Angel on earth

"It's good if you can change your ways." The Red Moon woman comforted, not even noticing that he used "he" instead of "she", "For us unlucky ghosts, you are the most kind and generous child in the church, Mikhail."

Mikhail turned the barbecue a little embarrassedly, and the short boy next to him asked curiously: "Then you came to the Devil's Plateau because you behaved differently from other knights and were excluded? I know many so-called knights They're all bad guys who crawl into the beds of friends' wives..."

The Aiden slapped him on the head, and Mikhail shrugged: "I'm apostate."

The group of fugitives, who were busy praying as soon as they came in, stayed for a few seconds, and then there was extremely warm applause. The Iris man and the Long Island man whistled excitedly. Burned by fire.

On the contrary, the Aiden man was a little more rigid than the others, and he was not so excited. He clapped his hands a few times, thought of something, and sighed.Mikhail drew out his dagger and cut off the slightly burnt bear meat, handed a piece to the woman on the left, and a piece to the boy on the right, sprinkled some salt, and continued to roast.

"——My name is Anton!" The monkey-like boy raised his thin arms while chewing the bear meat, and said loudly, "I am from Baal, but this is a federal name. You can call me Tony." Ya."

"Don't be stupid, Anton." The Noren said kindly, "Almost every place has this name, you don't look like a Federation at all, just like that!"

"I'm still young, and I can still grow taller!—Oh, do you want to hear it?"

"Okay, listen to me. Please speak."

"Tch. - I am from Baal. The Kingdom of Baal is not a good place. God knows why the church kept the name of Baal. It is a heretical god. Don't say that the name is not important, I am in Baal Raised in a monastery where the natives never completely turned away from Baal. We all know that the priests of the church love young children—”

The Aerysian's cigarette fell into the fire: "My God, that was terrible. I'm sorry, but I won't make fun of you again, Anton."

"Go, go, I don't have one, don't interrupt!"

The Aerysian seemed a little disappointed: "Then what you said is so terrible that I almost dropped my cigarette."

"Who told you to interrupt!" Anton continued, wiping his oiled hands on his clothes, and stretching his bare feet by the fire to keep warm, "there are many children in the monastery, but few nuns, and they are all eaten. , but I was ugly when I was a kid—(Long Island people say it's not so good now) Shut up, just be better than you, red-haired ghost. Anyway, I was fine until I was 11 years old, just I can’t get enough to eat. The leader of the children is my good friend Bell. She was eaten early, but when the priest was about to eat me, she helped me escape. Later, I never saw her again, I heard She escaped too, but it didn't end well."

The Aerysman rolled a new cigarette, and the Long Islander and the Noren farmer were sharing the tobacco, spit the chewed powder into the fire from time to time, and the Aiden cursed: "Hey, two! Spit on the meat!"

The two stuck out their tongues at him, and the Aerys man glanced at the Red Moon man, trying to ease the atmosphere, and said with a strange smile: "If this story happened in our Aerys, you should catch up and stalk Ms. Bell, and then live happily ever after. live together."

Anton said seriously: "It's been said that I am a federal person, and the federal people will let the other party go to live a better life."

The Aerysian said, "You also said her end was not good."

Anton stretched his feet forward, getting closer to the fire: "It's not very good, it's better than being with me, I can't even afford shoes."

Farmer Nolen rubbed his hands and swallowed: "Isn't this normal?"

The bear leg in Mikhail's hand was still dripping with oil, and the soup pot on the campfire was also gurgling and tumbling.For some reason, the meat Mikhail roasted was much more fragrant than the meat in the hands of the others, so the Long Islander sniffled and said:

"Mr. Mikhail, compared to Anton, a Baalite, you are the real Federation. You judge."

Mikhail lowered his eyelashes, and the firelight cast a faint golden layer on him.Hearing this, he didn't look up, and seemed to be earnestly waiting for the barbecue, and said in his usual voice:

"Candy Kane."

Everyone fell silent.In the house, only the sounds of sparks splitting and Norren peasants drinking tea were left, and even the howling of the wind and snow outside the house suddenly disappeared, turning into some kind of rather obscene whispers.The cold rain pattered against the icy roof and seeped in along the cracks.

"Anton" blinked and sighed:

"How did you recognize me? Aaron knows me, of course, but you've never seen me before."

Mikhail tilted his head and said seriously: "Sorry, I don't know either. Maybe I guessed."

"How did you guess?"

"This is the Devil's Plateau. And, that gentleman from Aiden, I know him."

The handsome and coquettish young Aiden stroked his hair and said pleasantly: "Oh, oh, what an honor, I thought only my brother was more famous, but you recognized me by hearing my voice !"

"You are famous, too, but notoriously famous," said the Aerysian.

"Hello!" The Aiden didn't seem displeased or embarrassed, "—alright, let's talk about how you recognized me, Mr. Mikhail."

Mikhail said: "When I went to Eden when I was 12 years old, I took the same boat with you, Your Highness Orlando. At noon that day, you and His Highness Icarus were so angry that you didn't want to eat on the boat and swam back to the shore by yourself. .”

"Stop talking!" Aiden's handsome face turned red, and he shouted amidst the laughter of the others, "Who are you, you know such things!"

Mikhail laughed: "I'm Mikhail! Mikhail Ivanovich Kupala."

Orlando was stunned.

"It's normal not to recognize it." Mikhail smiled kindly, "Have I changed a lot?"

"Yes, ah, you can't say that..."

After the initial surprise, Aiden's Prince Orlando came over to look carefully across the bonfire, admiring, and rubbing his chin in doubt:

"If you're serious, you just seem to be getting taller, er, a lot, and your hair color has changed, but you're already light, and this white is so pretty. Oh, I didn't mean to—get used to it, get used to it. "

The Iris man booed him a few times, he turned his head and looked at Candy Kane who had changed back to the original: "Candy, why is that? In terms of appearance, it hasn't changed at all, at most it's more beautiful, But why didn't I recognize it at all at first? Even now, I still feel that maybe they are two people. If there is any evidence that they are the same person, it is that there should not be two such beautiful human beings in the world at the same time."

Mikhail no longer blushed for such words, and nodded reservedly: "Thank you."

"Look!" Orlando yelled, "His Royal Highness Mikhail would not be like this, he would pretend to be reserved and nod and turn around, but in fact his ears were red." He thought of something else, He said nervously: "Could it be that you also encountered the same thing as Icarus, being possessed by the devil?!"

"Don't talk nonsense, Orlando." Candy Kane opened his slightly drooping black eyes, and said seriously, "You see people with your spiritual eyes. Since you didn't recognize him as Mikhail, why not?" You should know that the one in front of you is not a devil. Whoever is possessed by a devil will not be the two of them. What's more, the real devils are those guys in suits and leather shoes who drink human blood and eat human flesh."

"Here you go again," Orlando muttered. "According to you, Icarus and I are more cannibals than they are. How do you spell that word? - Feud, Jian, Land, Lord. So Icarus I am the devil myself, which is different from what you said."

Candy Kane rolled his eyes, and suddenly took out a broken bowl out of nowhere, and quickly fished out half a bowl of broth from the boiling soup pot.Several other people reacted quickly, and Orlando stopped raising his argument, and grabbed their weapons to fight for the meat and soup in the pot.However, everyone still kept the few sporadic pieces of boiled spices in a good manner, and asked the people of Long Island to fish them back.

Now everyone was quiet, whether it was the Red Moon woman, Prince Aiden, or the church's most wanted criminal, they were all eating meat and drinking soup with their bowls in their hands.Now that the role-playing game in front of Mikhail was over, they didn't even pray. Instead, Mikhail, the self-proclaimed apostate, prayed for a while before enjoying the barbecue:

"Mithra, the omnipresent sun god, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come and your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us our daily bread, forgive us our debts, and call When we meet temptation, deliver us from the evil, for the kingdom, the power, and the glory of the world belong to You forever and ever, Amen.[2]”

After people satiated with wine and food, they thought of His Royal Highness Kupala again.They left him a bowl of soup, but he didn't have a bowl, so after Candy Kane finished first, he wiped the rim with his sleeve and handed him the soup.He didn't pay much attention to it, thanked him, and slowly drank the bland and even fishy broth.In such a world of ice and snow, a bowl of fat-rich broth is much more blessed than cakes and wine, and we really can't expect too much.

And it's not too bad.Mikhail tasted it carefully, thinking that Jeanne's cooking skills were worse than this before the Historita steward intervened in the kitchen affairs.Only when Aaron can't taste it, can he preserve the gentlemanly demeanor of a Noren and praise Rangna's cooking skills.That's not fair to Katerina of Chalek!

Mikhail finished the soup and washed the broken bowl with snow before handing it back to Candy Kane and thanking him again.The other four were probably followers or friends of the witch. They ate and drank enough without even saying hello. They took out the blankets by themselves and fell asleep by the campfire with their luggage on their pillows.Prince Orlando is young and strong, he probably didn't suffer too much before, he fell down earlier than them, and his sleeping position curled up in a ball actually has a bit of grace to save face, and he didn't snoring - the red-haired ghost from Long Island The snoring was the loudest, echoing in the room like thunder.

Candy Kane wiped his hands on his clothes, stood up, looked down at Mikhail, and said softly:

"Okay, Mikhail. May I call you Misha? Let me see Aaron."

"Well." Mikhail also stood up, "Of course. You are Aaron's friend, I think he will be happy."

The author says:

[2] Adapted from the Catholic prayer before meals.