A Festival to remember

The sun slowly dipped as the festival began to illuminate, shining through the splendor night sky with its lights. Leonard rested his chin on his arm while overlooking the festival through the inn’s windowsill, hustling crowds on the street below him. The distant sound of music and jumbled chatter of the people bustling around reached to his ears, as if inviting him to join in the festivities.

For a moment, Leonard looked back at Oskari, alone while solemnly engrossed in his book in the corner of the room, his lips moving subtly, murmuring words that were inaudible to him as he recited the prayer book for the princess debut ceremony.

Once more, he averted his gaze to the bustling crowds. “Are you still sure you don't want to go down?” he added, trying to convince him again. He waited for an answer but Oskari didn’t reply to him.

“The night is still young, there’s still plenty of time for it,” Leonard said, turning his head towards Oskari.

“I’m good,” Oskari replied with a monotonous tone, his eyes focused on the prayer’s book. Once again, Leonard turned his head away from him. For a while a silence happened between them.

“Ne.. Oskari,” said Leonard, breaking the silence between them.

“Hmm?”

“Aren’t you tired of being a priest,” a lingering question that has been hanging in his head for a while. He always took pity on him on that matter. Being a priest is not an easy job for him especially if even himself did not even want to be one.

“At first I was quite annoyed by it, but now I’m kinda getting used to it,” he sighed a bit. “It’s no secret that being a priest weighs a burden on me…” his voice trailed off. “However, there is something that I quite enjoyed.”

“What is it?”

“Somehow it makes me grateful to make people smile, to heal people's wounds, to help the elders or even kids like us. I'm glad that my presence brings joy and happiness to the people who need my service."

Leonard's eyes widened as he did not expect Oskari to say that. Perhaps that this journey so far might have changed his view, something a little push like that could change people’s perspective.

“On the other hand, Eheheh…” a grin was painted all over his face.

“Why are you laughing,” asked Leonard.

Oskari leaned back on his chair and pointed his finger up. “You know what, we're kinda well off. Have plenty of gold coins from the service,”

Leonard raised his eyebrow amused by what Oskari said. “So now your motivation is to get a lot of money from the service,”

“YES!” remarked Oskari quickly, without any hesitation. “Oh Oskari, I thought you changed,” Leonard shook his head but not denying that he agreed on that. “Well then, since you have a lot of money, I’ll charge you two silver coins for every tea in the morning.”

“Ay! I didn’t mean that,”

“I was just joking,” Leonard chuckled a bit.

Oskari rose from his chair and stretched his arm above his head.

“Wait, are you going to the festival?”

“What? No!” Oskari replied as he yawned. “I’m going to sleep,” he launched himself to the bed. “Ahhhh… heaven.”

“All right I'm off then,” said Leonard, straightened up from his leaning and walked to Oskari, patting Oskari's shoulder. Leonard turned away and headed towards the door as he put his mask on and his bowler hat.

As he went down the stairs, he was greeted by a piano tune coming from under the stairs. Peeked around the corner of the stairs. The inn was quite lively tonight, he thought. A lot of people share drinks, dance and sing along with the piano tune.

Drunk people, too many drunk people. The whole room reeks of the smell of ale.

“L-leon!” exclaimed the voice from the other side of the room. It was Kaen, playing the piano and quite drunk from the look of it.

Leonard raised his hand and waved to him as he meandered through the crowds towards the door. As he opened the door, it felt like he was transported to another dimension. A kaleidoscope of colors, music, and smells intertwined with each other.

With his small body he could easily wander through the dense crowds of the festival. He tried to stop at every bazaar, whichever catched his eyes first. As he was about to buy some food, his hand was grabbed by someone.

“Hattie?” remarked Leonard.

“How did you know it's me? I’m wearing a mask, you know.”

“Your golden hair and ears, it's quite easy to distinguish you know,” teased him.

“Wait really?” She opened her mask and catched a small breath. “It's quite hot under the mask,” remarked her.

“What are you doing here anyway?”

“You dummy, same as you, enjoying the festival.” she flicked his head.

“Hey what's that for, why does everyone love to flick my forehead.”

Hattie reached out her hand to Leonard.

“Take my hand,” she said. “I could show you something amazing.”

Leonard averted his gaze to the bazaar and was a bit hesitant but then she chimed in. “Well what are you going to do anyway? Sitting all night here all alone?”

Upon hearing her saying, without any more waiting, Leonard grabbed her hand. She quite reminded him of Sheera, almost too nostalgic, he thought. For a moment they exchanged their eyes and nodded with each other. She started to walk a little and dragged along Leonard with her amongst the crowds. “Where would you take me?” exclaimed Leonard. He couldn’t hear anything but a small laughter from her through the bustling streets, as if his world was focused on her.

She stopped for a while, and let go of his hand from her grasp. “We are going to the city plaza!” remarked her with her mischievous grin followed by her arm stretched open.

“Something interesting going there?” asked Leonard out of curiosity.

“You will see,” she said as her eyes sparkled beneath her mask. She continued to grab his hand and dashed through the crowds.

“There you go! The cavalry had just arrived! She exclaimed with full energy.

Upon arriving in the plaza, the plaza itself was more like an amphitheater with multiple steps, function as well as seats for spectators. The seats were almost full but Leonard noticed that there's a couple empty seats in the second rows from the bottom.

As they descended through the stairs, Leonard couldn’t help himself but to look at the plaza full of people waltzing accompanied by the small music assembled near the fountain. It was quite like the show he saw earlier that day.

“A beautiful performance right?”

“Ah it is,” he said, fascinated by it. “Hattie look at it,” he pointed his finger to the performance. The crowd began to erupt in awe as the performance levitated themselves in the air.

"It’s called the Waltz of a Thousand Stars," she remarked. "A traditional waltz unique to this city. It is said that the dancer mimics the movement of the stars in the night sky. That's why they wear a black costume adorned with reflective ornaments on their costume that mimic stars, creating a mesmerizing display as they move.

"Thousand Stars," Leonard replied, his eyes following the dancer's movements as they glided in the air across the plaza.

"Thousand Stars…" For some reason unknown to him, those words seemed familiar.

"Stars…" his voice trailed off, and his vision blurred as his head grew heavy.

"Leon?" Hattie turned her head to Leonard. "Are you okay?" a worried face looked from her.

"Yeah, I probably just need some fresh air," he said, attempting to get up from his seat but stumbling to the ground. He heard the crowd gasp followed by a loud gust of wind that seemed to swirl around him and picked up his body.

“Ah…”

“This reminded me of THAT night again”

“Why is it happening again?”

"Why now?"

"After all I've been through"