It took me a little while to figure out where Elde’s assumption came from but I found out in the end.

Apparently, the new trade route that this city emerged from is along one of the ways to a new continent that is currently being explored and colonised. When the colonists had arrived there they found some scatterings of native peoples and tribes; which they then destroyed and then shipped back to the Homeland to either enslave or integrate into their own populations. Basically to bolster the numbers of whichever different factions had happened to have caught them.

The population of the homeland continent is evidently much more massive than the smatterings found on the new continent, and Cali is the sole language spoken. So, the only other dialects that exist in this world are the ones that belong to these native tribes. Elde not understanding what I was speaking therefore led to his assumption that I am one of these native peoples that had somehow escaped from a ship that had been carrying them to the Homeland through Millawen.

My explanation of ‘Soofa’ also helped because they are some of the most powerful existences in this world of whom a great majority are spearheading the current incursion into the new continent.

With an acceptable cover story that Elde seems to have no problem with, I have now adopted the identity of a wayward tribesman from the new continent that has fallen through the cracks to now reside here, amongst the homeless and the forgotten of Millawen.

At least it’s more believable than being from a different world.

Having come to an understanding about our circumstances, Elde and I have gotten closer and I’m now able to ask him more things about the world here without it seeming too suspicious. I’m not asking about the wizard though, or the ‘Paths’, but I’m building up my common knowledge and my know-how in conjunction with the language and writing I’m learning from him.

Though things are still pretty terrible, at least I have a friend.

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“Do not… worry. It will be… fine.”

“Well, we’re here now so we might as well give it a try. O...kay?”

“Okay.” I answer with a thumbs up. A “tribesman” hand sign which I have taught to Elde to mean everything was good.

It had taken some time, and a lot of hard work, but I’ve finally managed to get Elde back to the docks so that he can start relying on himself again.

He still can’t make it all the way here by himself and I have to stay by his side most of the time but together, we have succeeded in bringing Elde back to good health.

Too well as a matter of fact.

He’s gotten out of the slums and into the city for a few days now, and we’ve been begging near each other the whole time as he tries to collect some change, just like he used to. But it hasn’t been going too well.

I’ve been keeping up my act fine. I’ve pretty much perfected it at this point and with a better grasp of the local language I’ve managed to read people even better and appeal to their more charitable sides. Actually, when Edle first saw my act it left him completely aghast. My own individualistic style of begging in fact rendered his mouth speechless and wide open for such a significant amount of time that I wondered if his jaw might fall off.

It was startlingly obvious he had never seen such a display and hadn’t expected anything like it from me either, resulting in his state of ‘lost for words’ and a disconcerting insecurity as to who I really was and the authenticity of our relationship. Eventually however, it only took him a day and my explanation for the reasoning behind my act to come around to the wisdom and necessity of how I make my living (if I can say that) and accept what I was doing.

But... Elde’s problem was that although he was a filthy beggar through and through… he had lost the mindset.

I had recognised it early on that the people who live in the slums live in a kind of fugue state, and while he had been with me Elde had woken up from that state. He was no longer sleepwalking through his days. He was now awake to who he was before the slums, who he was as a person.

And now that he was who he was again, a respectable teacher who had spent his life educating himself and educating others, begging passerbys unlike before now left him... well… embarrassed.

He was clearly uncomfortable calling out to people for spare change and reaching up to them imploringly for a helping hand. It was showing through too. His body knew what to do but his mind wasn’t syncing up with it, leading to an uncomfortable display that pushed people away as they couldn’t figure out what he was doing, hewing and hawing as he tried to employ his beggar's desperation when he begged those who passed him by.

It was just not working.

I had to cover his food costs for a while until we figured out what to do. It was obvious he couldn’t beg the way he did before, so he was going to have to do what I did instead. Put on a performance. Play a character that appeals to people's sympathies as well as their wallets. Elde clearly had no idea what to do. He had never really had to use his imagination before as a rigid schoolteacher, so it all came down to me about how he was going to play it at the docks from now on.

It didn’t take me long to come up with my new act. Scratch that, our new act. Although Elde was a little apprehensive, in the end, he left it all up to me, and what I came up with soon proved to be a very effective and successful endeavor for the both of us. It was simple, it was emotional, it kept me and Elde together and it was going to bring in the money.

They’re not going to know what hit them.

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Lewen was in a really good mood.

Today, he was back home from his first voyage to the new lands and he had made a killing. He was the fourth of his brothers to go out onto the seas and make his living, and he had just come back home today, riding on glorious winds of his major success and large earnings.

He was the youngest of his siblings, not to mention the smallest, and all of his brothers always made sure he remembered that fact. They regularly bragged about their accomplishments at sea and how he was too thin and reedy to do any proper man’s work.

Well this will show them!

They had never come anywhere close to the amount of money he had made from his first voyage out on his own and this will shut them all up about who was the true successful man of the sea.

But that was secondary. What was most important was what his father would think.

He had taken after his mother and had missed out on his father and brothers broad and bulky build. Due to this his father had always been concerned about him following in his footsteps, making his living sailing the seas.

He had even suggested trying to find him work somewhere that might be more suited with his build.

Ha!

He was his son just as much as his brothers, and he can make his own way on the seas just the same.

And this proved it!

That he was even better than his brothers and his father had nothing to worry about. He can be even more proud of him than them.

On the way back home as the conquering hero though, he had to walk through the beggar section first as did everybody. They had always disgusted him, but they were just there and you had to live with that. But who cares. Nothing is going to ruin this day.

As he turned a corner he saw another pair of beggars sitting there reaching out to passersby as they all did. But unlike the rest of them, one of the beggars was actually holding onto the other.

This was different from what he had ever seen from any of the beggars here before as they usually kept their distance from each other and seemed to leave each other alone.

Here however, was a dirty bearded young man holding to his chest an even dirtier and weaker looking old man. The old man was missing a foot and was obviously not doing well, but the young man was reaching out a hand to passerbys crying out… Lewen had no idea… What is that? A Tribestongue?

As he got closer he could hear the occasional Cali word. Father... dying… help... from what he could make out and as he grew closer to them, the young man turned and looked up to him.

He was even thinner closer up, dirtier too, and his face screamed panic and concern for the old man in his arms. Lewen paused for a moment as he considered him. He may be a beggar, but he’s better than the rest of the other pathetic wastes that lay about here all day doing nothing he had to admit to himself. He was pathetic, no dispute, but he was at least doing something right trying to help his father, no matter how hopeless it may be.

Lewen looked down at the old man in the younger one's arms, to see some of his own father’s features in his face. Honestly he thought, how hard would he have struggled in the same position to try and help his father and be a good son for him if he were the same.

With this sobering comparison, Lewen reached down into his pocket and threw the spare Bits he had over to the young man, who scrambled for them, all the while keeping a safe and secure hold on the old man in his arms.

Once he collected them all up, the beggar looked back up at Lewen before he started bowing up and down at him as he thanked him for his scraps.

Who cares? He thought. I’ve made plenty of money and I’m feeling generous today so what does a few Bits matter. This wasn’t what was important right now. Showing his father what he had achieved was what really mattered.

He couldn’t wait to see the look on his fathers face.

Today was his day!

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As the young sailor walked off I looked down at the pieces of coin he had thrown me.

Oh yes.

Elde and I are going to make a killing.