Far Horizons: Tales of Sci-Fi, Fantasy and Horror. Issue #16 July 2015 | Page 17

bar. There stood a set of four tall figures that, contrary
to the others, had no orbital girls attached to them.
She straightened, and her eyes gazed at the heavenly
picture in front of her. Her teacher had taught her to
look like she was assessing her interlocutors when she
wasn’t composed enough to speak properly.
The far left one, facing the room and standing
with his shoulder leaning on the corner pillar of the
counter, was an ocean-blue haired, tall, and athletic
daemon. Lilith was sure because celestials had pointy
ears and daemons had both slit eyes and pointy ears.
Clear ice-blue eyes, his left hand hanging, the daemon
sipped his drink and stared straight at her.
Next to him, also facing the room and leaning
on his elbows, a daemon with cinder hair and ashen
eyes held his glass by its top with his fingertips.
Without moving his eyes from Lilith, he nodded
towards the third daemon, who observed her from his
peripheral vision. He had a completely white mane
and silver-white eyes, a strange sight to Lilith’s eyes.
The fourth one was already looking at her, one
elbow on the counter, his free hand holding his glass,
when she landed there to avoid the crowded areas.
“So, what’s a young beauty like you doing
here?” he inquired, smiling.
“My name is Lilith Nisswa, I’m the alpha
student in charge of supervising the Draticornix’s
purchase order for the Jumper’s blueprints. It was
decided that today would be the delivery day, but
nobody came to get them.” She showed him a storage
Spell-Card, featuring a blueprint.
“Welcome to the Draticornix Guildhall. Allow
me to introduce us then: Jing Noren, an Erai,” he said,
showing the blue-ocean one, before pointing out the
ashen and white ones as he went on, “Marcus Sandras
and Efren Rania, who are also Erais in the guild. I am
Sirius Minger, the Arai. May I look at the purchase
order we issued, please?”

***
The flush of red that went across her face as
he grazed her fingers with his own nicely added up
to the complex paintings on her skin. It was a new
trend since harmless, removable skin paints were
commercialized everywhere. Marcus, in charge of
buying the goods for the guild, could easily tell that
those paints were rather low-grade though.
Cheap paint didn’t prevent her from being cute
and amusing. Nisswa-en’s clothing colors were quite
aggressive, but the paints she used were just too soft
to make her look the least bit hostile. She had even
used a spell to match her eye and hair color to the pink
skin-paint on her cheeks.
Oh, well, she has a slight aura, and she is
beautiful enough for that, thought Sirius. Celestials
were basically made of magic down to the bone,
and magic beautified all that it infused;the stronger
their magic was, the more beautiful they were.
Most humans would look ridiculous trying to match
celestials. She could afford the fantasy.
Nisswa-en stood there quietly as Sirius
looked at the purchase order, so Efren offered her an
orangeade. Tilting her head imperceptibly, Lilith made
her bangs further hide her face, and she thanked him
as she clutched her drink.
“I am most afraid this is a forged purchase
order.” Sirius’s voice penetrated their exchange. “But
the seal is compellingly real, I can understand you
mistook the order for genuine.”
“We get a lot of forged orders recently,” she
said, sipping the orangeade. “I wonder what’s going
on.”
“And so, if I understand right, the blueprint
that was inquired in our name is inside this card?”
asked Aoi who came to take a drink.

Lilith had a bad feeling about this, but she
quietly presented it to the daemon.

“Yes,” she answered.

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