In the Merchant Plaza (Kinley)

[loves.blessing.]

It had been weeks, maybe even months that I had encounter a single soul. I had become a recluse, many have gossiped and shared the horror story of the skaeth that ripped through villages, leaving destruction in her wake. Yet here I stood at just the edge of Dehlosian Market. A sea of bodies pushing passed one another, swindlers calling out prices to line their pockets with the coin from another.

My head stayed tilted down, hood over my lively muddy crimson color. My bright gaze never left the cobble stoned streets as I held the strap of my violin tightly to my shoulder. The sickly sweet and bitter smell of burning incense assaulted my nose as I passed a tent.

“Potion ma’am? Stress relief? Love perhaps?” Called out a large, round woman. She moved her body in front of me causing my footing to stumble.

“Not interested...” I mumbled, moving around her to avoid any type of physical contact.

I could feel the anxiety tighten in my chest, weighing my breastbone down. I sucked in a ragged breath, the warmth of so many bodies close to one another giving me claustrophobia. In two, three... Out two, three... I couched myself.

What seemed like ions of suffocation, finally I broke through wall of people to the small town like square. Against the wall of a building I carefully and cautiously laid my instrument case on the stone ground. Unzipping the hard protective case to reveal my single prized possession. A cherry wood violin was nestled safely. McKinley beautifully etched into it.

Pulling back my hood I rested the violin on my shoulder, placing my chin on the chin rest but not before pulling out the shiny, rosined bow.

I knew the moment I struck a note with my instrument that attention would be brought to me and if the horrors of what I had done at the last two towns had made it here it would be obvious to tell. Even as I drew my bow down the neck of the violin, testing the tuning and sound of its vibrato, my heart raced wildly in my chest. With few funds and not a place to lay my head at night my case sat out to catch any coin given for my talents or offerings for the girl that caused chaos and destructions, but no one would be able to tell my story as well as myself could.