[PLAINS FINAL]

Masaru jolts awake with urgency on the breezy summer hillside.

“Everyone get up. Come on!” Masaru exclaims, his heart beating at a maddening pace as he rushes up the hill.

“Wow, pretty!” Yuna exclaims as she springs about the grass.

Valerie’s up next. “Right, the… we need to get to the town.”

It takes Sato… a few seconds, but eventually he gets up to his feet and begins huffing up the hillside.

“Let’s… let’s do it!” he barks out, somehow already breaking a sweat.

Masaru, pushing his salaryman body to its limits, crests the hill and sees it once again.

A group of a few dozen medieval-inspired buildings, smoke spiraling up through chimneys.

“Maybe this is a fantasy theme after all,” he observes as he starts down at a mad pace.

“Why are you running so fast Mister Abe?!” Yuna shouts, doing her best to rush along, albeit much more slowly than Masaru’s surprisingly able physique.

“We have limited time,” Valerie says. “The Knight appears when the sun hits the hill.”

“The Knight?” Yuna asks loudly, on the verge of shouting as they run along. “Wait, does he have a horse?!”

Masaru’s expression deadens as Valerie scoffs. “I mean, yes, I suppose a knight would have a hor-”

“Wow! Were they a boy horse or a girl horse? Did you guys get a ride?” Yuna asks, her eyes wide. “What color were they? Did you get to feed them appl-”

“No! No!” Valerie laughs back as their voices diminish from their growing distance to Masaru. “Bad horse! Mean horse!”

“…Okay but was it a Boy mean horse, or a Girl mean horse?!”

Valerie sighs and does her best to explain as the noise of Sato’s exhausted breathing disappears against the fast breeze of Masaru’s body rushing down the hill.

It take him a whole minute more, but he finally gets to the village, and after signalling to the others, enters the first one he can get to.

It’s… surprisingly unsurprising.

Masaru was half expecting some kind of amusement park, or a police station, or some vague thing that would imply some kind of deeply seated trauma.

“Okay… so what’s this supposed to be?” a gasping Masaru sighs out as he looks over the extremely plain fantasy cabin.

It’s not even like a lived-in place, it has a sterility to the torch-lit room, an insulting simplicity. There’s windows, the furnishings are all wood, the walls are all painted a calming, rustic beige.

A counter sits in the middle of the place, with a paper form of a man dressed up in a brown tunic waiting for customers.

Masaru clears his throat as he decides to address the figure. “Uh-”

“Hail, hero!” the gruff-sounding paper man begins. “What brings you to our fair town?”

Masaru looks around a little more, half expecting a trap to spring into his face, but the disarming simplicity of the place reassures him that this isn’t the way this place plays.

“I uh…” Masaru clears his throat as he finally gives the store manager his attention. “Hail, sir. I’ve traveled with my… merry band of heroes to uh… defeat the wicked knight!”

The paper figure leaps up, as if lifted by invisible strings above, or the hand of a puppeteer from below.

“Oh! How fortuitous! A band of heroes, blessed by The Lord Crystals!” it exclaims. “But… for the purpose of defeating The Knight?”

Masaru smiles as he hears the noisy panting of Sato in the distance.

“Well… yeah! So how’st would we defeat said dastardly knight?”

“It’s quite the simple, time-honored process,” the paper form explains as it bounces back and forth in elation. Masaru smirks at it as it shifts about in the torchlight. Based on the angle that the light hits it at, the villager could look indistinguishable from the real thing. “Simply take a steed, prepare your equipment, and meet The Knight at Sundown. He is an honorable warrior and will only begin when you’ve shown your commitment.”

Masaru pauses for a moment.

“…What?”

The paper person slows down its movements as if to imply serious conversation.

“It values respecting the order of society more than anything. It will allow you to take your stand if you meet it respectfully.”

“That’s… that’s stupid,” Masaru says as Valerie and Yuna enter the store, both short of breath. “It used magic to blow our cover. We didn’t do anything…” he stops himself mid-thought. “But each time… I guess we did try and get advantage by shooting at him…” He squints, and slowly realization crosses his features. “…oh.”

“Oh indeed,” the paper shopkeeper says with a single bounce. “Society is driven by rules, order, expectations. The Knight respects those rules to defend us.”

“The Knight defends… you?” Masaru asks as Valerie squints at the entire, weird situation in front of her.

The paper shopkeeper pops up chipperly. “Oh, most certainly. It is by his strength that our town continues to flourish. Without society’s protectors, why, we couldn’t even keep a single fold of our paper wrapped correctly!”

Masaru stumbles over his next words, but Valerie, picking up quickly as usual, steps forward.

“So… The Knight is a representation of society and its rules… the authority that protects us?”

“Just so, fair maiden. One may villainize The Knight, but he stands sure to defend the very source of our town. We cannot exist without those that would enforce the rules required for our own existence, can we?”

Valerie looks to Masaru, whose eyes are slant in thought.

“I think… that makes a lot of sense, actually,” Valerie says. “I came to hate authority because of what it did to me, I overlooked what it does for me because of the times people over me misused their power, right?”

“The odds are not small,” the paper man responds. “It is easy to dislike those who rule over you when you do not understand the rules they must live by, especially when those people are cruel.”

Valerie nods as Yuna beams with joy, mostly at the sight of the silly paper man popping up and down.

“Yeah… because… because we have to meet them at their level. We have to get on their level to defeat them. Play society’s game to move past society’s worst parts.”

“That’s the way of humans, I suppose. And you all, blessed by The Crystals, must do so in the form of-”

“A joust,” Valerie interrupts with wide eyes. She looks to Masaru. “This is it. We just need to ride up on a horse and face him head-on!”

Masaru, his arms crossed, shakes his head.

“But that’s… I’ve never been on a horse before-”

“It doesn’t matter,” Valerie says. “It wants to see us match its rules, its preparation. We’ll see through its authority once we’ve come to understand why it exists in the first place.”

“The… protection of society, but it’s… stupid.”

Valerie grasps Masaru’s shoulder. “No, Masaru. It was… it was always supposed to be this way. This rifle… I leaned back on what gave me comfort. We were fighting authority the wrong way.”

Masaru squints again, turning away to look at the torches, and then the paper man, and then back to Valerie. “All this time… I was so… bitter.”

“And now you don’t have to be. We can rise to its level. We can embrace the rules to break free. Don’t you get it? Meeting The Knight on its playing field is the only way to surpass it.”

Yuna nods. “That’s right, Mister Abe. Maybe you should play fair.”

“We… we were playing fair,” he sighs.

“But were you playing fair to The Knight? It sounds like it decides the rules.”

Masaru suppresses the desire to tell the little kid to keep quiet, but their words take root in his mind.

“I…” he closes his eyes, and just as Sato finally, breathlessly lumbers in, he opens them again. “You’re right… you’re all right… Let’s do it.”

Valerie smiles and Yuna jumps just as the paper shopkeeper does.

“Capital! I’ll prepare your steed right awa-”

The whinny of a horse, like an otherworldly chime, cuts through the air, the walls, the space of the atmosphere.

Masaru turns to the door.

“It’s time,” the paper man says with a certain bounce. “Your steed will be out front.”