Chapter Two Hundred and Eighty-Two - Finally Playing Tourist

Crossing the city with a bunch of cervid was a bit strange.

For one, talking to them was a bit hard on the neck. I kept having to look up since they were all pretty tall. If ears counted for height, then I figured it was only fair that antlers count too, and that made Rowan and Nathan very tall indeed.

For another, we couldn’t exactly go roof-hopping, so that meant that all of our travelling was done on the ground. We walked past a lot of sylph who’d stop to stare, and the roads, while well-labelled, didn’t exactly tell us where we were. There were some helpful signs that pointed people towards clinics, and some that pointed towards dragon shelters, but otherwise we had to guess our way across Goldenalden.

I did try to stop a few sylph to ask for directions, but they tended to ignore me or walk away faster.

Still, we did eventually make it all the way over to the parade grounds.

The street was long and wide, made of something that felt a lot like cement underfoot, but that was a bit darker. The sidewalks were elevated a step, and there were a few stalls setting themselves up along the road.

I glanced around, but I couldn’t see any armies walking around in formation, though there were some sylph in uniform here and there. “Well, this isn’t what I expected,” I said.

“They can hardly be parading around all day,” Amaryllis said.

Ellie giggled. “Are you sure? That sounds like a very sylph thing to do.”

Amaryllis squawked a laugh. “Oh, it does, doesn’t it? Well, in either case, they’re not here parading now, so it’s a moot point.”

“Ah,” Awen said. It was that particular sort of ‘ah’ that someone shy said when they wanted people to listen to them, but didn’t want to raise a fuss. I turned the way and smiled encouragingly. “The stalls are still set up. I think if it was all over and there was nothing else happening, they’d be packing up.”

“You’ve got good eyes,” Rowan said. He scanned the area, then trotted over to one of the nearby stands. He had to lean in carefully to make sure his antlers didn’t poke holes into the canopy hanging above the stall.

I ran over, just in case he needed some help. I wasn’t even sure if the sylph here spoke some other language than... whatever language the cervid spoke.

“Excuse me, sir,” Rowan said to the lady behind the stall’s counter. One of her eyebrows curled up, and she beat her wings once. “Do you know when the next parade is going to start?”

“There’s one in the morning, one in the afternoon, and another in the early evening. You have about an hour to wait.”

“Oh, shoot,” I said. “That’s a while. Thanks miss,” I said with my biggest, most apologetic grin.

“Ah, that’s a woman sylph,” Rowan said as he backed out and started heading over to the others. I stayed by his side and hoped the stall-lady didn’t hear. “It’s always hard to tell with sylph.”

“Really?” I asked.

“Well, they mostly look the same. There’s the facial hair, of course, but not all men have that. And none of the men have antlers,” Rowan explained.

“Uh,” I said.

“We don’t spend too much time talking to them,” he added, a little defensively.

“Ah, that’s a shame, they’ve been pretty nice so far. For the most part. Actually, I think most people are nice by default, regardless of their species. It’s all about being nice if you expect others to be nice in return.”

“If you say so,” Rowan replied. I don’t think he really believed me.

“The show’s not for another hour or so,” I said to everyone as we returned. “What should we do until then?”

“Eat?” Amaryllis asked. “The park isn’t far, and those of us who are feeling a little more adventurous can try some of the foods they’re serving here.” She gestured a talon towards one of the nearby stalls where a sylph was dipping balls of batter into a deep-fryer being kept warm by a magical element on its bottom. The smell wafting around was enough to make my tummy plead for a taste.

“That’s a fine idea,” Nathan said. “I’ve been meaning to try some of the local cuisine.”

“They told us not to at the embassy,” Ellie objected. “In case the food was tampered with.”

Rowan laughed. “I doubt a street vendor would be equipped to tamper with anything. And besides, half the reason we left the embassy today was to see and try new things. Come on, Ellie, it can’t hurt. It’ll even give you something to buy. We all know how much you like spending your family’s gold.”

Ellie sniffed, but she didn’t complain as we went from stall to stall, picking out whatever food looked tastiest. The sylph, for all that they seemed to mostly be in good shape and have a fixation on military readiness, did seem to have quite the sweet-tooth.

Most of the things we grabbed were pastries, usually of the sweet and gooey variety. A few stalls had some meat skewers, which Amaryllis zero’d in on, and one had something like a blender which was serving up smoothies with ice and some green stuff. They were the healthy, un-fun kind of smoothies.

Once we had enough junk food to last six teenagers exactly one afternoon, we walked off with our bounties to the park in the next district over. There were a few others around, but we found a park table large enough for all of us. The cervid just sort of stood next to it though since they weren’t built for the sort of seats the sylph had.

I frowned. “Do cervid have chairs?” I asked.

Ellie laughed. “No one asks that! And no, we don’t have chairs. What we do have are these big cushions to lay down on. They’re filled with soft stuff. It’s nice. Though we can just lay down on the grass too.”

“Oh, neat,” I said.

It was strange, but I never quite appreciated the ability to just... sit, before. I was happy I’d turned into a bun, which meant that I still have two legs and a butt for sitting.

“Broccoli,” Amaryllis said.

“Yes?”

“You’re thinking stupid things again,” she said. “I can feel it in my feathers. They itch.”

I pouted, then comforted myself with another bite from some of the street food we’d grabbed.

Nathan dropped his panniers onto the table, opening them and beginning to set down some foods onto the table. I stared at the little glass jars and paper-wrapped contents. There were strange sandwich-like things, and jars filled with plump berries.

“What’s that?” I asked as I pointed to one of the sandwiches. The bread looked really strange.

“Oh, that’s a great snack is what it is,” Ellie said. “It’s a mushroom and ivy sandwich.” She opened the wrapper and revealed the sandwich within. It was two large mushrooms with some green leaves stuck between them, as well as some sort of sauce. “There are crushed acorns in there too. Want a bite?”

“Can I?” I asked.

Nathan sighed and pushed Ellie’s offering down. “No, you can’t. No offence, but you literally don’t have the stomach for it.”

“I don’t?” I asked.

Nathan shook his head. “No. Your teeth aren’t quite right for it either. Cervid have flatter, blunter teeth for crushing, and we have more than one stomach that’s specialised in digesting plants and the like.”

“Oh,” I said. “So you’re all vegetarians?”

“Oh no, we can eat meat,” Ellie said. “But it needs to be prepared specially. Mushrooms and nuts and berries keep better.”

Nathan pushed a box of berries my way. “Here, these are blueberries. You can eat those.”

“Thanks,” I said. We talked about food some more, because talking about food was easy. Most everyone liked eating and nearly everyone liked complaining, so it wasn’t hard to steer the conversation to keep everyone talking.

Once we’d scarfed everything down, and Nathan repacked his things, we all stood and stretched and the boys roughhoused a bit before we took off again. It had been nearly an hour since we’d left the road where the parade was supposed to take place, and in that time a few more stalls had appeared and there were more people milling around the sides of the road.

“Come on,” Rowan said. He gestured to the other side of the road, where the homes and businesses stopped and the area was left open next to what I figured was the actual military academy. “Let’s get a closer view.”

We did a bit of jaywalking (after looking both ways) then installed ourselves to see the show.

We didn’t have to wait long. Soon sylph in neat uniforms were walking out of the academy and forming up into neat rows under the screamed instructions of a very angry instructor. A marching band grouped up as well, and soon the entire formation started to march out, with a second group forming up behind the first.

I clapped and cheered along with some of the civilians, though I refrained from making faces or silly noises at the stoic soldiers as they moved past.

A tug at my sleeve had me turning towards Awen. “Hey, where’s Rowan?”

I spun, counted two cervid, then felt a deep sinking feeling in my tummy.

***