City || Variable twenty-seven

"Where’s the train station?" Spruce asked while expectantly looking around the street.

"You mean a tram station?" Yew turned his face to look at Spruce.

"No, the train station," Spruce repeated himself, then clarified, "the station which we came from on the day of our orientation."

"Wanna go home?" Linden teased.

Spruce took a deep breath and decided to stay calm. "Are we really downtown? Because I was expecting to see the train station again, but we've been going on for so long, and I haven't seen it yet."

Linden jeered, "makes sense."

Seeing that Linden wouldn’t explain, Aspen decided to act more mature. "The train station in Sheepcrown isn't in downtown, like most train stations. It's located at the northern border of the city. Do you remember? We passed traintracks in front of the school gate."

“I saw the tracks, but I didn’t see the station,” Spruce said.

“The station was on the left,” Yew joined the conversation in order to help out his classmate. “It was really vast, and had a lot of buildings.”

“That was a station?” Spruce furrowed his eyebrows. “I thought they were just...”

"Watch out!" Linden pulled Yew by his arm and pushed Spruce, who fell on top of Aspen.

They all tumbled down between two columns. Less than a second later, a pegasus bolted through the main road, chased by a man on a flying rug.

"What the…?" Yew began but never finished.

Angry pedestrians, who were startled by the sudden event, were shouting at the owner.

"Keep a better eye on your horse!"

"How irresponsible!"

"What an asshole!"

"Don't buy a pet if you cannot control it!"

Whereas others were quietly shaking their heads in disapproval. Although they weren't angry, they were genuinely appalled.

"Just a daily life in a big city," Linden offered his hands to help Spruce and Aspen get up. "You can never tell what’s coming, so it’s best to stay vigilant."

Several moments later, two officers came riding chimeras. Their roles were apparent from their attire - long navy blue coats accented with golden buttons and hats decorated with a golden eagle.

Their chimeras were larger than lions and had more muscular bodies. Their tails were long, and ended with what looked like a snake. However, nothing was weirder than their heads. In the front the chimeras had faces like lions, but on the back of their heads, there were faces of goats.

The officers didn't have to ask for directions, because the more angry members of the public loudly instructed them to "catch that bastard" while pointing their fingers toward the street taken by the pegasus and its owner.

"Let’s go," Linden gestured at the boys.

Aspen shook the dirt off his clothes, while Yew and Spruce were watching the officers take a turn around the street corner.

"Hey, I’ll leave you behind," Linden, who was already quite a distance away, called out to his classmates.

Aspen, Spruce, and Yew, rushed to catch up with him, before he carried out his threat.

The boys reached the end of the street, and arrived at the outdoor marketplace. They stood by the columns, watching the plaza filled with countless booths and more people than tiles on the pavement. It was hard to squeeze in, and even harder to squeeze through.

Linden, who didn't want them to get separated, gave the command. "I’ll get us something to eat, meanwhile don’t you dare move from here." The tone he used in the second half of the sentence scared the boys, but they couldn't understand why it sounded so scary.

Aspen, Spruce and Yew, sat on a bench between two columns, while Linden braved into the crowd. Not even ten minutes had passed, when he came back with three fully-loaded bags of food.

"Wow, that was fast," Spruce couldn’t hide his amazement.

"How did you do it so fast?" Aspen sounded skeptical.

Yew curiously looked into the first bag.

"Those are salads," Linden announced the content of the bag, which Yew was checking. Then he took out three boxes from the second bag and laid them on the bench, "this is fried stuff. We’re sharing," he warned, before the boys could eat anything. He put the last bag in the far corner of the bench, out of the way.

Spruce opened the first box, and cheerfully yelled out "Eggrolls!"

"Fried rice," Aspen declared nonchalantly as he looked into the second box.

Yew carefully opened the third box, but he didn't speak out.

"And ravioli," Linden spoke instead, then he took out wooden chopsticks from the bottom of the second bag.

"I don’t know how to use those," Spruce vetoed the utensils.

"Then you don’t get to eat," Linden smirked, but then he gave Spruce a wooden spoon. "Anyone else needs baby tools?"

Yew and Aspen accepted the chopsticks. Each boy ate a quarter of each dish, before passing it on. After the meal, Aspen reached for the salads, but Linden grabbed the third bag.

"Hold on. You'll like this better," he took out two boxes and gave one to Aspen.

Spruce grabbed the other one and opened it first, "pineapple cake?!" His eyes shone with euphoria at the dessert.

Aspen opened the box, which was placed in his hand. "Kartoshki," he announced the sweet cocoa desserts.

"Amazing," Spruce said, and looked at Linden with a great amount of admiration.

"Can I have one?" Yew pointed at the kartoshki.

Aspen took one and passed the other twenty-or-so crumbly balls to Yew.

"How do we divide them?"

"Exclude me," Aspen stated firmly and went for the top box in the first bag, which contained a celery salad with cooked lamb.

"I intended that to be an extra, if you’re still hungry," Linden informed him. For some reason, he sounded unhappy that his classmate wasn't delighted by the desserts.

Aspen began quietly eating the salad.

Linden grinned at the sight. "Are you on a diet?" he mocked his classmate.

Yew and Spruce looked at Linden, wondering why he was so aggravated over the food preferred by Aspen.

Not caring to look at Linden, Aspen responded with a tiny hint of irritation in his voice, "I'm not fat."

"Yeah, I can see," Linden grinned even wider.

Aspen kept eating calmly as if Linden had never said anything. If not for his tone of voice it would be impossible to tell that he wasn't bothered by Linden's comments.

"Did you buy anything to drink?" Spruce asked out of blue, breaking the tension.

Yew wondered whether Spruce said that intentionally to redirect the conversation, but Linden, who was the recipient of his question, was certain that the boy was too stupid for a tactical change of topic.

Spruce put on an innocent face as best as he could. He didn't want to look as if he intentionally interrupted them, even though that was exactly what he did. He didn't understand the specifics, but he could tell that Linden was being nasty again, and he wanted him to stop.

"There’s free water," Linden pointed at a small water fountain between two columns across from their bench.

The fountains with drinkable water were located on the main street every fifty to hundred meters apart. They were used by locals when shopping downtown, so most stores and stands in the area weren't even selling bottled water.

"Okay," Spruce acknowledged Linden's answer, and went back to eating kartoshki.

Yew finished one third of the pineapple cake and gave the box to Linden. Once they had finished eating, they stacked all the boxes together into one bag.

"One box is left," Spruce pointed at the box in the first bag.

"That’s a cucumber-radish salad," Linden named the content.

"I can carry it," Aspen grabbed the bag.

"Sure, if you want to," Linden shrugged.

He threw away the trash into the nearest trashcan, before washing his hands under the fountain water then drinking some of it out of his cupped hands.

Linden shook the water off his hands, before he declared, "and now, let’s go to the store."

After everyone had quenched their thirst, he led them into a narrow alley barricaded on left and right by tall apartment buildings, which appeared as if they were touching the sky above.

Each apartment wall had hundreds of windows - some of which were closed, but most of them weren't. It wasn't unusual for most cities to keep windows ajar, half-open, or fully spread out, when the weather was pleasant, so the boys didn't find it odd. Although the residents leaning out of some of the windows gave them a bizarre feeling of unwanted scrutiny.

Some of those residents were merely getting fresh air. Others were having conversations with their neighbors. Nevertheless all of them were staring with interest at the boys passing by down below.

"Don’t they have anything else to do?" Spruce whispered to Yew. He felt creeped out by so many eyes observing him from above.

"Antique security cameras," Linden spoke with the tone of an advertiser. "Tested and proven to be the most effective surveillance system over many centuries. Nothing can ever escape the keen eye of a bored milady."

"What?" Spruce didn’t get the sarcasm.

"Ignore them," Linden mumbled out.

After making several turns, crossing tramtracks, and going down a not-so-busy but very wide street, Linden stopped right in front of a store with a big banner: «Always the Latest, Always the Best!»

"It’s here," he walked up and opened the door.

Inside the store, a long queue of customers of all ages lined up at the counter, waiting for their turn to be served. Meanwhile others were walking around the store and eyeing up the goods for sale.

Ignoring the queue, Linden went straight toward the counter and waved at the cashier, who looked at him inquiringly.

"It’s me, Linden," he pointed at himself.

The cashier almost jumped at the realization. He looked at the boy as if a VIP had just walked into his store. He smiled very welcomingly, put his hands together and started rubbing them, instantly forgetting about the other customers.

"What a pleasure to see you again. How can I help you today?"

"Can I?" Linden pointed at the door behind the cashier.

"Of course, with pleasure," the man responded and gestured to Linden to come to the other side of the counter.

Linden beckoned the boys to follow him, and they did. He walked up to the backdoor, and entered the storage area. The cashier didn't follow them, instead opting to return to his work.

"Was that necessary?" Spruce asked after Linden closed the door. "Everybody was staring at us."

"If you want the best magical items he has to offer, then yes, it was necessary." Linden ignored the packages on the shelfcases and went straight for the huge safe made of rock in the corner of the room. "He always keeps the most awesome items right in here." He knocked on the door.

"The password?" instead of a mouth, the words came from a tiny moving crack in the rock.

"Password? What password?"

Upon Linden's response, the door unlocked and opened by itself, revealing a small room with several shelves.

"That was a stupid password," Spruce commented after Linden walked inside.

Linden snickered, "if you think so, try it next time."

"I would assume that the password requires more than just the right words," Aspen joined the topic. "Things like intonation, accent, breathing, pauses between words, and also I saw you sliding your hand down over the door, when you were saying it."

Linden looked at him with awe, "no wonder you saw colors on those ancient scrolls. You really do pay attention to details. Next time, I’ll remember to be more careful around you."