The southern side breezes a new wind for an adventurer in the Joy District. As the courageous venturers of the Middle World traveled several paths, their arrival led to a change in the wind with a warmer yet delicate aroma. What a day to be alive and breathing in this world.
The librarian and her deceitful companion find a bridge leading them to an entrance on a hill where a village filled with starlings and dandelions greeted them with smiles. Then there's a long sign stands at the entrance, naming the city as Sweetsmirk.
It looks so similar to the librarian's hometown in the Middle World, where a steep hill lies pointing east with houses and trees. On the west side, there was a tavern where her school would've been built above its ground, followed by a strong river that flowed rapidly behind the tavern.
"What happens with the river here?" Ask the librarian. Her eyes were disturbed by the intensity of the environment here.
"It's only the seasonal influence." Said the cunning thief holding a box.
"And how can we keep that flow from damaging this parcel?"
The librarian and the thief head into the tavern with a parcel given by a contractor to them with colorful red wrappings and a candy-like scent. However, they were prohibited from opening it, as it was meant to be given by someone else in the town. A man said to be a client looking for his missing trinkets.
"What's inside of the bag, anyway?"
"Don't open it! Remember what the kid said?" Eve slaps Charger's hand from reaching the box.
"What did he said about it?"
The tavern is not far from the librarian's foot—barely five steps, and she could feel the ground turning flat where the tavern was adjusted. Their deliveries seem fast and easy with the librarian's advantage on a high ground. But she could not enter the tavern so tiny in this city as the starlings. Her leg blocked the entrance from the outside, causing dissidence among the starlings. Her staff is too tall to fit entirely into the tavern, while her head barely fits the narrowly-constructed doorframe.
"Whoa! Wait..." Eve stops Charger from the outside.
"Eve, looks like you have to wait outside. I'm afraid." Charger smirked, laughing at her size.
"No way! You see how hot the outside was? Let alone I want to trust you to be the keeper of that parcel."
Desperate, the librarian was compelled to bear the scorching sun alone without her companion, who held the parcel with him in the tavern. All the precious Ale was for him that day, while the librarian could only watch outside the window. She was starving without a food, and her eyes were forced opened at the thief.
"Don't worry, friend! I'll keep it safe!"
"You better don't open it right there, imp!" Eve yelled.
"Eve, I'm just arriving! What could go wrong?"
The librarian looked doubtfully at the thief for watching sharply at the parcel without a word. Despite a few drinks, he hasn't lost his sight of the parcel since. But it was not long until the thief began to feel his mischievous deed coming into his head. The red wrappings and the candy smell were too tempting for him to dismiss, and a few drinks finally knocked the thief's facade for holding patiently.
"Woah." He muttered.
"That's for me! That's for me!"
"I need to know what's inside!"
He can hear several bells clanking, like a Christmas jingle hiding inside a box. They rolled around freely, and there were many—enough to make something for him. Something worth making out as a thief. The cardboard covering this package felt more fragile than any regular cardboard he had ever touched, which meant he could tear it even with his hands.
"Time to find out!" He uttered again.
His grip tightens, and his arms move to oppose each other—pulling the red wrapper on the parcel with small but slowly more powerful force until the cover becomes thinner. His eyes stare glamorously at the box. Christmas comes early in this realm.
But before he could do anything wrong, Eve watched his mischief from the window before it could ever happen. The thief's desire to collect took him from the heart. He could not miss the opportunity to unwrap another scrap for himself, let alone resist his burglar instinct.
"What are you doing??" The librarian stared angrily.
The librarian took her staff and thought quickly before the thief could damage the parcel. With a swing of her staff, ice reprimands the thief's hand for his evil deed, remembering the shape of the cuff he was once bound with. It was painful but necessary to maintain the order.
*Fwoosh* The ice continues to blow up on Charger's antennae.
"Noo...it freezes! You're freezing my great antennae!" He yelled.
"Thank you for wasting my time, imp." She replies.
"Ugh. Almost got it." Charger grunts.
But the order could not keep the librarian off the heatwave in this town. With their head dizzy and their skin sweating, she fell to her knees helpless like she was in the Sahara desert. Meanwhile, the thief gets to stay cold inside the tavern and smirks for free drinks while the librarian had to drink from the river with a taste of cinnamon and saltwater.
"Wow, what a day..." She sweats.
The daylight was hotter than the librarian thought on this town, making it hard for her to focus with such heat. Such a blaze was unnecessarily needed for a calm and cold lady, and yet it was here gnawing at the sky. Never had the librarian thought of a heat worse than her hometown in August.
"Ugh! Has the sun ever been colder for once? Why should I dry myself for this?" The librarian mumbled.
The librarian sought fury with the sun after its heat became unbearable to touch. It's almost like a pyre made of wood is built behind her head while she is restrained and burnt alive. She could even hear a scream of joy coming from people wishing for her death.
[Garden]
"Someone put this fire down! Ha!" Said a fleeing citizen with burnt edges on his clothes fleeing the park.
"This isn't part of the event, right? Ha!"
"Terrible! Terrible! Ha!"
It is gone. The fire had nothing left to eat on the grass. Few starlings are here watching for the cleric to ruin everything in one touch and a silence. And with it came perhaps the most silent, gut-wrenching smiles begging in fear. The starlings were not happy.
"Oops?" Cyrus replies.
Their tiny, glimmering hands are shed with ashes and turned ebony from the trees dying before their eyes. They tried smirking with their fingers blackened, but their lips could only cough coal and thread while lingering at their tattered and perverted clothes. There was no rain to wipe that coal off than their tears, and it's a shame to waste such paint on their faces.
"Wow! What a show!" Yelled by Cyrus. His eyes look displeased and inexcusable while his smile stays up.
"I can't believe we're getting a spotlight with...fire?"
There was a silence. An unpleasant and disappointment flying through the air.
"What now? Was that everything? Where is the fun?" A man looks around with a confused face.
"I don't like this! I can't be happy! I need to...I need to..." The girl slowly arches her lips down.
"Hey, kid! You have anything to say to these people?" The worker called for Cyrus.
The silence was terrifying, and the mark of its devastation lingered on his fingers. A pile of sticks collided with one another, and everything fell into ashes as if a pyre was made for him. Less of his shirt was tattered than the starling. But rather than being hopeless in the stars' looks, he was inspired by the quenching thirst of the flame. Perhaps, as he was worrying about his power being a poison to others, it might have become somewhat of an enjoyment for himself. And maybe others can feel it, too.
"Wait, wait, wait!" Cyrus stopped everyone from crying.
"F-fear not! I had everything under control over this...uhm—part of the show!"
"R-really? It is?" The one starling asks.
"Yes! The fire is only the beginning, but I came with more dazzling in your eyes!" He yelled desperately.
"After all, I carried the fire. Why can't I do more?"
The cleric gathers some Cedar trees that haven't been burnt from the garden and turns them into a torch no one has ever seen. With coal charred from its decaying brethren and flaming fingertips of his to turn a simple wood piece into a firework. Merge and twined, the fire came as he expected. A blaze set in a beautiful golden light burns brighter than a simple torch. The starlings stopped and wandered by the lights, with terror seemingly paused. What a beauty to awe for them.
"Woah..." Everyone awes.
The cleric juggles those torches like a club, which immediately takes the starlings' attention like children. They were awed at his skill, even if he wasn't too familiar with circus life because what they liked about him was the magical fire that shot out of the torch. And as the cleric realizes how amateur he is, he notices the fire too.
"This is terrible. I can't juggle! I'm not a clown?"
"I don't think I can do this forever. It's too—aching?" He pauses.
The torches rain harmless gold sparks over the ground that feel soft and endearing for the starlings to touch—unlike his previous one. Both the cleric and the starlings were awed at this view with their eyes wide open and fear seemingly paused. It makes him realize he wasn't as unprofessional as he thought he was. Or it seems that luck happens to help him somewhat.
"How I never imagine a fire so beautifully—alive?" He held the fire tightly, watching the fire make a little leap.
"Its warm somehow—different."
The starlings were relieved and saved, with their face pale as the powder that makes a clown and hard as an eggshell. Their blackened tears is no more immediately, and lights shines again in their soulless eyes once more. It is as if the golden sparks fell into their bodies and replenish those missing hopes.
"Hey! It's working. All of you are smiling! So, where's the smiles now?" He brags.
"Now that's fun! We want more!"
"That's better! I fell better!"
"Haha! I can laugh again!"
The cleric was lucky to not have his head off, or even worse. He watches as the starlings depart happily forgetting him for the performance he had made—dazzling, and perhaps better to stay that way than to be a downer.
"That was close, kid. You've almost got the whole town skinning on you. Ha!" The worker replies.
"You better leave before you become part of this trouble you made. Ha!"
"What a waste of wood. We've worked hours for nothing! Ha!"
But with this new discovery, the cleric could not forget the day his fire would have helped others. The glistening and warm fire is only the beginning of his strength, And with its sparks, the cleric believed hope may flow more from his fingers—a match of a god, flicked and twisted by a man.
"Why should I stop now?" He mumbles.
"This is performance! I shouldn't stop! I should go for more!"
"But how? Nothing else to burn here..."
Yet there's nothing he could terrorize with his fire. The garden has nothing left for him, and the grass is trying to grow undisturbed from his touch. The cleric became obsessed with spreading fire everywhere, fearing nothing but the dim ashes where his chaos could not grow.
But what he called chaos is what he sees as a beauty, a fragrant of a dawn stone melting under the heat of the sun that blesses people like him to shimmer with hope. He sat under the tree wondering how he could spread this fire further.
But then, an idea struck into his head. The cleric thought that maybe the town wouldn't be as empty as the garden—with woods so rich, he could even get more than just gardener guests. There could be more to light knowing the magic won't stop. A spark of hope seems to ignite within him again.
"I know what to do." He stands up, glancing at one of the biggest tree he could find in this city.
[Tavern]
Once the fire had died down, the librarian felt the freshness in the air once more beyond the rushing river, just as all the starlings had left the tavern and the sun was beginning to set.
"Where's everyone going?" Charger notices. But Eve remain silent.
She remained pale as snow despite how long the sun had shone at her warm, lustrous white skin. The scorching sun had made the librarian pale and tired, along with dizziness and confusion. She didn't even have time to use her staff to summon ice because she was too bored and weary.
"Why can't there be anything good in this town? I thought this was Joy district, not PAIN district!" She yelled.
"Didn't we have everything here?" The thief wanders around the tavern with his antennae bursting with blue sparks.
"We had nothing but PAIN," She yelled again but softly.
The librarian was so tired after not sleeping for two days and eating winds. Luckily, there was a tree to rest near the tavern with perfect shade and fewer noises. She was ready to lay down and sleep peacefully under the shadow with a weary eye.
"Uhm...that boy...will pay..." Eve lay on the ground.
"I need to...put up a...fight...with him."
"So... much...so...cold...so...dark."
But just before the librarian could close her left eye, she saw a figure standing far away from under the tree it seemed. The shadow waved its hand as if trying to greet the librarian from a distance. The librarian woke up, seeing the shadow standing before his eyes like a small child. And there was only one person who could stand that small other than the thief.
"What? Who's there?" She asked softly.
For a second, it stopped and looked back at the librarian with a pause before leaving in a hurry. The librarian knew something was wrong for the child to depart without a word, let alone heading to the west instead of the east.
"He's heading to the west. I must follow him." She uttered.
Without hesitation, the librarian chased the silhouette out of the city immediately. That child was looking at her from afar with a look of disdain, insulting the librarian for her negligence with a very weak and lethargic wave of his hand.
The librarian chased the boy away from the city through the warm afternoon sky and the sun-kissed garden. Her eyes were fixed only on the boy. But the boy kept running, entering a crevice in the rocks that seemed to come from the hills. The librarian did not stop there and tried to enter the same path, seeing light on the other side of the crevice.
She could hear voices from the other direction, which sounded like children screaming happily. And through the cracks in the rocks, the librarian found clean water and wet paint that seemed to have been freshly painted. The librarian realized that she was on the right track, even though the child's silhouette was starting to fade from her eyes.
Unfortunately, the librarian did not have time to bring her staff when chasing the boy. All she had in her hand was a piece of paper and a pencil she always held as a note-taker. As she looked away into the city, the silhouette had already disappeared in the blink of an eye, leaving the librarian lost in an unknown land.
"What? No! No! No!!" She yelled.
She was lost in a cave, with the only light coming from a gap above to shine over her head is too dim with the cloudy sky. The trickling of water and the river deceived her ears with the sound of children screaming, and now the librarian was exhausted and trapped.