The market is too loud and impossibly large to be contained in such a small alleyway. Matteo wonders, glancing over the crowd, how any of them manage to stay sane in the bustle of it all. He’s barely been on the street for an hour and already his head is spinning.
Everything in the marketplace is squeezed between two long rows of buildings - vendors, customers, pickpockets and all. Many of the merchants have awnings dyed eye-catching colors, or woven with intricate designs. Those who can’t afford such niceties have blankets rolled out between stalls, down side-alleys, all they have to offer plainly set in front of them. Guards stand watch at intervals, talking amongst themselves or otherwise staring into space. Matteo’s eyes slide from one curiosity to the next as they slowly push through the crowd.
He can see cages in one stall, small ones closer to the front and larger ones lining the back walls, and even still more outside, taking up a part of the walkway. Inside sit various creatures he’s not seen before; In some of them are little reptilian things, all tooth and claw and scale. In others strange feathered beasts wrap in on themselves, peeking out from behind delicate wings. In the largest of the cages stands a creature so close to a human that one could be mistaken for kin alike were it not for the unsettling silver shifting beneath their skin and the dead-eyed, vacant stare. The vendor barks the names of these creatures to passerby in a thrilling, captivating voice, but Matteo can’t seem to catch the words in his mind long enough to remember them.
In another stall, pots and bowls large enough to fit a child inside stand at attention. Along the walls perch smaller, delicate little ceramic pieces. Finely sculpted scenes painstakingly carved into each surface, glazed in impossibly bright azures, creamy yellows, harsh reds. Matteo catches Ellis glancing at them, and then away, very quickly. The price for any of them is too great, certainly, and for all the world Matteo can’t understand why a vendor of such fine pieces would deem fit to sell them here.
Moving on there are several stalls in a row full to excess with food - all of which smell wonderfully tantalizing. Matteo’s mouth waters as they pass by. Little fruits collected in bowls, overspilling with bounty, bunches and bundles of herbs and spices and dried meats hang from twine strung around the edges of the stalls. One in particular is the source of the most drool inducing scent of them all; A small stall with a fire pit set into the back of the house it’s attached to, with a fat bellied pig roasting atop.
‘They must own the house,’ Matteo thinks as he passes by, neck craning to continue taking it in. ‘I can’t imagine living here…’
Strangers shuffle past on either side, part of the ebb and flow of the market as a whole. The lifeblood of the city. Each person has an entire life, a whole world of their own, different in style and look and feel to the next. Watching them is entertaining on its own, he thinks. Strong bodied women, basket under arm, trundle past with coin purse in hand and more tenacity than any warrior. Children scatter through the crowd amongst the various skirts and robes, chasing the strays down alleys and up stairways. Couples and groups walking together, chattering away in hushed tones, only to exuberantly brighten with a laugh here and there. Each and every person has a purpose here. Matteo feels misplaced amongst them.
‘How am I supposed to blend in with this, when these people have more life in them than I’ve ever had? I can't pretend to know this. If this is humanity, I'm unsure I can count myself among the human.’
The sense of othering leaves him uncomfortable and distracted. With no tether to the people and places around him, hopelessness rears. Out of his depth by miles and miles, the reality of his dire situation comes to focus once more.
With a slow movement he reaches out before him and grasps Ellis’ hand. He needs a lifeline, a connection to the here and now. Anything to feel less like a stain on bright parchment.
For what it’s worth, Ellis doesn’t balk. He doesn’t slip his hand away in disgust, he doesn’t swat at him for having the audacity to do it, no, the stoic man simply takes his hand and squeezes it, equally grateful to have a tether he can hold onto.
Chimes ring as a breeze pushes into the market, flowing through the stream of people like a gasp of air after a long dive. The collective sigh of the crowd makes them feel as one, alive. Both Matteo and Ellis can feel the shift around them, and in that shift can feel their own disjointedness.
Ellis tugs Matteo closer, exchanging hand for arm, and keeps him tucked close to his side. Matteo is glad for that - for the protective gesture of it. He can feel eyes on both of them from somewhere, perhaps everywhere, as if the city itself had shifted a judgmental gaze upon the outsiders.
A preposterous notion, but one nevertheless entertained with a paranoid thought.
