While wandering through tents and booths, Korin had naturally taken the fallen position. Walking just slightly behind Talis and Mikhail, the two exchanging the lead as they went. Talis would be interested in satiny clothes from the south, glittering jewelry of questionable origin, and half naked belly dancers and sword swallowers available to see for a few coppers. In between garments and entertainers, Mikhael would veer to the side, asking about trinkets, flutes, and vases, and Korin and Talis would trail after him. It was an easy encounter for individuals who were only beginning to explore each other's company.
"Was there anything you wanted to see?" Mikhail asked Korin as the three sat off to the side of the bridge under a shaded tree. Too many boulders littered the area for anyone from the convoy to make camp. It had spared them a bit of privacy in the irregularly busy village.
Korin had seen just about everything, Talis and Mikhails interests alone afforded her sweeps through almost every storefront. She had heard in passing of a cloth vendor with patterned fabrics, fine threads and needles. But that was further into the valley and the bridge was the border of her lawfully imposed barrier. She shook her head. "I saw everything there was to see."
"There's still more in the village-..." Talis cringed. A moment of panic set her stomach on fire as she decided whether to brush off her fumble, pretend it didn't happen, or bring up Korins rules for existing.
Korin's swift and neutral reply saved Talis from herself. "Please do not let me stop you, I'm fine here. Earlier I heard that there are some beautiful seamstresses situated in the town square as well as a group of Mysai shamans. You should check them out."
Talis' ears perked at the mention of the shamans. "Really?" The shamans were nomadic warriors of the Mysai. Strong, with mystical magic and said to possess great beauty.
Korin nodded. "You should go as well, Mikhail. Caravans of this size do not travel through Imore often. It may be months before we get another one, even half this size."
Talis was a little blown away. It was the most time she had ever spent with Korin, and for all her creepy awkwardness, big yellow dry eyes, and flat barren tone, she was calm and kind. Talis did not suddenly find comfort in her presence but it wasn't as intolerable as she had feared it to be. "Yeah!" Talis agreed with Korin while looking at the blonde man sitting on the other side of her. "You and I can go check out the vendors in the village and Korin will wait here for us."
She felt iniquitous as she spoke. Idoni had asked her to get a closer look at the spirit that lived in Mikhail. So far he managed to position himself just on the other side of Korin every time Talis had tried to get a proper look. Being directly concealed by Korins tiny figure twice was coincidental, but hiding in her shadow every time Talis looked was suspicious. Going to the other vendors together was a good excuse to be able to examine him better but it also felt a little rude leaving Korin behind.
Korin didn't mind. Korin was used to being by herself and, if she were honest, she was tired. She'd had more human interaction in the last three days than she probably had her entire life. She was starting to exhaust.
Mikhail stared at her a moment before she waved her hand in stern dismissal. "Go on. I'll wait here until you get back."
*
Korin watched the road from her rest, hunched against a boulder grown over with grass and tufts of moss. She sat shaded away from the eyes of others. She was good at that. Hiding. Always quick to search out the deepest shadow, some unseen and forgotten corner. A place from which she could see the world but it could not see her.
She still managed to attract attention once every blue moon, when her presence was a little too close for a little too long. But not so much now as when she was young. It was a skill that took time and practice to learn.
She looked out at the road now, tucked away. The sky and the trees framing a painting of some world she existed just outside of. A day where the sun was hot and orange yet the shade was chilled and breezy. The flowing thrum of conversation among the crowds filled typically quiet streets.
Korin saw it all through a pane of glass.
Men and women in scantily clad clothing buzzed to and fro. They were courtesans that traveled with large caravans. And they brought in stifling amounts of coin from rich men and locals hankering for something new to try in their isolated villages. Some hung from the arms of customers, while others flitted about, little secrets for their buyers.
A fat man, with rings on all his fingers and high-end tailcoats waving in the winds, stormed through the throngs of red light workers. He furiously hissed out commands while a scrawny attendant clad in thick rimmed glasses took notes on a small pad. As fast as they came into the paint they left it. Obviously he had somewhere else to be and someone to be screaming at.
He was a splash of color followed by a group of guards on the lookout for crime. Their faces were set in intimidating scowls and the people spread for them like schools of fish dodging mouths of hungry sharks. Their muted and drab attire was supposed to be symbolic of their public service and upholders of peace. But, more often than not, they were only human, with biases and histories that molded their behavior. They weren't necessarily bad, but for caravans; filled with prostitutes, potion peddlers, and dealers, one was to keep their head down and their mouth shut. It was the unspoken rule of Ipans open borders and free market, just shut up and mind your business. A man could do as he pleased, as long as he was quiet and didn't make trouble, and the guards would go about their way.
They meandered through the picture for a while, looking for someone to profile, something to do, to give a warning and take a bribe. Korin sunk a little further into the shadows. The guards had never been too hard on her but she still knew what they were capable of and that little voice in their heads had told them she was different. Different just like the dealers and junkies and dark practitioners, and that was bad. Best not to be noticed by them at all.
They gradually fell out of sight and Korin felt she could see a little more of the whole picture again.
A woman in a floral dress, full and puffy with undercoats, briskly walked through. She was another busy passer, with a pink baby in her arms followed by a nanny and a maid pulling along an angry child. The child spat and kicked but the nanny and the mother pulled him along, used to his antics.
They were dressed in the clothes of wealth; formal, layered, and well made. Korin wondered if she was the wife of the man who had stormed through earlier. Was she trying to catch up with her fuming husband, after struggling to get the child dressed? Even now he wailed, "I DON'T WANT TO GO!" It had that high pitch crunch only angry crying children could make.
Korin let out a puff of air as she watched the three women herd the child across the landscape and over the bridge. She tried to imagine herself there for a moment, hissing and spitting a fresh tantrum coloring her face red. Throwing a fit, wishing to remain.
She tried to imagine herself anywhere in the painting. A courtesan, beautiful and dressed in chiffon and silk, smelling like lust, sweet leaf and coins, wrapped around the arm of some wealthy suitor. A rambling and bouncing vendor, items arranged on tables, spewing pretty words to sell her wares. Even the perusing customer she had been not long before. Politely nodding to craftsmen and studying the quality of their valuables.
She tried to imagine herself blending with the scene but everywhere she could be the colors bled and darkened and people subtly shuffled away taking sidelong and secretive glances at her.
Korin didn't have to be in the scene. It was still a nice picture without her.
Then, to accompany the sights, there came a small and traveling whine from behind her. It set its hurt tone on the layers of activity in a needy call. It grew closer before leveling out, pain creating an even little song. It was some animal hurt, off in the bushes.
Korin pushed from the edge of her hideaway and snaked around the boulder, silently disappearing into the thicket of forest.
This was where leafy trees of the valley merged with the needled trees of the mountain. They grew thick, abundant in foliage and created a dense carpet of debris. It muffled all sound except for the light echo of the wounded whine.
Its cries pulled her forward in search of its body. Perhaps to offer help, definitely to satisfy her human curiosity to know, to see. It stemmed from that same desire to investigate the bump in the night. Like leaving shelter to view a raging storm, overtaken with the morbid need to know how the sky would bleed and what it would break.
The heat of the day was locked out by the shade of the canopy and frosted air stilled in the well of the undergrowth. Her breath came out in chilled puffs and the whine grew nearest yet.
Between ferns and cedar bark, wet with sweat and blood seeping from festering skin, was a golden furred dog. Steaming and twitching, its hind leg was twisted and mangled. Skin flayed in ruin. Proof of its escape from some trap set for game and not domestic pets.
Its eyes were slits wincing in pain and exhaustion. It was unseeing and crumpled.
Korin stilled, her feet sinking in forest decay making soft sucking sounds in the quiet of the trees. She slowly crouched down, just waiting for its crescent eyes to narrow in and acknowledge her.
She huddled only close enough to stretch out her arm and brush its fur. The dog let out a soft whine of recognition of their much smarter human companions. It was a whine of relief, it said that it was thankful comfort had arrived.
A droopy eye cleared and the doe-like amber orb rolled up to greet Korin. It looked like it had once been a pretty dog, with a long and glossy coat. Now its fur had become crusted and rank. It was hurt and wandering for too long and its looks had grown as pathetic as its health.
The two stared at one another and the dog ceased to whine. Only ever here, on the brink of the end did beings so openly look Korin in the eyes. Finality lingering around the corner that stole away fear and distrust. The two held each other's gazes for a long while. A special and vulnerable period of time, the last experience the dog would have in its life. Korin's hand rested on its sickly fur, remaining still, a weight of reassurance and affirmation of her presence.
Its haggard breaths became a little too wet and its whale eyed stare grew unclear. She swallowed air and dryly blinked.
A marriage of life and death was taking place, the dog was a dowry, and Korin was the unfortunate witness.
To live on the mountain and in the forest was to know cycles of life and death, and she had seen it before.
She sat with the dog long after its final moments, a soul to bear witness to the cruelty of fate. Only after its eyes glazed over and its blood began to cool did Korin rise, still an arms length away.
The mountain had served as her only world and its paths and crevices she knew like the back of her hand. She had easily slipped back toward the crowd, unaware of the death of the dog and how Korin and the forest silently watched it all.
She didn't slouch so much now as she resumed watching the life of the village. The flavor of the dog's final breaths still seared into her mind, frost bitten and stale.
And as she carried on viewing the world from the sideline, the colors of the crowds dimmed and the people no longer seemed so bright in the sunlight. It was still beautiful, morose and tinged gray. The courtesans that had clung, now swayed, men took soft and sweeping steps, heads gathered and voices low, peddlers quietly pushing carts letting the merchandise sell itself. It was somber and the world became mysterious and mournful. Her secret experience influencing her perception.
Korin let out another puff of air, intertwined fingers settling in her lap.
Mikhail and Talis didn't return for another hour.