Allen watched as Deak reached for the most unique ring he had ever seen. Whether it was classically beautiful or not was irrelevant as he had never seen anything quite like it. The ring was a piercing, dark black that looked to the young man as if it had carved from darkness itself. Realistically speaking, however, it was probably made from some rare stone or gem. Though, Allen had to admit, he didn't know what the stone or gem could be and he wasn't actually a good judge of those kinds of things.

There were two small (compared to the other stone in the ring) bright red gems ingrained into the top of the ring. Allen did know enough to be almost certain that these two gems were rubies. The two rubies were on either side of another gem that was about twice their size. It looked similar in color to the rubies, but was a darker, almost blood, red rather than the bright and cheerful red that the rubies exuded.

It would have seemed that that was it, but luckily Allen felt the need to look closer at the ring and noticed something he hadn't before. The boy quickly realized that there was another feature to the ring. One that, while not exactly hidden, could have been easily overlooked with just a cursory glance.

The inside of the ring was made of a different material than the outside or, at least, encrusted with it. This new material was such a pale pink that it was almost white in color. Allen had no idea what this material could be, but looking at it made the boy think of looking through a foggy glass with a pink hue. Allen absently noted that both the pink and the red embellishments complimented the main black substance of the ring. After taking notes of these things, Allen was finally able to draw his eyes from the admittedly strange but no less interesting piece of jewelry to the face of the person holding said piece of jewelry.

Just like many other times since he'd met the man (not sure if he has to be human to be considered a "man"), Allen found himself much too interested in what the demon might be thinking. A glance at Deak's face showed that he was still staring assessingly at the ring even as his facial features revealed nothing of what he was discovering from it. Deak's faced seemed closed off from emotion as he held the ring unnecessarily close to his face.

The small "conniving" part of Allen's mind that he disturbingly thought might have been growing since he became involved with Deak (A/N: Imagine that, consorting with demons makes you darker . . .), piped up that he should do something to wipe that blank look right off the other man's face and get him to show some emotion again. Just as Allen was considering what he should do to accomplish this, Deak came to a conclusion on the ring and spoke up.

"We will take this one." He said to the merchant. The merchant almost seemed relieved behind his irritation at the prospect of Allen and Deak retreating from his stall and quickly quoted Deak the price.

Having not been particularly cultured in fine items and jewelry, Allen had no real frame of reference to draw from to conclude that the man was trying to sell the piece for more than anyone else would be willing to pay, but he could always suspect it especially since he would not put it past the man. Deak didn't answer verbally giving Allen no insight into his thoughts on the pricing.

The white haired boy didn't say anything either as Deak reached into his satchel and came out with a little more than the "shopkeeper" had even asked for. He had learned by then that Deak did not really care for saving supplied and money and had a seemingly inexhaustible source of the latter. The man seemed surprised at the quick agreement to his pricing as if he had been expecting from strong reluctance to a big fight over it, but not acquiescence. No, it seemed he hadn't expected that at all.

He was so stunned that any actions he could (or should) have been performing just then completely fled his mind, leaving him looking something like a zombie or a husk of a man. He didn't even think of grabbing for the [exuberant amount of] money in the redhead's hand like the greedy man Allen scathingly pegged him as. Though it started to worry the white haired boy slightly when Deak nonchalantly moved to turn the merchant's hand palm up and dumped the coin in before placing the ring safely into a small compartment in his satchel.

The demon then turned away from the stall and the man still hadn't moved and neither had Allen. The ever perceptive Deak must have noticed this as he hastened to grab Allen's scarred hand, lacing the fingers with his own, pulling Allen away from the stall and leaving the merchant to his business (that he would likely resume once he got back to his senses).

"Should we really have just left him there?" Allen asked with reluctant concern for the merchant even though he did not really want to deal with the rather rude man and had yet to look back in his direction since the two had left.

"Of course." Deak said easily with a cheerful smile that made it seem as though he had just come out of his favorite bakery.

It never ceased to amaze Allen how Deak talk about anything (even kind of crazy things) with that completely innocent smile on his face. At the best of times, Allen found, it was like looking into the face of a little kid. This time was no different and Deak looked every bit the perfect angel even as the two boys were discussing the ramifications of leaving a petrified man in the street. A small feeling of fondness for the red headed demon rose in Allen's chest as he desperately tried to push the feeling down for reasons unknown to the white haired boy.

"He will be fine, I'm sure." Deak continued, pleasantly enough.

"So what are we going to do now?" Allen asked. "We've gotten what we came here for so are we going to go and find an inn now?"

Deak stopped walking for a moment and shot Allen an incredulous glance. "If we went and did that, we would likely end up spending the rest of the day sleeping or something equally as useless and that would just be a waste. No, we should enjoy this lovely day." Deak tightened his grip on Allen's hand and tugged the younger boy into another direction.

"Things could have changed, of course, since the last time I have been here, but I remember a fountain area where people (lovers) would sit and talk with one another."

"So we are going to sit and talk?" Allen inquired in a mildly surprised manner.

"There a problem?" Deak asked simply, giving Allen a sidelong look and raising an eyebrow in question.

"No, no! No question." Allen hurried to say. "It was just unexpected."

"Hm." Deak hummed, noncommittally. "At any rate, there was something specific that I thought we should talk about."

"Oh?" Allen looked at Deak, his expressive gray eyes widening dramatically.

"I recall promising you answers on my past life and I am a man of my word." Allen could not fight down a smile this time.

After much walking and looking around at the rest of the town, the two men found the remembered fountain still where it was during Deak's last visit over one hundred years ago. Heading over to the fountain, the two boys sat down together at the edge of it. Though they had wanted a discussion, there was almost an unspoken agreement between the two of them that it would be best to sit peacefully for at least a little while and enjoy the atmosphere before easing into the talk.

There were plenty of people about despite the cold weather and chilly air. While not drastically so, Allen could tell simply by how many people passed by them that this town's populace was quite a bit larger than his was. His old one had been, Allen reminded himself. Those people had done nothing for him and everything against him. Home or not, the boy knew it would be unwise to cling to a place that bred such resentment and bad memories. Those nasty villagers can have the town, Allen decided, I don't need it anymore.

As he thought about this, the boy's eyes followed a mother in what was probably very poor clothing for the area. She had very black hair hastily tied into two ponytails on either side of her hair. She was walking with her children with one child on each side of her with each of her hands holding onto a child. Even from a distance, Allen could tell she had a very firm grip on the children as if she was afraid they would disappear if she were to loosen her hold even slightly. She walked in the determined manner of someone who had a place to go and a time to be there and that time was the very next second.

He followed her with mildly interested eyes as she rushed past them and disappeared into the crowd behind them. Even though Allen wasn't interested in women in the manner that many (but not all) men were, he could easily tell that she was really very pretty compared to her class. And if she had had the opportunity to dress better, wear high-in-quality makeup and have not much to do with her time but work on how to present herself, she may have been even considered exquisitely beautiful.

Allen did wonder, however, how it was that she had children that looked to be around the ages of five and seven when she, herself, looked to be sixteen or seventeen (so around his age). Many women her age were married or about to be married, of course, especially in the higher classes, but he had never seen them have such old children by that age.

Perhaps they were her siblings, Allen thought, even if they didn't look exceedingly close to her in appearance to be so. With families working as hard as they had to to get by, it would make perfect sense for an older sibling to take on the child watching responsibilities although, traditionally, the elder of the siblings would take on work and bring in money rather than take on the children which the mother usually did in any circumstance. Did they have a mother? If not, then that was an equally applicable answer.

"Ahem." The sound of Deak clearing his throat in an effort to gain Allen's attention came from beside him.

Coming out of his stupor, Allen turned to his red haired fiancé who finally seemed ready to talk.