Lady of Curses

Reading the titles of those books and hearing what the lady was saying, Aella got the impression that this woman was one of the unlucky ones, and the only question was how long has it been after her first summoning, and in what way she had left a bad impression. But Aella didn't want to dig into someone's personal life so she didn't say anything and kept her thoughts to herself. 

After taking a final glance at the mysterious lady, Aella found the table she was sitting at before she was summoned. But when she looked at the table she found that the mess she left behind was clean and all the books were probably put back in their place. Aella didn't know who did it but still, she was grateful because she didn't like to leave a mess behind herself in these kinds of places. 

Now that she was sure no mess was left behind her, Aella's first thought was to go to her house and eat something. She could stay at the library and educate herself more, but she didn't feel like it, plus she had other things to think about, one of them being where to find a job so that she could earn a living here, because she wasn't so keen on becoming the lord's servant, so she left that option as a backup. 

Aella tidied her cloak and started going for the library's exit before she got stopped.

''Where are you going?'' From behind her Aella heard the woman's voice. Turning around she saw the same woman that was just reading her book, was now standing up and slowly coming in Aella's direction.

''I'm thinking of grabbing a bite.'' Aella looked into the woman's silvery-blue eyes as she answered, as Aella had nothing to hide.

''Oh, then please let me accompany you, and in exchange, I will pay for your meal.'' The woman's calm soothing voice created words that Aella was a little confused by, after all, why would this woman offer to pay?

''Sure.'' But Aella won't reject a free meal, after all, who didn't like some free stuff.

''Good, let's go.'' The silver-haired lady took the lead as they left the library side by side.

The moment they left the library Aella could see the dark, starry night. Looking up Aella could see the beautiful moon that was shoving itself in its full glory as the stars around it shimmered and accentuated the beauty of the moon.  

''You're coming?'' Aella was pulled out of her star gazing, when she heard the lady, who was a few steps ahead of her, calling her. 

''Yes.'' Taking another glance at the moon Aella joined the lady's side again. 

''So, did you have anything in mind that you want to eat?'' While they started to make some distance from the library the lady asked if Aella had something specific she wanted to eat.

''No not really, plus I'm not familiar with this place, and don't know many places where we could eat.'' While Aella answered the question she looked around the city and how it looked different in the night than it did in the day. 

''Then let's go to a place I enjoy.'' 

''Ok.'' Aella didn't mind going to the place the lady wanted, although she didn't know what kind of food they could get there it didn't really matter as Aella wasn't a picky eater. 

While Aella was following the pale woman she started to look around the settlement, as she was interested in its nightlife. She found a few interesting things, one was how the settlement was illuminated, most of the light came from some plants, the interesting part was that it wasn't one kind of plant but mana. 

There were some fungus here and there glowing and lighting up the area there were some flowers that gave out light, and Aella even saw a tree that had red fruits that were glowing in warm light. But even though the settlement had all these sources of light, they weren't too strong, and because of that the settlement was still plenty dim with pitch-black corners here and there, and to Aella it looked like it was intentional.

The second thing that pulled Aella's attention to this nightlife was that the people on the street looked different, they looked more nocturnal. More with features or color palettes that looked more used to night than day, of course, there were still Safury that looked like they were more used to the day than night, but mostly the streets were full of Safury that looked more used to nightlife.

Aella looked around like a child in a wonderland because if she was being honest the nightlife in the settlement looked a lot more magical than the day, she even thought about turning nocturnal herself.