Little Tea Party

“There you go!” said Leonard while carefully pouring the hot tea into the cup. As he finished filling the tea in the cup, Leonard lowered his head and bowed to him. For some reason it caught Kaen by surprise. Even for his age, what Leonard’s doing was a bit too mature for his age, Kaen did not expect such etiquette from a child.

“Leon, isn’t this a bit too much,” Kaen asked, overwhelmed by Leonard’s little tea party.

“Eh this is nothing compared to the hot chocolate that you gave me last night,” continued Leonard pouring his tea for himself and Oskari.

“Leonard, you’re being too modest,” exclaimed Oskari, for once he wasn’t reading a book. “Nothing, as good as drinking tea in the morning,” Oskari remarked as closed his eyes and sipped the tea. But a sudden interruption came from Kaen, “Padre, Did you forget something?”

“Huh?” Oskari opened his eyes.

“Did you forget to bless the tea first?”

Taken aback by it, Oskari bursted out the tea from his mouth. “A-a… y-you right, sorry, where’s my manner,” he said while regaining his composure while patting his robe. Leonard chuckled a bit at his antics but his attention slowly averted to Kaen. For a quick second, his face turned serious, but suddenly he changed into more relaxed and he just laughed it off. Kaen was probably thinking that Oskari is just a child and he acts like a child, a priest or not, a child is a child.

Leonard knew that Oskari was just acting like a priest in front of people, solely for just to save his face, and sometimes he forgot to act like one. Oskari always hated being a monk, he said that many times, and that's still true to this day. His adoration of books was the sole motivation for why he still remained as a monk, and unfortunately, it only doomed him to being promoted into priest. But lucky for both of them, Oskari and Leonard were granted permission to leave the temple by the archbishop and Leonard was given a role as priest's retainer, to do the temple service, but deep down they know it's all of that only just for a show, and Leonard agreed with him to play along.

Oskari retrieved a bell from his robe and raised the other hand with his palm open. As the bell rang three times, he cleared his throat and started to speak.

“A-as we gathered before this table. By the grace of the Triumvirate, Lady Yansan the god of wisdom, Lord Haresu the god of tribunal, and Lord Hairmesu the god of delusion. We thank you for the meals that have been given to us, may your blessing forever be lasting until the end of time. Mi… D-devasu benini m-miru tjon hun… benisu. Amen.”

He struggled quite a bit with the prayer’s word but eventually finished it off.

“Amen,” exclaimed Kaen followed by a faint amen from Leonard. Leonard looked at Kaen again, a small satisfaction seen from his face.

Oskari sighed out of relief and soon he darted his hand to the tea. The cup touched his lips. “Ahhhhhhhhh…” he was relieved as he put his hand on his cheek while he drank his tea. “You know Leon, you should open a tea shop one day," he said jokingly.

Leonard just laughed it off. But his attention diverted to the eruvan, Kaen took a long look at the tea before he drank it. He took one sip.

“Not bad, kid,” he said, amused by Leonard’s tea.

Leonard just replied with a smile. Looking at them, drinking his tea, somehow brings a sense of warmth and comfort to him. He could tell that from their bright faces.

One thing that he couldn’t believe was that learning to make tea could make such a neat skill to learn. All of that thanks to Anne’s hardwork and effort to teach him to learn to make tea years ago. He remembered during his lesson session, she always said “A fine gentleman must know how to serve a good tea,” or something along with that. Leonard always thought it was just one of many other complicated aristocratic etiquette that she taught him. Never ever came to his mind that such little as that could make a lasting impression.

While they were having a little tea party. A middle aged man rushed in as he approached them. The man's face was quite nervous, he went silent for a while, catching his breath.

“F-forgive my intrusion, Padre,” said the man, still patting his breath.

“What’s wrong?” said Oskari as he hastily got up from the ground.

“I-if you don’t mind, could you do the morning prayer service?” said the man, “We’re willing to pay for it, padre.”

Upon hearing that Oskari sighed and rubbed his forehead. At first, Leonard thought the man needed help for something dire, but he was just asked for morning prayer service. One of Oskari's worst nightmare, eventually he needed to catch up with it. Oskari took a deep breath and briefly went to his tent to pick up some books and went to do the priestly job.

Leonard looked at him as he waddled into the tent, Oskari’s face slowly becoming annoyed. Funny that as a bookworm, out of any book inside of his robe, the Book of Prayer, a priest's bread and butter, an item that should be brought anywhere and anytime was not inside his robe, that’s how much he hated being a priest, Leonard thought.

“Poor him, all he wanted was a peaceful morning,” Leonard remarked, feeling sorry for him.

“That's just the responsibility of becoming a priest,” Kaen added while enjoying his tea. “He will learn, that's why I reminded him to pray for the meals earlier.”

Leonard was surprised by his words. Now he understood why Kaen did that earlier.

“Leon, if you don’t mind, what is your next destination?” Kaen asked.

“I’m not entirely sure where to go. As for now, I’m just following Oskari to do his service, traveling from town to town.”

“You are not looking for your friend?”

“Of course I’m,”

“Leon, if she really is the person you are looking for, my best bet is you to check at the local adventurer's guild, they usually keep who are checking in in the guild.”

Leonard nodded in reply.

“Well then, do you have any maps with you?”

“I think I have one in my bag,” he retrieved a map within his bag and laid it open on the grass.

It was the map that he took from the library, which he meant to borrow. Taking a glance at it, Leonard skimmed the map, trying to remember the name of the village.

“We are already a day away from Vorskrig,” Kaen muttered. “If my intuition is correct, we should be here right now,” he pointed to the top left of the map. “The Great Prairie,” he exclaimed.

“Then our next stop should be in…” Kaen moved his index finger to the right and stopped at a town symbol. “...Reindelle,” he tapped his finger to the map.

“Yes, it's Reindelle, I remember now Oskari told me once,” Leonard said with high hopes, only to realize he didn’t know anything about the town.

“Eh… What’s Reindelle?” Leonard asked curiously.

“You don’t know about Reindelle? Where have you been all this time? Living under the rock? Kaen replied, teased him a bit.

“Uh.. yeah? Kinda?” said Leonard.

As Kaen slowly closed his eyes, he couldn’t help but realize how dumb his question was. Leonard looked at him, and thought that Kaen would say something like "Of course you don't know anything about it, you lived as a monk." Kaen placed his hand on his face. For a moment, he felt embarrassed and dumb after saying that, but he quickly recovered from it.

“I forgot you guys live in the Temple, the most secluded place in the country.”

Leonard just chuckled at Kaen’s sudden realization. A glimpse of a moment like this was something he would always have wanted to cherish. Finding joy in the most unexpected circumstances momentarily brought joy and comfort to his aching heart.

Despite finding a moment of joy, it was not always easy for him to stay cheerful. There was always a moment that he fell silent and lost in his thoughts, as the smile from his face gradually faded away. The feeling of emptiness still shrouded his thoughts. No matter how many times he tried to shrug it off, he couldn’t. Perhaps it was because the boy missed them so much. Sheera and Anne, both of them are the only reasons that he was trying to keep smiling and trying to remain composed despite his inner turmoil.

All he wanted was just to say sorry and tell how he missed them so much. And ends the nightmare that he had. He knew, he could make it, he knew he could meet with them again. Even if it took him years to get there.

And make amends with his nightmare and turn it into a precious memory that it deserved.