Chapter 90: A Festival’s End
The shopkeeper, his face a mask of professional surprise, handed us the prize. I took the small, blue purse and gave it to Lana. She hugged it to her chest, her eyes shining with a light so bright it could have outshone the stars.
Her happy scream, however, had attracted more than just a few curious glances. A small crowd had begun to form around us, their faces a mixture of curiosity and a dawning recognition.
"It’s him!" one of the villagers whispered, his voice a low, reverent murmur. "The one who saved us."
And then, the queue began to form. A long, winding line of people, their faces filled with a profound, soul-deep gratitude. They wanted to thank me, to congratulate me, to touch the hand of the monster who had become their hero.
"We can talk later," I said, my voice a low, dismissive murmur as I tried to push my way through the crowd. "Today, I am occupied with some... important business."
The queue shortened, but it did not disappear entirely. The children of the village, their earlier fear now replaced by a bold, unyielding curiosity, were a different matter entirely. They swarmed me, their small hands tugging at my cloak, their voices a chorus of excited, overlapping questions.
"Are you a king, uncle?" "Can you really make shadows dance?" "Did you fight the big, scary monster all by yourself?"
They were clinging to me, their small bodies a strange, unfamiliar weight. But before I could react, before I could push them away, Lana, my small, self-appointed guardian, took care of it.
She puffed out her chest, her small face a mask of fierce, proprietary indignation, and stepped between me and the other children. "He is my uncle," she declared, her voice ringing with an authority that was both ridiculous and deeply moving. "And he is very busy. You can’t have him."
The other children, taken aback by her sudden, fierce protectiveness, simply stared.