Chapter 32: New Year celebrations

Now came the time of the New Year. A large, celebrated event in Krinestadt and the preparations laid on for it were extravagant indeed. The city seemed to buckle with their weight becoming an arena of warm foods, delicious smells and merry voices ringing out with the bells that marked the start of the day.

All of Ostermark's marketplaces had been turned over to hold stalls bursting with rows of gleaming candy apples and heated caramel pancakes, and the stage, normally used to sell slaves, had been disassembled and put away for the one day of the year when more money could be had from these more conventional stores. The slaves, still waiting for a new master in the cells, were met with seldom seen kindness as food was passed in through their barred windows by passersby suddenly turned into saints by the atmosphere they dwelled within.

Between the laden stalls, all manner of person went about their business with a new vigour grateful of the council's decision to splash out on removing the snow so that the ground did not become a thick sludge under all of their running feet. On this one day, servants and masters walked together free from class separations, and the wealthy bought rounds of food and drink for the peasant children that they normally went out of their way to avoid.

From his window, Kira could see many boys, dressed entirely in rags, running between the tables, with their breaths steaming and mouths twisted into smiles, playing games to see who could take the most without the merchant seller's notice. Of course, some were caught, but the city guards, usually so eager to prosecute, let them pass with the only chase given being that of laughter, and the only punishment dispensed their grins which revealed horribly kept teeth!

At the centre of each open space sat broad bonfires with flames leaping high into the sky being used to heat a type of sweet pellet on provided sticks that Kira had not seen before. The way that these towers warmed and lit their environment to such a rich, orangey, warm extent drew attention to the sky.

It was still grey and would not lighten for the whole day as this was one of the darkest times of the year. This sentiment was reflected by the sun that sat weak among the dark. However, it was still grateful, grateful to the lit fires that aided it in its purpose and so, despite its ailments, it practically danced across the sky to the beat of the band set up and playing in Ostermark's central road.

This road was unusually almost empty of wagons and carts as the trading season was long gone, but it was still filled to the brim with pedestrians and served as the main access point to all of the different courtyards. It rolled under the vast number of feet passing over across it, and released wild stock, horses and mules, finally free from their harnesses, marched across its back, causing nowhere near the level of trouble that might be expected from them. Some more adventurous children had climbed onto the back of one such horse, an elderly mare, which astonishingly remembered its youth and galloped along the breadth of the town, causing good-humoured people to dive out of its path bellowing with laughter as they did so.

Kira was a bit more sceptical of the whole event because he wondered if the same friendships would be extended to him once he entered the crowds with his palace slave markings. But, as he pulled on his boots and wrapped himself up in the only coat afforded to him and hurried downstairs, he was handed a small purse of money by another slave, beaming at him and heading back inside after early adventures through the markets. Perhaps he was not going to be made separate from the event. And he arrived before the palace gate, pausing only briefly to wonder where he should go first or in what order he should buy things to best maximize his newfound funds.

That line of thinking led him to wonder if he would be better off with some kind of guide, preferably Aura or Cat, who knew the city well and could lead him down all of the best paths. He assumed that Cat would be difficult to find among all of the chaos outside now that Gretyl had moved and that the boy would find him if he wanted to be found in the first place. This only left Aura, but she would likely have her own friends to explore with and, as he had not yet seen her that day, it seemed that she had already gone out to be with them.

Fortunately, any illusions were immediately shattered when he heard her voice some way behind him, and he waited to see if she was alone or not. As he had expected, she was with maybe five other people, all similarly employed within the palace to herself, and she had not simply been talking loudly to herself because who did that anyway? Definitely not Kira, as he recalled sometimes doing it to break the silence when alone sorting in the scribe's office. Allowing them to pass him, he hung back against the wall and resolved to keep an eye out for Cat instead.

Noticing him despite his best efforts, Aura called over to him, "Coming or not?" and he had no choice but to comply, given that he was now well in the attention of the other people there. The kindness of the day had overcome everyone there, and any worries that Kira might have had about being with people that he hardly knew were dispelled as they fluidly involved him in conversations that he would normally be embarrassed to overhear. They moved through the topic of who had a crush on who and involved all of the people in the group, aside from Kira, thoroughly embarrassing them all equally before moving on to interrogate the next innocently defensive girl.

Aura was one of the last to be turned to, and she turned out to be the most defensive of all until one of her friends, the one that Kira had once spoken to when getting breakfast for a sleeping-in Aura, suggested that her silence was a result of Kira's presence. After that, the conversation momentarily stopped and then swiftly moved on to another subject.

Kira's mind remained on the last question for a short while, but he dismissed any concerns because he doubted that it could be true. To be honest, he didn't know if he wanted it to be true, but maybe a part of him did, in a sort of narcissistic way.

They were soon all swept up together in the currents of the crowds and gradually made their way towards the first market. It was a battle staying with the group, but it was one that Kira was willing to fight, and they somehow managed to stay together, picking out gifts and foods from the stands as they did so. It was meant to be a tradition to buy friends and family presents on this day to show appreciation for them before the start of the New Year.

However, at this time, he really struggled to think of more than two people for who he might want to get something and that it would be a bit awkward buying for one of them as she had been staying near to his side all morning. Aura seemed to be having the same problem, handling a small card here and a carved wooden statue of a wolf over there but abruptly putting them back, with quick glances in his direction. What made this worse that their behaviour was seized upon by the group and became an object of teasing.

Kira didn't mind this so much and tried enjoying himself, which certainly wasn't too hard, and when his purse was almost taken straight out of his hand by a younger teen from beside him, he let them go still in good humour. This would not be a day to hold grudges. Instead, it was a time to treasure as he knew that he would be leaving Ostermark sometime in the following months and would be unlikely to ever experience the festival again. His only gripe was that it was a little too busy, and he could see it easily becoming overwhelming with how rushed everything was and the noise of thousands of joyous voices echoing between the buildings.

Done with the first stalls, they rejoined the main road and headed for the next courtyard but, as it turned out, this was a mistake and a big one at that. Perhaps it had been coming wherever he had gone, but the busyness did not help when his vision started to close in once more.

At first, he couldn't notice it happen. Obviously, some part of him knew that it was occurring when the edges of his world started to blur, but he simply could not think to tell someone or to tell himself to get somewhere where he could let this moment pass in peace. Instead, Kira tried keeping up with the group, which became steadily harder as the people around him swirled around him like different colours on the surface of a hot drink. Unsure what to do, he stopped where he was quite suddenly losing confidence in his ability to stand.

That was not good, particularly with the circumstances. He wondered if anyone in his group had noticed, but he could not tell if they had and rubbed at his eyes, trying to dispel whatever it was causing this. His ears might have been lying to him too as the sound became louder and the cries of gratitude became as piercing as the shrieks of gulls and caused him to almost flinch in pain.

Later the moment passed. It had probably only been a couple of seconds, but it still had a profound effect. Can I not be confident in my own body, he wondered again, and will this keep happening? Assuming that it would, as this was no longer the first time, he still had no idea as to how he was meant to guard against it?

That was exactly when he made an unconscious and then conscious resolution. No matter how bad things got, he would simply continue doing his best in the reality presented to him, even if it was not the true one. Trying to think about how he might achieve this, only one solution stuck out to him; to place a condition on himself. He would have to think carefully about what this may be, but he thought it would be something along the lines of him only being allowed to kill people with manipulations if he was certain of their guilt with a penalty of death. Further scrutiny might have shown the flaws in this as, if his perception of reality was warped then, he might become convinced of the guilt of an innocent man and what truly defined innocence or guilt? Surely these two things would only be defined under his limited understanding of them?

Although he would answer these questions on another day he would not for the time being. This was because, returning to reality, he was not alone. It seemed that Aura had noticed something was wrong and had stayed with him as the others continued on, oblivious to his struggle. She definitely looked concerned, but Kira did not know how to describe what had happened to her, so she ended up being the first to speak, having to project herself over the crowd, "Are you alright?"

"Yeah," replied Kira hoping that he would now be good for the rest of the day and then trying to explain himself, "I just sometimes get periods where I space out a bit. It's nothing serious."

"Humph, well, we're alone now. Let's go see if we can join back up with the others."

"Sure," and with that, they headed off with a minor crisis averted whilst Kira suspected that she might still suspect something too.

Joining back up with the others never happened. The pair looked for them for maybe an hour throughout the marketplace, but they eventually gave up and guessed that the group had moved on to someplace else. Maybe they even thought that Kira and Aura had snuck off together by choice, but that seemed laughably far from the truth. Staying together, the conversation was sparse, and the atmosphere had died down a bit even whilst he thought that Aura wanted to say or ask him another question that never came.

This continued until nearer the end of the day when, after a brief period of light and a warm lunch of many New Year treats, the sun disappeared again behind the hills casting Ostermark into darkness. With the many bonfires and bright stars, this did not leave the place as completely black, and people were in a good enough state of mind to forgive the occasional accidental push into one another. Under Aura's guidance, Kira joined the large group of people heading towards his ancestor's tomb, and it seemed that, unusually, the park around it would be crowded for the first time since he had first seen it. Of course, a hundred-pace-wide circle around the mausoleum itself was still left open, but elsewhere the grass was hardly visible below the number of people sitting across it.

Asking why this was soon made it obvious. Apparently, some sort of fireworks display was going to be launched there and, as Kira had never seen one before, he was caught up in the excitation just like everyone else. The two of them took up a position sitting on a wall, up a slight rise, that allowed them to look down at where the fireworks would set off from and over the rest of the people assembled. This allowed him to see the rockets for the first time and honestly speaking, they did not look very impressive from a distance. They sat at half the height of a normal person, including the stick into the ground that they balanced on top of and had an end that was folded into a sharp point.

The people watching knew to give them a good distance, and one person ran forwards, armed with a flaming torch, to light the first fireworks from their bases before sharply changing direction and sprinting away from them. Having a several stride long fuse leading to each of them gave plenty of time for this person to get back and out of their way before five of them lit and flew into the sky with a sound like you might expect water to make being forced, with great pressure, through a tiny gap.

Exploding in the sky threw red, blue and green colours across it, which interacted and worked together to brighten the scene more than the weak sun had earlier in the day. It was a good thing that the sun had not seen this because it would have become jealous, not just of the many different colours that the fireworks could produce but also because of the cries of joy that went up from the spectators.

Before they had been launched, Kira had wondered exactly how safe they were given that the individual rockets did look quite heavy, and he thought that, with how crowded this place was, one might fall back and hit someone. However, this worry was soon disproven as the explosions completely eradicated the rockets. He soon forgot about ever thinking this as he caught up in watching them go up as, after all, this was his first experience with them. To think that something man-made and heavier than air could go so high and faster than any bird! Watching this spectacle, he almost entirely lost himself and did not mind when Aura put her arm around him and instead did the same with her as they sat there together.

The next twenty went up together as they were all smaller and instead produced a blanket of golden light that covered the park and basked the residents in its own warmth. Then one large one went up by itself, creating a thin red dragon with its explosion that wriggled before the gold background. If Kira had been thinking about it, maybe he would have realized that this should have been impossible and that a manipulator had been involved, but he did not. Instead, he and Aura caught each other's eyes, and they sat looking at each other for just a moment before she leant towards him. Had he had the instincts to move away, he might have done so, but he didn't.

That ended up being the first time that he had properly kissed a girl, even if he hadn't been the one to instigate it, and it was the first time that he realized that, under the flashing light of the rockets, Aura was quite beautiful.

This moment did not embarrass him at all and instead they stayed where they were late into the night, watching the remainder of the day pass them by before returning to the palace. Not sure what to say to each other, they simply bid each other good night and went to sleep. Unable to properly process what had occurred, Kira fell into sleep quickly and found himself in another, far too vivid, dream.