007-The woman

"Hey, that's my drink!" Mal protested with laughter hiding not very well in his tone because there was now a Nonoth clinging onto his drink.

"..." Nonoth just sipped on the drink, not answering. Yes, she would admit she didn't expect such a bouquet from a so turbid liquid, but that was not the only reason.

In the warm and sweet taste, hid a faint familiar scent.

It was a scent carrying a refreshing smell like a cool breeze in a summer night, but in the meantime a mild, moist texture, like the sunshine in a winter afternoon. It's a taste of happy and safe, tender as silk.

It had a scent of Azurite.

"Maybe..." Nonoth murmured to herself. But with deep doubt, she didn't finish that sentence.

「Could it be? Could it be her mother that was making this brew with her magic? But how could it be? For all those years that she has been missing, she was here making a dirty brew in a shabby tavern? But if not, then how could the brew bear a scent that only Azurite has? Azurite is the only thing so far that might be related to that mysterious name: Lilith.」

Nonoth's face grew thoughtful as she immersed in her troubled thoughts. Mal stopped laughing and leaned closer with an enquiring look: "Nonoth?"

"Maybe it IS a witch that..." Nonoth didn't finish again because a high-pitched voice interrupted her:

"Hello, my darlings! Hear you lookin' for me?"

Nonoth jumped at that voice and off from the high stool to face it, only to find a woman in her 20s, wearing a ball gown that was dirty AND out of date, the collar low as basin. She was wearing scarlet lips and snow-white powder on her face. But the horrifying dress and bad make up didn't hide her luscious figure and her PURE, BLUE EYES.

"You... you..." Nonoth couldn't finish her sentence.

Mal has put two and two together when the women with the blue eyes JUST like Nonoth's, so he finished the sentence for her: "Yes, ma'am, if you are the owner here, that is."

"Awww, what a cute, polite little mummy you are!" The woman replied in a buxom voice as she put her finger under his chain. "How pretty, too! Now that I look closer!" She giggled. Her voice clear and sweet like bells under eaves in a spring breeze.

Mal would have flushed if he could, but with all his face hid under the bandages, he just answered with a shy voice: "Thanks, ma'am. Could I know how to address you, if I may?"

"The name is Lili, but I wouldn't say no to any name you'd like to address me with coming from those sweet lips." The woman giggled again.

Mal's courage ran out in the face of the woman's flirtation. He lowered his head and shot a glance at Nonoth, who was still standing there in shock.

"What's wrong, darling?" The woman noticed, too, and reached out to her.

Nonoth sprinted backward at that gesture before she realized that was too exaggerating a reaction, but the woman's hand paused only an instant before she changed the direction of her hand from reaching Nonoth's face to her head and only gave her a soft pat.

"Yes, they ARE my dear dear customers," The woman replaced her giggle with a sweet and friendly smile: "as are you two cuties. Paul, send up two more Ravenlick, would you? It's on the house." She left the last sentence to Nonoth and Mal and moved on into the crowds. Everyone seems to love her because there came laughter and giggles wherever her figure flashed.

The guy behind the bar who she called as Paul finished two more of that turbid drinks soon and put it in front of Nonoth and Mal.

"Hmmm, do you think that might be your mom?" Mal asked carefully after they finished almost half of that huge mug in silence.

"I'm not sure. What's the odds of her being a witch, with blue eyes and magic that has the same feeling as Azurite? But..."

"But...?"

"But she's just nothing like how I imagined her would be... Also, I didn't feel anything when she touched me. It just doesn't feel right..." Nonoth shook her head in doubt: "And she just happens to be in this tavern that we accidently found? We wouldn't even be here if anything has occurred on our way. It's just too much of a coincidence."

"But you were taken just after your birth, right? It would be weird if you feel familiar of her touching."

"I have no memory of her, yes. All things about her or my childhood I heard from Them. But I felt something, in the drink. The drink definitely has magic in! How come I got a familiar feeling from even a trace of her magic, but not herself?"

"Maybe you just haven't got out of the shock of finding her. I mean, you HAVE been looking for her for a VERY VERY long time. It must take you by surprise." Mal's soft voice normally soothe her well, but not today. Even though what he said makes sense, but it just didn't feel right.

"Maybe... but I wasn't allowed to learn about magic on the cloud. Everything I do I learned by myself after I got Azurite and jumped off the edge. It would be great if I know how to trace a magic back to its owner, or..."

"Or what? Nonoth? Nono..." Nonoth's voice died down as she goes so Mal reached out to check on her, only to find everything a blur in front of his own eyes.

Nonoth and Mal nodded off on the bar and slid down the high stool on each other. In a bar so crowded and filled with drunks, nobody paid any attention about two small bodies curling up at the feet of the counter.

"What a scary look you have there." The woman's appealing voice rose behind the owner of the pair of eyes that has been followed Nonoth and Mal around ever since they went for the bar.

"Humph, I'm not the one who drugged them." Said a man with a scar and a dark look on his face.

"What? Has no taste for a Ravenlick? You know it's great." The woman sneered at him not having a mug in front of him.

"I dare not challange your sleeping pills." The man took a sip of a tin flagon he took from his own belt.

"Haha, I was only trying to save you some trouble. You want the little mummy, don't you? Mr. Death Merchant." With the same flirting smile, Lili stroked his chin with the tip of her forefinger.

"It's none of your business! If you..." The man grabbed her wrist and pulled her hand away from his face with a suspicious look.

"Don't take it wrong. I just don't want too bad a name for my bar." Lili put on a serious face and pulled her wrist out of his hand, which was not a success.

"Don't lie to me." The man pulled her closer to his face and threatened with an intimidating malignity in his voice.

"Haha, you got me." The woman let out a chuckle, "I'm offering him to you as a gift... Because I want the little witch."