Side-Story – Interludes: Volume Two – CH.122.5 – Renn – The Second Day at the Animalia Guild

This place was too perfect.

Way too perfect.

It was so perfect it was scary.

Walking down the hallway that was quickly becoming dark, I wondered if I'd be able to get any sleep tonight. Today had been such a rush, so full of new experiences and joys that I almost wanted to cry. Probably would later.

The building was quiet now. Darker. The place had been locked down, having closed its doors and shut down for the day. The bank had been the first to close, then the warehouse, then all the other departments… as the members here called them.

There was so much. The bank was its own entity, but it had sections within it that were as important and as big as a normal business. There were offices, vaults, entire groups of people just working on paperwork and so much more!

Then there was the warehouse, the depot as those here called it. A place where goods came and went in large scale. Hundreds of wagons, carts and so much more came and went through the depot everyday it seemed… and many of those wagons were huge. The kind of huge that made me feel strangely uneasy.

A mailroom. A charter division for ships and cargo. A department just for nobles and royals, and there was even a department just for jobs! A place that people could come to find work, even at places other than the Animalia Guild itself!

It was all so overwhelming… I felt almost as if I'd entered a whole new world. The place was packed to the brim with activity… and to make it all even more amazing it was all centered on our members. Each department was outright ran by one of the Society's members. Sofia and Herra ran the banks, Reatti ran the general workstaff, Merit ran the guards, Magda oversaw the depot…

Slowing at the end of the hallway, I reached an intersection. There were three new hallways to take, and I wasn't sure which to go down. One was completely dark, without even windows, and the other two went opposite directions from one another.

"To the rooms," I whispered as I glanced down the dark hallway. I couldn't see the metal door that led to the inner-housing area of this building, where all the non-human members lived, but I knew that was what the hallway led to. I'd been down there before, though not in this hallway in particular.

The whole building was basically a giant box. A huge square, with several floors. The place was actually rather easy to find one's way within, thanks to the hallways all being uniform, but occasionally some of them… diverted strangely. As if intentionally, some of the hallways curved and went a weird way.

I was alone, having recently left Reatti's side, and was just… walking around. Both to see more of the building and to collect myself.

Soon I'd be having dinner again. With everyone. A huge group of colorful people, and I'd get… overwhelmed again. Just like last night, I'll likely get emotional and cry. Especially now that I knew some of the members here a bit more well. Reatti had been an utter joy to spend the day with, and surprisingly everyone else had been very kind and friendly too. A few I'd not met yet, since they were busy, but it seemed of all the places I'd been to… at least within the Society, this place was the neatest.

I loved the idea of it. This whole place was basically a giant store. Members who lived here spent their days working, doing important tasks, to make the Society money. Money that was then distributed to those who needed it. And then once their hard day of work was done…? Well, they spent the night enjoying each other's company. They ate together. Sat and talked, drinking sometimes, all night long. It was… well…

I sniffed as I reached up to wipe my eyes. I didn't feel any shame in the tears I wiped away, though I did hope they would not be joined by too many more later on.

No one would likely find me crying over this experience strange or bad, at least I don't think anyone would say so if they did… but that didn't mean I wanted to weep over it either. No matter how wonderful this experience was for me, I didn't want to just… break and cry over it. At least, not in front of others. Not because I wanted to keep up a front of someone strong or something, but instead for another reason.

This should be normal. All of it.

This life. This place. These people. It should all be… normal. I should not be shocked or emotional over the simple fact that there were non-humans living, relatively, normal lives. It should just be… expected.

For me to get so emotional over this place only further proved how rare it was. How special it was. And that fact hurt more than it did make me happy.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

All of our members should be able to live like this. Free and happy. With purpose.

Yet instead…

"Lost?"

I jumped back a bit, and ran into the man who startled me. I groaned upon bumping into him, since the feeling of his unmoving self was rather familiar.

"Vim…" I groaned at him as I turned around and stepped away from him. He had a small smirk on his face, obviously once again he was amusing himself over his ability to sneak up on me.

Really, how did he do that? Yes I'd been lost in thought, and emotional, but still… this whole area was dead quiet, the kind that should not have allowed him to have snuck up on me like that.

"You alright?" he asked, likely noticing my tear-stained eyes.

Sniffing, I nodded as I went to wipe them again. "Yes. I'm… not really crying, they're just watery," I said honestly.

"Hm…"

If he believed me or not I couldn't tell, thanks to his placid expression, but I decided to let it be. "What're you doing?" I asked him. "Other than scaring me."

He smirked again. "Going to go see a friend, and saw you standing alone in a dark hallway all weird-like. I know you cats like to prowl, but really?" he asked.

Gosh he was teasing me again. "Your pirate friend, you mean," I said, ignoring his comment on purpose.

He nodded. "What'd you do today?" he asked.

My ear under my hat twitched hard enough to make it itch. I reached up and went to scratching at it under my hat. He had just forcefully changed the topic. "Reatti introduced me to everyone, again, and showed me all the different departments. Tomorrow I'll be joining Sofia at the bank, I guess," I said.

"That's fun," he said.

It was. It had been. It will be. But…

Glaring at him, I wondered why he seemed so odd. His responses had been rather… well…

Short? Maybe. I wasn't sure, but it almost felt as if he was not really paying attention to our conversation. Yet he was obviously looking at me, focused, and the way he was smirking at me told me he at least was paying enough attention to know I was annoyed at him at the moment.

"I've not figured out anything weird yet, Vim… if that's what you're asking," I said carefully. We were alone, but I wasn't sure to what degree. I didn't hear or see anyone in the hallway, but I knew some of our people had great hearing. The kind that made even far distances useless.

He had asked me to study this place. The members here. To see if I noticed anything odd… but so far I'd not done so. If anything the only thing that was odd was how there weren't more people here. This place was awesome, more members should live here.

"Hm, I figured."

"Though uh… I do have a question," I then remembered.

"Hm?" he nodded as he shifted a little, waiting for it.

"Merit. She's old, right…? I mean, older than she looks at least," I said. I had wanted to ask others, but it had felt rude to do so.

"Yes. She's actually the oldest here," Vim said.

Wow! "She's so small," I said softly as I thought of her. She wasn't just small… she looked young. It was one thing to be short and tiny, but to still look like a kid?

Vim chuckled at me. "She's like Lilly. One of the original members from back in the day," he said.

Oh my…! "I see… so she's the leader here?" I asked.

"Hm…? No. The leaders, if you want to call them that, are Gerald and Brandy. Though Brandy's not really seen as one, per say," he said.

"Right…" I nodded softly. I'd not met her yet. Supposedly she was off doing something elsewhere, somewhere up north.

"Any other questions? I should probably get going," he asked with a small gesture behind him.

Ah. Right… I nodded softly as I quickly considered a few…

"The human members. There's a few here, right? Like Amber was?" I asked.

"Yes. In fact there are quite a few. Most live in the building, but at the apartments in the south not with us in the center, or across the street on the west. The company owns the whole block that way," he said.

"Why do you call it company? They all call it a guild," I asked.

"Just a habit. The proper term is guild, at least here and in this era," Vim answered.

So it was just another term for it. Something that the people here, today, didn't use much if at all… "And my room. It's nice, and I can tell no one's slept in it for a long time… and the bath is pretty big, too," I said.

For a moment Vim said nothing… then he frowned at me. "And…?"

Oh. Was that not good enough? "I was inviting you to it, Vim," I said.

He blinked at me, and then chuckled. "I see."

My face went hot as I groaned and glanced down to our feet. "Yeah… Wasn't too good was it?" I admitted. I had wanted to invite him to it, but had also wanted to tease him a little. To get back for him startling me earlier. Yet I'd done so badly at it that he hadn't even gotten the hint had he?

He chuckled some more, and then his hand gently patted my shoulder. I glanced up at him as he stepped away, smiling gently at me as he did. "See you later, Renn."

Nodding softly, I watched him walk away… and once he was far enough I sighed at myself.

"Idiot," I whispered, at both of us.

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