Chapter 37: Summerlight Festival
A week passed.
Then the Summerlight Festival arrived.
Mithra stepped out in the morning to find the entire town transformed. Lanterns hung between every building, filling the streets with warm golden light. Ribbons crossed overhead and flower garlands wrapped around the posts.
Music drifted in from every direction.
Arthur spread both arms wide. "The Summerlight Festival!"
Several people turned immediately.
"Arthur!"
"Hey."
"You brought someone!"
"I brought several people."
"Are they friends?"
"Yes."
Mithra blinked.
It had been three seconds, and Arthur was already greeting half the town.
Several children ran toward him.
"Arthur!"
He greeted every single one by name.
"Did you really beat a dragon?"
"Not by myself." He chuckled.
"That’s still amazing!"
"I knew you guys would understand!"
They all laughed before rushing off as he waved at them.
Mithra blinked. "...You know all of them?"
Arthur looked confused. "They live here."
"...Right."
Within five minutes, the baker had produced bread without being asked. The blacksmith slapped Arthur across the back hard enough to make him stumble.
The old woman had called him too thin.
"She said the same thing yesterday," Arthur said.
"That makes it more true," the old woman said, and walked on.
Mithra found herself holding a pastry that Arthur had handed her at some point between the blacksmith and the old woman without her having asked for one.
"Where did this come from?" she said.
"Festival stall," Arthur said.
"When did you get it?"
Arthur blinked. "Just now."
Mithra looked down at the pastry. She had not seen him go to a stall. She had not seen him buy anything. The pastry was simply present.
She ate it. It was good.
She looked around and saw nobody seemed in a hurry or guarded. People were just living their lives. It felt strangely peaceful.
"You’re impossible to track," she said.
"I know where everything is." Arthur nodded proudly. "So it’s easy."
Maria smiled. "He made it his mission to know the best spot for the festival."
Mithra giggled as she saw Arthur nodding with a proud look.
The mask stall stopped them.
Every shape of wooden mask lined the display: animals, monsters, festival creatures, abstract forms that were more pattern than face. Arthur picked up a green goblin mask and held it next to his face with the expression of someone who had found exactly what he was looking for.
Vedas did not look at it. "No."
"You didn’t see it."
"I felt it."
"It’s a very good mask."
"No."
"It would be funny."
Vedas turned to look at it for exactly long enough to confirm his position. "No."
Arthur looked at Maria.
"Absolutely," Maria said.
Vedas looked at Maria. Maria smiled at him with the warmth she brought to everything. Vedas appeared to understand that he had lost this particular vote before it was called.
Arthur put the goblin mask on.
Three children who had been walking past stopped, reversed course, and started pointing.
"He’s a goblin!"
"Arthur is a goblin!"
"A human goblin!"
Arthur held up one hand in what appeared to be a greeting from the human goblin community. The children erupted, and Vedas immediately looked away.
"He is suffering," Mithra said to no one in particular.
"He’s fine," Maria said.
"Not Vedas."
Maria looked at Vedas’s posture and reconsidered. "He’s learning," she said.
Melo, who had disappeared briefly during the mask excitement, reappeared wearing a fox mask. The fox mask was far too small, but Melo seemed completely satisfied with it.
Mithra produced her memory crystal immediately.
Melo, noticing the crystal, adjusted her posture and waited.
The resulting image was preserved before Melo acknowledged what had happened. Then she found an unattended skewer of something on a nearby table and took it.
"Melo," Vedas said.
Melo walked away with the skewer.
The food stalls became Arthur’s next destination. He moved through them swiftly. Fresh bread with salt and oil from a woman who clearly expected him and had two pieces ready before he stopped walking. Grilled meat on a stick from a stall that produced a roar of flame that made Melo flatten her ears.
A honey cake that Arthur declared the best thing currently existing, which the vendor appeared to agree with. Vedas moved through the stalls more carefully, with the attention of someone approaching new territory.
The baker found him.
This was inevitable.
"There’s the Commander!" The baker had the carrying voice of a person who baked for a living, which meant he could be heard well past the immediate area. He pressed three meat skewers into Vedas’s hands without asking. "No partner of Arthur’s goes through my festival hungry."
Vedas looked at the skewers. Then at the baker. "...thank you."
"Try them," the baker said.
Vedas tried one. His expression shifted in the direction of approval.
"Good," the baker said, satisfied with this evaluation. "Come by tomorrow; I’ll have something better."
He walked away. Vedas stared after him.
"Is everyone here like this?" he said.
"Mostly," Arthur said, biting into his honey cake.
"Should I be concerned?"
"No."
Maria smiled. "You’ll get used to it."
Vedas looked at Arthur. "...That concerns me more. The baker now expects me tomorrow."
"That’s fine."
"I haven’t agreed to anything."
Arthur looked at him. "You said thank you."
Vedas looked at the skewers and then at the baker who was waving now. He waved back without thinking. She knew a week ago, he never would’ve done that, and it seemed he realized it as well.
He had a shocked look.
Mithra laughed.
...
Arthur lost a ring toss competition to a seven-year-old.
This was not close. The child had a technique that suggested either natural talent or considerable practice, and Arthur had confidence that did not translate into accuracy. By the third round, the child was simply waiting for Arthur to finish so the win could be official.
Arthur sat on a bench afterward with the posture of someone processing a significant event.
"I have suffered a great loss," he said.
"It was ring toss," Mithra said.
"It was my dignity."
"You lost to a child."
"I’m aware."
"A seven-year-old."
"I’m also aware of that."
Mithra wiped her eyes. "The child has been telling everyone."
Arthur watched the child run past, still celebrating, informing a group of adults about the result with considerable enthusiasm.
"Let them have it," Arthur said, with the dignity of someone who had found acceptance.
"That’s generous of you," Mithra said.
"I’m a gracious loser."
Vedas said. "You were not gracious during rounds two and three."
Arthur looked at him.
Vedas looked back with the expression of someone reporting accurately. Melo, sitting nearby with the remains of her skewer, opened one eye and closed it again.
Then Mithra noticed a little girl running back over. "Arthur!"
"Hm? Did you forget something?"
"...You can have this."
Arthur blinked.
"For trying really hard." She handed him a tiny wooden badge.
Arthur smiled. "Thanks."
The little girl nodded seriously. "You almost got one."
Arthur smiled. "I’ll remember that."
The little girl smiled before running off.
Mithra laughed. "You technically still won something."
Arthur looked at the badge proudly. "I knew perseverance would pay off."
...
Vedas had entered the strength competition because children had dared him, which was apparently a sufficient reason.
The competition involved lifting a weighted stone to a marked height and holding it. The previous festival record had been held by the blacksmith, who had been present for the announcement and was watching with professional interest.
Vedas picked up the massive boulder, helped it, and set it down.
The record moved.
The silence lasted approximately two seconds before the children who had dared him processed what had happened.
"HE DID IT!"
"THE COMMANDER BROKE THE RECORD!"
Arthur immediately started clapping. The crowd joined him. The blacksmith inspected the marker, confirmed the result, and nodded once. "Good." The blacksmith clenched his fist. "A record that lasts forever is a boring record."
Vedas stood among the cheering people and looked like he had made a significant error in judgment.
Then the questions began.
"Can you beat a dragon?" one child demanded.
Vedas considered whether to answer. "...yes."
The children gasped as a group.
"Can you lift a house?"
"Probably."
"I want to test that someday."
Vedas immediately looked at Arthur. "...Please don’t."
More gasping.
"Can Goblin Commanders run faster than a Wyvern carriage?"
"No."
"Could you if you tried harder?"
"I don’t think speed works that way."
"Could you lift two houses?"
Vedas looked toward Arthur for assistance. Arthur was eating something from a new stall and offered none.
Mithra, watching from a comfortable distance, laughed until she had to sit down.
...
The lantern contest happened because Arthur signed them both up without asking.
"I never agreed to this," Mithra said, looking at the materials in front of her.
"You didn’t object," Arthur said.
"I didn’t know it was happening."
"That’s technically the same thing."
Mithra looked at the blank lantern in front of her, then at Arthur’s, which was already developing in a direction that she could only describe as enthusiastic. She picked up her brush.
Thirty minutes later: third place to someone else. Second to someone else. First to Mithra Lucis, of which she was informed by an announcer who appeared to consider this a significant victory.
"I don’t know what I did," Mithra said.
"You won," Arthur said.
"I just painted what felt right."
"That’s what winning is."
"That can’t be the definition."
"You are now the greatest festival lantern artist in Greenleaf history," Arthur said. "Possibly longer."
"It’s one festival."
"Titles don’t expire."
Mithra looked at Maria. "Help."
"I can’t," Maria said. "He’s right about the title."
"Unfortunately..." Arthur nodded seriously. "The law is very clear."
Mithra looked between them. "...There are laws about festival ribbons?"
Arthur said, "No."
"...There should be."
Vedas nodded in quiet confirmation.
...
Night settled over the festival with the gradual warmth of a good ending, and the lanterns that had been warm all day became something else against the dark sky.
Everyone slowly made their way toward the town square.
Arthur sat with Maria.
Mithra settled beside him.
Vedas stood just behind, and three children immediately materialized next to him to continue the questions from earlier. He answered them with the patience of someone who had decided patience was the correct approach.
Melo was asleep on Arthur’s shoulder before the first firework launched.
The first streak of gold rose into the sky.
The crowd cheered as it burst above them.
Melo opened one eye with her body shaking. Arthur gently stroked her head, making her realize everything was fine and went back to sleep.
Then more streaks followed.
Blue and red and silver and green, colors unfolding against the dark and then fading and being replaced by other colors, the whole of the sky taken up with light and sound.
Mithra looked up for the first part of it.
Then she stopped looking at the sky.
She looked at Maria laughing at something Arthur had said. Arthur watched the fireworks with the uncomplicated happiness of someone who had come home. At Vedas, who had stopped answering children’s questions because the children had stopped asking them and were all just looking up together at the same thing.
At Melo, who remained asleep through the explosions with the confidence of something that had decided the noise was not worth addressing.
At all of it.
The lanterns were warm. The fireworks were bright. The square was full of people who had been coming to this festival for years and intended to keep coming.
She couldn’t remember the last time a week had passed so quickly. Or the last time she hadn’t been counting the days.
Somewhere along the way...
This had stopped feeling like visiting Arthur’s hometown. It had quietly started feeling like a real home.
A beautiful smile appeared on her face as she gazed at the fireworks. She was so lost that she didn’t even notice Arthur turning his gaze to her and his eyes widening.
"Mithra..."
Mithra looked at him. "What?"
"You’ve got that true happy face of yours."
"... what are you talking about?"
"You should smile like that more." He tilted his head. "It looks nice."
Mithra opened her mouth and then closed it. Because Arthur had said it with the same sincerity he used when talking about something he likes.
Maria looked at Mithra’s expression and then quietly smiled to herself as she understood. But that didn’t stop her from laughing as well.
Vedas turned to look at something in the opposite direction with suspicious speed. Melo opened one eye before lightly saying a Kyu, and then staring at the sky.
Arthur looked at all of them. "What?"
Mithra’s face was warm, and she turned back to the sky.
The fireworks continued.
She wasn’t thinking about tomorrow.
Tonight was enough.
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