his way and grabbed it by its back collar.

                          He held up the entity to his masked face by its tattered shirt, seeing that it was indeed a little boy with his face completely swallowed up by a gas mask. He growled threateningly under the young prince's grip, thrashing his limbs violently at him.

                          "Let go of me you bastard!" the child shrieked, his voice sounding muffled through the mask.

                           Nicolae didn't budge, despite holding up the squirming child in one outstretched arm. "I'll only let go if you stop squirming around like an epileptic worm," he said, amused at the fact that he was almost robbed by a child--a starving child.