Starry Night Thoughts

Versipellis

Once again, lots of words and don't know where to put so it goes here

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The world didn't pause to look when the first traveler entered the town. Asked later the same day, no one would have been able to say when he showed, just that he did. The town was the Valley Between and as far as its inhabitants knew, the last place to rest before a farther descent through the mountains.

So when he entered, hair matted, clothes ripped and disheveled, with nothing more than a large stick and small, mud covered pack, no one questioned it. An ill-prepared traveler for a long journey or simply a man who had a hard time were the few whispers. Besides that, nothing. He ate, drank, and stayed at their inn. Nothing more to the majority.

He spoke to few, though Ella was one of those few. It was the advantage of handling sales in a market, she supposed. Each day, before the sun properly rose and night still gripped pieces of the sky, he would show. Initially, the two exchanged no words, only money and fruit from her stand. Then, after around a week, he started talking. Not much, at first. Just a few small words here and there about what he'd like, or maybe a greeting. He held a voice much like his looks-- gruff, somewhat gravely, and cracked on some occasions. The matted hair pulled out to dark frizzy twists, the beard became gathered in a band to keep out of the way. He was never loud and always difficult to understand, his accent drawing out strange syllables and pronouncing letters odd ways.

Ella learned his name was Chann after two weeks.

Kind as he was, and as frequent as he came -- only missing three mornings out of the first four weeks he was there-- there were times Ella felt the strangest way about the man. One morning she realized what it was.

His eyes.

She stared at his eyes a second too long, caged by an unending prison of light grey. Tiny blasts of bright yellow arched through the smoke and crawled to the center of his eyes, where the grey turned so dark it melted with the pupil and pulled the whole thing upward, made it stretch from the bottom of the prison to the top in a thin, narrow pathway.

The moment made every hair on the back of her neck bolt straight up, yet as soon as he left the anxiety vanished.

Four days after the incident, another traveler showed. This time, a woman. She arrived the same as Chann-- silently and with nothing except a small, leather pouch that hung off the side of her hip. Her hair was lighter, longer, yet still as tangled as his was before. Her skirts were torn and frayed at the end, her blouse ripped at the center and tied to the other side of itself so her skin couldn't show.

She too, stayed at the inn. She ate, she drank, she watched.

Valley Between again gave her no mind. She rarely left the sanctity of the inn, and as far as most knew, she left as quietly as she came.

Yet again, Ella knew different.

A few days after the woman arrived, Ella got to the market early. The sky still held the moon, its crescent shape still bright, though no stars peeked out from behind the tall trees surrounding her home.

Ella dragged her basket onto the small table she set up behind the stand. The night before, she'd gathered a new batch of fruits to sell, mostly apples and peaches, though a few pears made it into the batch. As she set them out she picked the rotted ones from the previous batch and tossed them into the now empty basket.

After she finished, she stepped back. A tiny nag of annoyance pulled her chest. Even with the older fruits, it wasn't nearly as much as a few months ago.

It was fine. It was fine. Likely, she missed some while she picked. Her mother and father told her time and time again not to gather the fruit in the night, yet she failed to do otherwise. If she'd be normal for a few days, the issue would fix itself.