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Sahar

The tall man glared at us and I smiled. He was holding two swords, and I studied them with admiration. I had only used swords once or twice, but I did like them. They were almost as pretty as knives.

”Well it’s lovely to make your acquaintance,” the man drawled, looking both of us up and down. “Sorry to be the one to break this to you but you have just ended up on a one-way trip to a place known as hell. Which you are in right now. So I wouldn’t be so chirpy if I were you human.”

He towered over us both, even though I was standing on the rock. I rose to tiptoes, hoping he wouldn’t notice. He was even taller than Liorah, maybe even as tall as Gavril.

“Hell? Eternal suffering?” Acyn echoed, sounding only mildly put-off. “You mean Mondays? Because they fit the description.”

“It’s Monday?” I asked. I had thought it was Thursday, but this wasn’t the first time I’d gotten confused.

“Sounds like it,” Acyn commented.

The man strode forward and was clearly making a point of towering over us. Was he trying to intimidate us? I wrinkled my forehead dubiously. Whatever for?

”They call me the Phantom Ranger,” he said. “But seeing as we’re all going to be living together in eternal suffering, you may call me Lorcan.”

I beamed at him.

“Phantom Ranger? That’s a nice name! But I like Lorcan better,” I said, cheerfully.

“I don’t know how we’re expected to endure more than one Monday,” Acyn said, still stuck on that interpretation of hell.

Lorcan seemed taken aback. His appearance and dramatic title seemed tailored to be as frightening as possible. It was rather odd, since he didn’t feel like a naturally scary person. He was nice enough to introduce himself, after all.

“I like your coat,” I said, cheerily. It was a very nice one, with brassy buckles, buttons and fittings that caught the light. I liked sparkly things as much as any magpie.

Lorcan now seemed even more surprised. In my experience, people were seldom as scary as they seemed. If someone was deliberately trying to seem intimidating, they were usually just more vulnerable and hurt than they were willing to let on. Liorah was a prime example. People like that were interesting, and I liked them.

Acyn seemed far more interested in Lorcan’s swords, or more specifically, what was on them.

“Let me see a show of hands, who has green blood?” he asked, ironically. Everyone seemed mildly astonished, but nobody replied.

“That means it belongs to one of the animals and there’s no natural sunlight, although it seems to indicate photosynthesis, I’ve never heard of animals– hemoglobin is red and how else would–” Acyn trailed off, thoroughly confused.

“Alternate oxygen-binding protein,” I suggested, absently. I had been hanging around Acyn long enough to pick up on most of his areas of interest. It was fascinating, and he was good at explaining if I didn’t understand something.

“I mean– what else,” Acyn said, absently. With this mystery resolved as far as possible, he turned to more immediate matters.

“Do you have severe allergies?” he asked Lorcan, jumping onto an entirely different subject.

Lorcan stared at him as though he was insane.

“Or is the mask just for dramatic effect?” Acyn asked, to clarify.

“An excellent reason, either way,” I said, cheerily. “Most of the things I do are for dramatic effect!”

Acyn nodded, emphatically.

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@irishcelticredflowercrown

Now it’s Lorcan’s edginess versus Sahar’s eternal optimism and Acyn’s blunt curiosity XD Let the games begin XD