Chapter 1
There came the pitter-patter of coin-sized drops of rain as the blackened sky above came down. It was dark, far too dark for even Duskvol for all of the street lights had been snuffed out for the night. The moon and stars didn’t shine here. The only things that illuminated the darkness were the candles burning within the common peoples’ homes, and what some saw was a young woman huddled against an alleyway wall. Though she had hardly any clothes on besides a soaked nightgown, she didn’t seem to care about the icy rain and the damp garment clinging to her body, chilling it to the bone. In fact, she didn’t seem to care about anything - not even the shadowed figure that had stopped in the alleyway. The figure gradually approached her form, looming over her, analyzing her, before crouching next to the woman. Her previously closed eyes slowly fluttered open as she felt a pair of hands roaming her body, but what confused her the most was that they didn’t feel like they were the hands of a pervert. Instead of reaching for her breasts or nether regions, they, in fact, appeared to be actively avoiding those areas. The pair seemed to be searching for something in particular on her person.
She glanced at the stranger searching her body, and for a moment the stranger paused as the two locked eyes and stared at each other. The woman could not see much within the shadows of the figure’s cloak, but the thing that she could see were a pair of eyes that were the hue of purified gold. What the man could see was a pale, thin woman with strawberry blonde locks covering most of her face, showing only a bit of of her deep blue eyes.
Realizing that they had been caught, the cloaked stranger hopped back onto their feet and took a few steps back. The woman simply watched before slumping back against the alley wall.
“Go ahead. Do whatever you want. I don’t care.” The woman muttered. Neither of them moved, and the woman shut her eyes once more. She heard approaching footsteps and assumed that is was the stranger’s, but what she didn’t expect was that she felt something like a semi-thick fabric drape over her. Her eyes shot open and her head swiveled towards the other.
She saw a man squatting beside her with an actual smile on his lips. His skin was dark, but his golden eyes were like beacons in the sea of ink that the city sat beside, and his hair was the same brilliance as his eyes. Half of his hair was practically shaved off while the rest was lazily swept to his right and fell to his chin. His face was decorated with piercings just as his fingers were with rings. He wore a black and white checkered vest with a white undershirt beneath and a pair of black trousers tucked into a pair of black and white shoes.
The woman blinked.
“There, you should be a little warmer now.” His voice was thick with a strange accent that she had never heard before. She pursed her lips together.
“What are you doing?” The man’s smile only widened, showing her an even toothier grin.
“I am giving to you my cloak. Is that not obvious?” The woman’s eyes scrunched together in disbelief, but before she could do or say anything, he extended his hand out to her. She just stared at it.
“Come, I will take you to somewhere to eat. You look hungry.” As soon as the man mentioned food,a growl erupted from the woman’s stomach. With her face growing red, she rushed to take the man’s hand hoping that he didn’t hear. If he did, he didn’t show any signs that said so. As he gently pulled her up onto her feet, she clung tight to the cloak wrapped around her shoulders. Once she was up, he took a step behind her and pressed his other hand against the small of her back, leading her out of the alleyway and onto the streets of Duskvol.
