Fantasia
Arc3: The Heir of Ardneria
Chapter6: The summer farewell fest
Being awaken in panic, Juan followed his angered twin to what he called "Unforgiveable", the two brothers ran from the library heading to "Jerffy's inn" where Tsuki and Nimmy lived:
"Would you mind explaining?" the shepherd asked.
"It's Klaive again, that damned bastard! I don't know how I was a fan of that stupid son of…" Roné answered with anger.
They mounted the stairs quickly ignoring the inn keeper's scolding, and rushed to the eleventh room on the second floor where Roné rammed the door with his shoulder, to see Tsuki sitting on the two person's bed lifting her right hand, and patting the air with her left one drawing a weird picture:
"It's ok, he didn't mean that, it's ok, just ignore him" Tsuki consulted…
Of course Juan didn't get what's happening; he somehow thought that Tsuki lost her mind and started talking to herself:
"Where's Nimmy? Speak imp!" Roné shouted.
"It's ok you can open your eyes now, Juan is here" Tsuki said.
Suddenly Nimmy appeared from her rainbow dust, no it was more like she was invisible and reappeared, tears flowed from her yellow eyes like falls and her lower lip was shaking like a crying baby:
"Nimmy?! What happened?!" the shepherd asked.
"The big brute…called Nimmy…a bad thing" the crying nymph barely answered.
"Klaive insulted her while she was serving him in the restaurant last night for no obvious reason and ever since then she was crying" Tsukiname explained.
Klaive insulted Nimmy…something is wrong about him, or so Juan thought, the man never acted like this before, first Juan and now Nimmy, he sure was a violent short tempered person, but he never treated women with such rudeness…maybe she did something that angered him, but there's no way an innocent girl like her would do something like this.
His chain of thoughts was interrupted by Tsuki's voice who called for his brother who rushed in anger out of the inn, the imp wanted to follow but Juan prohibited her asking to keep an eye on Nimmy letting Juan to take care of his brother.
Roné for sure was heading to Luffine's house, his short minded brother will throw himself in a fight against Klaive, but this won't be anything but troubles, he thought of telling his father but he had to stop Roné first so he took a narrow road that leads to the western part of the town where the sage lived.
He was late because people were gathered around the house witnessing the verbal tussle between the raging youth and the angered sage descendant, he wormed his way through the crowd, until he managed to approach his brother, who was cursing Klaive who was accompanied by his frightened daughter -Who was carrying some books-
"Stop it Roné don't get yourself in unnecessary troubles! Remember who he is!" Juan scolded his brother while pulling him from the elbow.
"Lemme get him! I don't care if he was the sage's son! Anyone who hurts my brother's friends is hurting me! And I have to avenge it!" Roné shouted pushing his brother to the ground attacking Klaive.
It wasn't that hard, neither that unexpected, Roné was sent to the ground with a mere punch from Klaive who looked indifferent with the result:
"Hmm, next time you should listen to Juan, who'd think that the uglier is in the end the smarter" the man insulted the brothers.
Those harsh words and his brother's bloated face obviously hurt Juan deeply in his heart but he cared less, because Klaive is still Luffine's son and he's the probable heir of their clan and they should show respect:
"My apologize sir Klaive, I'm sorry for my brother's reckless behavior" Juan apologized with his head down in groveling.
"You should be, you and your friends had turned our proud clan into a freak show…" the man boasted with a cocky accent.
"Klaive!" a deep voice echoed making the crowd tremble in fear knowing that their leader is present, they opened a path for the old man who accompanied the brothers' father:
"Father?", "Grandpa!" the son and the granddaughter said respectively while the rest of the beastmen kneeled respecting their leader who signed with his hand stopping them from committing this formality.
"To the house!" Luffine said in anger.
"But father!" the son wanted to talk but the glare from his father's eyes made him keep silence and leave entering his house with humiliation.
…
The same thing happened to Juan and Roné, they went home with their father who didn't stop lecturing them reminding them of the hundreds of times he told them not to enter these sorts of fight, but it seems that none of the brothers was paying enough attention to their scolding old man.
Roné was distracted by the pain resulted due to his mother sticking bandages on his face, while Juan was thinking of that weird voice he heard when he was talking to Klaive, he somehow felt that he had heard it before at the same circumstances but what was it…it was like someone whispering in his head.
He remembered his childhood memories when he used to hear such thing when he was hiking in the fields and nobody believed him thinking he's going crazy, and after years he learned to ignore these voices until they are totally gone from his head, but now they have returned and he was sure that he's not losing his head.
…
"And this is all what happened, Father lectured us for like two hours, Roné had been in the barn since then, mom fought verbally with father, and I'm still hearing those weird voices…" Juan commented after telling his story to Tsukiname who visited him in his room.
"So…Are you ready to learn how to dance?" the imp asked.
"Hey were you even listening to me?"
"Yes I'm listening, but this is life, you don't have to stop at every single trip and think about it like this, or at least this is what I've learned from your accompany…"
"Yeah I guess so, things will settle themselves eventually" Juan said after thinking of the subject deeply.
"Very well then, get naked!" the imp ordered.
Get naked!? Is she asking for…No! No! He just misheard her! She didn't mean that, she's not that type of women! This is what Juan thought, his face turned red as he slowly pulled himself away from her excusing that his mom called him but the woman slammed the door locking him inside:
"What's the matter with you? Get naked! You can keep your underwear though" The imp ordered.
"But…I'm not ready! I don't know…how to…I never…" the shy man stuttered.
"I didn't mean that you pervert! I meant get naked so I can write a spell on your body!"
"Oh that…sorry for a second I thought you are seducing me and…" Juan said after wiping his sweaty forehead.
And so he did removing his shirt and pants, standing shyly in his loose underpants covering his skinny body with his arms, but the imp ignored him, and bit her finger drawing blood, and with light swings she filled his arms, legs, back, and stomach with different letters.
"And we are finished, you know Juan if you were fighting against a shadow imp and he got to write those on your body you'll be a dead man" the imp commented.
"Really? Why?" Juan asked.
"These are called: the cursed puppet enchantments, it's a moderate level enchantment that allows imps to take temporary control over their victim's movements and magic as long as those spells remain on the body" Tsuki explained.
"So technically I'm cursed by you" Juan asked tilting his arm.
"Exactly, now I can move you to be the best dancer ever, watch" the imp moved her left hand making the shepherd raise his left knee to the level of his chest, then with a simple move of her middle finger she made his left arm flex behind his back.
"And when I hold your hands, the puppetry becomes perfected, and no one will doubt that you are manipulated by me" she added while growing her body to match his, and grabbing his hands before engaging a simple traditional dance of Eikoku's lore.
Unaware the two were been watched by Mel who was peeking through the small gap from the door, the woman smiled as a tear dropped from her eye witnessing Juan dancing happily with his friend, because beyond everybody else's knowledge, she was too concerned that her son will never find the right girl, but now she saw the ray of hope brought by the imp, making a burden vanish from her shoulder.
…
Four days later, by sunset, it was the first day of the summer farewell fest, Rocux family -In addition to Tsuki, Nimmy, and Zolu- were gathered in the house where Mel was putting her "touches" on everybody preparing them for the great night.
"Alright then, honey you shouldn't wear that leather vest, I suggest you put on the fur coat instead, and Roné! How many times I've told you to comb your hair don't just let it rise like this, you look like a punk, Juan put the blue collar on I don't want everyone to think that my son is some vagabond!" the mother ordered buttoning her son vests.
"Wow she's concerned about this party" Zolu mentioned.
"Nimmy is so happy, Nimmy wants to dance with fish boy, but fish boy must know that Nimmy isn't interested in fish boy" the nymph declared while flapping the tips of her fluffy dress.
"Yeah me neither, I just wanted to be there" the ragon answered.
"Well at least this support my theory about your deviated orientation" Roné commented, starting another fight between him and the ragon who was stopped by Mel hitting them both with a pan in the head -That she seems to go nowhere without it-
At that moment Tsuki descended driving everyone's attention, she shape shifted herself to match Juan's body size, she wore a simple pink dress with puffy white armlets that ends up with tight golden sleeves, ornamented by a red bow around her neck, with her hair braided like twin tails to touch the floor drawing the picture of a gorgeous lady.
"Darling this is…yours" Rocux noted.
"He he, yes I know it's my wedding dress, but it had been like twenty years since it fitted me so it's fine for this girl to have it" the mother answered.
"Imp girl looks beautiful, Nimmy somehow jealous, but Nimmy also happy" Nimmy noted.
Juan blushed upon seeing her, so he faced his head down, which made his father understand the situation, as he responded by pinning a small round brooch with the family name on it, on his son's collar:
"Oh honey, that's so sweet! You are giving him that." The mother said.
"This brooch was made by my grandfather, and passed to me the night of my wedding so I want you to have it tonight, so everybody knows how proud Rocux is with his family…" the father said while patting on the shoulders of his two sons, creating -Unusually of him- a soft familial moment.
"Hey wait a minute! How come Juan get a brooch and I don't?" Roné asked.
"Cuz ye wasted yer chance when took asked for my sledge" Rocux answered while squeezing his sons shoulder "Well then let's get movin'" he yelled making everyone leave the house.
The family headed to the fest; which occurred in a large tent by the center of Ardneria, most of beastmen gather there around the supper tables for drinks, food, and telling stories of their life, children playing here and there, girls grouped for gossips, and boys dare each other in many contest such as wrestling, spitting fire, and eating rocks...
Roné was accompanying his father with a group of old Ardnerian who've been laughing and enjoying ravishing drinking moments, he was bored and couldn't keep faking his laughter, he was so eager to meet his beloved Yera remembering her invitation to be his dancing partner in the fest, he apologized from his father who didn't care so much and ran looking for her.
Few minutes of searching, then he halted upon seeing this weird sight; Klaive and Yera were talking to Juan and Tsuki, surprisingly the two men were smiling, he couldn't hear what were they talking about due to the noise and music around him so he approached slowly, but Juan yelled his name panicking him.
The beastman moved calmly fearing another trouble, but Klaive held his shoulder and bowed:
"Roné, I came here to apologize for that day, I don't know what got to me, but I'm sorry for all what I've done to you and your brother and your friends." The man apologized.
"Um…Ok, apologize accepted" Roné said calming down feeling a little guilty for being angry at Klaive.
"Now after my conscience is relieved, I believe I should be leaving you couple of love birds…" Klaive commented leaving with a blink.
The four of them felt well that this ended with peace, Yera and Roné left the other two, who shared a really weird moment; because they were getting gazes from everyone, two well dressed youngsters who look nothing like beastmen holding hands with silly expressions on their faces, Juan felt embarrassed so he leaned his head, but his body won't obey what he wanted, for Tsuki was manipulating him again.
She smirked while making the man lift her hand and started dancing smoothly with moves that left everyone amazed, he had absolute no control over his limbs, yet his moves were swift and his steps were accurate creating the most alluring dances that captured the hearts of the present girls.
"What's going on?" Juan asked with a low voice.
"Something I decided to do for Inari long time ago, and now I cannot help but to do it for you, Roné told me that you always wanted to get a girl, and now I'm helping you out" she answered noticing that people gathered more around them.
"That's…the nicest thing ever…" the man was about to break a tear but his hand wiped it quickly.
"Somebody helps me!" a woman shouted breaking the moment.
Everybody looked in the direction of the voice rushing to see what happened, then they all stopped surprised; because they saw Luffine the sage on the ground holding his chest tightly with a small pond of blood beneath him.
To be continued