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lucathiaI have completely dropped the ball with NaNoWriMo, writing anywhere between 0 to 1500 words a day, but not even meeting the minimum. I think I'm behind by 11k or so? Hm. I'm hoping I can continuously write 5k for the next two days, haha (except I haven't even written over 2k for any single day yet). Let's see if I can do it. But is this story even worth continuing... hmmmmm... this story needs to pick up the pace. Also, despite this being young adult fantasy, there hasn't been very many fantastical elements yet. This needs to be fixed.
Here's chapter 2. Despite how long it is, this still reads like an introductory chapter to me, setting up the scene... :'D But at least Nokara finally introduces herself. It's been Tekatme, Tekatme, Tekatme the entire time. I tossed my words into wordle (it makes a graphic out of your most frequently used words) and Tekatme was right smack across the entire thing in huge letters. No one else even compared. XD; That's one of my problems with this year's NaNo... it's such a monologue. (What was funny with my wordle was that it kind of looked fish shaped, hehe).
Chapter 1
Lhordata
Chapter 2
~6166 words
Near the lakeside, a young woman with brown hair and brown eyes walked, heading towards her residence. She held herself in a timid way, her shoulders tense and drawn inwards. In the opposite direction of the mousey woman, an orange-headed figure approached, pace slow, gaze focused outwards toward the other side of the lake. The figure's neck was bandaged with white bandages.
When their paths crossed, the mousey woman glanced up from her feet before she ducked her head again.
The orange-headed figure smiled reassuringly. A hand flew up to smooth down hair that didn't need smoothing.
"Good day to you," the orange-headed figure murmured with a nod of acknowledgement.
The mousey woman glanced up once again, shedding her meek demeanor in her moment of surprise. "Good day...? But we've met today already...?" Her eyes roamed across the orange-headed figure before her, gaze dropping towards the figure's waist. "No sword..." she said in a quiet voice. She relaxed slightly and looked up with a small, timid smile.
A strange expression came over the orange-headed figure's face, but it was soon replaced by another smile.
"I'm sorry for scaring you earlier. I know you don't like weapons."
"D-Don't worry, I understand why you might want to carry one." The mousey woman clasped her hands in front of her, almost hugging herself. Her short brown hair that curled up around her cheeks conveniently hid half of her face.
The orange-headed figure didn't move closer, knowing that the mousey woman needed her space. Any closer would make her feel uncomfortable.
Swallowing, the mousey woman's eyes darted up before she looked away. "Are you hurt...?" she ventured timidly, hand coming up to her throat, mimicking what she saw.
"These you mean?" A hand gestured at the white bandages wrapped around a slender neck. "Thank you for worrying, but I am unhurt. It's a mild cold. I thought to keep warm."
"Oh! No wonder you sounded a little different today. And acted a little differently too. Oh! I don't mean anything by that..."
The orange-headed figure smiled.
They exchanged some more pleasantries. The mousey woman kept her head lowered the entire time, eyes trained on the dirt floor. When they parted, the mousey woman bowed her head even lower and then hurriedly continued on her way.
The orange-headed figure watched the mousey woman leave with a thoughtful expression.
"So he's in town...Tekatme."
-----
"Someone's impersonating me," Tekatme growled lowly to himself, katana back by his side. He'd thought whoever out there the townspeople were mistaking him for merely resembled him - that had already been bad enough - but apparently the bastard was also using Tekatme's name.
That completely changed things. It made things personal. Now he needed to find the guy and pummel his face in because his name was definitely not free for using.
"You mean you're not Tekatme?" piped a little girl's voice in deep curiosity. It belonged to the girl he had just saved. The girl who was still following him with the incessant smell of fried fish when she should've scampered home already. Lord, he was not a babysitter, and there was something wrong with her head for her to blindly follow him around when he'd just snarled at her not a moment before, freezing her in her place.
Except she hadn't smelled frightened, had she? He couldn't remember.
"Stop following me!" he snapped.
He made a shooing motion with his right hand and completed it with shooing sounds, much like what he'd do if he were shooing away an unwanted stray animal. She was fairly close to one. Even when she hadn't spoken, he'd felt her presence and especially smelled the lingering odor of fish. She'd polished off that lord forbidden fish and was now dangling the skewer in her mouth.
"But you haven't answered me yet!" the little girl pouted, speaking around the skewer that was mostly likely bouncing up and down in cadence with her words.
"Go away already," he muttered.
"Are you Tekatme or not?" demanded the little girl relentlessly.
"I am, okay?" he snarled, spinning around only to see that the little girl had her arms propped on her hips like she had all the right to demand his name out of him. Which she didn't. He snorted - she did not at all look intimidating with her skinny legs and her much too large eyes - before he turned around and continued walking.
He was Tekatme, but whoever out there was not. He grumbled this under his breath.
"How'd you know my name anyway?" he asked, making no motion to slow his steps down. It was a stupid question. He already hated himself for asking.
"Everyone in town knows about Tekatme, the valiant gentleman who goes out of his way to help people in need!" chirped the little girl. She probably had a beaming smile to accompany that. "I knew I wasn't in any trouble because you'd for sure come to save me!"
Was that why she'd stared at him with large eyes when their gaze had met? Had she been too overcome with relief that her hero had come to save her just as she'd expected?
There was so much wrong with what she'd just said. So much wrong. Him, a gentleman? Valiantly saving people? Who the lord was this guy who was impersonating Tekatme? He sure had his impersonations wrong. Who the lord in their right mind would go around borrowing someone's name to do...good deeds with it while he was at it?
That was what was making things weird. Tekatme had only heard good things about this imposter, and that was not the way imposters were supposed to work. Not at all.
He groaned and pulled on one of his stubborn tufts of hair that refused to stay down. It immediately bounced back up once he let go. This had got to be some kind of joke. He didn't like knowing that there was someone out there pretending to be him.
And doing a better job at being him too, apparently. Since everyone just loved the imposter so much.
He glanced off to the side at the little girl who was surprisingly keeping up with his long strides, though she was almost jogging. He hadn't smelled it before over the smell of the fish she'd been eating, but she was hurt. He looked down and saw the scrape over her knees right above her knee high socks. If she hadn't been wearing such a short miniskirt, she wouldn't have scraped her knees like that. Her attire was completely impractical for running outdoors.
"How'd you get mixed up with that thug, huh?" Tekatme found himself asking after staring at the scrape over her knees. It wasn't like he was curious about what'd happened! He was not!
The little girl pursed her lips, eyebrows furrowed. "Oh, I told him that he was going to step into some horse manure soon. You know, I was trying to be nice, giving him an early warning so that he wouldn't go and step in horse manure for real, but he thought I was lying and got reaaaaally angry at me. How ungrateful of him!" She shook her head in disappointment, her long ponytail swishing behind her.
Tekatme rolled his eyes and snorted.
Well duh. If someone came up to him and cheerfully told him that he was going to be stepping in "horse manure", he'd first think the person to be crazy, and he'd then think the person was pulling a fast one on him. Or at least trying to make some kind of statement. Something along the lines of, "You stink."
No one liked hearing that, and even being a cute, ten year old little girl did not endear you to people you've essentially told to step in "shit". No wonder the large thug had gotten angry. Not that that excused him from what he did.
"How old are you?" asked Tekatme. He often spoke without thinking - lord knew he had his fair share of trouble because of it - but he liked to think that he was aware enough of his words to know when his words would anger people. Many times he spoke with the very intent to piss off his opponent, but she apparently couldn't even tell she was pissing people off. She seemed even more skilled than him in putting her foot in her mouth.
She looked around ten to him, but Tekatme had never been great at telling age. It was generally easier with humans, a lot more difficult with those of mixed decent like him as they tended to age just a bit slower but not by much, and almost impossible to tell with those not of mixed decent. Many were close to unaging when compared to humans. Of those, the most long-living were dragons and elves, not that Tekatme had much practice with telling the age of dragons and elves given how they generally kept to themselves. Rykatu had been the only dragon Tekatme'd actually met face-to-face. He'd heard, however, that there wasn't much difference between the appearances of a dragon in his or her teens, and a dragon aged hundreds of years old. The same went for elves. That was the reason why Tekatme hadn't thought Rykatu, despite his youthful appearance, could possibly be around Tekatme's age. But then, Tekatme hadn't asked, so he didn't actually know Rykatu's real age either.
The little girl counted on her fingers, looking down and mouthing the numbers before she held up seven fingers. Her hands were curiously wrapped in bandages - all the way up her wrist and forearm from what he saw under her long sleeves - revealing only her small fingertips.
"I'm seven!" she declared proudly.
Great. She was even younger than he'd guessed.
He tried to shake her off to no avail. That was something because lord, he tried. Keeping a strong grip on his small bag - he'd stuffed the few onions that still looked all right in there - he ducked around the corner of a building, pretending to go to the right when he made a sudden dash to the left, dove under a merchant's table to scramble to the other side before he made his way behind another building, leaping up to the roof, bounding across several buildings and flinging himself over a wall, finally landing before his chosen inn, thinking he was definitely going to be in the clear now...and there she was right in front of the inn, beaming up at him underneath the overhanging roof.
He'd almost thought his eyes were playing tricks on him.
"Hi Tekatme!" the little girl exclaimed perkily with a large smile, giving him a wave with her bandaged hand, as if he hadn't just tried to shake her off. As if it were perfectly normal for her to be here at this inn.
"How the lord..." began Tekatme, but he was too flabbergasted to finish that particular thought. All he knew was that he was feeling very foolish at the moment.
"I'm Nokara," came a way too cheerful declaration.
"What?" Tekatme blinked.
"My name's Nokara!" declared the little girl as she lightly laid her hand on her chest right underneath some silly bow with some ornate green jewel she had fastened on her collar.
"Great. Now leave me alone," Tekatme deadpanned and made a shooing motion once again. He decided that he was going to ignore her. Oh yes, he was going to ignore her. It was enough that there was an impersonator of him running around town. He didn't need to add an "annoying stalker whose parents might think I'm a kidnapper" to that list.
He barged into the inn, stalking towards the innkeeper behind the counter, about to tell him that he needed a room, but instead of alarm at Tekatme's obvious mood, the innkeeper beamed at him with a smile warm enough to melt glaciers. Tekatme took a step back, his feet betraying him.
"Goodness! Tekatme sir! You wish to have a room at my humble inn? I'm so honored!" The bearded man babbled. His auburn beard came to a sharp point below his chin, waggling as he talked.
Even the innkeeper knew the imposter? Wonderful.
Thanks to the imposter, the innkeeper gave Tekatme a room for a discounted price. If Tekatme were like his benevolent imposter, he might've protested the goodwill of the innkeeper and turned him down, but far be it for Tekatme not to gain something out of this situation, and it wasn't like his captain had given him generous funds for this way too inconvenient trip. If he were to run out of funds in the future, well, he certainly wasn't going to start paying out of his own pocket.
"Is the young miss with you?" asked the innkeeper, blue eyes peering somewhere behind Tekatme before he turned and deftly plucked a metal key off the wall.
"Young miss...?" Tekatme paused. He then realized who the innkeeper must've been referring to, the scent of fried fish assaulting his nose. "Oh her. No-"
"Yes!" interrupted Nokara who must've followed him right in, one hand shooting up into the air so that the innkeeper could see where she was. She almost clambered onto the counter in her eagerness to make sure the innkeeper saw her.
"No," gritted Tekatme firmly as he tossed his coins at the innkeeper. "She's not."
The innkeeper made a sound that sounded suspiciously like a muffled laugh. It was too bad he hadn't jammed himself with the key he had in his hand. He wouldn't be laughing after that. "Her expression tells me differently."
"What-?" Tekatme started, head snapping to the right before he could remember that he was supposed to be ignoring her. He'd only managed it for a grand total of five minutes. What an inspiring record.
"He's my guard!" Nokara exclaimed. Her large, emerald green eyes were once again twinkling, and her lips pulled into a wide and easy grin. She looked downright pleased with herself, hands folded daintily in front of her. Like a cat that had just caught a canary. Ridiculously pleased.
Ridiculously infuriating.
Tekatme gnashed his teeth together.
Did she really think the innkeeper would actually believe that? Lord, that was the most outrageous lie Tekatme had ever heard, and she'd lied straight through her teeth without batting an eye. She was probably a runaway from home or something, some kid who thought she could worry her parents to death about her by running away without telling them - she was only seven, for lord's sake - and now she thought she could play princess or something by claiming Tekatme as her guard.
Well, he wasn't anyone's guard but Veline's at the moment, so she was out of luck.
He was sorry to burst her bubble - or well, not sorry at all - but he was not playing along. No way. If she wanted to play make believe, she'd have to find someone else.
"I'm not-"
"I see, miss. So Tekatme has taken on another noble job! Will the two of you be sharing a room, or shall I put you in adjacent rooms?"
"What?" Tekatme whirled back to face the innkeeper, eyes almost bulging out, his previous declaration cut off before he could even finish.
"I thought it prudent to ask," explained the innkeeper, one hand rubbing his bearded chin.
Prudent to ask? What...? Lord, the innkeeper had to be blind or deaf or something! Couldn't he tell that Tekatme didn't even know the girl?
"Same room please!" chirped Nokara. "Different rooms makes guarding a lot harder! Besides, Tekatme is such a gentleman! Surely we can share a room with no problem. We're like siblings!" She ended her sentence with a beaming smile. She then reached over to pat Tekatme on the arm.
What.
If the innkeeper and that annoying brat of a girl kept this up, Tekatme's vocabulary was soon going to be reduced to a single word.
"All right, I'll put the two of you in the Amber Room. It's a spacious room with two beds and a small sitting area." The innkeeper swapped the key he held for a different one. "Follow me." He ducked out from behind the counter and made his way towards the rickety stairs.
What.
Nokara was already bounding after the innkeeper, her high ponytail swishing about behind her head.
"Now look," Tekatme bit out, finally managing to recover from his one-word syndrome. He grabbed the girl's annoying ponytail that'd almost smacked him in the face when she took to bouncing up the stairs. The damn thing was practically alive. He gave it a tug. "I don't know why you've claimed that I'm your "guard", but I'm not, so stop lying."
Because he certainly didn't even know her, so how could he be her guard? If she thought she knew him, she could only be mistaking him for the imposter. Maybe the imposter really was her guard, but Tekatme wasn't!
"Ouch!" she exclaimed, hands flailing out, grabbing onto the handrail on the right. She twisted around to stare at him, the steps actually giving her enough of a boost to put them at eye level. Lord were her eyes a vivid green. And huge. But her pupils were kinda slit-like from this close. Narrow and elongated instead of round. Her eyes were swimming with curiosity and a speculative gleam instead of whatever else she should've been feeling from getting her hair pulled. Suddenly, there were hands on his mouth, pulling his lips far apart.
"Wow, those are sharp teeth," the little girl commented inanely, in what might've sounded like awe.
Well duh. Tekatme could be considered a hound, and if she didn't peel her hands off his jaw, he was going to bite her hand off with a snap of his jaws.
With eyes transfixed on his teeth, Nokara moved her fingers to trail against his canines. "Are you a vampire?" she breathed.
What.
He grabbed her hands and pulled them away from his mouth. He could have easily drawn blood with her fingers placed where they were. Lord, if you were a sane person, you did not go around sticking your hand near sharp teeth. Not unless you wanted your hand chewed off!
"Tell me you don't go around sticking your fingers near vampire fangs for fun," Tekatme deadpanned, because lord, that was one of the stupidest things you could ever do. He was not at all confident in her abilities to keep herself safe. That meant she really should not be out journeying by herself, which unfortunately was exactly what it seemed like she was doing.
"So you are a vampire?" gasped Nokara, hand flying to cover her open mouth.
"NO."
"Oh. Hm, I guess you aren't pale enough for that...and your color scheme is so cheerful. You wouldn't make a very good vampire. I mean, you'd stand out a lot among all the black and dreariness!"
"Cheerful!?"
Him, cheerful? What. The. Lord.
They bickered all the way up the rickety stairs.
-----
The Amber Room was aptly named. With orange drapes, orange bed sheets, orange rugs, and orange painted furniture, from orange wooden chairs to orange dressers to orange candle holders, everything in the room was orange. Tekatme blended right in with his orange hair and orange eyes, his "cheerful" color scheme, labeling thanks to one annoying little girl who didn't even know you were not supposed to go around sticking your hand into predators' mouths. That was like tempting fate. More than tempting fate because if you got bitten, it was no one's stupid fault but your own.
There was way too much orange around. It was blinding. Like someone had vomited orange paint all over the place. He sniffed, almost expecting to smell a citrusy scent with all the orange around him, but the room only smelled of paint and wood. In other words, stuffy.
The innkeeper left Tekatme staring at the orange atrocity that was to be his room for his stay in Lhordata. He'd pressed the key to the room in Tekatme's hand before leaving. Tekatme closed his eyes, wishing all the orange would go away once he opened them again, but nope, he was still being blinded by orange, and no, it wasn't because his orange fringe was in his way.
A head of brown pushed passed him, leaping onto the smooth, orange covers. Nokara flopped over the bed before she propped herself up and kicked her white cloth shoes off. She bounced on the bed, grin ever present on her face, the floor boards creaking. Lord, she looked like she was having the time of her life messing up the pristine covers. Tekatme's sister would surely have twisted his ear for doing the same.
"Go home."
The bed didn't stop bouncing.
After tossing those words at her, Tekatme strode across the room towards the window. He pulled the orange drapes to the side and threw the window open, hoping to breathe in fresh air, but what the lord was he thinking? While the air outside was fresher and didn't smell of paint and wood, it also brought along the odor of fish depending on which way the wind blew. The food places had to be to his far left, as that direction smelled of fish and grease. With every moment he spent in this town, he was more and more certain that he was so going to starve to death the longer he stayed. That was, if he didn't kneel over from suffocation first.
He wrinkled his nose but kept the window open. He already had a little girl who stunk of fried fish in his room, so keeping the window closed wasn't going to help him any.
As he'd expected, Nokara was still kicking her legs and bouncing on the bed when he turned around. He dropped his bag on the floor and leaned against the windowsill, frown settling on his face. He was tempted to grab her by her collar and toss her out.
Never was Tekatme known for not following his impulses.
So he did just that. She dodged, as if she'd known he was going to do it, wide smile ever present on her face, but he caught her and deposited her outside his door. Her pout was so not going to work on him.
He slammed the door in her face to good effect.
She pounded on the door.
Oh right, her shoes.
He opened the door, tossed the shoes out, and then slammed the door again.
Finally, peace and quiet and all that good stuff.
-----
When Tekatme came down from his room, the inn - well, it was an inn slash tavern all rolled into one - was a lot more populated than before, and he was glad to find out that the little girl was nowhere in sight. Good.
Kicking out a chair for himself at the counter, he began his initial information collecting. It was so not his forte, but the sooner he could find Lady Tokara, the sooner he could get his ass out of this lord forbidden town full of stinky fish, pesky townspeople, and troublesome people, like a stupid impersonator and a little girl with no sense of self preservation. Loathe as he was to admit it, he missed the bumbling idiots that accompanied him during his boring guard duty shifts back in Veline. They were familiar and made sense.
Asking around about Lady Tokara didn't help him much. It was like no one even knew about her, seriously, what the lord, she was supposed to be here according to his captain, and if she had already moved on to the next town or something, or lord, if she was already making her way back to Veline on her own, Tekatme was so going to kick someone or something. He so did not travel for three weeks to this town (that was going to be the death of him) just to waste his time.
"A lady, you say? New to town?" slurred a man over a mug of ale. His ale sloshed over as he slammed it on the counter with a thunk. "Pretty, with long, flowing hair? I might've seen a lady like that."
Well, Tekatme hadn't said she was pretty, but whatever.
"Where?" Tekatme asked, nostrils flaring at the man's horrendous breath. Finally, a clue. He'd almost given up. Though this man hadn't heard about a Lady Tokara, asking if he'd noticed a female newcomer to town had yielded results. Whether or not that lady was actually the Tokara he was looking for was a different matter altogether, but at least it was a start.
"Oh, I thought she was staying with you."
With another thunk, the man's head joined his mug on the wooden surface. He started snoring.
Tekatme stared. Staying with him? Did that mean... she was staying with the imposter?
He snorted, stood up, and kicked his chair back in place.
It wasn't like he'd had let the imposter continue running around pretending to be him, using his name, but he'd prioritized finding Lady Tokara since that was his ticket out of town while this was some side quest he hadn't wanted in the first place, though it wasn't like he'd wanted the main quest either.
Whatever. Maybe he'd get to punch someone.
He cracked his knuckles.
Time to hunt the imposter down.
-----
Hunting down his imposter wasn't going to be an easy feat. He'd never dreamed it would be. Asking around about himself only served to make people think he was crazy, but he was fairly sure he wasn't the one who'd gone loopy. He still couldn't believe people could get him and the imposter mixed up. Surely it was akin to getting an orange and a tangerine mixed up. Sure, they were both fruits and both cheerfully orange in color, but they weren't actually that alike. One you can peel into slices. One, you couldn't peel without making things messy. It was really much easier just to suck the juice out of the other one without bothering to deal with individual slices and all that.
Lord, maybe he really had gone crazy if he was comparing himself to a fruit. And thinking about sucking the juice out of some fruit. He was so not a fruit. Especially not an orange. Or a tangerine. His hair color had nothing to do with it. He was also not a fruit sucking vampire. Or a fruit sucking anything. Why was he even thinking about vampires? Ugh.
"Have you seen someone who looks exactly like me around?" Tekatme asked, pointing at himself.
The merchant in front of him looked at Tekatme with a raised eyebrow. "Yeah, I have."
Tekatme blamed his shoddy analogies using oranges and tangerines on the merchant (who was giving Tekatme the "I'm not sure you're sane" look) because he was selling oranges by the crate. Had to be this guy's fault Tekatme was even thinking about oranges and how they were supposed to be peeled and how they couldn't possibly be mistaken for tangerines and vice versa.
"Where?" Tekatme asked, trying to stop himself from dwelling about oranges and tangerines and tangerines and oranges.
"Right in front of me."
"Ugh, no, I mean someone else instead of me. Like my evil twin or something. Or actually, I should say, my not-evil twin because apparently I'm the bad one while he's the saintly one and all that. So, have you seen him around? My saintly twin?"
Orange Merchant continued looking at Tekatme like he was crazy. Maybe he was. He felt like he could no longer smell anything but fish. The stench was that strong. He shouldn't have come to the marketplace to gather information. He hated fish merchants. That was the only reason he was even talking to this fruit merchant. He was the farthest guy from the fish stands.
He flattened his hair and huffed. This was going nowhere. He was really not cut out for this. Why was he even in the marketplace again? He should've started with the innkeeper. He seemed to already know Tekatme, or at least, he seemed to know the imposter. Even Onion Lady or that old granny would've been a better choice than asking Orange Merchant who was still giving him the "I'm not sure you're sane" look.
"Forget it," Tekatme said. "Let's pretend this conversation never happened."
From off to the side, Apple Merchant chimed in. "What's tickling you today, Tekatme?" he asked.
Yay, someone who knew the imposter. He should've picked apples instead of oranges from the start.
Tekatme turned towards Apple Merchant who was actually kind of tall. "I kinda don't remember where I live."
He looked at the apples the merchant was selling. "So you're the half dozen apple merchant," he said to himself. The one that the old granny got a bargain out of. Two dozen apples for the price of a dozen and a half, or something like that. That apple she gave him had been delicious. Now he wished she'd given him more because it looked like that was all he was gonna get for the whole day because he was so not going to touch any of the fish dishes the town had to offer. Fruits. It looked like fruits was the way to go. That, and maybe bread.
"What?"
"I don't remember where I live?"
"I could've sworn you said something else..."
"Nah." Though now he was wondering if he could get cheap apples out of this guy. He was hungry.
Apple Merchant polished one of his apples with a rag. "If you're having memory problems, may I suggest visiting the healers?"
Great. There was truly no way to go about this without appearing delusional.
"I think I'll buy an apple."
Apple Merchant smiled winningly at him.
-----
You would think that with how famous the imposter was - almost everyone had seemed to know Tekatme without him needing to introduce himself, barring Orange Merchant - they would actually know where the imposter resided. But no, no one was able to tell Tekatme that, and they thought him weird for asking. He'd gone all over town, and lord did they have some interesting places, like this dojo that Tekatme really wanted to visit again and this blacksmith shop that had some really cool weapons, but in the end, no one was able to direct him to the imposter. And now it was dark and everywhere was closed for the day without him making any progress.
He was also not appreciating the fact that he was being followed right back into his room. She didn't stink of fish anymore, but that was a small condolence.
"What the lord do you want with me?" Tekatme asked in annoyance.
Behind him, Nokara tilted her head to the side, not at all guilty for having been caught stalking him once again. "Huh? Do I need to want something from you?"
"Lord dammit, if you don't want something from me, why the lord have you been following me like a pest?"
She'd followed him all freakin' day. All of his attempts to shake her off - from leaping onto roofs to ducking inside shops hadn't done him any good. He didn't know whether he should be amazed or frustrated. Didn't she have anything better to do?
Large green eyes blinked slowly at him. "Who's Lord Dammit?"
Tekatme groaned, face falling in his hands. His two tufts of hair on both sides of his head flicked upward in his exasperation. "You did not just say that."
Head still tilted, Nokara hopped onto the bed as if she'd never gotten thrown out. She began kicking her legs, swinging them up and down against the bed. "I don't know anyone called that. What a funny name."
Rolling his eyes, he tapped his fingers against his arm impatiently. "There's no one called Lord Dammit. If there is, I'll so laugh in his face." He'd point and laugh and have a jolly good time doing so at the expense of the poor soul with completely merciless parents. Naming someone "Dammit" would totally be setting them up for a lifetime of misery and putdowns. Seriously, it's like wanting your kid to fail at the start. Destiny ruled by name, or something.
"Oh." She didn't sound very enlightened, but see if Tekatme cared, especially since she still hadn't "enlightened" him on her motives for following him!
"I told you to go home. Why haven't you?"
"All heroes need a sidekick!"
She wanted to be his sidekick? He gripped his arm, trying to calm himself. Otherwise, there would've already been a hole in the wall. Wait, he still had feet.
He started pacing.
A sidekick? A SIDEKICK? Seriously? Was he stuck in la la land and just didn't know about it? He never signed up for this. That, or no one bothered to tell him that this was actually the way reality worked. You come into town thinking you're a stranger and wanting to be one. Turns out everyone already knows you and thinks you're all that. You save a little girl from a thug. You gain an instant sidekick.
What. The. Lord.
Pacing didn't help. He kicked the ugly orange bed. His ugly orange bed. Since the girl was sitting on the other one. That made this one his. But wait. He never agreed to let her stay.
He whirled around and stuck his foot on the bed.
"I don't need a sidekick. Besides, I'm no hero!"
"But aren't you Tekatme?"
"Yes, but that's not the point."
"Then what's the point?"
"That I don't need a sidekick."
"But you're Tekatme!"
Tekatme wanted to groan.
So he did just that. This conversation was going nowhere.
"And whoever out there is not, right?" she said.
Wait, what? She figured that out? Well, she'd be the first out of all the delusional townspeople who couldn't tell oranges from tangerines.
Still, that didn't mean he wanted her around despite how she had somehow become the only person who was making any sense in the entire town.
"Just...go home already."
The legs stopped kicking.
"I don't have anywhere to go," came the subdued response that was completely at odds with the large smile on her face, the air suddenly thick with melancholy. "My parents are long dead."
He wished she'd stop smiling if she didn't mean it at all.
Great. Now he felt like a bully. He was totally not cut out for this, and this girl obviously had deeper problems than he could handle. She was so attaching herself to the wrong person. If he'd known this was what would've happened because of his act of saving her from the thug, he'd never have stepped in so directly. He didn't want to get involved.
Cue awkward silence.
He uncrossed his arms and dropped them to his side, about to open up his big mouth again. It wasn't like he was known for delicacy, but she beat him in cutting down the awkward silence.
"You're not actually a vampire, are you?" asked Nokara, large green eyes peering up at Tekatme. Why the lord was she bringing that up again? Did she want to make fun of his "color scheme" again? Well, he wasn't sorry for being so "cheerfully" coordinated with his orange!
"No, I'm not. I'm a canine."
And proud of it, unlike his spineless dad who thought it better for them to discard their heritage so that they could blend in better among humans. Fat chance Tekatme was gonna follow in his dad's footsteps, though he wasn't gonna go out of his way to tell people exactly what sort of canine either. He wasn't actually entirely sure what he was, but he had a fairly good idea about what his own villagers thought he was. That was why they were particularly wary of his family. Since their affinity was fire. There wasn't much Tekatme and his family could possibly be given that combination.
He expected a myriad of reactions to his declaration, from surprise to disgust to incomprehension, but she expressed none of those. She brightened and sat up taller, the room suddenly smelling buoyant. The open window must've helped. It was kinda breezy in the room now.
"How cool!" she explained, eyes practically sparkling. She then pointed her bandaged index fingers at herself. Or, more precisely, at her green eyes with her strange narrow pupils.
He really shouldn't have been surprised.
"I'm feline!"
"You are what?"
His hearing was so failing him.
"Feline!"
How utterly wonderful. Not only had he gained a stalker-sidekick, the stalker-sidekick was feline. As if he hadn't had enough of cats already! Should he be happy that something feline had finally approached him without hissing at him or scratching his eyes out on sight?
"Please oh please let me help you out?"
In the end, his fist decided that the wall really did need a nice hole as decoration.
-----
to be continued
Here's chapter 2. Despite how long it is, this still reads like an introductory chapter to me, setting up the scene... :'D But at least Nokara finally introduces herself. It's been Tekatme, Tekatme, Tekatme the entire time. I tossed my words into wordle (it makes a graphic out of your most frequently used words) and Tekatme was right smack across the entire thing in huge letters. No one else even compared. XD; That's one of my problems with this year's NaNo... it's such a monologue. (What was funny with my wordle was that it kind of looked fish shaped, hehe).
Chapter 1
Lhordata
Chapter 2
~6166 words
Near the lakeside, a young woman with brown hair and brown eyes walked, heading towards her residence. She held herself in a timid way, her shoulders tense and drawn inwards. In the opposite direction of the mousey woman, an orange-headed figure approached, pace slow, gaze focused outwards toward the other side of the lake. The figure's neck was bandaged with white bandages.
When their paths crossed, the mousey woman glanced up from her feet before she ducked her head again.
The orange-headed figure smiled reassuringly. A hand flew up to smooth down hair that didn't need smoothing.
"Good day to you," the orange-headed figure murmured with a nod of acknowledgement.
The mousey woman glanced up once again, shedding her meek demeanor in her moment of surprise. "Good day...? But we've met today already...?" Her eyes roamed across the orange-headed figure before her, gaze dropping towards the figure's waist. "No sword..." she said in a quiet voice. She relaxed slightly and looked up with a small, timid smile.
A strange expression came over the orange-headed figure's face, but it was soon replaced by another smile.
"I'm sorry for scaring you earlier. I know you don't like weapons."
"D-Don't worry, I understand why you might want to carry one." The mousey woman clasped her hands in front of her, almost hugging herself. Her short brown hair that curled up around her cheeks conveniently hid half of her face.
The orange-headed figure didn't move closer, knowing that the mousey woman needed her space. Any closer would make her feel uncomfortable.
Swallowing, the mousey woman's eyes darted up before she looked away. "Are you hurt...?" she ventured timidly, hand coming up to her throat, mimicking what she saw.
"These you mean?" A hand gestured at the white bandages wrapped around a slender neck. "Thank you for worrying, but I am unhurt. It's a mild cold. I thought to keep warm."
"Oh! No wonder you sounded a little different today. And acted a little differently too. Oh! I don't mean anything by that..."
The orange-headed figure smiled.
They exchanged some more pleasantries. The mousey woman kept her head lowered the entire time, eyes trained on the dirt floor. When they parted, the mousey woman bowed her head even lower and then hurriedly continued on her way.
The orange-headed figure watched the mousey woman leave with a thoughtful expression.
"So he's in town...Tekatme."
-----
"Someone's impersonating me," Tekatme growled lowly to himself, katana back by his side. He'd thought whoever out there the townspeople were mistaking him for merely resembled him - that had already been bad enough - but apparently the bastard was also using Tekatme's name.
That completely changed things. It made things personal. Now he needed to find the guy and pummel his face in because his name was definitely not free for using.
"You mean you're not Tekatme?" piped a little girl's voice in deep curiosity. It belonged to the girl he had just saved. The girl who was still following him with the incessant smell of fried fish when she should've scampered home already. Lord, he was not a babysitter, and there was something wrong with her head for her to blindly follow him around when he'd just snarled at her not a moment before, freezing her in her place.
Except she hadn't smelled frightened, had she? He couldn't remember.
"Stop following me!" he snapped.
He made a shooing motion with his right hand and completed it with shooing sounds, much like what he'd do if he were shooing away an unwanted stray animal. She was fairly close to one. Even when she hadn't spoken, he'd felt her presence and especially smelled the lingering odor of fish. She'd polished off that lord forbidden fish and was now dangling the skewer in her mouth.
"But you haven't answered me yet!" the little girl pouted, speaking around the skewer that was mostly likely bouncing up and down in cadence with her words.
"Go away already," he muttered.
"Are you Tekatme or not?" demanded the little girl relentlessly.
"I am, okay?" he snarled, spinning around only to see that the little girl had her arms propped on her hips like she had all the right to demand his name out of him. Which she didn't. He snorted - she did not at all look intimidating with her skinny legs and her much too large eyes - before he turned around and continued walking.
He was Tekatme, but whoever out there was not. He grumbled this under his breath.
"How'd you know my name anyway?" he asked, making no motion to slow his steps down. It was a stupid question. He already hated himself for asking.
"Everyone in town knows about Tekatme, the valiant gentleman who goes out of his way to help people in need!" chirped the little girl. She probably had a beaming smile to accompany that. "I knew I wasn't in any trouble because you'd for sure come to save me!"
Was that why she'd stared at him with large eyes when their gaze had met? Had she been too overcome with relief that her hero had come to save her just as she'd expected?
There was so much wrong with what she'd just said. So much wrong. Him, a gentleman? Valiantly saving people? Who the lord was this guy who was impersonating Tekatme? He sure had his impersonations wrong. Who the lord in their right mind would go around borrowing someone's name to do...good deeds with it while he was at it?
That was what was making things weird. Tekatme had only heard good things about this imposter, and that was not the way imposters were supposed to work. Not at all.
He groaned and pulled on one of his stubborn tufts of hair that refused to stay down. It immediately bounced back up once he let go. This had got to be some kind of joke. He didn't like knowing that there was someone out there pretending to be him.
And doing a better job at being him too, apparently. Since everyone just loved the imposter so much.
He glanced off to the side at the little girl who was surprisingly keeping up with his long strides, though she was almost jogging. He hadn't smelled it before over the smell of the fish she'd been eating, but she was hurt. He looked down and saw the scrape over her knees right above her knee high socks. If she hadn't been wearing such a short miniskirt, she wouldn't have scraped her knees like that. Her attire was completely impractical for running outdoors.
"How'd you get mixed up with that thug, huh?" Tekatme found himself asking after staring at the scrape over her knees. It wasn't like he was curious about what'd happened! He was not!
The little girl pursed her lips, eyebrows furrowed. "Oh, I told him that he was going to step into some horse manure soon. You know, I was trying to be nice, giving him an early warning so that he wouldn't go and step in horse manure for real, but he thought I was lying and got reaaaaally angry at me. How ungrateful of him!" She shook her head in disappointment, her long ponytail swishing behind her.
Tekatme rolled his eyes and snorted.
Well duh. If someone came up to him and cheerfully told him that he was going to be stepping in "horse manure", he'd first think the person to be crazy, and he'd then think the person was pulling a fast one on him. Or at least trying to make some kind of statement. Something along the lines of, "You stink."
No one liked hearing that, and even being a cute, ten year old little girl did not endear you to people you've essentially told to step in "shit". No wonder the large thug had gotten angry. Not that that excused him from what he did.
"How old are you?" asked Tekatme. He often spoke without thinking - lord knew he had his fair share of trouble because of it - but he liked to think that he was aware enough of his words to know when his words would anger people. Many times he spoke with the very intent to piss off his opponent, but she apparently couldn't even tell she was pissing people off. She seemed even more skilled than him in putting her foot in her mouth.
She looked around ten to him, but Tekatme had never been great at telling age. It was generally easier with humans, a lot more difficult with those of mixed decent like him as they tended to age just a bit slower but not by much, and almost impossible to tell with those not of mixed decent. Many were close to unaging when compared to humans. Of those, the most long-living were dragons and elves, not that Tekatme had much practice with telling the age of dragons and elves given how they generally kept to themselves. Rykatu had been the only dragon Tekatme'd actually met face-to-face. He'd heard, however, that there wasn't much difference between the appearances of a dragon in his or her teens, and a dragon aged hundreds of years old. The same went for elves. That was the reason why Tekatme hadn't thought Rykatu, despite his youthful appearance, could possibly be around Tekatme's age. But then, Tekatme hadn't asked, so he didn't actually know Rykatu's real age either.
The little girl counted on her fingers, looking down and mouthing the numbers before she held up seven fingers. Her hands were curiously wrapped in bandages - all the way up her wrist and forearm from what he saw under her long sleeves - revealing only her small fingertips.
"I'm seven!" she declared proudly.
Great. She was even younger than he'd guessed.
He tried to shake her off to no avail. That was something because lord, he tried. Keeping a strong grip on his small bag - he'd stuffed the few onions that still looked all right in there - he ducked around the corner of a building, pretending to go to the right when he made a sudden dash to the left, dove under a merchant's table to scramble to the other side before he made his way behind another building, leaping up to the roof, bounding across several buildings and flinging himself over a wall, finally landing before his chosen inn, thinking he was definitely going to be in the clear now...and there she was right in front of the inn, beaming up at him underneath the overhanging roof.
He'd almost thought his eyes were playing tricks on him.
"Hi Tekatme!" the little girl exclaimed perkily with a large smile, giving him a wave with her bandaged hand, as if he hadn't just tried to shake her off. As if it were perfectly normal for her to be here at this inn.
"How the lord..." began Tekatme, but he was too flabbergasted to finish that particular thought. All he knew was that he was feeling very foolish at the moment.
"I'm Nokara," came a way too cheerful declaration.
"What?" Tekatme blinked.
"My name's Nokara!" declared the little girl as she lightly laid her hand on her chest right underneath some silly bow with some ornate green jewel she had fastened on her collar.
"Great. Now leave me alone," Tekatme deadpanned and made a shooing motion once again. He decided that he was going to ignore her. Oh yes, he was going to ignore her. It was enough that there was an impersonator of him running around town. He didn't need to add an "annoying stalker whose parents might think I'm a kidnapper" to that list.
He barged into the inn, stalking towards the innkeeper behind the counter, about to tell him that he needed a room, but instead of alarm at Tekatme's obvious mood, the innkeeper beamed at him with a smile warm enough to melt glaciers. Tekatme took a step back, his feet betraying him.
"Goodness! Tekatme sir! You wish to have a room at my humble inn? I'm so honored!" The bearded man babbled. His auburn beard came to a sharp point below his chin, waggling as he talked.
Even the innkeeper knew the imposter? Wonderful.
Thanks to the imposter, the innkeeper gave Tekatme a room for a discounted price. If Tekatme were like his benevolent imposter, he might've protested the goodwill of the innkeeper and turned him down, but far be it for Tekatme not to gain something out of this situation, and it wasn't like his captain had given him generous funds for this way too inconvenient trip. If he were to run out of funds in the future, well, he certainly wasn't going to start paying out of his own pocket.
"Is the young miss with you?" asked the innkeeper, blue eyes peering somewhere behind Tekatme before he turned and deftly plucked a metal key off the wall.
"Young miss...?" Tekatme paused. He then realized who the innkeeper must've been referring to, the scent of fried fish assaulting his nose. "Oh her. No-"
"Yes!" interrupted Nokara who must've followed him right in, one hand shooting up into the air so that the innkeeper could see where she was. She almost clambered onto the counter in her eagerness to make sure the innkeeper saw her.
"No," gritted Tekatme firmly as he tossed his coins at the innkeeper. "She's not."
The innkeeper made a sound that sounded suspiciously like a muffled laugh. It was too bad he hadn't jammed himself with the key he had in his hand. He wouldn't be laughing after that. "Her expression tells me differently."
"What-?" Tekatme started, head snapping to the right before he could remember that he was supposed to be ignoring her. He'd only managed it for a grand total of five minutes. What an inspiring record.
"He's my guard!" Nokara exclaimed. Her large, emerald green eyes were once again twinkling, and her lips pulled into a wide and easy grin. She looked downright pleased with herself, hands folded daintily in front of her. Like a cat that had just caught a canary. Ridiculously pleased.
Ridiculously infuriating.
Tekatme gnashed his teeth together.
Did she really think the innkeeper would actually believe that? Lord, that was the most outrageous lie Tekatme had ever heard, and she'd lied straight through her teeth without batting an eye. She was probably a runaway from home or something, some kid who thought she could worry her parents to death about her by running away without telling them - she was only seven, for lord's sake - and now she thought she could play princess or something by claiming Tekatme as her guard.
Well, he wasn't anyone's guard but Veline's at the moment, so she was out of luck.
He was sorry to burst her bubble - or well, not sorry at all - but he was not playing along. No way. If she wanted to play make believe, she'd have to find someone else.
"I'm not-"
"I see, miss. So Tekatme has taken on another noble job! Will the two of you be sharing a room, or shall I put you in adjacent rooms?"
"What?" Tekatme whirled back to face the innkeeper, eyes almost bulging out, his previous declaration cut off before he could even finish.
"I thought it prudent to ask," explained the innkeeper, one hand rubbing his bearded chin.
Prudent to ask? What...? Lord, the innkeeper had to be blind or deaf or something! Couldn't he tell that Tekatme didn't even know the girl?
"Same room please!" chirped Nokara. "Different rooms makes guarding a lot harder! Besides, Tekatme is such a gentleman! Surely we can share a room with no problem. We're like siblings!" She ended her sentence with a beaming smile. She then reached over to pat Tekatme on the arm.
What.
If the innkeeper and that annoying brat of a girl kept this up, Tekatme's vocabulary was soon going to be reduced to a single word.
"All right, I'll put the two of you in the Amber Room. It's a spacious room with two beds and a small sitting area." The innkeeper swapped the key he held for a different one. "Follow me." He ducked out from behind the counter and made his way towards the rickety stairs.
What.
Nokara was already bounding after the innkeeper, her high ponytail swishing about behind her head.
"Now look," Tekatme bit out, finally managing to recover from his one-word syndrome. He grabbed the girl's annoying ponytail that'd almost smacked him in the face when she took to bouncing up the stairs. The damn thing was practically alive. He gave it a tug. "I don't know why you've claimed that I'm your "guard", but I'm not, so stop lying."
Because he certainly didn't even know her, so how could he be her guard? If she thought she knew him, she could only be mistaking him for the imposter. Maybe the imposter really was her guard, but Tekatme wasn't!
"Ouch!" she exclaimed, hands flailing out, grabbing onto the handrail on the right. She twisted around to stare at him, the steps actually giving her enough of a boost to put them at eye level. Lord were her eyes a vivid green. And huge. But her pupils were kinda slit-like from this close. Narrow and elongated instead of round. Her eyes were swimming with curiosity and a speculative gleam instead of whatever else she should've been feeling from getting her hair pulled. Suddenly, there were hands on his mouth, pulling his lips far apart.
"Wow, those are sharp teeth," the little girl commented inanely, in what might've sounded like awe.
Well duh. Tekatme could be considered a hound, and if she didn't peel her hands off his jaw, he was going to bite her hand off with a snap of his jaws.
With eyes transfixed on his teeth, Nokara moved her fingers to trail against his canines. "Are you a vampire?" she breathed.
What.
He grabbed her hands and pulled them away from his mouth. He could have easily drawn blood with her fingers placed where they were. Lord, if you were a sane person, you did not go around sticking your hand near sharp teeth. Not unless you wanted your hand chewed off!
"Tell me you don't go around sticking your fingers near vampire fangs for fun," Tekatme deadpanned, because lord, that was one of the stupidest things you could ever do. He was not at all confident in her abilities to keep herself safe. That meant she really should not be out journeying by herself, which unfortunately was exactly what it seemed like she was doing.
"So you are a vampire?" gasped Nokara, hand flying to cover her open mouth.
"NO."
"Oh. Hm, I guess you aren't pale enough for that...and your color scheme is so cheerful. You wouldn't make a very good vampire. I mean, you'd stand out a lot among all the black and dreariness!"
"Cheerful!?"
Him, cheerful? What. The. Lord.
They bickered all the way up the rickety stairs.
-----
The Amber Room was aptly named. With orange drapes, orange bed sheets, orange rugs, and orange painted furniture, from orange wooden chairs to orange dressers to orange candle holders, everything in the room was orange. Tekatme blended right in with his orange hair and orange eyes, his "cheerful" color scheme, labeling thanks to one annoying little girl who didn't even know you were not supposed to go around sticking your hand into predators' mouths. That was like tempting fate. More than tempting fate because if you got bitten, it was no one's stupid fault but your own.
There was way too much orange around. It was blinding. Like someone had vomited orange paint all over the place. He sniffed, almost expecting to smell a citrusy scent with all the orange around him, but the room only smelled of paint and wood. In other words, stuffy.
The innkeeper left Tekatme staring at the orange atrocity that was to be his room for his stay in Lhordata. He'd pressed the key to the room in Tekatme's hand before leaving. Tekatme closed his eyes, wishing all the orange would go away once he opened them again, but nope, he was still being blinded by orange, and no, it wasn't because his orange fringe was in his way.
A head of brown pushed passed him, leaping onto the smooth, orange covers. Nokara flopped over the bed before she propped herself up and kicked her white cloth shoes off. She bounced on the bed, grin ever present on her face, the floor boards creaking. Lord, she looked like she was having the time of her life messing up the pristine covers. Tekatme's sister would surely have twisted his ear for doing the same.
"Go home."
The bed didn't stop bouncing.
After tossing those words at her, Tekatme strode across the room towards the window. He pulled the orange drapes to the side and threw the window open, hoping to breathe in fresh air, but what the lord was he thinking? While the air outside was fresher and didn't smell of paint and wood, it also brought along the odor of fish depending on which way the wind blew. The food places had to be to his far left, as that direction smelled of fish and grease. With every moment he spent in this town, he was more and more certain that he was so going to starve to death the longer he stayed. That was, if he didn't kneel over from suffocation first.
He wrinkled his nose but kept the window open. He already had a little girl who stunk of fried fish in his room, so keeping the window closed wasn't going to help him any.
As he'd expected, Nokara was still kicking her legs and bouncing on the bed when he turned around. He dropped his bag on the floor and leaned against the windowsill, frown settling on his face. He was tempted to grab her by her collar and toss her out.
Never was Tekatme known for not following his impulses.
So he did just that. She dodged, as if she'd known he was going to do it, wide smile ever present on her face, but he caught her and deposited her outside his door. Her pout was so not going to work on him.
He slammed the door in her face to good effect.
She pounded on the door.
Oh right, her shoes.
He opened the door, tossed the shoes out, and then slammed the door again.
Finally, peace and quiet and all that good stuff.
-----
When Tekatme came down from his room, the inn - well, it was an inn slash tavern all rolled into one - was a lot more populated than before, and he was glad to find out that the little girl was nowhere in sight. Good.
Kicking out a chair for himself at the counter, he began his initial information collecting. It was so not his forte, but the sooner he could find Lady Tokara, the sooner he could get his ass out of this lord forbidden town full of stinky fish, pesky townspeople, and troublesome people, like a stupid impersonator and a little girl with no sense of self preservation. Loathe as he was to admit it, he missed the bumbling idiots that accompanied him during his boring guard duty shifts back in Veline. They were familiar and made sense.
Asking around about Lady Tokara didn't help him much. It was like no one even knew about her, seriously, what the lord, she was supposed to be here according to his captain, and if she had already moved on to the next town or something, or lord, if she was already making her way back to Veline on her own, Tekatme was so going to kick someone or something. He so did not travel for three weeks to this town (that was going to be the death of him) just to waste his time.
"A lady, you say? New to town?" slurred a man over a mug of ale. His ale sloshed over as he slammed it on the counter with a thunk. "Pretty, with long, flowing hair? I might've seen a lady like that."
Well, Tekatme hadn't said she was pretty, but whatever.
"Where?" Tekatme asked, nostrils flaring at the man's horrendous breath. Finally, a clue. He'd almost given up. Though this man hadn't heard about a Lady Tokara, asking if he'd noticed a female newcomer to town had yielded results. Whether or not that lady was actually the Tokara he was looking for was a different matter altogether, but at least it was a start.
"Oh, I thought she was staying with you."
With another thunk, the man's head joined his mug on the wooden surface. He started snoring.
Tekatme stared. Staying with him? Did that mean... she was staying with the imposter?
He snorted, stood up, and kicked his chair back in place.
It wasn't like he'd had let the imposter continue running around pretending to be him, using his name, but he'd prioritized finding Lady Tokara since that was his ticket out of town while this was some side quest he hadn't wanted in the first place, though it wasn't like he'd wanted the main quest either.
Whatever. Maybe he'd get to punch someone.
He cracked his knuckles.
Time to hunt the imposter down.
-----
Hunting down his imposter wasn't going to be an easy feat. He'd never dreamed it would be. Asking around about himself only served to make people think he was crazy, but he was fairly sure he wasn't the one who'd gone loopy. He still couldn't believe people could get him and the imposter mixed up. Surely it was akin to getting an orange and a tangerine mixed up. Sure, they were both fruits and both cheerfully orange in color, but they weren't actually that alike. One you can peel into slices. One, you couldn't peel without making things messy. It was really much easier just to suck the juice out of the other one without bothering to deal with individual slices and all that.
Lord, maybe he really had gone crazy if he was comparing himself to a fruit. And thinking about sucking the juice out of some fruit. He was so not a fruit. Especially not an orange. Or a tangerine. His hair color had nothing to do with it. He was also not a fruit sucking vampire. Or a fruit sucking anything. Why was he even thinking about vampires? Ugh.
"Have you seen someone who looks exactly like me around?" Tekatme asked, pointing at himself.
The merchant in front of him looked at Tekatme with a raised eyebrow. "Yeah, I have."
Tekatme blamed his shoddy analogies using oranges and tangerines on the merchant (who was giving Tekatme the "I'm not sure you're sane" look) because he was selling oranges by the crate. Had to be this guy's fault Tekatme was even thinking about oranges and how they were supposed to be peeled and how they couldn't possibly be mistaken for tangerines and vice versa.
"Where?" Tekatme asked, trying to stop himself from dwelling about oranges and tangerines and tangerines and oranges.
"Right in front of me."
"Ugh, no, I mean someone else instead of me. Like my evil twin or something. Or actually, I should say, my not-evil twin because apparently I'm the bad one while he's the saintly one and all that. So, have you seen him around? My saintly twin?"
Orange Merchant continued looking at Tekatme like he was crazy. Maybe he was. He felt like he could no longer smell anything but fish. The stench was that strong. He shouldn't have come to the marketplace to gather information. He hated fish merchants. That was the only reason he was even talking to this fruit merchant. He was the farthest guy from the fish stands.
He flattened his hair and huffed. This was going nowhere. He was really not cut out for this. Why was he even in the marketplace again? He should've started with the innkeeper. He seemed to already know Tekatme, or at least, he seemed to know the imposter. Even Onion Lady or that old granny would've been a better choice than asking Orange Merchant who was still giving him the "I'm not sure you're sane" look.
"Forget it," Tekatme said. "Let's pretend this conversation never happened."
From off to the side, Apple Merchant chimed in. "What's tickling you today, Tekatme?" he asked.
Yay, someone who knew the imposter. He should've picked apples instead of oranges from the start.
Tekatme turned towards Apple Merchant who was actually kind of tall. "I kinda don't remember where I live."
He looked at the apples the merchant was selling. "So you're the half dozen apple merchant," he said to himself. The one that the old granny got a bargain out of. Two dozen apples for the price of a dozen and a half, or something like that. That apple she gave him had been delicious. Now he wished she'd given him more because it looked like that was all he was gonna get for the whole day because he was so not going to touch any of the fish dishes the town had to offer. Fruits. It looked like fruits was the way to go. That, and maybe bread.
"What?"
"I don't remember where I live?"
"I could've sworn you said something else..."
"Nah." Though now he was wondering if he could get cheap apples out of this guy. He was hungry.
Apple Merchant polished one of his apples with a rag. "If you're having memory problems, may I suggest visiting the healers?"
Great. There was truly no way to go about this without appearing delusional.
"I think I'll buy an apple."
Apple Merchant smiled winningly at him.
-----
You would think that with how famous the imposter was - almost everyone had seemed to know Tekatme without him needing to introduce himself, barring Orange Merchant - they would actually know where the imposter resided. But no, no one was able to tell Tekatme that, and they thought him weird for asking. He'd gone all over town, and lord did they have some interesting places, like this dojo that Tekatme really wanted to visit again and this blacksmith shop that had some really cool weapons, but in the end, no one was able to direct him to the imposter. And now it was dark and everywhere was closed for the day without him making any progress.
He was also not appreciating the fact that he was being followed right back into his room. She didn't stink of fish anymore, but that was a small condolence.
"What the lord do you want with me?" Tekatme asked in annoyance.
Behind him, Nokara tilted her head to the side, not at all guilty for having been caught stalking him once again. "Huh? Do I need to want something from you?"
"Lord dammit, if you don't want something from me, why the lord have you been following me like a pest?"
She'd followed him all freakin' day. All of his attempts to shake her off - from leaping onto roofs to ducking inside shops hadn't done him any good. He didn't know whether he should be amazed or frustrated. Didn't she have anything better to do?
Large green eyes blinked slowly at him. "Who's Lord Dammit?"
Tekatme groaned, face falling in his hands. His two tufts of hair on both sides of his head flicked upward in his exasperation. "You did not just say that."
Head still tilted, Nokara hopped onto the bed as if she'd never gotten thrown out. She began kicking her legs, swinging them up and down against the bed. "I don't know anyone called that. What a funny name."
Rolling his eyes, he tapped his fingers against his arm impatiently. "There's no one called Lord Dammit. If there is, I'll so laugh in his face." He'd point and laugh and have a jolly good time doing so at the expense of the poor soul with completely merciless parents. Naming someone "Dammit" would totally be setting them up for a lifetime of misery and putdowns. Seriously, it's like wanting your kid to fail at the start. Destiny ruled by name, or something.
"Oh." She didn't sound very enlightened, but see if Tekatme cared, especially since she still hadn't "enlightened" him on her motives for following him!
"I told you to go home. Why haven't you?"
"All heroes need a sidekick!"
She wanted to be his sidekick? He gripped his arm, trying to calm himself. Otherwise, there would've already been a hole in the wall. Wait, he still had feet.
He started pacing.
A sidekick? A SIDEKICK? Seriously? Was he stuck in la la land and just didn't know about it? He never signed up for this. That, or no one bothered to tell him that this was actually the way reality worked. You come into town thinking you're a stranger and wanting to be one. Turns out everyone already knows you and thinks you're all that. You save a little girl from a thug. You gain an instant sidekick.
What. The. Lord.
Pacing didn't help. He kicked the ugly orange bed. His ugly orange bed. Since the girl was sitting on the other one. That made this one his. But wait. He never agreed to let her stay.
He whirled around and stuck his foot on the bed.
"I don't need a sidekick. Besides, I'm no hero!"
"But aren't you Tekatme?"
"Yes, but that's not the point."
"Then what's the point?"
"That I don't need a sidekick."
"But you're Tekatme!"
Tekatme wanted to groan.
So he did just that. This conversation was going nowhere.
"And whoever out there is not, right?" she said.
Wait, what? She figured that out? Well, she'd be the first out of all the delusional townspeople who couldn't tell oranges from tangerines.
Still, that didn't mean he wanted her around despite how she had somehow become the only person who was making any sense in the entire town.
"Just...go home already."
The legs stopped kicking.
"I don't have anywhere to go," came the subdued response that was completely at odds with the large smile on her face, the air suddenly thick with melancholy. "My parents are long dead."
He wished she'd stop smiling if she didn't mean it at all.
Great. Now he felt like a bully. He was totally not cut out for this, and this girl obviously had deeper problems than he could handle. She was so attaching herself to the wrong person. If he'd known this was what would've happened because of his act of saving her from the thug, he'd never have stepped in so directly. He didn't want to get involved.
Cue awkward silence.
He uncrossed his arms and dropped them to his side, about to open up his big mouth again. It wasn't like he was known for delicacy, but she beat him in cutting down the awkward silence.
"You're not actually a vampire, are you?" asked Nokara, large green eyes peering up at Tekatme. Why the lord was she bringing that up again? Did she want to make fun of his "color scheme" again? Well, he wasn't sorry for being so "cheerfully" coordinated with his orange!
"No, I'm not. I'm a canine."
And proud of it, unlike his spineless dad who thought it better for them to discard their heritage so that they could blend in better among humans. Fat chance Tekatme was gonna follow in his dad's footsteps, though he wasn't gonna go out of his way to tell people exactly what sort of canine either. He wasn't actually entirely sure what he was, but he had a fairly good idea about what his own villagers thought he was. That was why they were particularly wary of his family. Since their affinity was fire. There wasn't much Tekatme and his family could possibly be given that combination.
He expected a myriad of reactions to his declaration, from surprise to disgust to incomprehension, but she expressed none of those. She brightened and sat up taller, the room suddenly smelling buoyant. The open window must've helped. It was kinda breezy in the room now.
"How cool!" she explained, eyes practically sparkling. She then pointed her bandaged index fingers at herself. Or, more precisely, at her green eyes with her strange narrow pupils.
He really shouldn't have been surprised.
"I'm feline!"
"You are what?"
His hearing was so failing him.
"Feline!"
How utterly wonderful. Not only had he gained a stalker-sidekick, the stalker-sidekick was feline. As if he hadn't had enough of cats already! Should he be happy that something feline had finally approached him without hissing at him or scratching his eyes out on sight?
"Please oh please let me help you out?"
In the end, his fist decided that the wall really did need a nice hole as decoration.
-----
to be continued
