The four children follow behind the strange man through the winding halls; Fang slowly scratching the jagged scar on his left wrist. As they walk the man’s white hair is suddenly covered in dim multi-colored lights and the children watch in shock as his hair changes from a silvery white to a dark black. Sune decides to speak up about this change, “Why did your hair change color?” She asks quietly as if she's afraid of something.

  The man gives a sidelong glance back at the kids, showing some noticeable changes in his face as well before casually stating “That woman probably sent a mental image of my body to her sisters before she died. Things could get annoying if I have to deal with the church constantly breathing down my neck.” The children notice the man avoiding the “how” his hair changed and decide not to press on the issue.

  As they walk up the familiar cold steps from before, the children are greeted with a bright sunny day and many people walking through the streets. Seeing the other children playing in the streets reminds the children of their old life before the fall of Dongwu and before they were thrown into this foreign land away from their family and friends. The man stops and turns to look at the children.

  “Make sure to stay close and not wander. Despite the peaceful exterior some real rats live in the walls.” The man says with an uncharacteristically serious tone as the kids subconsciously get a little closer to the man.

  The man starts walking down the streets while the kids follow close behind and look around, noticing all kinds of unknown words and characters in a language they don’t understand. They notice the different ways people dress from the poor rags of a beggar, to the brown leather of a commoner, and even notice a few people wearing black leather coats and other fancier attire. As the children walk and experience all the noises the man stops at a nearby store. The children can’t read the sign, but are able to guess it is a clothing store by looking through the green tinted window made of many smaller pieces of glass connected together by thin wires of metal and seeing all the wooden mannequins and clothing behind the glass.

  As the man opens the door and enters a bell that was attached to the door chimes announcing his arrival. A frail old white man looks up from the parchment he was reading and gives the man and the children a sidelong glance before going back to his paper in silence. The children simply stand there looking around at all the fancy clothing, many of which are dyed in fantastical and unique colors showing their expensive nature. The blue eyed man looks oddly at the kids for a second before asking questioningly “Why aren’t you looking for clothes to wear? Are none of them good? Because we can go to another store if you don’t like them.”

  The kids all look up shocked at the man before Sune wide eyed gets up close to the man and asks “Really? You mean we can choose out whatever we want?” Sune’s light pink eyes shimmer as she stares into the man’s glimmering blue ones.

  “Yeah of course. Why else would I bring you to a clothing store? I mean unless you want to keep those old rags you all are wearing.” Sune springs up with glee as a little squeal of happiness leaves her mouth as she leaps into the store with speed. Hollie slowly walks the same path as Sune at a much slower pace but there is a noticeable pep in her step and a small smile graces her lips. Fang seeing the other two leave wanders into the store and gives a small glance at Kumiho as if asking an unsaid question which she just responds to with a simple shake of her head.

  Kumiho after the small exchange begins her slow walk into the small wooden clothing store’s cramped aisles of clothes but doesn’t appear to be really looking at any of the clothing in particular, simply giving each of the fancy dresses and skirts curt glances. As she wanders, suddenly she feels a tap on her shoulder. The tap causes her to spring up and quickly turn around only to notice the blue-eyed man staring at her. “Sorry if I scared you little one, it’s just that I couldn’t help but notice your lack of enthusiasm as compared to the others.” His kind voice questions her.

  Kumiho slightly looks down at the ground, her face churning into sadness before she softly speaks up “it’s just that...” Her voice seems to get caught in her throat as she continues to speak “My mom always made the clothes I wore and I was happy with whatever she made because she stitched them together by hand just for me. But now... I-I don’t really know what to do.” Kumiho has issues getting her point across but the man’s eyes gleam with understanding.

  “You mean you have issues picking out your own clothes? If so, I can pick them out if you want. But just a note, I’ve never had any girls in my life so I might not be good at picking them.” His voice is soft and quiet with noticeable playfulness and warmth to it.

  Kumiho stops looking at the ground and looks up at the strange man who saved her as she quietly nods her head in silent affirmation of his question. “Alright then let's go.” Even though the man tries to hide it, his voice and demeanor exude a sense of happiness that only seems to grow with every step.

  As the man walks around, he shows Kumiho all sorts of outfits: from dresses, to skirts, simple dark pants, and even some more strange clothing that the girl has never seen before, like a bizarre shirt seemingly entirely made out of green feathers. But eventually both Kumiho and the man agree on a simple red short sleeve shirt that compliments her reddish-orange hair and is made with a relatively soft fabric. With brown baggy leather pants and a matching pair of tight leather gloves. Lastly, they chose simple light brown leather boots.

  Both Fang and Hollie chose relatively simple outfits as well: Fang chose a dark blue long sleeve shirt with a brown leather vest over it and simple brown cloth pants that reach to his ankles, and lastly wore dark brown shoes. Hollie went for a gray long sleeve undershirt with a black cloth cloak and black pants; ending it off with black leather boots.

  Sune unlike the rest went above and beyond to pick the prettiest dress she could find. Buying a beautiful long sleeve white dress with very light gold accents in the form of intricately woven designs all throughout the dress with white silk shoes for footwear.

  The man looks at Sune’s dress with a shocked expression seeming to be at a loss for words. Sune notices his gaze and begins to stare at the floor as her eyes start to lose their excited luster.

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  “Did I pick something too expensive?” Her voice so soft it is almost a whisper. The man continues to stare at her before voicing his interjection

  “No of course not, it is a perfectly fine price. I just wasn’t expecting it after seeing the other children’s rather simple clothing is all.” he waves his hands in front of him as his voice raises several octaves.

  Sune’s eyes brighten again as she looks up at the man and gives a vibrant smile “Oh, than-thank goodness I thought I had made a mistake... The other mister always hit me when I made mistakes.” Her voice softens and her smile fades as she thinks about the large man from before. But, before her smile can fade completely the man kneels down to her level.

  “I’m not like that man. I will never hit you for making a mistake or hit you at all for that matter. You see my old man once told me, ‘You shouldn’t punish a mistake because that will make them fear mistakes. And if you fear mistakes, how will you grow?’” His voice is clear as he tries to reassure Sune that she is safe.

  Sune’s eyes start to water as she wipes the tears away and looks up at the man before giving him a tear smeared smile and whispers a very small almost indiscernible “Thank you.” The man smiles back as he slowly stands up and pats Sune’s fluffy head of hair; slightly rubbing her small spiky ears before he begins to walk to the counter.

  The old man at the counter looks at the man and then looks at the children behind him before waving his hand towards the counter and saying with a raspy voice “Put all the clothes on the counter and you can be on your way.”

  The children look at the clerk with befuddled gazes, only Sune’s eyes flare with recognition right before the blue-eyed man quickly repeats what the clerk said in a language they can understand. Fang, Hollie, and Kumiho all place their clothing with no fuss from themselves or the old man. That is until Sune practically prances up to the counter, placing the dress upon it with the delicacy of a nice summer breeze and causing the clerk to raise an eyebrow at her actions “You sure you want that dress little lady?”

  Sune takes a second to understand the man as he speaks in her non-native tongue before responding in a rather awkward manner as she tries to remember how to speak his language “I am... Sure, that I want this dress”

  The old man gives Sune an odd look before looking at the black-haired man and noting in his native tongue towards the man “Such a fancy dress may give you trouble if you run into any highborns.”

  The man’s eyes glow a slight blue as they become chilly and he voices his response “If any highborns give us trouble I’ll make sure to deal with them as a fellow highborn.”

  The old man tersely nods and drops the subject to state the price “All the clothes and shoes will be 123 silver Aelfs and 53 copper Aelfs.”

  Fang looks to Sune and softly whispers “You can speak Imperial?”

  Sune proudly whispers back “Yes. My dad made sure me and my siblings understood the language because we might need it in the future.”

  Fang’s eyes widen has he excitedly asks “How did your dad know so much about their language?”

  Sune smiles proudly as she puts her hands on her hips and gives an exaggerated pose, her voice much more confident than before “My dad was the leader of our village and we commonly did dealings with the humans. And even though I didn’t want to become the leader of our village my parents still believed I should know about the human’s language, their currency, and even history.”

  Fang excitedly stares at her, his eyes gleaming “That's so cool!”

  As the children chat the man places the coins on the table and finalizes the deal. The old man quickly counts the coins with practiced ease and nods his head once he confirms there is enough. The blue-eyed man nods back and turns to the children before clapping to get their attention “Alright kids now that everything’s paid for you can go to the changing rooms over there and get rid of those dirty rags.”

  As he points to the small changing booths Sune instantly rushes into the booth as the rest briskly follow; despite their underwhelming speed compared to Sune there is still an obvious increase in their speed of walking and their large smiles betray their nonchalant actions.

  The children all walk out of their respective booths. With the replacement of the old ragged garbs with the newly bought clothing the children’s pallor skin and disheveled hair becomes much more apparent; the man’s magic from earlier seems to have only removed the children’s dirty and malnourished appearance but had no effect on the skin or hair.

  Sune excitedly twirls around as she scrutinizes her entire body in the dress. Hollie and Fang look down at their clothing with a perplexed look on their face. Whereas Kumiho doesn’t even bother looking at her clothing and just stands there with her head and back slightly arched forward. The man notices the children's odd behaviors but decides not to mention it and just waves them out of the store, Sune giving a happy wave to the old clerk at the desk before turning out the door.

  The man calmly explains to the children that they are going to the barber next to get their hair situated where they can have any hairstyle they want and after that they will get some food before calling it a day.

  Sune after having her snow-white hair cut up to her hips starts to show some slight waves within the mess of clouds that was not visible in her hair before. Fang simply has his long ash colored hair cut short, not even reaching past his ears as it fully hangs down.

  Kumiho gets her hair cut to the middle of her back, but her hair stays relatively straight only slightly curling near the ends. Lastly, Hollie has her hair cut to the middle of her back as well, but instead of letting it fall like Kumiho she puts it up into a ponytail at the back of her head after the haircut.

  After confirming that all the children are happy with their haircuts, he brings them out of the store and they continue down the dirt roads through the town.

  As they stroll down the road, they notice two finely dressed pale white individuals; a man with dark black hair and dark pink eyes wearing a dark blue leather jacket with a scale like pattern and dark blue linen pants with sparkling brown shoes. And a woman with dark brown hair and similar dark pink eyes wearing a light blue midi dress that falls to the middle of her thigh and wraps around her collar, leaving her shoulders bare and wearing similarly blue heels.

  As the man and the two affluent individuals' gazes lock the man's eyes start to gleam an unnatural blue unlike any blue the children have seen before and the two people’s eyes glow a similarly unnatural dark pink color.

  “Ah, if it isn’t a filthy gemang and a skulk of dressed up Reynards pretending to be human.” The woman voices in a mocking tone while bringing her hand in front of her mouth, not even trying to slightly stifle her light chuckle and a poor attempt if at all at hiding her smile behind her pale white hand.