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Plodding absently through the ons, subdued whispers of other elves, and finger pointing of huly conspicuous ianthis attention to drift in and out upon the shoppers and passers by They were the usual colorful array of people: residents of Lusea, merchants from the Republic and Daina, and tourists and entertainers fro over the prices of necessities, trifles, and trinkets The saony to him, the same activities, the same life day in and day out, each day as the one before, ad nauseum

Every day, the same as yesterday With a predictable chaos in between, century upon century, the same in the Republic, and all the Five Nations since tirieve it, the elf thought to hi cycle of events I'm so terribly old to have seen it all

He pushed hih the crowds in the e of time, the insipid noises of commerce, and the smells of various dishes that failed to stih not at all hungry, he needed so sadness He took a bite out of it, but his dismal mood robbed the red fruit of its savor Still, he continued one tasteless bite after another, down to the core, which he held level with his eyes

Like so often before, he felt like that core: alone, exposed, e back the inevitable tears, I should have left with you … escaped from this world, but I chose to stay behind Where is your prophecy now, elders? Noish that I could have …

"Hey! My purse! Stop! Thief!" A voice rang out from the din of shoppers

At the sound, the elf's awareness snapped instantly back to the now He detected the telltale electronic resonance in the android's feeted its source: the open-air flower shop iht … and the absolute perfect ht within his field of vision were both thief and victim

The human that first bolted out of the flower shop, blue leather purse in hand, was a boy in a gray coat and blue pants: slight of stature -possibly a teenager