Chapter Text
“Come, Road,” said Tyki, “let’s go up that hill to get a better view of the sky. The moon is full tonight.”
The small town was dead around them. The large clock inside the town hall tower struck midnight long ago. The lights had gone out one after another, and the houses stood with their windows black and agape at the street below. Long, forlorn shadows drifted in the cold wind, quivering. The wind whispered in the language of sleeping flowers. The fragments of distant stars flickered overhead, in the ebb and flow of moonlight.
Tyki walked in long strides, smoking a long, slim cigarette he took into his long, gloved fingers when he needed to exhale a cloud of smoke. He wore dark blue pants and a matching waist coat with a loose, creamy blouse underneath. A deck of cards swung on his belt. Road ran restlessly around Tyki in her purple dress adorned at her breast with a gauzy flower from intangible black lace, with her purple hair scattered in the breeze, but she stopped when she heard him speak.
“You’re such a romantic, Tyki,” she teased him back. “That’s what I would say if I didn’t know you better.”
“Well, you do know me better.”
Road made a cute face and retorted back to him with a note of disappointment and mischief:
“So, why are we going to stare at the moon together?”
“We’re going hunting tonight, and I thought we might as well enjoy the view.” Tyki closed his eyes with a thin smile. “There’s an important prey waiting for us.”
Road clung to his arm and looked up at him with her rapturous eyes. Tyki put the cigarette back into his mouth and took Road’s small, airy hand into his, interlaced their fingers one by one until it hurt to let go. They walked on into the darkness, feeling the leaden weight of seven thousand years of their love press against their hearts.