Chapter 21- The Gentle Panic

The festival was alive again.

Not just surviving. Not just rebuilding.

But alive.

The air shimmered faintly with dew spirit trails, tiny threads of green and gold light like soap bubbles spun too tight. Lanterns swayed overhead, and somewhere in the distance, a fiddle was flirting with a drum. The crowd pulsed in small waves—dancers tipping to laughter, couples swirling on the dirt-worn wood, the music guiding them all like invisible threads tugged from a music box.

Ydoc’s boots whispered along the grass and plankwork.

Each step forward seemed to carry more weight than the last.

He passed between tents—some striped, some mismatched, some staked only with prayer. The voices were soft, polite.

“—you’ll see, your grace, once the sun’s down, the lanterns do most of the—”

“It’s still unsanctioned, you know. An open celebration within contested land. We’re lucky Parliament hasn’t caught wind.”

Two figures stood near a red-and-gold post: one tall and broad-shouldered, his silver armor dulled with journey dust; the other—an elf—tall and sleek in profile, his pale blue cape marked with a curling sun crest.

Ydoc glanced at them only briefly.

He didn’t register them.

They felt like… background noise. Like remembering the color of a hallway wallpaper you walked past as a child. Important, maybe, but not today.

Everything in his body was tuned like a wire, like a struck string humming softly beneath the surface of his ribs.

Left. Right. Left again.

A glimpse of a shoony family laughing around a fire. A clown tossing three apples into the air. A dancer with glowing sashes that left neon ribbons through the twilight.

None of it held him.

He was floating through the warmth like a ghost given shape, pushing through waves of memory that didn’t know his name.

Then the stage began to glow.

A wash of amber and violet. Fairylights strung in the canopy began to shimmer, catching dusk’s last breath like nets catching stars.

Ydoc’s pulse—up until now a soft hum—quivered. Then quickened.

He didn’t know why.

His steps slowed. His chest tightened, as if someone had whispered a forbidden word nearby. Something about the glow of that stage, the way the lights curled around the audience—it made the hair on his arms rise.

Why is my heart racing?

He placed a hand gently against the wooden frame of a nearby tent, steadying himself. There was a tang of cold sweat in his gloves.

The laughter around him blurred.

A voice shouted—playful, far-off. A group of revelers whooped at a pie-toss game nearby. A little girl ran past him chasing a frog on a string.

But Ydoc didn’t see them.

The tent. Lucy’s tent.

That was the goal.

That was the truth. He had something to say. To fix.

He didn’t know exactly what yet—only that she had cried, or maybe he had, or maybe neither of them had said what they were meant to. But he would make it right. He would smile, and she would remember, and they would start again.

He just needed to get there.

His knees buckled slightly—just for a second. The music had shifted keys, didn’t it? A half-step down. The fiddle now echoing something less dance, more dream.

The light grew warmer. Everything else grew quieter.

He reached out, brushing open the flap of the pale blue tent. His breath caught in his throat.

But what greeted him was silence.

No Lucy.
No table.
No papers. No candles.
No half-finished art or sketches with their inky fingerprints.

Just—
A hollow space.

The entire inside of the tent looked as though it had been packed up hours ago, maybe even yesterday. The fabric of the ground was flat, unstirred. A few drooping stalks of once-bright flowers rested near the back, now slumped over like they’d been forgotten long before sundown.

What...?

Ydoc didn’t move.

The golden festival light still poured in behind him, warm and flickering. But inside the tent, it felt like someone had taken the air and replaced it with water.

His boots didn’t echo. They sank.

He took one step forward. Then another.

The soft hiss of fabric brushing his coat sleeve felt too loud, like it didn’t belong in a world this still.

Kneeling slowly, he reached for one of the flowers—a rose. Or at least, it had been. Pale and blushing once, now stiff, brittle. The petals were curling like parchment, edges scorched faintly brown. As he touched it, a few flakes of dried bloom broke off, crumbling like sand.

He picked it up anyway.

A ghost of a smile twitched at his lips. One of those smiles people wear when something tugs at a memory they can’t find.

She was here… wasn’t she?

The weight of the rose in his hand was wrong.

Too heavy.
Too final.

Outside the tent, he could hear the world moving on.

A trumpet blared—not harshly, but bright. A call to attention. Laughter bubbled near the stage. The crowd—hundreds now—was beginning to gather, their silhouettes dancing against the firelight like shadows trapped in a music box.

And then, a voice boomed.

“LADIES AND GENTLESPIRITS! ROYALS AND RASCALS! BEASTS AND BARDLINGS!”

Ydoc pushed open the flap again, stepping out just as the light hit full orange—a golden stage flare sent into the darkening sky.

The crowd had formed a half-ring, all drawn to the main stage, where a tall figure had taken center.

He stood with the sharpness of a striking match.

Thin. Towering. With slick-back white-blonde hair bound in a cord behind his ear. His coat was striped deep red and black, with an upturned collar that fluttered slightly as he walked. In his right hand, a long, elegantly cruel cane—tapped against the stage with a rhythm that echoed across the square.

“You may call me Aleon!”
“Aleon the Untamed!”
“And tonight… for our final act... you are not watching the play.”

He grinned wide, too wide.

“You are the play.”

The crowd whooped and clapped, caught in the enchantment of the moment.

But Ydoc—standing just outside Lucy’s hollow tent—did not clap.

He held the rose gently in his palm, brushing a finger down its dry, splintering stem.

His heart felt slower. His breath heavier. As though he was the only thing caught in amber, while the festival crescendoed.

He was not angry.

Not even sad.

But he felt something stir.

Something like forgetting.
Something like remembering.
Something like the feeling of sitting in a chair, only to find it cold…
…because someone else left it warm a moment ago.

The show had begun.

And somehow, he had missed the rehearsals.