5 Poor Gatekeeper (1/2)
It was a regular day for the gatekeeper of Sweetgrass. His shift had been just like any other day. The farmers and their servants would be up at before the crack of dawn to work in the fields. After the relatively busy moment in the morning, there was not much to do for the guards.
The guard rotated every 8 hours. This allowed the guards to have adequate time to rest before their next shift. The gatekeeper, along with his 4 guards had spent the majority of their day chatting with each other. Beside the occasional merchant, traveler, or adventurer, the gate was almost always empty.
As their shift was reaching the end, they noticed people approaching from the distance. As the travelers got closer, the guards couldn't help but drop their jaws at the scene. Two young girls were walking down the dangerous road, hand-in-hand. The two of them looked like a pair of fairies as they couldn't take their eyes off them. As distance shortened, the attraction increased. The guards weren't caught completely off guard, however. They noticed the hear-shaped tails, that were unique to succubi, swinging behind them.
As the little girls passed by them, an irresistible aroma filled their noses. Although, as trained soldiers, they had many encounters with other succubi in the past, they were caught completely unawares. Their minds blanked for a moment as the two walked past them.
Time seemed to stop for the guards as the two little girls stopped in front of the gate. If there were any onlookers, they would have seen the peculiar sight of armed guards surrounding a couple young, defenseless-looking girls. Of which, one was carrying an oversized crossbow, and the other a black stick.
The scene was broken by a loud voice. ”Hey, what happened to your hair?
The guard at the gate almost fell on his face. Hearing a quiet snort, he looked over to see the other guards slightly turned away from him, trying to stop themselves from smiling. One of the bodies of the spearmen was shaking as he was suppressing laughter. He gave the other guards a fierce look before looking back at the culprit. He looked at the tiny face that had a large grin and sparkling eyes looking at him. 'I must have heard incorrectly.' he thought to himself. Looking at the innocent and adorable face filled with curiosity and excitement, he thought again, 'There is no way such an adorable child said something so malicious…'
”I'm sorry,” He said with a stiff smile on his face, ”I must have misunderstood your question…”
An almost immediate reply came. ”Why don't you have any hair?” Kalin reworded, with a brutal innocence that caused the surrounding guards to involuntarily release snickers.
The gatekeeper's bald head started to turn a light shade of pink. Deciding that Kal had no bad intentions when he asked the question, he could only sigh, ”Some people just cut all their hair off.”
”Why?”
”Well… some people like having no hair.”
”Why? Isn't hair pretty?” Came the confused child.
”Umm…” The gatekeeper couldn't help but start sweating, as he was never going to admit the tru…
”Some people start to lose their hair when they get old.” Said the older girl bluntly. ”They feel insecure about it so they either wear fake hair, try to hide it, or cut it all off.”
Every word the girl said felt like an arrow piercing his heart, but his pain hadn't ended.
”Oh no!” cried the younger of the two, ”Sometimes some of my hair falls out when I brush my hair. Does that mean that it's all going to fall out?” Kal had a very concerned expression on his face that could only be described as one of the early signs of despair. ”I don't want my hair to go away” He started to sniffle.
”Don't worry, that's normal. You don't have to worry about hair loss. There's no way that mom would have a kid with a bald man- ah! I mean a man with no hair.” She caught herself, as Kal had probably never heard the word 'bald' before.
At this point, the shiny surface atop the gatekeeper was almost a deep shade of crimson. His subordinates were no longer trying to hide their laughter as one especially brave soul was even punching the wall repeatedly to try to calm down.
He cleared his throat before continuing. ”W-w-well,” he couldn't help but fumble on his words, adding to his embarrassment, ”we don't want to hold up other people, so let's get the entrance process started.”
The older of the two looked around and feigned innocence, ”Oh my, we wouldn't want to hold anyone else up!”