SHORT STORIES

“Something dark, something that should be lost and forgotten is hidden behind those eyes.” The creaky bearded man at the table remarks, his decrepit face barely able to hold his own lips together. He pauses for a moment before continuing, “Aye... she’s got something unnatural within. A pact with the devil, if you ask me. Hiding under that black hood and burnt corona. Gods know what that emblem means.” “Quiet, you dumb oaf! She’s here! Who knows what insanity she’ll bring upon you if she catches you talking behind her back.” The portly fellow that was already sat at the table scoffs at the geezer, resting folded hands upon his ample gut. Luminous green eyes framed by raven black hair peek from beneath a tattered black hood, discriminating vices and fears, silently mocking. “Don’t pretend to know me, you sloth. Look at yourself - drooling beer from your cracked lips. If I didn’t know better, I’d believe you a bastard mixed with a dog, incapable of doing naught but lapping up his master's scraps.” She turns to the other of the two. “And you. If your stomach gets any bigger, will you join the traveling circus? Fattest man alive, for however much longer that will be, who knows~”  When the woman speaks, her voice plumes in a mixture of sweetness and disdain - nearly as if there were two minds in one body. Those cattish green eyes twitch, turning to a young man nearby. His face cycles through a barrage of emotions under her piercing gaze: dread? Sorrow? No... pity? “And what have we here, then?” She chides, approaching him and leaning in. A glimmer of her face becomes more readable as she studies him, painted lips curling into a Cheshire smile. Her honeyed words seem to lick at the depths of his thoughts. “A wayward merchant come from Polto? Mmm, do you fear the plague of your nation so that you’d intend never to return? No...” Her smile turns ever so cruel. “I see. A coward in search of a bargain, then.”