The house dwarfed everything in the street. The houses around it could only be characterized as large; this one was positively giant. It was grand, with many spires and points reaching to the sky, a magnificent structure of stone, with windows and columns all over it. The closest he had seen was the Garmnara Tree of the elders, but this was much wider, at least sixty dragons wide, and twenty tall!
“Hey, mister!” said a young boy, his blonde hair cut close to his head. “You look lost.”
I was surprised I could speak his language; I had expected the people here to talk completely differently. True, he sounded different, but I suppose The Split had happened after the bases of our languages had already been formed.
“I am,” I said, distrustfully. Everyone here was an enemy. And yet, this boy looked harmless. He wandered over to me. My hand reached for my knife, but I was startled by a cry from a woman behind him.
“James! James, don’t wander off, talking to strangers!” said what had to be the boy’s mother, who ran up and pulled him back. “Especially rif-raf like this…” she looked up to see me gawking at her, unable to believe her impossibly poofy dress. It was pastel green, hideous, and made her hips look as though she could have bore a cockatrice egg. Easily.
But, he supposed he shouldn’t be judging. He must look equally strange to her, in his roughspun brown tunic and pants. Having not known what the climate would be, or what others would be wearing, he opted for as simple as possible, so as not to stand out. Clearly, he had gone too low; certain frou-frou members of this society would not even speak to him.
Being a trained actor, however, he decided to try his luck. Perhaps they had plays here, too.
“Oh, sorry to startle you, ban-tira,” he said. “I am actually just returning from an audition for a play, but have gotten lost. Could you tell me what this building is?”
For a moment, when he addressed her, she looked confused; he made a note to observe titles and pronouns on this side. Then she softened.
“Oh, of course, you must be doing a Shakespeare. Midsummer’s Night, perhaps?”
“Oh, you’re a smart one!” he replied. She beamed. “Yes, that precisely it.”
“I do love my plays!” she chortled. She turned to the building. “Yes, that’s St. Paul’s Cathedral, just completed a few years ago. Grand, isn’t it? I can’t believe you haven’t heard of it.”
“I’m from the country,” he said. “Coming to the city to see if I can get hired by a theatre house.”
“Oh, of course,” she said, nodding. “Well, I must be on my way. James? Come along!”
“Yes, mother,” he said, and trotted off after his mother.
He turned back to the cathedral. A place of religious worship. What a waste. The grand accomplishment of its architecture drained away, and he started seeing flaws everywhere: cracks in the stone, uneven layers of paint, places that had already started to chip and crumble. The wonder of this world had vanished in just a few short minutes; the women was pompous, the child restrained, and the grandest building he ever saw a waste of space and time. His loathing for this world was boundless, but he had to be careful. Brooding, he set off in no particular direction, looking for anyone to pick a fight with, anyone who recognized him as an agent in their war, or just a drunk. Someone to take out his frustration on, being stuck in this grand, pointless world.
