Chapter 208: Gloam


    As they walked through the cold, dusky streets of Vale where dust litnterns would cast soft radiance across the vistas of the city, Parc turned his head back just in time to catch the silhouettes of five girls dashing behind the nearest corner or even into a close by restaurant. Pathetic, he thought, he may not be a professional stalker but at least he knew from his time in Night Raid that you never take the same path as your mark. Always the roofs or in ces where your form gets obstructed by darkness or objects. In this case, those five, or well, four, ke was actually half decent with her hiding. The other four on the other hand well, Ruby was hiding behind amp post, that should be enough to exin why they weren''t doing so well.


    Shaking his head, Parc chuckled and looked to his side where Glynda was intently making her way through the city. She was following him, though not with a pleased expression. Frowns, narrowed eyes and the odd click of her heels against the pavement adding a bit of noise to the monotony of the odd passer by and whistle of men leering at her rump. Parc of course couldn''t me them, the dress conformed quite well with its dark blue fabric that sparkled from the odd sequin blended in every now and them.


    They didn''t speak much, Glynda being more interested in getting this night over with saw no point to small talk. Not with Parc at least.


    Soon they came upon a building, tall, two stories with a roughly Victorian esque design to its arched windows and pointed roof topped with an ornate fleur de lis. The bricks were clean, though had a darker hue than was normally expected and looked untouched by time. The bottom floor windows wererge and peering through them one could see dozens of tables spaced with nearly a meter and half between them. At the back was a staircase leading upwards and onto a overlooking mezzanine where a few more guests could be seen, this staircase also lead down, likely into a basement though why that was essible to the guests went right over Glynda''s head.


    As she looked to their surroundings, Glynda began to recognize some of the buildings, not far, just across the street was a bakery, one she''d frequented during her beacon days. Just besides that, the tailor that Beacon got all its uniforms from and the next to the restaurant itself was an apartment and another restaurant, the name of which she couldn''t see as its entrance was around the corner. Doubtful she would have remembered this ce had it not recently been in the news, though looking up towards the logo she was drawn to a confused frown. Settled above the door was not the elegant cursive sign of the Chatan, but that of Gloam, the O having been reced by an owl swooping down, it one wing red behind it while its tallons reached out, behind it a yellow moon that stuck out againt the bright red of its eye. But that couldn''t be, that incident that had destroyed part of the restaurant happened not weeks earlier, repair and the like was nigh impossible in such a time frame. ''Must be somewhere else,'' she reasoned.


    Approaching the door, Parc reached for the door and opened it, ttening himself against it to allow Glynda to be the first to enter. "Thank you," she said with as monotonous a tone as she could. In response Parc simply rolled his eyes but said nothing, instead peering through the closing ss to the four poorly hidden girls and the one set of luminous yellow orbs in the shade of an alleyway.


    Smirking he turned back in breathed in a cacophony of scents. Broiling meat stewed in a thick marinade of spices, fish baking in lemony caskets of vinagarettes and even the odd smell of sweetness taking an underlying role in the veritable orgy of smells. It was delicious and belied the many meals being served here and there.


    Not far from the entrance was a small podium behind which stood a young woman, her hair a shade of purple and allowed to hanf loosely around her body, her eyes a simrly shaded hue of purple thinly hidden behind the gleam of her sses. She dressed herself in a kind-to-the-eyesvender dress, reaching just below her thighs with detached sleeves that ran to her wrists, the cor though not tight around her neck was also not overly loose, a small diamond hole just beneath this showed off the slight curvature of her bosom, finally, she also wore thigh high socks and white t heeled shoes.


    At first nce the girl looked aloof and in a daze, as if lost to her task but as the door shut with a slight twinkle of chimes, she lifted her head and turned her eyes over them. Her expression brightening just a little but not moving further from a soft smile. From the small action a light red scar was revealed on her right cheek that ran down the bone.


    "Good evening," she spoke, her voice soft as downy feathers. The girl made a quick nce to Glynda, quickly scanning over her before falling to focus on Parc, that brief moment enough for Glynda to see a slight shift in her smile, though barely notable, the girl still rose her lips more and her eyes dted by a few millimeters.


    "Good evening, Sheele," Parc bowed his head slightly and a faint tinge of colour took the girls cheeks.


    ''Sheele, he knows her?'' Glynda thought.


    Sheele licked her lips, wetting them and looked down to the book on her podium, "uh, we have the private dinning set up for you and yourpanion sir." Her voice even more monotone and her expression twisting with squinted eyes like she was trying to read off of a script.


    "That will be perfect," flowing along with the girl, Parc was seemingly amused and awaited the girl to flip from the note and onto him only to return to the note and read through it not once, but at the minimum three times before saying anything else.


    "Right thifthis way, please." The slight fib making her redden even more only to be hidden behind a quick spin and slow walk down the central line leading directly to the staircases. All the while they walked, Glynda was inspecting the people, they were posh, neatly dressed people some might even call rich, but plenty were also less than freshly clothed, fathers, mothers, children, all blended together in a conglomeration of ages uncaring for anything but food. Though the obvious scowls some of the richer patrons would give a noise making child or a boisterous, deafeningugh a father would make made it plenty obvious they were not seating themselves there by their own will.


    Contrary to her expectations they did not climb the stairs into the higher rungs of the building, but instead descended deeper into the bowels of the restaurant. Passing by intricate artworks and statues until the found themselves by a misted ss door way that the hostess opened for them. Glynda entered first and found the roomrge and open, having a single table worthy for a crowd of at minimum twelve to seat themselves around yet only two chairs were set out right at the centre across from each other. In one corner was arge shelving unit filled with the dark green ss of the wine bottles as well as a fridge for the more heat sensitive examples. On another corner was a small kitchte like area with a beer tap and more counter space likely meant for chefs to work on ory out finger food forrger groups.


    What caught Glynda''s attention almost instantly though, was therge painting taking up nearly the entirety of the wall to the right of the table. It was that of a woman with pristine tanned skin and an unusual shade of green hair entuated by a small red flower. Sheid atop a pile of pillows with curtains falling in from the edges. Sheid with her back to the viewer, showing off the faint definition of the curvature of her spine and even the V shape of the top of her buttocks just above the leafy green panties she wore hiding anything further. Her legs were outstretched and in frame with one hand reaching over to rest atop the knee and she turned her head back showing off a detailed glint of purple eyes staring at whoever was observing her.


    Approaching the painting, Glynda found there was little in the way of obvious stroke markings and everything was heavily detailed to the degree she thought she could see goosebumps rising across her body.


    "It''s called Dryadisque," Parc said, joining her by the painting. "No idea who painted it, but I met the person, or well, one of the people who posed for it."


    Tilting her head his way Glynda finally made a connection, the way that girl spoke to him, his phrasing almost like he''d been the one to ce it there, and even the familiar yet simultaneous unfamiliarity of this building. "You own this restaurant, don''t you?"


    He nodded, "bought it after that incident with the white fang for an astonishingly cheap price. Apparently fixing the infrastructure they destroyed would bankrupt the previous owners, so they decided to toss the ball to someone else to deal with. Took a few hours to fix the floor and another few to move the sewers out of the way to build this private dining room but all in all, I''d say I did quite well for a day''s work."


    A twitch ran through Glynda, fixing a building with the damage she read about, was not a days work, and that ridiculous statement of moving the sewers out of the way even longer if notpletely impossible.


    "Are you trying to unt your wealth to me?" she nudged her sses and scowled. No chance she''d ever fall for someone so brazen with their intentions.


    "Of course not, unting my wealth would be taking you to the vault I have filled with tinum, gold, diamonds, and many, many other valuable items. No, I brought you here, for the privacy." He stared up at Glynda, her still a decent bit taller than himself even in lower heels than she usually wore. "Though, if you''d like to talk about how you like walking around without panties on in public, I can get us a table upstairs."


    She flinched and nced to the Sheele girl by the wine rack. She was climbing a stepping stool and reaching out for one of the higher bottles, eventually pulling it out slowly but on her way down from the stepping stool, fumbled and nearly crashed into the wall and lost her grip on the bottle. Luckily she didn''t, though when she sighed in relief and moved to set down the bottle on the counter she slipped and practically kissed the floor. Parc kept still and tried not to let the whimpering of Sheele get to him.


    "No. This is fine."