Day of Parades

A couple days have passed since Yoruhi had discovered the three elements he was capable of wielding, and his magic training sessions with Mizuki had suddenly gone quiet. When he asked her yesterday about why she wasn’t in the mana room, she explained that she was busy getting the preparations for his magic style training ready, and that for now he should just focus on being able to use his enhancing magic on command.

And so it was the Day of Parades: the sixth and, to many people, last interesting day of the Solstice Festival. Tomorrow would be the Day of Cleansing, where everyone worked together to clean up after the festival and prepare for the new year.

Yoruhi was understandably not excited about this, and so to distract his mind from the upcoming day of gloom, he practiced detecting the magicules in his body on the front porch of the estate. Progress was slow, but he could tell he was getting better at it. With his arms raised out in front of him, he could sometimes feel a tingling sensation, almost like a spark of electricity that told him the magicules were just out of his detection range.

C’mon, he thought, I’ve been working on this for a few days now, surely I should be able to feel them by today right?

The gifted side of him was becoming frustrated and he was impatiently waiting for the day his progress would finally pay off. He’d already been working on it until late in the afternoon after all.

It wasn’t like all he did was extend his arms out either; he also tried to practice detecting the magicules in the air, believing that figuring those out first could maybe improve the understanding of the ones in his body. Now that he understood the concept of magic styles and knew what elements he was capable of wielding, he tried applying the ideas behind them.

Combust, he thought. Combust combust combust.

And when that didn’t work:

Freeze! He commanded. Slow down!

And when even that didn’t work, he thought: uhhh… regenerate?

He didn’t know what exactly he was telling to regenerate, because he had nothing to practice it on. There were no natural plants growing anywhere other than the flowers that were planted by the city, but picking them up from their positions was illegal and imposed a fine.

He sighed and looked up from the snow. It was here that he noticed people beginning to gather around along the sides of the road.

What are they doing? He wondered.

Each of them lined up in anticipation of something, chattering and talking with each other too noisily for Yoruhi to concentrate. He felt the urge to yell at everyone to be quiet, but he wasn’t stupid enough to do that.

Suddenly, Tatsuko bursted out the door, and yelled, “The parade! The parade is starting soon!”

Parade? He thought, and that’s when the boy remembered that today was the Day of Parades.

The parade itself was a massive event and began from the center of the city before marching through the streets until it passed by every house. It started early in the evening and continued well into the night, and the parade had finally reached the sector of Hanamichi that Yoruhi lived in.

“Come on Yoruhi, let’s go find Ryuji!” his sister said, grabbing his hand and dragging him through the crowd.

“Wait you two, where are you going?!” Nene yelled from behind them, but Tatsuko had already run off into the crowd and from her distance, she couldn’t hear the little fairy.

The two of them weaved through the groups of people, crossing the streets and entering another crowd on the other side. Their small bodies were short enough to quickly pass by everyone’s legs, but not thin enough to avoid bumping into anyone. As they ran, Yoruhi would occasionally bump into a fluff of feathers from the avikins, or crash into a poor fairy’s leg as they floated just barely above his head.

Yoruhi didn’t know where or how far he was being dragged for he did not know where Ryuji lived and all he could see was a myriad of colored haoris, feathers, fairy dust, and the white snow beneath him. What he also didn’t know was that Tatsuko didn’t know where she was going either, and was relying on her instincts to remember the direction to Ryuji’s house from the few times she’d gone to visit him.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, another group of kids rushed through the crowd, bumping into him and his sister and severing their linked hands. Yoruhi tumbled to the ground and rolled between the legs of the crowd passing by.

By the time he could make sense of his surroundings, he didn’t see where Tatsuko had gone.

“Tatsuko!” he called out, but his small voice couldn’t be heard above the chattering of the people around him.

Confused and lost, he looked up to the best of his ability, and spotted a tree that was so tall that it stood above everything else: the library.

Pushing his way through the crowd, he marched his way towards the tree, and sat amongst the people gathering around its tall steps.

I should wait where I am, he thought, knowing it was better to stay in one place when you were lost. Since Nene is looking for me, she’ll find me eventually.

But because he was so short and Nene hadn’t placed a tracker on him, he blended easily amongst the crowd. It didn’t make it any easier that he was wearing the white haori he received a few days ago, and so his wardrobe didn’t stand out anymore amongst the citizens.

He waited until the parade had well started and the sun began to set, and it was at this point he just accepted the fact that he wasn’t going to be found until the parade was over, to which he could then easily navigate himself back to the estate. He considered walking back to the estate now, but it was dangerous for a small kid to walk into the streets of an ongoing parade. In all honesty, he was more worried about Tatsuko.

The parade was loud and the cheering and oohs and aahs from the crowd was even louder. A few interesting floats marched by that utilized magic to create extravagant effects that caught Yoruhi’s interest, but he otherwise found the parade to be very boring. The use of magic only seemed to remind him that he was not yet capable of using it yet, and he hated how loud the music was. Parade music wasn’t really his thing, and so after getting tired with everything, he leaned against the giant doors of the library, only to find out they were open upon falling backwards and hitting his head.

The library isn’t closed? He wondered, sitting up and soothing the pain.

It was supposed to be closed on the Day of Parades, for the noise outside made it hard to focus inside, however the doors were unlocked for some reason. Looking around warily, he decided to quickly sneak inside to escape from the parade and roam around freely.

He figured that because he was a kid, he wouldn’t get into much trouble for doing so.

A few lights of the library were still on despite it being closed. The purpose was so that custodial staff could properly clean and safely evacuate the building if an emergency occurred. This played into Yoruhi’s favor as it allowed him to explore where he wanted without getting hurt.

As expected, the sounds of the parade could still be heard from outside the library and so he made it his first goal to a find a place in the library where it was the quietest. He decided that such a place should theoretically be at the furthest point away from the parade, which would be somewhere vertically since the parade surrounded the roots of the library outside.

And so he took the elevator up to the highest floor, where he was surprised to discover that he wasn’t alone. Instead, there was a little girl with white hair who sat by the window, looking down at the parade below.

“Altair?” he asked.

She turned around upon hearing him. Yoruhi noticed two things different about her: on her right wrist was a white-and-yellow bracelet, and in her hair was an additional flower next to the grotesque red one—an edelweiss attached onto a black ribbon.

“Yoruhi?” she asked back, “what are you doing here? You aren’t supposed to be here.”

“And you aren’t either,” he pointed out.

“Yes I am. I got permission,” she explained, “My dad asked the staff if I could use the library to safely look at the parade because of my condition, and they said yes.”

Huh, I didn’t know he could pull strings like that, Yoruhi thought, but it would explain why the doors were open.

“Do you mind if we watch it together?” he asked, not wanting to be alone in this empty room.

Altair, feeling the same way, made room on the bench she sat on, and the two of them silently watched the parade below. The sounds were much quieter from this distance, and were almost faint in a sort of a way. The distant noises of the crackling magic and the chattering of the people made Yoruhi feel lonely despite sitting next to a friend.

“So…” Altair suddenly said without looking at him, “you didn’t answer my question from earlier. Why are you at the library?”

“I got lost in the crowd,” he admitted, “and just so happened to discover that the doors of the library were open when I leaned against it and hit my head on the floor.”

She giggled.

“Did you read the books I sent you?” she asked.

“Yeah, they were pretty good,” he said and then thought, although they were a bit too childish to my tastes.

He looked over to her.

“I see you’re wearing the friendship bracelet Ryuji sent us,” he pointed out and then showed her his wrist, “He gave me this one.”

She smiled.

“I’m also wearing the ribbon you gave me,” she added, brushing her hair back.

“It looks good.”

“Thanks.”

The two of them sat in silence once more, staring at the parade below.

“What did my sister give you by the way?” Yoruhi asked.

“Some running shoes… with a note written by your mom that said she wants to walk with me to help me practice…”

“That’s nice,” Yoruhi said. He didn’t take Tatsuko to be such a thoughtful kid, but when it came to presents, she always seemed to know what was best .

A shot of magic fired into the air from one of the parade floats and crackled like a firework before dissipating into sparks of magicules.

“Yoruhi…?” Altair quietly asked.

“What is it?”

“Do you really think I can be an adventurer one day?”

Yoruhi smiled.

“Of course,” he said, “I don’t see why not.”