A Beast From Rumors

She'd always hated shopping in her past life, an extremely long and tedious process, but she couldn't deny the excitement she felt as she could take a look around the city. That excitement lasted about two minutes until she realized everyone was avoiding them, and there was very limited city life, with everyone seemingly quiet or moving fast.

She knew for a fact it wasn't that the place was gloomy, it was the fact she was an Argyris, and so was Nyx, who openly held a sharp weapon. While she latched onto his neck, he happily ran around at different shops exploring with her, talking to a baby who couldn't respond. "Ya see that? How about we get ya something?" He said, pointing to a very pretty shop with bright colors, heading on in.

She'd never seen such fast customer service as an employee went from an annoyed face to one of absolutely politeness as he bowed before Nyx, greeting him. "Young master Argyris, to what do we owe this visit?" She swore she saw a bead of sweat roll down his face.

"Show me what's in stock." He said, changing from his accented speech filled with slang into a polite noble once again, much to her surprise. The worker jolted up and immediately showed him things on display, and talked about qualities.

She'd never been into a more luxurious toy shop. Thinking about it, she didn't really have any toys for a baby, did she? Or actually, did any Argyris child ever receive a toy? "None of these look like knives." Nyx muttered, answering her question.

Closing his eyes, he pondered for a few minutes before just getting frustrated and shoved his weapon at the worker, holding her with two hands. "I'll just let her pick." She was now facing the shelf of toys front first, and got a good look at everything, but was unsure what to do.

Did he really expect a baby to pick? Or rather, was it even fine for her to pick? "I'm going to make Isaac so jealous after this, you might as well call me your real big brother." Nyx bragged, understanding Nyx a bit better.

He seemed to like Isaac, or work for him, maybe respect him even, but at other times he seemed like he wanted to annoy him so badly Isaac would end up giving him a black eye. They really were close siblings, weren't they? A cat and dog duo.

After a few seconds of looking around as he wasn't going to put her down or leave until she got something, her eyes landed on something interesting. A white tiger with fur around the neck that nearly resembled a mane of blue fire. It's eyes drew her in, a color of deep blue.

Most of the other things were great, but the fur reminded her of the dream she had during the first night she became Theia. Instinctively, she reached for it, arms only stretching so far as the worker grabbed a white rabbit. "A great choice my lady," he said but she shook her head and shouted "Nu!" once again reaching for the tiger.

The worker placed the rabbit back and looked, only to grab the tiger. "…Does the lady really want this? It's a little scary for children." He said cautiously, worried he may offend Nyx. The boy merely grabbed it and examined it in return.

"I've never seen an animal like this. But if Theia wants it, I'll get it." He said, giving it to her and pulling out a coin pouch, tossing over a few silver coins after the worker confirmed the price.

Putting the coins away, the man explained to Nyx what exactly it was. "There's a rumor about if a tiger lives for over five hundred years, he becomes white and filled with power. This beast was mentioned to be seen once by eyewitnesses and never seen again, it's likely been a hundred years, only making it a rumor. This is a special toy in stock for the hunt."

Humming, Nyx understood more or less of it. "Something like this would never appear at the hunt, but last year they brought in that thing, so you never know with Theia around." He joked, the worker not getting it but laughed anyways to appease the terrifying customer, giving Nyx his weapon back as well which was much too heavy for him.

"Would you like anything else, young master?" He asked, Nyx turning to Theia as if asking her, a baby. No one in the Argyris family should be near kids, and it showed. She wasn't sure how smart Argyris children are as babies, but she chose to pretend like she didn't understand him and stared at him in silence.

It was an awkward two minutes as they both refused to say anything, until Nyx spoke up. "No, we're good." Leaving, she heard the back doors open and a few eyes peek out, only for the worker to sigh from relief of surviving as his coworkers in the back gave him a thumbs up. No wonder she didn't see any other workers, they all ran and left him, being called an Argyris sure was amazing.

Staring at the tiger tucked into her, she kept trying to recall the dream she had. She couldn't make out the animal at the time, nor see it's face, but the tail resembled that of the beast. Surely, it were pure coincidence, were it not? There was absolutely no way she dreamed of a beast that was only rumored to exist, with only one eyewitness from a hundred years ago. For all she knew, the worker could of been making it up completely.

Staring into the eyes of the beast, she wondered if she could see anything like it during the hunt, or what other beasts there would be. What was the thing from last year? She had no knowledge other than what the novel described, but that was a later date.

Filled with more questions she couldn't get answers too, she mentally sighed as Nyx pinched her cheek. "Ya really like that tiger, don't ya?" looking up, she noticed they were no longer walking in the streets, but rather elsewhere entirely. Had she really been thinking for that long?