The Other Side of the Mask

"Haha, Xing would be proud," I say.

"Xing?"

"Xing, my designer. Anyways, onward! Let's go eat and then go to the mines!"

We walk across the town.

"Hey, excuse me, do you know the best restaurant in this town?" I ask a local resident.

"...oh, there's one over there…" they respond with a monotone voice.

I look over at the restaurant, "Ok, thank you."

XiaoLong grabs my hand and gestures to go, as I stare at the resident. Something's off… I inspect the resident and look at the other residents.

After entering the restaurant, XiaoLong makes a comment, "They have a weird fashion sense for necklaces."

I stare out of the window, "Yeah…"

Majority of the people in town wore black collars with obsidian engraved into it. The few that didn't were tourists like us and residents serving nobles.

"I guess this is how no one found out or dug about the collars…" I mutter quiet enough for no one except XiaoLong to hear.

He nods, "But it's probably just a fashion trend."

The waiter serves us the specialties, and we start dining.

"Mmmm," I applaud the rich flavors.

"It's very oil and has a lot of fat…" XiaoLong looks at his plate.

"Probably because they live in the north and need warmth," I answer, "Anyways, which mines should we visit?"

"The closest one, I guess. I don't think we're very keen on visiting mines anyways."

"Sure."

We head out quickly after we finish. The sun is setting and it's not safe in the dark.

"We'll just hurry and skim around the cave."

"Yeah."

We trudge through the snow, shortly arriving at the cave. The entrance is grand and super unnecessarily tall. We enter, strolling across the gray cave lit up by torches. We didn't head too far in to find a sign telling us not to go any further.

"Well, I guess this is it for today," XiaoLong tells the rest of us.

I turn to leave, but stop from hearing a bunch of weird voices.

"Did you hear something?" I ask XiaoLong and the two guards.

"Huh, no…" one guard answers.

I sigh, I must be getting old… I walk out with the rest of them and retire for the night.

I yawn and wake up the next morning to the sound of chirping birds. After fully opening my eyes, I become startled by the other figure on the bed. XiaoLong is still sleeping beside me. His face looks so relaxed and different from his sly and mature self. Aww so cute~ I think to myself, inwardly blushing.

"Mmmm~good morning," he rubs his eyes and looks over at me, charmingly.

Oh, no... I feel my face turning red and-

We head down for breakfast and set out for our next destination along the kingdom.