Chapter 31: 31. Fikumin’s first gem

Fikumin Flintfoot

Fikumin’s first gem

 

 

Marshmallows.

He felt them in his old coat’s pocket.

Warm, soft bread and butter.

He touched the other one.

A piece of pork. Preferably in thin slices.

Fikumin sighed. He was missing the most crucial ingredient. One needn’t be a famed cook, to know how to make a lesser hoagie. The latter was different than the great one, which had yellow cheese and vegetables on top of everything else. That type of meal of course, was fit for a king, not Fikumin.

He’ll just have to make do, with the lesser variant.

Or just eat what he’d found so far and call it a day.

Try again, on the morrow.

He moved behind a cart’s wheel, turned just at the right time to avoid the ox hauling it, ducked under a bored horse relieving itself in the middle of the busy market street, the pile created stinking something fierce. Run into a side alley to reach the meat market, bumped onto a one-eyed dog he’d missed, almost crashing through the wall before its exit.

Fikumin recovered deftly, his little stubby feet quick. The fastest of the folk, old Bodmulir Blunthorn used to say back home. He much preferred handsomest truth be told, or the strongest, but one takes in life, what Luthos gives him.

In the end, the god of Luck always provided.

The butcher’s place stunk of blood and guts. The man himself, a right mountain of flesh and an exceptional hairy complexion, downed his cleaver shaking the large table without pause, having found his rhythm. A piece of leg, meat and part of bone, flew further, bounced once on the butcher’s table bloody surface and then dropped, right between Fikumin’s short legs.

Hah!

He grabbed it with both hands, first looking right towards the busy street and the waiting customers feet, then left to the alley, he’d just came from. Decision made, he dashed for it. Zing-zagging to avoid a heavy boot coming down, the butcher cursing on his back, realizing a piece was missing. Someone yelled, a woman screamed and a couple of kids attempted to run after him, but he was fast and righteously determined.

Also extremely hungry.

Fikumin rushed back into the alley, the dog barking smelling food on him this time, but didn’t give chase Praised be Luthor the merciful; out the other side, across a busy street and then a hard right, more a dodge, to avoid getting trampled over the hooves of a galloping madman.

This next small road led to a much bigger open square and he was about to cross over the other side and head towards Westport keeping the tower as his guide, when he spotted a shadow melting into a wall in a backstreet, separating two of the larger buildings. There were a lot of soldiers patrolling them.

It took Fikumin but a minute to figure out, exactly where he was and seeing the shadow appear again, the moment a soldier’s back was turned and dash behind one of the government buildings, he went after it.

It wasn’t a spur of the moment decision. He’d a caught a glimpse of blue hair, his eyes keen and sensed a hint of magic. As it happens, more than an amateur cook, the fastest of the folk and a devotee of Luthos; Fikumin was an adventurer. He’d left his home years back, too many to count as the expression goes, but Fikumin knew they were forty seven just the same, in order to see the realm. Visit the places over the earth and below it, where legends once lived, gems were birthed and rivers of gold run freely.

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It was a work in progress.

Finding food in a human city the biggest obstacle.

So he kind of stalled, figuring it out.

Humans were a difficult species, not very prone on sharing.

The nobler creatures of the tales all but gone.

A foolish endeavor, his old mentor always said. Everything is dead now, and if something remains, a northern dwarf will never reach the lands of Eodrass alive.

Mark my words youngling.

Running after the creature, Fikumin smiled at his mentor proven wrong at last; as wide a grin as his hunger allowed him. His rich mustache danced at the corners of his mouth, great brown beard jolting up and down as he hurried that piece of pork still in his hands.

 

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The passage between the buildings was dark and narrow, the sun not reaching it. Cold, but that was more a pleasure for Fikumin, than a nuisance. It took him a moment to get his bearings, slowly walking further inside, the walls looming huge on either side. A rat decided to make a run for it and dashed right in front him, but he kept his clever eyes on a spot a couple of meters from his right shoulder, where the shadows moved ever so slightly, as if breathing.

His stomach growled loudly, the wait dragging.

“You will not leave,” A female voice said, speaking in the common tongue.

“Not before I see ye.”

The shadows moved, a cloak parting to reveal her lithe body, a part of her face still hidden under a hood. She pushed it back and over her head, rich cobalt hair spilling out, parting in the mid. An elegant nose, large eyes the color of warm gold, sensual mouth, and skin like ivory. Fikumin breathed in, his senses overwhelmed. A right beauty, she was. And tall, unfairly so, but also graceful, her lips forming a small smile seeing his scrutiny.

“You are of the Folk?” The Zilan asked. A real one, in the flesh, Fikumin thought and he would let out a cry of joy right and then, if his stomach didn’t protest again, angrier this time. “What did they name you?” She asked, with a glance at the piece of pork, he still held in his hands.

Fikumin, knowing her race’s culinary preferences well, wasn’t worried. She appeared rather well fed and the Zilan favored the flesh of the Sinya Nore, with a celebrated passion.

“Fikumin Flintfoot,” He replied and watched a striking blue eyebrow rise, a gloved hand sprouting out her cloak towards him, extended fingers long as the legends described.

“I’m Lithoniela, of Baltoris. It is pleasant, making your acquaintance master Fikumin,” She sang to him, the spell washing over his tired muscles soothing and her eyes changing to a warmer yellow showing him her favor.

“The first gem of Dawn. How fitting,” A mesmerized Fikumin, translated from the old dialect and this time the Zilan chuckled long and throaty, her brilliant white teeth sharp and pointy, bright pink tongue dancing underneath.

Found me first one, Bodmulir.

He followed her suit, tears in his eyes, their joy palpable and contagious. Two long forgotten and thought extinct races, sharing the once common spell of Bliss unseen in an alley, behind Castalor’s Vice Admiralty Court’s main building.

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