After the question came a quick serving, and before long, Fell faced Ol"Man Moha with two gla.s.ses of liquor separating them. If at first, the only thing rhyming their silent sips were the echoing rambles of the drunkard. Fell was the first one who broke the silence, bitterly commentating on the quality of the liquid."Quite harsh.", he muttered as an unsightly expression flashed on his face. "Where did you get this booze, old man?" he asked after swallowing a delicate mouthful that made him choke in a virulent cough that seemed to be easily transmitted between the person that shared the strange opaque liquid.
A dry chuckle escaped from Moha"s lips, and the short laugh couldn"t help but quickly escalate into strings of endless laughter as he caught sign of a red hue in the youth"s eyes.
"You really can hold your own," he finally managed to add in the midst of his laughter.
He rose from his seat, and grabbed the two gla.s.s in his hands before looking deeply at the youth"s eyes. "I"ll take care of this thing, and I"ll make sure to come back with something delightful," Moha added in one go before disappearing in the direction of the counter.
Fell followed the paternal figure disappear in the shadows lurking in the dept of the bar, and before long, he found himself sitting alone in the middle of the bar. Even this early in the morning, it couldn"t be said that the bar was void of any soul as every minute that pa.s.sed would be accompanied by a constant flux of people entering and leaving.
The intoxicating addiction that followed them through their lives seemed to hang tightly around the back of their mind, as even this early in the morning, none of the natives would refuse a smooth and bubbly beverage.
Finding himself void of anything to drink, the young man began looking at his surroundings with curiosity. It could be easily seen from his constant shifting vision- toward the numerous seats of the bar- that the man wasn"t accustomed to sitting on the customer"s side.
Small specks of memory appeared in his mind. Memories of a void past that seemed to continually shift from a distant whisper, to a clearly audible reality. Even a random place could cause Fell to remember small bribes of his past. One could only expect the change that would happen due to this specific place.
The bar he was currently in was his first- ever- working place, and the first area in the Core where he had felt that he was part of a society. Albeit a hazardous and depraved one. But that didn"t change the core form of his thinking.
A place where an individual felt a specific type of belonging would forever hold that feeling, even if year pa.s.sed and the sky on top of their head swapped with the cold earth. Even such drastic change wouldn"t be enough to completely suppress the feeling of belonging Fell held toward Pig"s Paw. As his entire being felt a strong link toward this specific bar.
A few seconds pa.s.sed, and the pa.s.sing time soon acc.u.mulated into minutes where the young man solely basked in the morning atmosphere of the bar. A bar that seemed to turn into the morning reunions of several small crews that clearly knew each other.
Mean mockery and burlesque travesty turned into morning cheers that lightened the heavy mood in the city. One familiar face after the other showed up, with Fell finding trouble in recognizing every single one of them. A few, he felt as though he had met them in the corner of the street- right before coming to the bar- while others, seemed to have been acquaintances for years.
The sole problem was that he couldn"t even put names or ident.i.ty on the familiar faces. In fact, what he felt familiar wasn"t their faces, voices, or any physical feature, but more specifically, the ambient atmosphere they released as a group.
And as Moha left Fell alone for a few minutes, the young man basked in a strange mood where he contemplated the atmosphere of the bar in a silent focused gaze.
Sounds of footsteps took him out of his reveries, and when he raised his head toward the direction of the counter. He saw Ol"Man Moha"s beautiful face traverse the room with a pair of identical gla.s.ses.
Thud!
The pair of drinking recipients were dropped on the table at the same time, and only produced one singular sound. And what entered Fell"s eyes when he approached the cold beverage was a crystal colored red liquid that whiffed in the air.
"Try this one," Moha exclaimed as he pushed the gla.s.s of red liquid toward his past protegee. And without waiting for him, he grabbed the small crystalline cup in a careful raise before approaching his nostrils.
"This is some rare whine. And not any whine, but one that had been produced in this very city when it wasn"t in such a ruined state.", he muttered as he slightly raised the tail of the cup and softly delivered a small mouthful toward his sipping lips.
Oh!
Fell"s eyes opened soundlessly in the surprise. The young man was in a particular state where the past history represented a lot to his mind and soul. And the types of liquid such as this one- that held history through their aromas- represented much more for him than a story from the ancient.
The black haired youth mimicked the beautiful face Moha sitting in front of him. And before long, what entered his mouth wasn"t simply a tasteful liquid that contained the work and experience of its creator, but the history and the atmosphere of the shantytown before the grand depravation.
"Good S***!" cursed Moha as he slapped his thigh in one swift movement that nearly shook the table. He raised his eyes toward Fell, and fell silent as he noticed the strange state the youth seemed to have shifted into when he held the pearly gla.s.s of crimson liquid.