AN: It has been one year since I have last updated and I am very sorry. My excuses, as usual, will include school. I went through my freshman year at college and did okay, it could have been better grade-wise, but oh well. I'll write more at the bottom of this chapter. Thanks for your patience (or impatience?).
Chapter 16
The first of three days of the fall festival was greeted with much excitement and enthusiasm. Although the sky was mostly grey that morning it was showing some promise as it was bluing up in the distance.
The night before, most of the temporary booths had been set up in a freshly cut grain field that is going to lie fallow for the next couple years.
Old and grey wooden boards were nailed together as a frame for many of the booths to cover them with water resistant cloth, while others were just uncovered tables being used to display wares. The rest of the booths were actual shack-like constructions.
Despite the drab setting in weather and structures, the morning air was already filling with cheerful chatter along with animals baying, honking, or whatever else was their way of speech and the pluckings of stringed instruments along with a hesitant flute.
Most everyone was wearing warm clothing as dictated by the autumn season and the ever-changing pale, murky sky. Their somewhat fancy suits and dresses were to be saved for the last night of the festival.
Three adults walked abreast the path left open between the rows of booths on flattened hay stubble. John walked to Sarah's left, holding Lindsey as she slept against him with her arms going part way around his neck and fisting his sweater in her small hands. To Sarah's right Berin walked holding Brittany in a similar fashion.
The doctor was speaking.
"On the first day we have our food contests like preserves, jellies, pies, who grew the largest vegetables, etcetera. There are cloth crafts to be judged like needlework, knitting, dolls. Then there's sword fighting."
"Yes, Dravel signed me up," John interjected.
"And after all that there's dance practice to get ready for the third day."
John readjusted his hold on Lindsey and then looked up at the two women who looked very similar to each other, like two different ages of one person. Both had deep, black hair, gentle smile, and fine, skilled hands that knew work from a delicate touch to the toughness of setting a leg. Then there were differences like how Sarah was somewhat taller than her mother was, Berin's quiet, almost world-weary face, and how Sarah's hair was wavier and the doctor's hair was curlier.
"Have either of you entered in any of the contests?" asked John.
"Yes, I entered a small quilt, though it's more of a wall hanging really," replied Berin.
"Do you make many quilts?" asked John, his curiosity piqued since he knew little of Sarah's mother aside from her work as a doctor.
"I used to, when I had more time, but I'm very busy these days. The one I entered for this year's contest is the first bit of quilting I've done in these past two years," the doctor said with perhaps a hint of wistfulness coloring her otherwise conversational tone.
"Did you enter anything else?"
"No, although if I could I'd enter any number of patients who benefited from my stitch work," Berin quipped lightheartedly, making John and Sarah laugh softly. The slight disturbance caused Lindsey to shift in John's arms and nudge her sandy head against his broad chest in attempts to bury her head. The tall man looked down briefly to find that the little girl in his arms was resettled and asleep. He rubbed her back lightly with his large hand that almost spanned the width of it.
Brittany, on the other hand, had woken up from her nap and was rubbing her eyelids with the fingers of one hand while the other clutched the doctor's soft, clumpy-feeling, heavy knit sweater.
"Mama- Doct'r," Brittany corrected herself softly from her brief moment of disorientation caused by just waking up. Berin slightly tightened her arms around the usually hyper five-year-old as her heart clenched in its sad pain.
Small hands touched the aging woman's soft cheeks that showed signs of starting to sag.
"Are you sad?" Brittany asked in her innocence, her face near Berin's, the two of them almost touching foreheads.
Sarah's mother smiled for the child's benefit and said, "No, I'm happy to be holding such a sweet little child."
The doctor moved her head forward and kissed the curly-haired girl's chubby cheek. Brittany giggled and took her hands off of Berin's cheeks.
Had not anyone known at least the two children or two women the group of five might have been mistaken as wife, husband, their two daughters and the girls' grandmother.
When the moment had faded John asked Sarah if she had entered anything into any of the contests.
"No, I'm afraid not. If I could, I would paint a sunset or draw an animal, but my attempts are really sad," Sarah answered, emphasizing the "really" with a laugh. "I just can't seem to put down on paper, or canvas, what I see in my head. It's so frustrating so I don't try much anymore."
They approached the large barn where the dance practice and last day dance was going to be held. All sorts of crafts, foods, and drinks were set up along one side of the building, stretching into a corner and turning along the back in displays.
At the table end facing the entrance a large sign announced each of the three days' events that had to do with the barn's display tables. Other events were posted outside on the barn wall.
"Today's foods are getting judged. After the judges have tasted everything and are satisfied with their notes and ballots everyone else is free to eat what's left so it won't go to waste. You have to be fast, though, or else you might miss the good stuff," Sarah explained to John.
He nodded in acknowledgement. Lindsey and Brittany were on their own feet and after having spotted other children, had run off to play with them on what was to be the dance floor later.
A muscle on Johns jaw jumped as he slightly clenched his teeth. The change in weather seemed to have some sort of mystical control over the phantom pain. The episodes were few since he had been keeping it at bay by having a regular exercise program, but the weather seems to have some sort of mystical control over the phantom pain. He glanced around to see if anyone noticed and felt some relief when he found that everyone was occupied.
When the sun came close to its zenith, a crier walked through the festival grounds announcing that the sword fighting competition would begin soon and for all participants to go to the south-eastern corner of the field.
John headed over with Sarah and Berin, while Lindsey and Brittany were left playing with other children in the barn being supervised by others. Sarah and Berin, along with another healer, were usually present at the swordfights to provide emergency medical care since often times someone got injured despite armor and blunted swords.
The three came upon a rough-hewn fence that was thrown together quickly to make a small arena and some benches surrounded the arena; a few people were already seated. John saw Dravel speaking with a man he had met once before. He recalled the man's name to be Linz Nel. Linz was a student of Dravel who had become a sword fighting instructor just a few years ago and assisted Dravel from time to time.
A crowd of Dravel's and Linz's students as well as others who knew the way of the sword soon gathered around Dravel.
"We have four divisions," started the sword master in a clear voice that came from his barrel chest, "The first is children, then adult novice, adult open, and then adult advanced. For those of you who haven't signed up please go to Linz over there," he pointed to the wiry man and continued, "All contestants are required to wear armor, which we will provide. The only ones who are exempt from this rule are those in the adult advanced where it is up to the contestant to wear armor or not."
The reasoning behind the allowance of no armor in the adult advanced was that only high level swordsmen would be permitted to compete and therefore they knew the risks and would be at such a level that all their movements would be controlled enough to not inflict serious damage to vital areas of their opponents. Of course, there were those who still came out of the arena with broken bones, and once in a great while someone would die from resulting injuries.
Drok Dravel walked over to the tall, pale man. John and Dravel's eyes locked when John turned his head away from spotting the medic's tent on the other side of the sword fighting arena.
"John, I want you in the advanced division," the sun darkened man said, right to the point.
John lifted his pale eyebrows in quiet surprise and answered, "You've been teaching me for only a couple months."
The objection sounded more like a statement.
"Yes, but you already had the skill before I got you. You must have been an accomplished swordsman, you fight to a similar style of Balgus of Fanelia, one of the Great Sword Masters of Gaea" Dravel pressed. His posture was set like that of a stone wall.
'Balgus…'
The aqua-haired man dipped his head in assent, letting the sword master make his way to Linz and the listings.
An audience was gathering on the benches and around the fences of the arena. Boys and girls climbed the fence posts to secure a good vantage point before adult legs could block their passage. Some children who were not entered had sticks and were mimicking the awaited swordfights.
The fighting began with the children, the younger ones using wooden swords since the metal ones were still too heavy for them.
The youngest competitors of the children's group were each given first place with a wink from Dravel who said, "Since all of you did such a good job we couldn't decide who won, so all of you did."
The young children smiled in delight while the adults looked knowingly at each other.
The older children's group was a bit more serious. Clangs and cries filled the air with the cheering of the crowd.
Dravel, Linz, and a third swordsman judged the matches inside the arena, keeping a triangular shape around the competitors in an attempt to have each judge able to see the fight from a different angle and for at least two judges to be able to see hits, if not all three. In the children's division there were only three strikes that could count as a point: a strike to the top of the head, the forearms, and the stomach. The higher divisions had a fourth strike: a stab to the throat. The stab was the most dangerous of moves because a miscalculation could cause a severe injury, therefore children and beginners were forbidden to use the technique. There were no expressed rules about attacking someone whose back was turned to their opponent once the match was started, although from country to country it could differ as could the fighting style.
More people appeared to surround the arena when it came closer to the time of the upper divisions.
Sarah and the healer, Lorel Adtou (known fondly as "Addy") had already assisted and treated a couple competitors. Currently they were working on a young man who had fallen back onto his outstretched hand when avoiding a sword swinging at his stomach. The resulting impact had given him a greenstick fracture in his forearm. The ulna was bent and the radius had completely broken.
"Addy," Sarah said with a concerned look wrinkling her brow as she set up a splint, "could you set his arm?"
The healer, who was just getting into his thirties, quirked a corner of his mouth, his starburst hazel eyes glancing up a moment from the patient's arm to the young woman's face. Addy said in his light voice, "I could, but you can't avoid setting bones if you want to become a doctor. The next broken bone I'll let you do."
Sarah grimaced, but then held down their patient's arm against the hard bed he lay on as Addy directed two men to hold the swordfighter down by his legs and shoulders. Setting the broken bones back to their original shape was going to be very painful to say the least.
John watched the matches, studying the technique executed by those in the adult open. The open let novices compete as well as advanced. This allowed the advanced swordsmen to warm-up and for the braver novices to experience a fight against a higher level opponent from which they, hopefully, will glean important information from to add to their own fighting like proper stances and attack styles.
John saw Berin walking to the medic's tent toting a wicker basket.
"Sarah, Addy. Here's lunch, go take a break," the doctor said to her daughter and colleague upon entering the canvas tent. Berin set the basket down and pulled out small loaves of bread, cheeses, meat, and sandwich vegetables. Sarah tried to ignore the meat and made herself a cheese and vegetable sandwich, her stomach a bit queasy at the thought of eating meat right after dealing with some blood and setting bones. She scooped fresh water out of a barrel into a mug and headed out for her break and to watch the fighting more closely.
The wavy-haired woman left the shade of the tent into what would probably be one of the last few warm days before the fingers of winter would run through the land.
Sarah saw John warming up with his blunted sword, the sword slicing the air in front of him, seeming to glide through instead of being swung down like how most of the children and some novice adults seem to do. She walked to him, weaving her way around people who were watching the current competitors in the arena.
John caught a movement out of the corner of his eye and finished his warm-up as Sarah reached him. She smiled at him and then noticed the misting of sweat on his forehead, his cheeks already colored slightly from his warm-up under the bright sun.
"Do you want some of my sandwich or water?" Sarah offered.
"Thank you, I think I'll have just the water. I'm not very hungry right now," John answered, gripping the sword to point down with one hand as he reached out with the other for the moderately large mug. He drank the cool water, glad that Sarah had come and offered it to him. The doctor-in-training saw how he started sipping at it in preparation of handing her share back. She worried that he might suffer dehydration so she said, "Go ahead and drink the rest. I can get more water at the tent later."
John didn't argue with her, knowing it was useless after seeing that certain look of concern on her face now familiar to him. He thanked her, a part of him quite happy that she noticed his needs.
"Are you going up soon?"
John looked up from his preoccupation with his thoughts and water. He answered, "Yes, after the advanced starts."
Sarah was slightly startled. She hadn't been sure what division he would be placed in, although she had thought it likely that he would be in the advanced class after seeing him fight Dravel a couple times. This also worried her since the advanced swordsmen would have more power behind their swords… she had no wish to see him in the medic's tent with broken bones.
"Are you nervous?" she asked, perhaps projecting her own nervousness onto the young man.
John considered the question and answered with confidence, "No. I don't feel nervous. Whatever happens will. Nerves will only interfere with my concentration," seeing her worry, he added with a soft smile for her benefit, "Don't worry, I'll be careful for you."
Sarah looked to the side a moment, hoping her face didn't betray the flush of warmth she felt from his gentle smile. John handed her the empty mug, thanking her again.
They heard the cheering of the crowd escalate, signaling another ended match. The audience quieted and the two heard Dravel announce, "That is the end of the adults open. We will start the advanced division as soon as we set up the score board."
The score board Dravel mentioned had many slats on it to place strips of paper with competitors' names written on them. People were paired up randomly, and the winners of each round would then again be paired up with the other winners until there was only one winner. The resulting pattern on the board would look like a sideways pyramid, the first round with every participant listed in a column on the left and the one paper with the overall winner at the very right of the board.
Dravel was again walking to the center of the arena after readying the score board, some people went to look at it to see who they were matched up against. The sword master spoke in an amplified voice to be heard over the excited audience, "The advanced matches will start shortly. The rules are different for this division than the previous three classes. It is no longer a two point match, each match will not be timed for three minutes but for ten minutes maximum. Whoever can disarm their opponent first will automatically win, but if neither is disarmed after ten minutes we will tally up the correctly executed hits. Do the contestants understand?"
Some of the men nodded while the others stayed still. Nobody shook their head "no".
"Alright, we can begin!"
John and Sarah watched a match from near the fence. Even after having watched several swordfights over the years Sarah still couldn't get over the noise. The intensity of the battle cries and the sharp clang of metal on metal pierced her ears. Sometimes it seemed as thought the swords sang as they sliced the air, a cry from another world singing for the taste of blood.
The thought chilled Sarah and made her look more closely at the contestants. She knew a few of them and the others were familiar acquaintances. Most of these swordsmen had served the Zaibach military at one time or another. The younger ones had served in the recent war, and some of them were fortunate because they hadn't been placed on the frontlines, which had been a death sentence to most. The other survivors who had served closer to the action than they wanted had come back changed. Cheery young men came back hardened, their eyes no longer youthful. The change became more evident at the taverns that seemed to be fuller than they were before the Great War and Zaibach's defeat.
Sarah jerked her head up to the arena as a fight ended with a clang, a sword flying out of its owner's hands.
AN: This is the third anniversary of this story. Its actual birthday is June 29, 2001, but I first posted this up on July 11, 2001
What have I been doing since the last update? Well as I had mentioned in the author's note at the end of the last chapter I helped out at a wheelchair race that is the longest hand-cycle and wheelchair race in the world. It was roughly 260 miles and took place in Alaska, my home state. I translated for the Japanese racer, his wife, and his trainer. It was really fun, but hard work. I also was helping another racer by being his race crew. A team is 3 people: the racer, the driver, and the person who hands out drinks or power bars/gels to their racer. All the volunteers camped out in tents and the racers got motel rooms. I became pretty good friends with Hiro-san, the trainer, who was nice enough to send me RK manga from Japan after he went back home. We send each other e-mails from time to time. So I advise you guys to find a Japanese friend so you can get hooked up with anime and manga, unless you can go to Japan yourself! LOL!
I know this chapter wasn't that exciting, but the next one I'll have John fighting so I hope that'll perk you guys up. Speaking of which when I went to college I took karate as a PE class throughout the year and then joined the kendo club that started up about the last half of the school year. So now I know how to fight some from hand-to-hand to Japanese sword fighting. I believe this will improve my chances at writing realistic fight scenes. Of course I'm still a beginner in any case since I haven't written much in fight scenes or have done much fighting myself.
I have been busy with college, especially since it was my first year, I found some anime junkies to be friends with. I got Japanese roommates and was able to maintain my Japanese speaking skills and become friends with so many Japanese exchange students and cried hard with them when they had to go back to Japan and then I had to go back home. But I have good memories with them and I hope I'll see them again in the future.
This story is mostly focused on "John" and Sarah as you can see. I fear that Berin is rather a 2-D character, she just appears once in a while so her character isn't as developed as it could be, or so I feel. She'll show up some more and hopefully she'll feel more developed as time goes.
ATTENTION: I have sent out an e-mail to 4 people and only one of them has replied so far. I am asking for some people to re-read and critique my writing in detail from chapter to chapter. I would like to know what things stand out from good details to weird grammar. Has my writing improved, stayed the same, worsened, or does my writing have its ups and downs? Please peer edit this story and e-mail it to me. won't let me put up my e-mail, so please look it up on my bio. The ones that are most helpful and detailed ("It's all good" is neither detailed nor helpful) will be sent a preview of a future chapter.
And now for my reviewers…
Congratulations! Elihice is my 100th reviewer! But it's confusing. You see it says there are 107 reviews, but in actuality there is 106. Last year I got one of those review alerts sent to my e-mail to let me know that somebody reviewed my story, but when I checked my stats to see if the review showed up at it wasn't there because it was just after one of those times that goes down because they had to fix something. The review count thing still keeps record of the review that got deleted or whatever. So it's my ghost review. I was so disappointed. So if you actually count the reviews Elihice would be 99th, but in actuality counting the ghost review she would be the 100th. Sorry for my long explanation. So Elihice, if you're reading this, the only thing I can do besides thanking you for being my 100th I can offer to draw you something and scan and send it to you. Check out my pages on Elfwood to see if you like my style and make a request (the only anime I can somewhat draw is Inuyasha as can be witnessed by my lovely editor ArtemisMoon who has Inuyasha, RK, and Esca fanfics, check her stories out!).
This is the Fantasy Art one:
http: elfwood. lysator. liu.se/ loth/l/s/ lsr7/lsr7. html
and this is the Fan Art one:
http: elfwood. lysator. liu.se/ fanq/l/s/ lsr8/lsr8. html
I put some spaces in the addresses so hopefully they showed up.
Kae Noel- Hey Kae, your story "Willow" hasn't been updated just as long as mine hasn't! I like your new Esca story that you have one chapter up of. I'll be looking forward to the update of either one. Well as for checking out life, I've had one year of it and I'm finally writing again… I wonder if the kids in my story are realistic, perhaps they should be more hyper, or talk different? Oh well, thanks for your review!
Rai Dorian- Sorry for not sending the chapters of "Nail" like I said I would for your website. Life got me busy… do you still want me to send you chapters? As for Mary-Sues… I guess I know that term better now, although is it a Mary-Sue if I like to put myself in Sarah's place? It would be quite yummy to see Folken half-naked (or more) since I would be his doctor, hehehe sees everyone staring at her Ehe, okay so maybe I won't do that… LOL! So you live in Maine? Wow, clear across to the other side of the US waves from Alaska.
Elihice- Hi again! So what do you think of my offer? Anyways, yes, Sarah's mother is a character I probably use the most aside from John and Sarah (although I wonder if Lindsey and Brittany actually make their way into my story more than Berin. Those kids love sneaking into things hears a crash in the kitchen Lindsey? Brittany?! Are you guys eating cookies?!! runs off
Yeah, the "crystalline blue eyes" does get used a lot. I changed it to something else on my computer so that when I re-edit everything I will post a better version on someday after the whole story is finished. I changed it to something along the lines of water funning over glass or something.
ShadowShapeShifter- Well, I'll certainly be putting the emotional/angst stuff in the chapter where Folken recovers his memory. I already wrote out a big chunk of that. It's perhaps not as angsty as it should be. I have time to change it since it won't show up for a few more chapters. We'll see how it goes.
Jessica- Thank you very much for answering my questions! Yes, what you said did help me some. And the part about the "bad apple" I have outlined an incident where part of what you have suggested will happen since I've been thinking along the same lines. I hope the amount of details in this chapter doesn't disappoint you, I find it dull. Hopefully I'll get back into writing shape and will be as detailed as I was last year.
KlutzyGirl- Thank you very much for reviewing, sorry that I took a year in updating.
Poco-poco- Thank you very much for your review and I'm sorry to you and everyone else for not updating more.
A special thanks to ArtemisMoon for being a great editor and for sticking with me for such a long time!
Bye for now.
-LSR7