Fifth Moon, Last Sun Day, Fire Festival

  “C’mon, you need to eat,” Lily said enthusiastically as she prodded at Vanita. “You need your energy for today!”

  “I don’t feel so good,” Vanita muttered, taking a tiny, unwilling bite of her lunch.

  “You need to eat, too,” Aida chastised Sue. Sue looked just as queasy as Vanita, lingering over her own bowl of rice.

  “Are you sure you won’t come with me to Buddington?” Sue asked Aida plaintively. “I’ll feel a lot better with you around.”

  “Why are you so nervous? You and Caleb are already so familiar with each other,” Aida said, baffled.

  “But - it will be our first official date,” Sue mumbled, her face turning red. Aida bit her lip to keep from laughing.

  If it had been anyone else overthinking this event, Aida would have found it mildly annoying at how immature they were being - but since it was Sue, Aida couldn’t help but look upon her distress fondly. So cute.

  “Don’t worry so much,” Aida said soothingly, patting Sue’s head. “Knowing Caleb, your nerves will transfer to him, and then it will be awkward for you both.”

  “Oh no,” Sue moaned, shriveling even more in her chair. “I’m going to ruin everything.”

  “No you’re not,” Aida insisted, knowing how useless her advice was. “Just be a little more aware. When in doubt, be your normal self.”

  “Is Levi going to be with you two?” Lily asked Sue. She shook her head miserably.

  “Levi said he’s going straight to his family home, and that he wasn’t going to participate in the crane collecting.”

  “What about Ezra?” Lily persisted. Sue looked hopelessly back at Lily before turning to Aida.

  “I think he might come to Shale Port with us,” Aida said uncertainly in the silence. “I invited him, and he said he’d consider it.”

  “As…friends?” Lily blinked. Aida was amused to see Vanita and Sue were all of a sudden healthy again as they peered at her with round eyes.

  “Yeah, friends. With all of us,” Aida corrected as she smirked at Vanita. “You’ll also have Ezra in your corner, wishing you the best with Abedi.”

  Vanita crumbled again at the reminder.

  “We should finish up soon,” Lily said, looking at the giant clock on the wall in the dining hall. “The first golem transports to the celebrations are in half an hour, and we won’t want to miss it. The next ones are two hours after that.”

  As Aida helped force more food down Sue and Vanita’s throats, she noticed Levi, Ezra, and Caleb sitting together. Levi was the only one who looked unperturbed, even in good spirits, while Caleb looked just as unwell as Sue and Ezra looked conflicted. So Ezra might still decide to not attend the festival.

  Turning back to her own table, she caught a glimpse of Abedi in similar straits as Vanita, the lone dark cloud at his table while his four friends chattered around him. Dev caught her eye, and Aida returned his smirk.

  ~ * ~ * ~ * ~

  Aida fondly waved Sue off as she boarded the golem headed towards Buddington, squeezing in among all the other students. She couldn’t sit with Caleb and Levi even if she wanted to, since she had lingered with Aida while everyone else took their spots.

  “I really wish you would come,” Sue had whispered, her pleading eyes nearly bloodshot with anxiety. Aida had rubbed her shoulders sympathetically, reassuring her everything would be fine, and teasing Sue with outlandishly embarrassing consequences if Aida really did accompany them as the third wheel.

  Sue had finally laughed, agreeing it might be better if Aida didn’t come along to avoid making Caleb the third wheel.

  When Aida finally returned to where Lily and Vanita were eagerly - or in Vanita’s case, anxiously - waiting for their golem to pull into place, Ezra was standing there awkwardly with them.

  Aida smiled at Ezra, receiving a stiff nod back.

  “Where’s Edward?” Aida asked Lily. She rubbed her chin as she looked around.

  “Not sure, but we agreed to meet at the Shale Port gate before we started craning. Are you going craning with Abedi, or meeting with him afterwards?” Lily asked Vanita.

  “We’re meeting at the bonfire,” Vanita said faintly. Lily nodded in understanding before turning to Ezra.

  “Are you ready to do your duty in helping the families of Shale Port receive the ancient spirits’ blessings for a healthy, fortuitous, and prosperous harvest?” she asked importantly, pointing an authoritative finger at Ezra.

  Aida gave a formal salute beside Ezra as he stared at Lily dumbly. She jostled Ezra with her elbow, making him raise his own arm in a hesitant salute.

  “Reporting for duty!” Aida declared. Despite knowing that collecting cranes was an activity intended for children, she couldn’t help but be caught up in Lily’s own enthusiasm. Maybe it was because this was an activity that she was doing with friends - after all, the fondness of her childhood memories came not from the specific activity she completed, but from being surrounded by friends who made the boring activity fun.

  Lily glared at Ezra until he nodded, echoing Aida’s words with uncertainty. Lily relaxed, accepting his response. “Yay! I can’t wait - I personally always enjoyed Shale Port’s celebration more than Buddington’s, so I’m glad you all are joining me.”

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  “Why is that?” Aida asked curiously as they began loading into the golem. It was more like a long wagon, with the low walls. The ride was less crowded than the Buddington golem, though Aida noticed Abedi and his friends had already snagged the seats at the back of wagon golem.

  Lily shrugged. “It’s smaller, and more intimate. Buddington’s celebrations are super crowded, and they give out more candy, but there’s less love in it, you know? You can tell Shale Port families make their sweets themselves. Quality over quantity,” she said sagely.

  “The fireworks celebration at the end of the night is more impressive at Buddington, though,” Vanita added, turning herself in her seat so that she faced firmly away from Abedi in the back. Her fingers twitched in her lap. “Oh, I should have suggested we go to Buddington…at least I could focus on the fireworks…”

  “That’s why Shale Port is the best!” Lily beamed and waved at Edward Sparks as he passed by. He waved back with the same enthusiasm, a grin crossing his face as he winked at Vanita. Vanita slouched down, putting her hands over her face.

  “Have you ever been to Shale Port’s celebration?” Aida asked Ezra. He shrugged.

  “I’ve been, but I never paid attention.”

  Recognizing that any further prying would lead to a sensitive topic in public, Aida did her best to focus on Lily and Vanita’s conversations, trying to distract herself from Ezra’s presence beside her.

  Ezra’s body language was stiff, as was his mana. It seemed he was also trying to distract himself, with his vacant gaze and slow responses to direct questions.

  Finally, the ride to Shale Port ended. Aida and Ezra were the first to stand up in their desire to disembark the wagon.

  Shale Port’s gate was decorated with wreathes of flowers, and even the village guards wore colorful jackets in honor of the Festival. Despite the celebratory air, Aida couldn’t help but notice there were more guards posted around the gate, all with varying levels of furtiveness in their eyes. Maybe the spirits will protect the village from attack on this special day?

  “Okay, we’re all here!” Lily said enthusiastically. Edward had popped up beside her, his grin mirroring Lily’s.

  “Are you sure you don’t want to go crane collecting with—“ Edward coughed when Lily and Aida glared at him. “—I mean, are we all ready?”

  “Lead the way,” Lily said cheerfully, despite marching ahead of everybody.

  Just inside the village gate, Lily grabbed and dispensed several paper bags to everybody in her group. Each paper bag was a different color, whimsically painted with several different animal and plant silhouettes. It all looked like the work of elementary school students.

  After receiving her bag, Aida was handed a skewer the length of her arm. She looked at Ezra for an explanation.

  “It’s to stick the sweets on,” Ezra said quietly. “You can eat every sweet as you receive a blessing, or you can save them to consume at a more leisurely pace.”

  Aida giggled as she imagined Lily with cheeks bulging like a chipmunk, every treat stuffed in her mouth as she wandered down the street with a bag full of paper cranes.

  As soon as everyone was armed with a skewer and an open bag, Lily urged them onwards. Despite the straightforwardness of their task, Aida couldn’t help but feel trepidation as they joined the crowds of children streaming along the street, stopping by each stall to grab a colorful sweet from a pile of rainbow bonbons, and holding out their bag for the stall proprietor to drop a colored paper crane in.

  They were all taller than the children ahead of them, even Lily, but despite their age the adults still smiled and beckoned for the Maglica students to approach, offering candy and handing out cranes.

  Following Lily’s lead, Aida popped the first sweet into her mouth, crunching through the layer of crystallized sugar to the fruit underneath. It tasted so different from the mass-produced candy she had back in her world; there was a depth to the sweetness, the fruit's natural sweetness rounding out the sugar so it wasn't just an overly sweet treat. She looked at Ezra, who smiled at her starry eyes as he delicately placed his own sweet on his tongue.

  “Don’t forget your crane,” he said from around the sugar. Aida nodded vigorously, sucking on the treat in her mouth as she held her bag out to the proprietor, a middle-aged woman with her light hair tied in a sensible low bun.

  “Thank you for all your work, may your fire continue to burn brightly,” the woman said pleasantly as she dropped a pink crane into Aida’s bag before turning to Ezra and depositing a white crane into his.

  “May you see the bounty of your efforts,” Aida said with Ezra, repeating the traditional response to the phrase.

  They continued down the street, with Aida eventually stacking candy onto her skewer. Even though the candies were primarily fruit, the flavors were so rich that she couldn’t continuously munch on them. Vanita and Ezra kept their fruit on their sticks as well, while Lily and Edward tossed their candies into their void-like mouths.

  As they walked, Aida couldn’t help but notice that Lily and Edward were very similar. Edward was a Fire student, and he was Lily and Vanita’s classmate in Class 3. They were both energetic and shameless - or very confident. Neither one expressed shyness at being around the other, though it was obvious they enjoyed each other’s company. Even though they were friendly, conversing with everybody in the group with sincerity, there was still something about the way they interacted that made it clear there was a special affection for the other.

  “They suit each other, don’t they?” Ezra asked softly.

  “They do,” Aida agreed thoughtfully. “I can’t quite put my finger on what makes them different from just friends.”

  Ezra’s eyes followed Aida’s. “There is unresolved tension between them,” he said softly. “If they were merely friends, they would be relaxed. Perhaps even placid. But the two of them are still overly cognizant of the other…”

  Aida felt her face flush as she kept her gaze forward. “Wouldn’t that just be a sign of them being considerate?”

  “They show special consideration towards the other.”

  Their walk to collect candy and colorful paper cranes had wound them down the main street of Shale Port, and now Aida could see the bonfire on the pebble beach just ahead of them. There was a queue of children leading up to the flames, with two attendants standing in front of the bonfire to help the younger children feed their paper cranes into the fire. Their group secured their place in line, with Lily and Edward turning back towards Vanita, Aida, and Ezra.

  “This is it,” Lily said breathlessly, her eyes shining and lips puckering from all the sweets she had sucked on. “Once we send these cranes off…our childhood is over.”

  “Don’t be so dramatic,” Vanita admonished Lily. “We still have until graduation.”

  “But Lily is right,” Edward said earnestly. His sandy hair stood on end, making him look like a half-scattered dandelion puff. “This is our last major event as children. The next event we’ll be working, with adult responsibilities. It’s almost over.”

  Everybody quieted at the somber statement. Aida glanced at Ezra, who was gazing at the bonfire with glittering eyes. His bag was full of cranes, and Aida only just now noticed how delicately he carried the bag.

  She had been carrying her own bag in one arm, the other hand occupied with making sure she didn’t accidentally stick her candy skewer to Vanita’s hair or clothes in front of her, but Ezra held his bag carefully in both arms in front of him, with less attention paid to the state of his candy. Aida’s bag wasn’t exactly a crumpled mess, but there was no doubt that Ezra’s bag of cranes was in perfect condition.

  He takes his duty very seriously, Aida realized, thunderstruck. She knew he was principled, but seeing his discipline for what was supposed to just be a fun, traditional activity for children…

  It was only a matter of time until our obligations tore us apart.