'Till We Meet Again (5/5)

Immediately, the youngest child hugs her mother's side and starts sobbing under the pressure, and everyone else completely freezes up. It's like the baleful Aura won't allow them to move.

Even with the toddler's terrified bawling reverberating within the walls, all sound seems to be drained from the air like the color is drained from a corpse. With an eerie silence hanging over them, the only sound they can make out is the muffled footsteps of heavy, metal boots clanking up the stairs from down in the cellar.

When the heavy boot-clicking finally stops, a pale hand reaches through the curtain partitioning off the dining room from the rest of the house, and the curtain is slowly pushed aside.

There, standing in full view of the entire family, is a man so tall that he has to duck his head in order to fit through the doorway. He has a short, well-kept beard lining his jaw and hair just long enough to tie in a bun atop his head. Tucked under his left arm is a silver helmet with a black feather as its plume, and resting under his right hand is his sword hilt. Even more strange are his alien ears and pale, ghost-like skin.

Most important of all is the girl holding onto his back. Even though she's emaciated and dirty, they can all tell who it is.

With the pale creature's oppressive Aura, not one person in the room dares to speak up first; they all just sit around the table with their heads either hanging low or staring wide-eyed at the stranger – all of them holding completely still.

"Tell me…," the pointy-eared creature says, "…where are the clothes this one was wearing the other day?"

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Just looking at this room full of people, Haalfrin is trying very hard to resist the urge to kill something.

'Funny,' he realizes, 'that it's at a time like this when I actually come to understand Drakavar. I understand now that murderous rage…'

What's scary is that for a brief moment, Haalfrin imagined himself not only running the parents through, but all of Anna'ri's siblings too – down to the last child.

'No, no. I'm not Drakavar. I don't kill everyone in sight out of anger.'

Still, despite his will to hold back, the entire family can feel the murderous rage in his Aura, and they're understandably frozen.

Finally, after calming himself down enough to speak without his voice cracking, Haalfrin asks in a threatening tone, "Tell me, where are the clothes this one was wearing the other day?"

His question is met with silence.

Haalfrin looks to the side and sees the next eldest sister; that girl is wearing the same kind of dress with a flowery pattern. (She is getting married in 3 days, after all. It's their custom.) "Give me one of those," he demands while pointing at Hera'ri.

With Haalfrin's Aura barely restrained again, the father can speak up, "That's a wedding dress. We only have one of those in the house, and it's for Hera'ri's wedding." He looks uncertainly up at the girl resting on Haalfrin's back. "I'm afraid that Hera'ri's dress is too small for her."

"Do you think I'm stupid?" Haalfrin spits on the ground.

The children look down in horror when they see the creature's spit melt through the wooden floor. "Anna'ri came back home in her own dress.

"Are you telling me you got rid of it?" Haalfrin asks, "Are you telling me that the only thing you have for your daughter to wear is a filthy rag?"

Seeing the parent's blank stare, something seems to snap in Haalfrin, and his Aura suddenly leaks out again – this time much more explosively.

"Fine. I'll look for it myself."

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The pointy-eared devil snaps his fingers, and everything in the house is instantly dismantled – ripped apart down to the last bolt and board.

Yet, instead of exploding or falling apart, all the broken pieces float in the air, as if gravity doesn't work here.

"Haalfrin! Don't hurt them!" Anna'ri chides as she bites his ear angrily.

"Don't worry…," he reassures her. "Look. They're all floating in the air with the rest of the house. They're perfectly fine."

In a manner of speaking, he's correct. The entire family of 7 is screaming in terror while floating in the air; the only thing harmed right now is their traumatized brains.

With every item on full display in the air, Haalfrin's eyes quickly scan the debris until he finds the flower-embroidered dress he remembers seeing, which seems to have been hidden under the parents' bed.

Grabbing the thing really quick, Haalfrin hands it to Anna'ri and says, "Take that for now. You can get changed in the Tree Crawler."

With his business concluded, the pale devil snaps his fingers again, and time seems to rewind; every last curtain, chair, bolt, and board all come back together and remake the house. As a finishing touch, Anna'ri's family members are all tucked up at their table in their eating positions; even their food is back on their plates.

Without even offering these people a second glance, the tall man pulls out a silver-skull pendant from around his neck, and he disappears through a slip in space with Anna'ri still resting on his back.

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After the strange entity came to take Anna'ri away, many hectic things happen to this household in the coming days.

First, they get a crowd of fearful neighbors who obviously saw the house be destroyed and rebuilt again in a matter of seconds. Even more concerning is that they all felt the horrifying Spiritual Aura enveloping their house.

All the people here feel that the only being capable of doing such a magical feat is Lord Talran, so they all come to the conclusion that their guardian god was unhappy with his bride.

Quite violently, the village threatens to murder their entire family if they don't offer up another daughter as compensation.

Since the villagers don't trust Anna'ri's family to fulfill this duty anymore, they end up binding Hera'ri up themselves and carrying her to Lord Talran's territory.

There, the only thing they find is the Tiger god's bones, which have long since been picked clean by the crows.

Needless to say, the village is in pure chaos after that.

As for what happens among the chaos, Haalfrin and Anna'ri never know. That story has nothing to do with them.

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After leaving the world behind, Anna'ri finds herself going on a strange, otherworldly journey; literally, she's going to another world.

The first thing she does upon entering the Tree Crawler is gawk at the fancy vehicle she's standing in. All her life, the only kind of structures she's ever been in were made of wood and paper. Even the nails holding the houses together were wooden.

On top of that, just looking at this place practically blinds her due to how wealthy it all looks.

"You called this a 'Tree Crawler'?" Anna'rii asks. "Why?"

Haalfrin points out the window, where the World Tree is visible, and replies, "Take a look."

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For most of the trip down, Anna'ri sits backward on one of the chairs – propped up on her knees and staring out the window.

Her eyes are completely held captive by the sheer beauty of the World Tree – that strange, eerie grey bark and the vast, empty black space all around and mystical glowing lights hanging from the Tree's branches.

The entire lighting here is so devoid of color (just blacks, whites, and greys), that it gives the whole atmosphere a feeling of pale death. Even the sun peeking through the branches shines with a sort of black light that's otherwise impossible to imagine.

Of course, Anna'ri still isn't comfortable enough around Haalfrin for him to pester her with questions, though he sometimes offers her answers anyway whenever he sees her Spirit knot up particularly curiously.

Still, the trip takes several more weeks, and she grows more comfortable talking to this stranger. What finally convinces her that Haalfrin is her friend is when he gives her a wonderful food called "cake".

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Upon arriving in the Death Realm, Haalfrin spends way too much time satisfying the girl's bottomless curiosity about the tall, metal buildings and the black Aura in the air. They walk around the city side by side as they talk.

Soon enough, they make their way to a sectioned-off, secluded forest with mana so thick that it's visible to the naked eye as a white mist.

They walk through the forest and come to a clearing. The first thing Anna'ri sees here is a boy and girl in front trimming the trees and cutting the grass. Haalfrin nods to them as a passing greeting.

After walking through the courtyard, he pulls Anna'ri with him on a well-paved path and through to a tall arch erected in front of a beautiful garden of flowers.

Just as they pass under the arch, Anna'ri stops midway through the arch and looks up – completely transfixed by the sign, which reads, "Stranger's welcome."

They enter the garden, and when they approach the house, she sees another plaque that reads, "Friends welcome."

Anna'ri stares at this second sign a little too long, then says aloud, "Huh. Do we really know each other?"

Haalfrin's reply is short and light-hearted. "Something like that."