4

I stumbled out of the portal but she was still gripping my arm this time so she helped me keep myself up-right. I felt a bit of nausea overwhelm me since my body wasn't used to such fast transportation and the sudden lack and return of gravity. I bent my body and touched my knees while trying to take a breath before looking up. I was grateful that her rash and excitement had seemed to subside a little bit and she was patient enough to let me take my moment.

When I looked at my surroundings, I was left dumbstruck. There were so many different sights, smells and sounds that for some moments I couldn't get my bearings but when I started getting used to it as we walked slowly, my mouth was agape and I tried to pay attention to everything with child-like wonder. 

It was night-time already and the last of the sunrays were fading away making the fire lights in the town the sole source of brightness. The buildings looked a bit outdated but not that much and the square where we had landed was filled with life. There was a fountain right in the centre and everything seemed to bloom around it. Most of them were shops or taverns and there were so many people that a constant buzz of their voices was covering everything. There was some music coming from the taverns but it was faint compared to everything else.  I was so excited to notice all these differencies this town had to my hometown in Japan that it took me more than necessary to notice how unusual the residents of the city actually were. All of them were anrthopomorphic but there was something about their auras that divided them from each other and made them extraordinary. They looked as human as can be but they felt as further as possible from that description. Just as I was taking note of their different skin colours that seemed to be a wider variety than what I knew of humans, something caught my eye and demanded my attention. I kept staring trying to make sense of it and convince myself that it wasn't actually there and there was no way it was. Unfortunately for me, it didn't disappear the more I looked at it and blinked.

 My heart leaped on my chest when I finally came to the conclusion that it was exactly what it looked like. Some of these people were dragging around in their backs what could only be described as purely white and majestic wings. I swallowed, feeling how dry my throat had become and suddenly I was overcome by an intense feeling of urgency and fear. It left a weird sensation in my body. Like its substance was foreign and not mine. Before I could try to understand it, Maleeka's hold on my arm became bruising and she dragged me abruptly to a tavern near by. I opened my mouth to ask, not talking because she couldn't understand me anyway would take some getting used to, but the way she looked behind her shoulder as if she was checking for something made my words die in my tongue. I felt another surge of fear that almost paralyzed me and for the slight instant that our eyes met, I noticed how wide the green of her eyes was making her pupils seem really small. I knew I couldn't ask her what was wrong or try to comfort her so I just decided to let her lead me where she wanted since it seemed so important to get ourselves away from there.

The moment we stepped into the tavern, my nostrils were attacked by the cheap and burning smell of cheap alchohol and the heavy body odor of all these men that occupied the space. They were loud and obnoxious and the one bard that was trying to sing and play his peculiar stringed instrument was so drunk that he was slurring his words and clawing at the strings with no purpose or talent. I winced and couldn't help but shrink in myself in my effort to keep away from all that. I didn't know why Maleeka would even want to take me in a place like that with such hastiness and I wished we could turn around and leave already but she walked with a purpose until she reached a table in the far end of the tavern. At least it was further away from the others and hidden enough, though I could still smell the unpleasant air and feel the stuffiness from all these bodies piled together in such a narrow space.

We sat down side by side facing the opposite wall and I expected her to order something even if the thought was revolting. She was full of surprises, however, since she didn't even try to catch the attention of the waiter and she kept staring at the wall intently as if she was waiting for something or communicating with it. Just as I was starting to get really impatient and the other patrons were becoming more and more loud by the second, something happened that was enough to make my heart drop to my stomach and a choked scream leave my lips. If Maleeka hadn't covered my lips with her slender palm, the whole tavern would have heard me. I thought I had started to get used to the weirdness of the whole situation but as it turns out, I was in for a treat since the stone on the wall seemed to ripple like the surface of the water when you throw a rock at it and slowly but surely, a figure immerged from the wall as if it was the most natural thing. I took in the appearance of the attractive and mysterious female with wide open eyes.

She gracefully sat opposite from us and said something that sounded like a greeting but I wouldn't know. A conversation transpired between the two women and I think that at one point, Maleeka took out our flower with outmost care and secrecy and quickly passed it to the stranger but since I couldn't understand a word they said, my eyes kept exploring this weird individual. Her luscious hair was a deep purple that looked natural and not a product of some really good and expensive hair dye. Her skin was sunkissed and her eyes were a striking violet that looked as if it held its own flame and what I had decided to call energy. Her smile was shifty and mischievous but I could sense that she wasn't trying to deceive Maleeka. They seemed to have a relationship based in trust and exchage of...whatever they exchanged that was somehow linked to that weird flower. She was tall and a bit muscular and her whole being sparkled for some moments after she went out of the wall but the more time that passed, the more she dimmed as if whatever she had done was starting to lose its effect.

They suddenly stopped talking and the woman turned to look at me with interest. She smiled widely in a way that was both friendly and threatening and she said one word that I would later realize was her name before she got up. 

"Aluna"

I waited with something akin to excitement to see what her exit would be like. From my thorough examination I hadn't noticed anything inherently different about her body that would indicate how she was able to do what she had done. Her movements were fluid as if her whole appearance was liquid and unstable and she didn't go through the wall as I had expected. Instead, she walked backwards and her skin slowly started to change and resemble the wall before she was integrated into it as if they were both parts of the same whole. Like a chameleon but way more complex and interesting.

It seems that Maleeka had been trying to draw my attention because she became impatient and made a chopping motion with her hand on the crown of my head. It was hard enough to make me blink and look at her in surprise and question but not actually hurt. She wiggled her eyebrows at me but didn't comment on my behavior before getting up and moving her head in an inviting way for me to follow her. I felt a bit exposed and flustered but I mean, it wasn't my fault! It wasn't like I could pay attention to anything they were saying and I was inherently curious about everything around me and how it worked or it came to be! It was one of the reasons why I became a scientist.

I stopped myself before I even tried to say any of that because I could imagine her using the word scientist as something I needed to be sorry for once again. I watched her as she nonchalantly slipped some coins to the person behind the counter who didn't react to it at all and kept drying glasses with a towel as if we were never there. It made me wonder about my co-traveler and what kind of person she was but I stored those questions alongside the others about how I had ended up here, where here actually was and what the heck was actually happening. I would need to make more space in the back of my brain because they were starting to accumulate and it was still only Day 1.

We exited the tavern and went to an inn. I didn't have the state of mind to wonder about our course of action or the fact that Maleeka only booked one room and what that would mean for the both of us. I hadn't slept in days since before coming here and this day had been a really long one. The moment she unlocked the door, I found the coach and I collapsed onto it with no hesitation or a second thought. I think I felt something warm and fuzzy covering my body moments later but I was already too far gone to pay any attention to it.