Festival

Alban's eyes drifted around the fire, taking in the sight of the happy villagers enjoying their food. He has stuffed himself full of some random purple meat with red sauce...and yellow meat with green flowers...and a lot more. Honestly he felt like a bottomless pit. He had wanted to try drinking some alcohol but he was handed fruit juice by the monoya guy pouring bottles for others.

He could've made a huge mess about it but that wasn't really his style...it wouldn't be worth it. He was reminded of the imps when he saw the nimms and the monoya dancing together, but was a bit guilty that their faces seemed to mesh together. Oh wait, monoya don't really have faces...? No, the certainly have a nose and lips, but that was about it.

Speaking of the monoya, his eyes were drawn to Chiyo. She had plush and soft cherry colored lips, and above them laid dainty nose akin to a fairy. There were eyes, eyelashes, or eyebrows upon her visage, but she didn't need them as she was a femme fatal more ravishing than a nymph. Her hair was short yet loose, the style arranged into a curly chignon, the wispy hairs around the bit skirted around graceful and thin neck coupled with a fit and well proportioned body. Her muscles were lean, her frame slightly buff. She had buxom cleavage and a muscular lower body, a bit broad in the beam where it counted but nice and firm all around.

Alban then maybe realized that staring at people and noting all of their features might be kind of rude? But he didn't mean anything by it, he picked up this sort of habit in his short time in the beach. He was a young man, but the Beach Of Infancy was a pretty apt description to where his mental state was it. He was a bit more mature than the (other?) monsters because of his intelligence and the remnants of his butchered memories. He was kind of like a baby that could read from the start of when it was born, his repeated actions becoming parts of his personality.

'Ha, it's probably good that I wasn't jumping around in fear all the time then. Probably would've stalled my...development? If you can call it that I guess.' His mind slowly wandered to the time with the imps. He realized that as much as he changed Teta, Nevus, and Lady, they had changed him just as much. As his eyes settled on the moon, he was unaware of his movements being watched by a certain muscular nimm.

Nimral sauntered over to the relatively empty spot Alban was sitting. He noted the lost expression on the youth's face, one that signified a deep and contemplative introspection. The wandering eyes settled on the moon, and it reminded Nimral a bit of himself. He sat down by Alban before speaking up.

Thinking about someone?"

"Just a few imps..."

"Oh, you must've known them from the beach." Alban's face flashed a bit before quickly returning to his lost expression. Maybe it was the mention of exactly what he was thinking about. Or maybe it was the fact that literally two people mentioned that he just left the beach. Was it that obvious??

"Old man, you're the second person who mentioned it. Is everyone just stupid, or are you telling me that literally everyone knows and is pretending to be stupid?"

"Hah, you're feisty for a being who hasn't even passed their second threshold."

"Okay, that one was new. How'd you know?" His eyes narrowed for a bit...right up until he remembered that Nimral is much stronger than a big ol ball of fire. Mentally sighing, he restrained the lively wildness inside him that was just frothing at the chance to show itself to the world again.

"Call it an old man's experience. Now, seeing as you left before hitting the second threshold like you were supposed to, I'm gonna imagine that you couldn't progress any further right? You left to be stronger." Nimral's eyes left Alban and stared at the sky, the crimson light aglow on his weathered face. Seems he had some reminiscing to do as well.

"Yeah, I did. Today was the first time I saw a creature impossible for me to beat though..." Alban truly felt refreshed at that moment, yet despaired on the inside. Seeing someone finally stronger than him opened his perspective, but he had absolutely no way to progress. He felt as if he kept doing the same thing he might as well have stayed in that tiny little cave with the dancing imps he had come to miss in his short time away from them. The loneliness really sunk into him.

"User has gained 10 L.P." The tinny voice that never changed at all rang in his head, almost calling out the intense isolation he felt.

Alban's movements were quite obvious to Nimral. "I've seen geniuses like you before. Maybe not as brutal, but just as strong. You aren't the first, kid." He was trying to comfort the boy, but inwardly knew that maybe his words could be misconstrued. Before he could continue, he was interrupted by the young man beside him.

"That does wonders for my confidence..." Bingo, Nimral was correct. Coughing a bit and bringing his eyes level to the profile of Alban's face, he attempted to continue and pass off what he was about to say as what he meant all along. Age really did come with its benefits.

"Let me finish. Luckily for you, not being the first means that there has been plenty who have tread your path. Me included. That's why you're going to train with me tomorrow." The strength that he witnessed from Alban laid emblazoned in his memories, the sight being quite venerable. He even had some conjectures about the boy, thinking of a way to approach his query. The answer soon drifted into his ears.

"How come I don't have a choice, you creepy old man?"

"Because in Nightmare, geniuses like you don't get a choice. Be up dim and early tomorrow. Besides...I could teach you a lot more than you think." Nimral pulled up his shirt to reveal chiseled abs...and a tattoo similar to Alban's in its sheer abstract oddity.

"You see, these tattoos..."

"Woah, put the shirt down you creepy old man!" Alban's little bout of forlorn contemplation ended as soon as Nimral lifted his shirt up. He backed off rapidly, before spotting the tattoo the nimm was pointing to. Seeing this, Nimral moved his finger from his tattoo to the pattern on Alban's.

"...are on me too. But mine were put on me, whereas yours...are natural. I do not know how such a being like you came from the Beach of Infancy, it was made to defend from creatures like you. Still, I guess it's possible if you gained that tattoo on the beach"

"..."

"I'm not wrong, am I?"

"...My name's Alban. I'm telling this so you won't try and beat it out of me tomorrow." Alban walked off into the moonlight, slowly disappearing from the old man's view. Before he completely left, the grizzled nimm's voice sought for his ears for the final time tonight.

"Bah, you pay too much attention to the specifics...but I'll remember it." Nimral too, walked off. With a mild expression, he slowly mumbled under his breath. "The ones that plague the depths of dreams, the beings that are shunned by all worlds. They are hated and loved here, for they are the sire of fear...of a nightmare. Are you one too, boy?