Chapter 24: 23. The preparations

The memories of that day at the market slowly faded from my mind as spring came in full swing. With the warm winds came the festival season.

-We have to meet with Hare for the Spring Bloom festival after breakfast.-

Jade said as she sat beside me at the breakfast table.

The kids were still trickling in the dining room, so there was a bit of time to talk.

-Are we making garlands?-

I asked.

She shook her head.

-We’re going to help at the church.-

The Spring Bloom Festival was a celebration to look forward to a bountiful summer. It was celebrated by both the church of Fey and Alenia. In other words, a celebration of Life and Harvest.

From what Jade explained to me, the Fey church did a lot for our orphanage. So during celebrations, we were expected to volunteer our help.

Hare finally arrived at the table and gave the usual short prayer and we started our meal.

Jade had once taken the time to shortly recite it to me:

‘To those who watch over us, we are thankful. Praise be.’

A simple but effective prayer. Something much shorter than the ones that had been recited at the dining table of the estate. It was probably to account for the fact that the children worshiped dozens of different gods at their own discretion.

I, myself, had taken to making a short prayer before bed.

Nothing big, but Hare had once explained to me that when we feel upset, it can be good for our head to tell someone. So when it was things I couldn’t tell Jade or didn’t want Darkie’s consolation, I told Scorn.

After we finished our meal, Jade and I went to meet Hare in his office.

-You two will go to the church and help Kinsmann F’ĺḉ to organise seat assignment.-

I felt the corner of my eye pinch.

Names were truly my weakness when it came to language since they used standard letters even in our secret language.

-Work hard... and make sure to come back before dark, understand?-

We both nodded. I waved us off and we started making our way to the Septenary church, where the celebrations would take place.

I had gotten acquainted with the streets around the orphanage over the last few weeks. Although we weren’t allowed to go as far as the market, Hare would allow us to go play in the neighborhood’s streets as long as we stayed together.

Some of the locals greeted us as we passed them in the street. An old lady stopped us and started talking with Jade. As they exchanged a few words, I started feeling bored, so I looked at the houses..

It was still a strange sight to behold.

Having grown up on an estate in the countryside, I wasn’t used to seeing so many buildings all packed together. Even more impressingly, they reached high into the sky. As tall as five floors! On the other hand, the look of the buildings wasn't anything particularly beautiful. Some of the buildings had faded colours mixed in the plaster or stains from soot. Drying lines were strewn from building to building, and beautiful flowers grew at window sills.

[Say, Darkie. Do you think we’ll live in one of those houses in the future?]

Darkie remained silent for a moment.

“I don’t think we’ve ever thought about the future.”

I pondered on the idea for a second.

[I guess you’re right… But what do you think? Do you think this will be where we go once we’re too old for the orphanage? What will we do? Jade said she wanted to become a scribe, but what about us?]

“Maybe we can become… Secret language teachers..?”

[And teach everyone how to talk with us?]

“Yeah!”

I smiled.

[Sounds fun!]

Thinking about the future is not something I had ever had to do before. But now that I had to, I started thinking that maybe I could do something with my life.

Jade was wrapping up her discussion with the old lady. The woman came to see me and said some words before pinching my cheek and giving me a pear.

I smiled and bowed to thank her. The wayJade had taught me.

She gave me a very bright smile before wishing us farewell.

-What did she want?-

I asked Jade before taking a bite into the pear.

-Nothing, she just wanted to talk.-

I thought about it for a moment.

-I think she’s lonely.-

Jade looked at me for a moment and then nodded.

-Her husband died a year ago and her daughter has moved west to live with her husband’s family. She’s alone now.-

-Doesn’t she have friends? There’s a lot of people around here. Maybe they could play together?-

Jade smiled sadly.

-I’m sure she has lots of friends, but you know, when you go back home after playing and no one is there waiting for you, it feels even lonelier than before.-

I could tell that there was weight behind Jade’s words. She also had felt that loneliness before.

As we finished eating the fruits the old lady had given us, we finally arrived at the church and made our way inside.

There were a lot of people preparing for the festival. I recognised some of the garlands other kids had made at the orphanage yesterday being hung up on the arches running across the ceiling.

Jade asked a man where to find the Fey Kinsmann and he pointed to an area at the side of the altar.

There a white haired woman dressed in a black and red robe gave directives to a set of craftsmen preparing what looked like a podium.

We made our way down the aisles.

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Jade called out to the kinsmann.

When she turned around, the first thing I noticed was not her scarlet eyes, but instead how beautiful she was. Her face was slim yet plump, her nose short yet defined, her hair long yet wavy like a cloud. She looked like a statue of the kindreds.

When she noticed us, she clasped her hand together and approached us. She said something while looking at us at an interval. Jade took the lead as I was still struck in awe and explained who we were.

She nodded happily and told us to follow along.

When she turned around, I quickly signed to Jade.

-She’s so pretty!-

Jade nodded enthusiastically.

-I know! And do you want to know a secret?-

-A secret? Sure!-

A mischievous smile appeared on Jade's face.

-I hear that she’s Hare’s girlfriend!-

My eyes grew wide. Her?!

-Really??-

-Really, really!-

She nodded with conviction.

-But don’t tell anyone! It’s supposed to be a secret!-

I nodded in agreement.

I couldn’t believe that Hare had such a pretty girlfriend!

We eventually reached an office. There the kinsmann showed us sheets of paper with squares on it and a sheet packed with words. She then explained to us what to do which Jade translated for me.

-Those are attendance papers. We have to look at all of them and make sure everyone has an assigned seat with a number. We have to make sure to put families together and the nobles closer to the front and center.-

Jade explained, as the Kinsmann took a pile of paper of all the attendance slips.

-She says that we should start by making a list of attendees with their titles and then assign them the seat so we don’t make any mistake.-

I nodded in understanding.

I noticed the kinsmann was also staring at me with a large smile on her face. She said something to me and then looked at Jade.

-She says that she’s heard a lot about you from Uncle, and that she’s happy that you have adapted so well to living with us.-

Explained Jade with a smile.

The compliment made me smile and I nodded in appreciation at her. She patted the two of us on the head before waving us goodbye as she left us in the office.

I turned toward Jade waiting for her to get started, but to my surprise, her expression was quite perplexed.

Is she… Not good at these things?

I looked down a Darkie and wondered.

[Can *I* do this?]

“We won’t know until we try!’

So let's think, we need to make a list… So it’s like when we stand in a lign to choose teams at the orphanage… We then have to make sure to put the title to remember where to seat them… So it's a bit like giving them different colours of armbands… And then once it’s done, I have to tell who goes where.

I looked at the sheet with squares. It looked like the shape of the church. Each square had a number. So we have to give the seats the most at the front to the ones with the best armbands… Or in other words to the highest ranking nobles… And make sure they were with their family.

I looked at the paper and reflected for a minute.

My first instinct was to draw people, but then there would be no way of knowing who was who. And it would become chaotic.

I looked at the sheet of paper and found the word for name. Underneath, a list of words was written in a different handwriting. That had to be the names.

-Ok, I have a plan!-

I made three columns and explained my idea to Jade.

-So here what we’re going to do; we will put the names here and the ranks here…]

As she listened to my explanation, it seems Jade finally snapped out of her panic.

She nodded and took the piece of paper and started to write the names in the first column grouped in brackets, in the second column she wrote the rank, and we left the last empty to write the seat.

We split the work with me finding the information on the paper and her writing it down.

The work progressed swimmingly and before long we started assigning seats. It took several hours but eventually we had mapped out seating numbers for every single guest.

When the Archkinsmann eventually came to check on us, she was pleased with her work and gave us a candy as a reward.

By the time we left the church, the sky was already turning a shade of orange.

-Done! Now we can just have fun at the festival!-

I celebrated. It was only two days until the festival and I was looking forward to participating in all the activities.

-Oh… You didn’t hear…?-

I looked at Jade and tilted my head.

-Well of course I didn’t hear. What is it?-

She smiled apologetically.

-We’re also in charge of showing people to their seats during the opening ceremony.-

-WHAT?!-

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