Reincarnated into a Snow Griffin-Chapter 61

"..." We stare at each other for a while, speechless, but soon Alexis cover his lips with his long blue sleeve as he gives a dry couch, slightly embarrassed, and while pushing the other off from himself with his arm he whispers to the other before coming to me.

"Behave, my junior disciple is watching."

"..." The other does not refute but I can clearly tell he is annoyed by my intromission, angry even, and yet does not confront the situation and just gives a big yawn off.

"Hello junior disciple, my name is Alexis Turner, but you can call me senior, I reckon we were not introduced right? Are you the new master’s disciple I presume, nice to meet you." Trying to completely ignore the awkwardness of the situation my fellow senior disciple asks while approaching me with kindness yet politeness, completely disregarding the violent side he show off just a few moments ago.

"Yes." I answer, no point in denying it nor dragging the subject as we shared the same type and color of clothing, showing off the same status of inner disciples of the same Sect, blue and white with the outline of bamboo leaves printed against the outer blue robe.

"I see, you have just arrived right? Master told me someone would be coming, but I forgot that it would take a few weeks for you to come here did not? Well, all goes well when it ends well, how about introducing you to your companions and to your class?" I am somewhat relieved that he offered himself to guide me for I was too prideful to ask a stranger like this, and would probably just bow and leave to one day find my way towards this maze. 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝚠𝚎𝚋𝗻𝗼𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝚘𝐦

And yet like the two sides of a coin where one stood hidden and clean with the side turned down the opposite side is left to rust and dirt in the rain, these two men before me are as incompatible as such, which makes me wonder how they can act so... intimately with each other, especially when Giovanni shows just how much of a lazy brute he is.

"... You are a new disciple uhm... what are you doing here? And what’s with that veil? Are you that ugly to look at?"

"Giovanni!" Even the reprimand from Alexis does not faze the other as he swings his body in a lazy walk towards me, carrying the straw hat with him and giving off an even more slack posture with his not well closed robe and loosen belt, as well as a messy hair from his previous nap.

Out of nowhere, however, he reaches out for my veil, and if it wasn’t for the fact that not only I had been expecting it but still had some distance between us, he could have easily overcome my side step.

And his insistence would have been able to in the next step if Alexis had not been there.

His sword flies back into his hands and in a blink of an eye the grip is in his hands and the silver sharp edge is resting against Giovanni’s neck.

And now Alexis looked really mad at him when he says: "Would you please refrain from bullying my junior?"

I did not like being protected like this but much less enjoy a prying man like the other, yet in the end I choose not to react on impulse as to lay low, even more when their opinions really did not matter in the end as the only thing I wanted here is knowledge and power.

And as it seems that the senior disciple of mine is also an imperative bridge to that important piece of knowledge I keep my politeness and distance and say:

"Thank you senior brother for the help, it just seems that I got so interested in the beauty of this place that I ended up taking the wrong path." I say, saying half the truth, enough so to get him to guide me already.

I think it was at that moment that I started to change into who I’m today, how I somehow started to turn cold towards others, but on the contrary of what many thought it was not out of anger or annoyance, but rather the complete opposite of it, it was a growing detachment from others, a complete uninterested indifferent behavior from not understanding their carefree slaking off ways.

All I wanted was power. All that matter was power. All the rest is unstable, is unpredictable, is unimportant.

And at that point in time I closed my eyes to everything and everyone, and the only thing I had in mind was to save my mother...

Or at least avenge her.

Howver before I can dwell on the subject any further, before I can sink in into my worries once more, a voice sounds, strangely familiar, and even if it wasn’t my name that the person is shouting it still felt as if I was the one being called.

"Giovanni! There you are! I was looking for you, do you remember where we bought those- Oh, hi Alexis, hi... who this could be this beauty?" Someone comes from the path below, waving and speaking even before reaching us and understanding the tense situation we are at, completely running the mood.

"Beauty? How can you tell there is not a hideous face hiding beneath that veil?" Giovanni snickers, but a kick from Alexis shuts him up.

"Oh I can tell alright, my name is Ethan, what’s your name?" The full of life boy suddenly is already in front of me, hand stretched out in greeting, and a full smile that stuns me for a second and makes me blurb my name out in reflex.

"Seraph..."

"Seraph! A fitting name for such a beauty!" His words sounded sincere and legit, and yet part of me felt bothered by it, and thinking it over gave me a headache so I stopped trying to reminisce the feeling over, focusing on the young boy instead.

He, too, is wearing the red vests with the golden tiger, which means he is from the martial artist’s sect, but beyond that his figure seemed to outshine even the rays of sunlight behind it as he smiled from ear to ear and his eyes upturned, his black hair half flowing at his back and half up in a bun at the top, making so that the wind brushing against his features increased his stunning figure.

"Let’s go Giovanni, master is going to get mad this time. Bye bye Seraph! Let us meet again sometime!" I did not pay attention to his words, still trying to detach myself from this boy and the headache he is giving me, don’t know if because of his full of life behavior that seems to annoy me or if because of something else, but without realizing how true his words would be and how much so we would see each other still, I could not tell just how this boy had the powers to melt the icy that I’m so carefully building over.

And just how much his smile chanced once his back was turned towards me, and how intense his gaze had deepened, wild thoughts playing in his mind.

He felt like the presence that I have been feeling near me since the moment of my fall, watching, lurking, and would still sense many years to come, but only much later would I notice that it had not been a trick of my paranoid creative mind, but the tricks of a persistent little devil.