Author's Note: I apologize, since that is all that I can do. I've tried my best to repair what I've damaged and have therefore rewritten the last half of the previous chapter and this one can even be considered completely new. I suggest you read the previous chapter too, but that's up to you.
I'm also sorry for making you wait. I won't bother you with stories about why I'm slow. I'll only tell you that I've been going through some things lately that I have a hard time dealing with.
I hope that you'll still be willing to read this story and to continue telling me your opinion, whether it's good or bad, as long as you tell me why it's good or bad, so that I can improve this story and the ones to come. Feel free to PM me with any questions if you have any, since I'm not likely to answer them through reviews.
I thank you for still reading this.
It was nothing like Ike had ever seen before. When he had passed through the gate, still feeling angry and defeated, he had been looking at the ground and when he looked up he had seen something he had never expected.
What had he expected to see in the first place? He had believed that the city would be the exact same as every other city he had been to. Cities build from cold and hard stone. Some empty old stalls, which would be filled with all kinds of eatable products, some overprized, some underprized, each morning and would become emptier as the day dragged on. He had expected to see the streets filled with people who looked happy, alone or together, either with a lover or a whole family, or both, who would smile at everyone and everything to share a bit of their happiness. He would have expected that happiness to die out in the crowd of the unhappy people, who were too absorbed in their own troubles to even notice the light of day.
It would have to be a city exactly like almost every city he had ever walked into. It was one of the reasons why Ike had always preferred the small villages surrounding the base. The people there would always smile at you, even if they were about to drown in their problems. In those villages such problems almost never existed, because everyone cared about everyone and would always help each other out.
When he had needed to travel from city to city during the times of war, he had only started to hate them more and more, since in those cities, the only thing that made people continue was survival, not as a group, but as an individual, who couldn't care less about what happened about everyone else.
In times of peace that was not much different, since the higher-ups, meant to protect the people, were only after gathering more riches.
Luckily for this world, Ike's world, actually any world in general, Ike had learned that, although scarce, there were rulers, who actually cared about the people and who indeed tried to make the world a better place. Ike had left Tellius behind, knowing that those people were in control and had the strength to continue.
But we've wandered off to far. This world has many stories to be told and even more that are untold and some that you nobody in any language in any time would be able to tell with words. And was the kind of story that Ike would need to tell you about his first moments in that city.
Instead of a dull coloured mass of people, somehow dragging themselves on, the first thing Ike saw was a large group of people, dressed in all kinds of colours. Ike could only watch in awe for the first few moments.
The stalls were filled with all sorts of delicious looking food and others were decorated in all kinds of decorative items. From the windows of houses, large carpets woven by hand and decorated with designs, meant to tell of stories unheard, hung from them. The people themselves were dressed in, what Ike guessed, were some traditional or ceremonial clothing. The most noticeable thing about their outfits were their masks, colourful and distorted faces with angry black lines crossing over them and bringing the eyes forward.
Ike watched the masks. All of them appeared to have been made by hand, probably by the same person that wore them, and yet there was some sort of union between the masks, something that cannot be put to words.
And as soon as Ike noticed that, everything suddenly became more macabre.
The colours were no longer brightening everything up, but dragging everything down in a spiral of chaos in the otherwise plain streets. The excitement of the people about this moment and these things was no longer uplifting, but suffocating. The music that sounded on each street corner came together in a heavy sort of buzzing that seems to get inside of your head.
A hand was placed upon Ike's shoulder and as a result he almost jump. As soon as the dark feeling had come, it had gone.
"You alright?" Magnus asked.
"Yes, I just…" Ike scratched the back of his neck, "I just spaced out a little."
Magnus grinned, an odd sight, but Ike supposed he was a man who smirking fitted the best and for whom laughing was unnatural. "It is quite a sight, I admit that. It surprises me every year."
"They do this every year?" Ike asked with disbelief. The only time he could remember seeing a city in a celebration that came close to this one, was when the Mad King's War had come to an end. And that seemed like a small birthday party compared to this.
"Every year, just after the fields have been plowed and sowed, at the end of spring. For one week long everybody celebrates. It's pure madness compared to the normal way of things."
"So… This is a harvest festival?" Ike wondered.
"What? No." Magnus said. "I suppose it seems as bit odd, but it is a traditional feast… What am I saying… Its roots don't lie there, that's coincidence."
"Why are the people celebrating then?" Ike almost fell as a small young boy, who was chasing a chicken for no good reason, bumped into him.
"Dancing, Music and Singing are seen as way to appease and honour the goddess and all other holy things, so from time to time festivals like this are being held. This is the biggest one of all."
"But what do people celebrate now?"
Magnus, who had been looking around him, looked at Ike. "Eh? Oh, they celebrate the ceremony that began the flow of time."
Ike looked at Magnus as if he was the one who had gone insane for a change. "What?"
"I'll explain later, but not now. We need to find someone." Magnus didn't wait for any response at all, like usual, and started to push through the crowd.
Ike tried to follow him, but was hindered by the mass of people, which is only logical, but also had to watch out to not step on something or trip over something else or stepping and tripping over little kids, who were let to roam the streets free apparently.
The worst were the people trying to sell him things. They'd grab him by the arm and start talking about some sort of product from what he wasn't sure what it was, let alone that he would want to buy it. He still didn't have any money, so even if he wanted to, he couldn't buy it.
But this was not something the shopkeepers could read of his face, instead they must've thought he was an easy target to sell their trinkets to, and so another one grabbed his arm.
"You look like the kind of man who would be interested in things with a story," a well-fed woman declared to Ike.
"Actually I have to go, I don't have time-"
"Nonsense!" She tightened her grip on Ike's arm. He had been trying to pry himself free slowly, trying to be polite. "Just look at this carpet, do you know the tale behind the image?"
Ike glanced at the carpet she held out to him. Carpet was a big word, it was thin woven fabric that seemed smooth and even cold to the touch, like water. It was probably meant to be hung on the wall.
The image itself was fairly simple, two figures, one white, the other woven from many different colours, reached out to touch each other surrounded by a black background. On the background letters had been painted, not woven but put there with thin white paint, in a neat and elaborate handwriting Ike could not read, nor understand.
"The story is of this boy and this girl and they are not allowed to love each other because-"
Ike finally managed to free himself from the woman's grasp. "No thank you. It's really nice, but I've got no…" Ike hesitated a moment, which would almost become somewhat of his downfall, to decide whether her should say he had no money or that he had no interest in buying things which were all about cliché love stories.
The woman immediately had his arm in a tighter grip. "Aw, don't be like that, you must've had someone who must want such a thing. A sister, a mother, or would you rather give it to your own 'special someone'?"
Ike wanted to hit the woman, but was saved from buying women's trinkets by someone who put a hand on the woman's shoulder and managed to pull her away from him.
"How about you don't bother the young man, Miranda?"
A strong guy, who needed to make his well-toned body even more obvious by not wearing a shirt, smiled widely at the woman, who immediately smiled back.
"He's with you then, Hemah?" She said, a little too sweetly.
Ike thought to himself that she might make more sales if she used that voice more often.
"Yeah, you could say that. He's with ol' Magnus." The guy smiled again and pointed over his shoulder.
"Ah, continue on you three then, I've still got work to do." The woman waved at them a bit, signalling for them to move along.
As soon as the three of them were around the corner, the shirtless guy, apparently named Hemah spoke.
"Sorry about that. Miranda sells things of good quality, but her sales tactics are a bit forceful, to say the least." He scratched his sand coloured hair sheepishly.
"You're not kidding," Ike stated. He remembered having to deal with Aimee before, but he didn't remember that being this bad. Probably because he was used to it when Aimee was around and had never had an encounter like just now with that saleswoman.
"Ah well, what has happened has happened. It's in the past." The man extended a hand towards Ike, "They call me Hemah."
Ike took the hand. "Ike."
"You should be careful in crowds," Magnus immediately scolded.
"I tried to, but that woman…" Ike stated forcefully.
"Let it go, Magnus, we've got more important things to do," Hemah said. Ike noticed for a moment that he appeared to have two scars under his purple eyed, running over his cheeks and even making his way down his neck. They must've been made deliberately and with great precision, Ike thought to himself.
"Yeah, did you manage to take it with you?" Magnus asked. Ike guessed that they were completely ignoring him for the moment.
Hemah removed something that had been strapped to his back. Even from quite a distance, anyone would've noticed that it was some kind of large, thick and heavy sword. It had been wrapped poorly in multiple layers of thick rough cloth, from top to bottom.
"I managed to trick the guards into thinking it was some kind of ceremonial lance," Hemah grinned, brimming with self-confidence.
"You idiot! Even a two-month old baby could tell that it's not a lance!" Magnus shouted angrily.
"Well, it was wrapped in a few more layers, but that's uncomfortable to carry around, you know…" Hemah sounded a bit down now.
Magnus slapped his forehead, "You bribed the guards, didn't you?"
"What? I'm no good when it comes to smuggling and lying and you know that. I'm no good in sneaking either so I figured, since we'll be in trouble anyway, I might as well take the easy way."
"Wait…" Ike started to mumbled to himself, "Lances are allowed within the city, but swords are not?"
Hemah and Magnus both looked at Ike as if he had just appeared out of thin air.
Magnus sighed to himself, "I shouldn't let myself get carried away by your stupidity."
"Hey!" Hemah shouted, "You were the one who started talking about this in front of him, so I assumed it was alright!"
Magnus dug into his pockets and shoved a small sack, which sounded like there were quite some coins inside, onto Ike. "Here, buy yourself something to eat. Do yourself a favour and get yourself a mask somewhere. Shopkeepers won't bother you so much that way. When the sun sets, make sure you are at the big square in front of the castle."
Magnus glared at him, "Did you get that?"
Ike nodded, "At the palace square, at sunset, keep shopkeepers from bothering me. Yeah, pretty much."
Magnus began retreating almost immediately. Hemah followed suit, but threw a small reminder over his shoulder.
"Be on time, okay? It'll be the beginning of something you'll never forget!"
Looking back on the time Ike had spent wandering around that city, he always regretted the things that he didn't do. He would do that with many occasions and many places. No matter how much he did to, there were always things left to regret.
But at the same time he didn't think there really was a better way to spent the time like he had. He had indeed done practically nothing. He had, after trying some of the festival food, searched for a tavern as quickly as he could and ordered the biggest plate of meat he could find and gulped it down as soon as possible. He then ordered another plate. Some things really never change, don't they?
The rest of the time he first tried to spend walking up and down a few big roads. He had only found one small stand selling a few masks. But when he looked at the masks he felt that unsettling feeling coiling inside of him and he had quickly decided that he'd rather put up with being treated like some idiot foreigner than wear one of those things.
It didn't take long for Ike to decide and head towards the square in advance. He didn't feel like doing much else and he was afraid he might not make it in time if he tried to get there at the last moment.
He was surprised when he got to the square. It was quieter than any other part of town he had been to. There were a few people passing over the square, headed towards different parts of town, the ones who really stayed at the square where a few old men and woman who were resting their bones on ledges or small benches.
The square itself was wide and open. On one side the castle overshadowed a large part of it and from the looks of it, the sun would set behind the castle. The walls surrounding the castle bordered one side of the square and were heavily guarded by guards. The large wooden gates were closed.
There were stalls along the edges of the square, but they weren't occupied by any shopkeepers. All of them contained large glass cases, in which strange daggers lay, made from some kind of strange white metal or mineral. The only difference between the hilt and the blade was that the hilt was wrapped in white cloth. Ike thought of it as odd, but he did not see any reason to inquire about them.
Ike walked up to the middle of the square, where a fountain stood. In the middle of the fountain arose a woman made from white stone. The water flooded from the top of her head almost unnoticeably, cloaking her completely in a layer of water, which almost soundlessly poured into the basin at her feet. From the fact that the woman had an angel like appearance and the fact that it was kept so clean that no kind of filth could be spotted on the statue, Ike concluded that she must represent the goddess that the people believed in.
Ike couldn't look up at it for too long, since the sun had positioned itself so in the sky that it was placed directly behind the head of the statue, like some kind of aureole. With the thin layer of water running over her, it appeared as if she was some being that existed of only light.
"She looks lovely, doesn't it?"
Ike's head snapped to the side at hearing the voice.
"Ah, sorry. Didn't mean to scare you."
There was an old woman standing next to him. She was leaning on a stick to support herself and was smiling kindly at Ike.
"No need to apologize, ma'am. You must've caught me a bit off guard."
"What a way of speaking," she chuckled softly and Ike understood she didn't mean to insult him. "I haven't seen you around before, have I, young man?"
"No, ma'am. I'm a traveller."
"I guessed as much," she nodded softly to herself, "But you weren't here from the beginning of the festival were you?"
"No," Ike replied, "I arrived today."
"Ah, so you must've come to see them dance?"
"The what?" Ike said, "I'm sorry, but I've never heard anything about a dance."
"So it is a coincidence you say?" The old lady spoke, "Then you are really lucky, my boy. It truly is something you'll never forget."