Kitsune in the Shadows

Chapter 76 – A Hint of Spice

As soon as we had arrived at what looked to be one of the main streets, Ava dragged me over to a small stand that was selling a variety of skewers.

She quickly grabbed a few of them before paying with the money Daleia had given us back at the inn.

“You can take whichever you want to try,” She tilted the bag of skewers towards me, “I just grabbed whatever looked interesting.”

Ava’s selection of skewers was certainly interesting, with each having a different combination of meats and colourful vegetables. I just grabbed one of them at random after deciding that, ultimately, no matter which one I picked, it would probably taste good if it caught Ava’s eye.

“Thank you.”

The skewer that I ended up with looked fairly simple, just some cubes of meat broken up by different coloured peppers.

Biting into one of the cubes of meat, I was a little taken aback by the taste. I was expecting it to be beef, but the flavour was very different; it was a little milder, slightly early, and maybe even a little sweeter, but it was definitely very tender. That wasn’t to say that the peppers were any less incredible with just how smokey and tangy they were, being a perfect compliment to whatever meat was used.

Ava bit off a cube from her skewer before she said, “You’re really enjoying that, aren’t ya? Maybe I need to go pick some stuff up so we can try making our own later.”

“Mhm,” Without even thinking about it, I hummed in agreement, with my mouth still very full.

“Alright, I hear you loud and clear,” She chuckled a little as she spoke, “As soon as we’re done eating, we can go and see if we can find what we need. Although, if I’m being honest, this is probably the wrong place to go looking for meat… so I’ll have to hold off on finding you some lamb.”

Lamb?

Is that what this is?

I only paused for a moment to make sure I took a mental note of what I was eating, but not any longer than that, as I immediately finished off my skewer before being offered another by Ava.

“You don’t need to rush. We have a lot to get through after all.”

Ava wasn’t lying when she said we had a lot to get through, as by the time we finished off all of what she had bought, I was feeling a little too full.

We just sat down for a short while in an attempt to let all the food we had just eaten settle, but at some point, I started to get a strange feeling again. It was very similar to when my hood was blown off, that feeling of being watched, yet somehow also a little different. That initial feeling hadn’t even gone away; this was just something else I was feeling on top of it. Almost like a different set of eyes had found me, but unlike before, there was this uncomfortable familiarity there at the same time.

I looked around, trying to see if I could find who it was, but just like before, there wasn’t anyone I could see looking back at me.

…

My first instinct was to ask Ovia about it… but I didn’t want to bother her just because I thought I could feel someone looking at me… not again anyway. She was already checking because of the first time I brought it up after all…

…

My thoughts were interrupted by Ava standing up before she said, “Okay, I don’t think we’ve really waited long enough for everything to settle, but we really should get moving if we’re going to get through this street today.”

She extended her hand out towards me, and I happily grabbed onto it as she lifted me to my feet.

“As I’m sure you’ve noticed, this place gets a little busy, so try to stick close to me, okay?”

Rather than saying anything, I just squeezed her hand.

She responded simply by smiling before guiding me down the street while still hand in hand.

The feeling of being watched wouldn’t go away, so I tried to distract myself by taking note of the stores we were walking past just in case I saw something that interested me. As I started paying more attention to the buildings around us, I was almost immediately hit with just how different this place was from the big shopping street back in Casgolau.

In Casgolau, each store had intricately constructed displays and large painted signs, all wrapped up in a building that would be breathtaking even if the store wasn’t there. Here, the buildings were much simpler, signs were nothing more than the name of the store written on a board and the displays, if there even were any, seemed to be little more than an afterthought.

Yet despite all that, these stores were incredibly busy, with people going in and out like clockwork, yet never actually taking anything out of the store with them.

As we continued to walk, I did take note of a few stores that caught my attention for later; in particular, there was a store with rolls of fabrics out on display, along with a few items of clothing that might have been a good place to put together an outfit for Ovia. There was also a store selling various items of jewellery right next to it, which would be convenient if I ever went there in the future.

Among all the stores we went past, there was even one that caught my attention for the wrong reasons. They mainly had paints and dyes out on display, but the reason I even looked over at them in the first place was actually because of the smell. Even though we were just walking past the store, I started to feel a little light-headed from the scent alone, along with a minor headache that only got worse the longer we lingered around.

Thankfully, we kept walking instead of stopping anywhere nearby. Instead, we kept moving until we reached the end of the street.

“There it is,” Ava said as she turned towards one of the stores, “This place is pretty good when it comes to more unusual ingredients… at least I think it was this one…. If we can at least find some of those peppers here, I think we should be able to make a pretty good copy of those skewers.”

She didn’t even pretend to wait for my response before dragging me into the store behind her.

Inside, it became even more glaringly obvious just how different these stores were compared to what I was used to. The vast majority of the things in the store were left inside sealed crates with only a single one open so you could tell what was in the others. On one side of the store, there was a front desk with a single person behind it; however, the only people who went up to it looked to be other employees who did little more than hand over pieces of paper before walking around again.

Looking around the store, I saw many employees with clipboards walking around and speaking to the customers. Most of the time, all they did was have a conversation before the employee would scribble something down and move on to the next person.

Ava immediately dragged me over to the only area of the store that looked to have had any thought put into it. However, even that description was a stretch as it was only a few tables that were covered in a litany of different spices, none of which I couldn’t have named even if I tried.

“Ooh, they have th- Ah! But they also have this!” She scanned the tables, taking note of each spice that she found, “There’s just too many to choose from! I want them all! I’m now really in the mood for some spicy food… maybe I should just ask Daleia if I can cook even if she’s already prepared something… I’m sure she wouldn’t mind.”

Once she finally got to the end of the tables, she simply went back to the beginning and started going through all of the spices once again.

When she eventually finished her second look through the spices, she turned to me and said, “Okay, Kierra, can you please just wait here for a moment? I’m going to go negotiate to get as many of these as I can.”

Wait!

You’re just going to leave me?!

Before her words had the chance to sink in completely, she had already wandered off in search of an employee, leaving me standing at the table… alone.

Thankfully, it didn’t take long for me to find her after looking around a little, but actually getting to her would be difficult with the constant crowd of people rushing around inside the store.

I…

I don’t want to bump into anyone…

I decided that it probably wasn’t worth trying to fight my way through to get to her, so instead, I just slunk back so that I was as out of the way as possible.

…

All I could do was keep my eye on Ava as she spoke to an employee, at least that’s what I thought she was doing… but with how her arms were going all over the place, it was hard to believe that all she was doing was just having a conversation.

…

Don’t take too long… please…

…

“Hello there.”

As soon as those two words graced my ears, my blood ran cold, and I froze in place.

Are they talking to me?

No… No, why would they be talking to me?

…

I waited for someone else to respond to the person I heard, not taking my eyes off Ava for even a second.

…

Why is no one responding to them?

Please can someone respond to them?!

“That’s the first time I’ve had a greeting like this,” They said, their voice only drawing closer, “It was just a feeling, but now that I’m here, I’m sure of it.”

Sure of what?! Do you know me?!

No, you couldn’t. You’re not talking to me.

I’m… I’m just imagining it.

“Hello… anyone home?”

A hand started waving in front of me, breaking my line of sight to Ava. The hand had delicate fingers adorned with sharp red nails and many rings. My eyes started following the arm back by themselves, quickly arriving at a cloak that somehow seemed a little familiar to me.

No, don’t look.

If you look-

Please.

Despite my silent pleas, I just couldn’t fight against my curiosity and slowly started to look up… only to be met with a hooded figure.

Wait-

I-

As soon as I saw the hood, I realised why the cloak seemed familiar. I had seen them before; they were the person who I saw get off the boat after it crashed into the pier.

“There you are.”

As soon as she said those words, my body screamed at me to run, but all I could manage was to bring my hands up.

No… No…

I…

No…

They started to extend a hand towards my hood, and I immediately pulled back, accidentally bumping into the wall behind me.

No, not again!

I knew it would happen again!

…

“Oh, um, I-”

Suddenly, a hand appeared on the hooded person’s shoulder.

“I think you’re scaring them,” The person behind them said.

“I can see that,” The hooded person immediately retorted, “I’m trying not to do that right now.”

As I looked up again, I saw that the person who had just stopped the hooded person was actually one of the rabbit beastkin who was also on the small row boat after the ship crashed.

“Hmm… Oh, what am I doing?” The person turned towards me once again, however, this time, they lifted their hood such that I was the only person who could see what was under it, “Maybe this will make you more comfortable.”

…

I couldn’t help myself and ended up taking a look at their face. They were a woman with piercing golden eyes and red hair… a lot of red hair… styled into intricately crafted curls that made it look fluffy. But by far, the biggest surprise was what was sitting on top of her head. Two ears. She was clearly a beastkin, but not a rabbit-like those around her.

They were a set of ears that I was all too familiar with. She undoubtedly had the ears of a fox.

“You’re finally looking at me,” She said as a grin slowly spread across her lips.

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