"You, is this boy your child?" he shifted his question to the person behind me instead.
"I am his guardian," my grandfather answered shortly, not a shred of fear in his voice.
"So, I just want to make sure. Your boy came here to have a chance for an elite position as a soldier, and these...," he picked up my bucket before continuing, "these... are all the fresh offering you bring today. Have you no respect for our ancestors?" he finished his heated sentence with a sheer amount of intimidation. I could only stay silent as I didn't have any response.
"With respect, your majesty. I haven't seen any relation between the competence to join the army and the amount of fishes we brought," my grandfather spoke truthfully without any sense of pressure inside him.
The king narrowed his eyes, "Someone is actually foolish enough to not know the usual tradition we celebrate every year," he chuckled sarcastically after saying those words.
"What's this? You don't have enough food to give for your soldiers, so you basically forced us to provide some?" my grandfather unexpectedly spouted with a mocking tone, but when I finally saw him, his eyes were brimmed with resentment aimed at the king. The crowd behind us was murmuring and I could tell it was not about anything good.
"Retract your words as of now!" the king was starting to lose his patience but I could only watch as the disaster emerged.
"And if I don't?" my grandfather taunted him even further.
"How dare you to speak like that!" the guard near us kicked him to the ground and held the spear to his back. The king then lowered his body to meet my level and stared at me, "I feel sorry for you to be raised by this... ignorant bum. I was only a bit bothered by your amount of tribute, but this is completely a different thing. Aren't you ashamed to have a parent stupid enough to offend me and also the ancestors of this land?" he spoke while maintaining a sense of menace from him, but his words evoked something within me. "Take that back," the intensity was too low in my voice.
"What?" the king couldn't hear anything that I said and adjusted his position to hear me better. "Take that back! He's not a fool!" I shouted at him before I could realize the thing that I had done. The king's expression turned sourer after I had uttered my anger. "You're going to defend him with this nonsense?!" his voice was raised even more.
All of a sudden he grabbed one of the fish and slammed it into grandfather's face. Everyone other than them was stunned by the spectacle, even the whispers on our back were abruptly stopped.
"You and your filthy mouth!" the king was going for a punch to my interlocked grandfather when someone prevented the swing out of nowhere. Out of my expectation, a girl my age who wore the royalties' clothing was hanging on his hand. The shock was apparent on everyone's face especially the king.
"What are you doing!" he shouted to the girl that still clung to his arm. I couldn't see the face under her long straight black hair but she was definitely part of the family, perhaps the daughter from one of his wives.
"Stop it, your highness! These lame people are not worth your time," she uttered with a shrill voice which was atypical for a princess that time. Despite I thanked her inside my mind for saving my grandfather, somehow I was annoyed by her comment about us.
"Didn't you hear this old brat just now? He insulted our warriors in front of everyone!" he said while shaking his own daughter to the ground.
She landed with a thud on the sand and winced from the pain but continued afterward, "look at the crowd! What will they think if you just go berserk right now? You are lacking dignity at this moment," she finished before dusting off her blue silk dress. Her face was showing an angry expression, although it was not the one that you could take seriously.
The king was still short-breathed from the fury, but after glancing at the worried and scared crowd, he restrained his hand before calming himself down. "You are here to inform the good news, right? You don't have to sully your hand for this kind of person," she went closer to him to deliver the speech as if she didn't want the words to spread around.
A few elite guards approached the commotion that we caused beforehand, one of them talked to the king while aiming the sharp tip of the spear toward us, "if you command, your majesty, I will take care of these two troublemakers," his spear aside, the huge body of his would scare anyone unlucky enough to cross paths with him.
To my surprise, the incoming threat was stopped by no one but the king himself as he raised his hand to the side and also commanded the guard to make my grandfather stand.
He exhaled the air through his nose impatiently before talking to us again, "consider yourselves to be lucky this time. She's right, I should not spoil this good day for the likes of you. I will let go of this matter just this once but my opinion about you will not go through any change," he paused before shifting his glare to grandfather, "you are a waste of human being in this land". My grandfather only grinned lightly after hearing his statement, telling everything he needed to with his mere expression.
"And you. In fact, I am curious enough about how far you will go with that attitude of yours, especially when you are this young. So, I will give you a shot at this but with one condition," he said to me as his finger pointed at the elite guard who approached us before, "you have to face this man as your opponent for the fight later," he continued with a shocking announcement.
My body shivered in an instant and my mind was screaming internally to do an immediate surrender, but then the king added, "if you run away when the time comes, I will not let you join this event anymore and I will personally make sure to let people know that you and your parent are nothing but cowards. Enjoy your life in poverty."
I hesitated to fight the guard as he would pulverize me into pieces, however, my resentment to the king for his harsh words against grandfather was driving my urge to fight.
"Accepted, I'll go through it all. I thank you for the chance," I stood from the ground and raised my spear as a sign of agreement. The king let out an irritated sigh and returned to the line while being tailed by his guards. With a simple gesture of his hand, the parade and the music marched again along the beach.
The other contestants were shifting their attention to me, definitely not to give any kind of encouragement for us, but to laugh at our condition. I even perceived some hateful stares that were directed to us from the crowd since we were clearly in the wrong if viewed from the eyes of an outsider. No matter what, I could only follow through with the deal that I made with the king, thus I had to prepare everything including the offering.
Searching for the missing fish that got thrown out, my eyes wander everywhere but found nothing until it glided into my vision out of nowhere. The fish was being supported by two small hands and I almost lost my composure when I saw the owner of them. It was the girl from before, who prevented the king from hitting my grandfather.
Her face was available to be seen clearly and I had only realized how pretty she was at that time. Her solemn black eyes and well-shaped nose were some of her features which I found to be interesting. She lowered herself gracefully and put the fish inside my bucket and then left without any words. By then, I remembered that I had not shown any form of gratitude for the things she had done for me, deliberately or not.
"Wait!" I yelled to her before she could get too far from me. She caught my words and turned back to face me again, seemingly confused about my call. Out of reflex, I kneeled to the ground again and bowed until my head touched the sand, "thank you for before!" I shouted my gratitude sincerely.
I let my body stay in that position for a while before a pair of hands raised my shoulder, and I was amused when she was in front of me again. She let out a small but gorgeous enough smile on her face, "do your best," she motivated me and made her way to the march again after saying so.
At that moment, I found myself an irreplaceable source of determination in some way. I looked to grandfather on my side and gathered my resolve, holding my spear dearly.
"Wish the best for me."