Chapter 7: Shopping & Schooling
It was uncomfortable to be sure, and made it hard to walk naturally, but the tail-down-pants idea was not without merit.
To save him from walking too much and having another mishap, Bran had Misha stand in a strategic position toward the entrance of the wet market where he could come back from each expedition, hand Misha a bag to carry, then go out again.
For Misha’s part, he was quite happy to just stand there and gawk at everything. This was his hometown, the place he’d been born, yet there were so many wonderfully foreign things for him to examine. For a place called a ’wet market’ it really did live up to its named reputation.
The floors were covered in water that the fish mongers regularly sloshed on the floor to keep the mess of fish guts and other things from clogging up the drains, and to the side with land-based meat, the floor tiles were slick with oil from the nearby shops selling fried duck and chicken. It smelled amazing and Misha had to keep pulling his eyes away from the glowing meats. Whoever had the idea of putting red lights directly above the meats was a genius.
He shifted, re-adjusting the plastic and reusable bags in both his hands, checked that his tail hadn’t done a runner, then looked away to the fish section. There was always something about fish, whether live or dead, that made him want to take a big bite of them right then and there. He’d creeped out his friends as a kid when he’d told them, but now that he thought about it, maybe it was just the dragon in him. Or rather, because he was a dragon.
He hadn’t really thought about the new information he’d learned about himself yesterday - he hadn’t really wanted to. On the one hand, there was an exciting element, kind of like a kid finding out they’re a wizard or a princess or something, but on the other, this was the real world, how would being a dragon affect his life going forward?
If Bran’s guess was right, this knowledge had already led his own father to try to take his life. He thought of his mother.
If she’d been alive, what would she do? Protect him from his father? Join him?
He didn’t remember her well, but what he did recall set her in a rosy light - a good and kind soul. But he’d thought the same things about his father too and look where that had ended up.
A piece of paper, a pamphlet, suddenly appeared in front of him and he looked to find an old man holding it out to him. The man said something in Chinese and smiled, so Misha smiled back. The man pushed the pamphlet more profusely, so much so that Misha was forced to take it and for a moment he was worried he was going to be forced to buy something, but the man merely said something more, smiled and went on his way, offering pamphlets to other shoppers. As he walked away, Misha noticed that unlike most salesmen, his clothes were fraying and there were holes on the heels of both his shoes.
Misha decided to take a better look at this pamphlet.