Chapter VII: Festival of Lidae
As Stefi shuffled from Cédes’s house with heavy feet, a pall of darkness swirling with threats of death and destruction seemed to follow in her wake. Not even the brilliant banners and streamers now twisting in the breeze were enough to rouse her spirits. But then, like a beam of sunshine to dispel the clouds, Gemmie spoke to her.
Stefi? she said, her voice terribly calm. Please try not to worry too much about what the white Furosan lady said. We can’t have you trying to save ferrets wearing a sad face.
“What’s the use in trying?” Stefi said. “You heard Cédes as well as I did. We’ve failed before we’ve even started.”
That’s not true! Gemmie said forcefully yet with kindness in her words. The future is but a space on which we are to paint our own futures, no matter what someone else might think or see.
“Wow…” Stefi said, more a breath than actual speech. She plucked Gemmie from her shoulder and held the small sable in front of her face so that their eyes met; inky intelligent upon milky silver. “That’s pretty deep coming from you!”
Actually, I heard it from someone else… an old friend from long ago. Gemmie admitted.
“Maya?”
As Maya replied with a straight-faced No (or as straight-faced as a ferret can get), Stefi caught a flash of something unexpected from both of their minds, but only for an instant: an armored ferret?
“Who was that?” Stefi asked them both as the image was quickly shunted from their minds as if the two ferrets were trying to hide something.
A damn fool… Maya muttered.
A damn good friend… Gemmie said.
But after that, no matter how hard she tried, she could coax no further information out of either of them.
Presently Stefi arrived at the guest lodgings, which Ifaut had had the uncharacteristic foresight to point out to her earlier. There she found the Furosan, Sansonis, and Rhaka seated around a warm open fire.
“Stefi!” Ifaut squealed a little too loudly as she rushed over to greet her. “What’s wrong? You look sad. Did Lady Cédes say something upsetting? She often does, but she doesn’t mean to.” She moved, arms outstretched, to give Stefi a hug.
Stefi eased her back. “It’s nothing, really. I’m just tired.” In truth she was, both mentally and physically.
“Okay. Follow me, then,” Ifaut said and led her into a small bedroom that opened off the back of the main room. It was only a simple affair. There were two single beds against one wall and a set of bunks standing opposite, but to Stefi in her state it looked as welcoming as any rich palace’s.
“Will this be okay for you?” Ifaut asked as Stefi lowered herself onto the bottom bunk. The two ferrets, being far from tired, set off to explore their temporary home. Two exciting new places to explore in one day. At least Stefi knew they’d sleep well tonight.
“It’s fine. Thank you, Ifaut.”
“Can I get you anything? Maybe a drink of water? Another pillow? A snack? A cuddle?” Somehow, perhaps because of her ferret-like nature, she picked up that something wasn’t quite right.
“No thanks, I’m fine,” Stefi said. “Really.”
Ifaut wasn’t fooled in the slightest. “Okay. Sleep well. I do hope you feel nice and refreshed for tonight.” Ifaut left the room, leaving the door open just a little so the ferrets could come and go as they pleased. She sat back down next to Sansonis on an overstuffed and comfortable couch. She sighed.
“Is Stefi not feeling very well?” he asked.
Before Ifaut could answer, Rhaka spoke from his place on the floor by the fire. “She has had a very tiring several days,” he said. “And it is not every day that one finds they may be responsible for the fate of the world.”
“What do you mean?” Sansonis asked. He and Ifaut had, of course, missed the important information when they’d left early.
Rhaka told them of everything Cédes had said but neglected to mention her final words. Seeing these two young people before him, his own son beginning to feel happiness once more after many years alone, and the Furosan princess, eyes shining with hope and expectancy, he somehow couldn’t bring himself to tell them that that they might not have a future.
After he had finished, Sansonis said, “So what happens now? Where do we go from here?”
“That she did not say,” Rhaka said. “For tonight anyway we must stay here for the Furosan celebration. It would hardly be polite to wander off in the midst of the festivities. And I have noticed that our entrance sealed us inside. We could not wander off even if we wished.”
Ifaut leapt up with a gasp, knocking over a small table as she did so. “The Festival! I have to get ready!” Before anyone could stop her she took off at a sprint, leaving the front door ajar behind her. Sansonis shut it before Gemmie and Maya could slink out.
Rhaka seemed to utter a laugh. It was more a rattling growl than anything. A smile danced in his eyes. “She is certainly an interesting one, is she not? A little strange, but interesting nevertheless.”
“You’re not the one stuck with her,” Sansonis said and smiled. He fingered his new pendant with one hand and gently touched his scratched face with the other. A symbol of affection and a mark of fear.
It wasn’t until later on, as the evening had taken hold and peaceful twilight had come on, that Stefi woke from her long nap. Gemmie and Maya lay curled around each other at the foot of her bed, twisted and seemingly knotted into a coil of fur and warmth that made it difficult to discern where one ferret ended and the other began.
“You got up just in time,” Sansonis said from the couch as she shuffled into the lounge. “They’re about to start things out there. You want to come and watch?”
“Of course!” She hurriedly shook off the last shackles of sleep and bundled the ferrets inside her shirt.
The two humans and ferrets, followed by Rhaka, went outside into the still twilight. Outside of this place of Furosans, from where they had all come, twilight held little to no significance. Here it was the most important time of the day, well suited for a celebration befitting Mafouras’s guardian Uiverra, Lidae. Ferrets are, after all, most active at the rising and setting of the sun. How well they would flourish in a world of nothing but twilight, Stefi thought.
Far from where the outsiders sat, nearly every Furosan from Mafouras and the surrounding area clustered about the giant statue of Lidae. Cédes, accompanied by Phastus, Rivista, and Ifaut, led the proceedings, offering up prayers in their native language so that none of the outsiders could understand. Next, small groups of family and friends approached to lay offerings of flowers, food, and small votive items carved in a variety of shapes about Lidae’s feet. Even ferrets joined in, scampering with difficulty along Lidae’s stone back and tumbling off onto the soft grass and piles of offerings, their backs arched and tails puffed. As each group turned to leave and make way for the next, Cédes and the Mafouras family wished them well and thanked everyone personally; no easy task given the numbers. Yet between the four of them they could recognize everyone.
Once the offerings were completed some time later, Stefi and Sansonis found themselves growing bored despite knowing the importance of the occasion. Many stars had already begun winking in the darkening sky, and now small braziers were being lit about the town and lanterns hung in the trees. Eventually the gathering of Furosans sat down and, with Cédes at their head, began praying, although to the humans it sounded more like singing than any of the monotone prayers they had ever heard.
Presently Stefi let out a yawn and sprawled out on the cool grass, gazing skywards. The blue moon had not yet risen, but the yellow moon was beginning to appear, a light rising eerily from the trees.
“Sansonis?” she said. Her voice startled him over the sounds of the Furosans.
“Yes?”
“You were raised by the Otsukuné. What can you tell me about the stars?” She asked him not only because Rhaka had gone inside to sleep, but because she realized the two had never really h
ad much of a conversation together.
“What would you like to know?” he said. “Admittedly, I don’t remember as much as I used to. I’ll try, though. Just don’t tell dad. He’d be upset if he knew I’d forgotten most of what he taught me.”
“What exactly are the Ancestors and Three Sisters?”
“The Ancestors are the stars, the souls of those who passed on in the beginning and became cold stars in the heavens.”
“And the Sisters?”
“The Three Sisters are Rishka the yellow moon, Larnia the blue moon, and Feregana, our own green world.”
“What did Rhaka mean about them never lying? Do they tell what’s going to happen?”
“In a way,” Sansonis said and sat silent for a while, thinking. “From their heavenly dances the Otsukuné could catch glimpses of future events and fates. Me... technically I’m Kalkic so I’m not too good at it.”
“Nonsense, I’m sure you are. I know! Can you tell me my future?” she asked. Just because Lady Cédes had seen something bleak in what was yet to come it didn’t mean everyone did.
Sansonis lay down next to her and proceeded to ask her questions like when she was born, and dates–if she could remember them–of various significant events, including when she first met Gemmie and Maya. At each answer he pointed out a certain star, reciting its name and function while telling her what it meant and to what constellation it belonged.
As it turned out, all of Stefi’s answers pertained to stars located within only three constellations: the Great Bridge that spanned the heavens; the Demon Seer, which Stefi couldn’t make out as anything other than a shapeless blob with two red stars that almost looked like eyes; and, not surprising to her, the great star-ferret Mustela who arched towards the eastern horizon.
But before he could tell Stefi any more, a familiar face appeared smiling above his. A red flower petal drifted from its hair and landed on his nose like a fragrant snowflake. The face giggled and blew it away while a golden pendant danced above him.
“There you are!” Ifaut said and gave a clear laugh. Sansonis and Stefi sat up, their backs stiff from lying for so long, to notice that the formalities were over and the party beginning.
“I’m sorry you guys couldn’t come, but it was Furosans only. I tried begging daddy and Cédes. They wouldn’t budge. They’re very concerned about traditional stuff.”
“Shouldn’t you be too?” Stefi asked. “Aren’t you going to be in charge one day?”
Ifaut shrugged. “I suppose so,” she said, and her ears drooped slightly. “Now you’re starting to sound like my parents. I guess I need to take more things seriously. Some day. But tonight we have fun!”
She reached down and, hesitating for just a second and mindful of the Furosans’ previous observances, took Sansonis’s hand and led him towards the center of town. Still, she couldn’t stop thinking about what everyone thought of her and her new “pet” tonight, and tried her hardest to ignore their sideways glances and the laughter they tried to hide behind their hands. It wasn’t cruel, she knew all too well, though all the same she couldn’t help but feel a little annoyed, and she unconsciously showed this in her ever-tightening grip on Sansonis’s hand until he couldn’t take any more.
“You really shouldn’t let them get to you, you know,” he said. “And my hand hasn’t said anything against you, has it?”
“I’m sorry.” She relaxed her grip yet kept it firm. “I just know they think I’m silly hanging around with you all the time. They even say you’re my pet, but you’re not! Can’t they see we’re kamaes?” She sighed loudly and clutched her pendant. “And you know what I overheard someone saying? That your scratches are because you misbehaved…”
“Maybe,” Sansonis said, trying to cheer her up, “they’re just jealous because you look so pretty tonight.”
“Really?” she said, and once again she blushed. “Thanks.” So he did notice, she thought with an awkward smile. Instead of wearing her usual rather untidy clothes, tonight she wore a many-layered skirt that seemed to shift with the colors of the evening sky as she moved, a soft pink one minute and deep blue the next, (“It’s Minheran,” she later told Sansonis) along with a delicately woven sleeveless shirt not quite buttoned right up. And, what took the most effort, many flowers tied painstakingly in her plaited hair.
Sansonis felt quite out of place alongside her in his torn jeans and old shirt that had been worn thin from countless washings. “Perhaps it’s me they find so amusing,” he said to reassure her. “After all, look what I’m wearing!” This seemed to brighten her mood and soon she grabbed both of his hands and led him to where the other Furosans were eating, drinking, and dancing.
“I don’t want to hear about how you can’t dance,” she told him sternly. “Listen to your heart, not your head!”
Stefi, meanwhile, found herself left behind, still not knowing what Sansonis had seen of her future in the stars. He’d tell her later, she thought. If he didn’t forget. For now she was quite content to sit on the house’s steps and watch the goings-on in this world that just days ago she never even knew existed. She laughed as Ifaut and Sansonis tried to dance but ended up standing on one another’s feet. Both ferrets lay dozing in her arms.
“May I intrude?” came a quiet voice from her right. She turned to see Cédes looking quite sincere, her hands clasped in front of her chest, her head bowed.
“Of course,” Stefi said. She was taken aback by such a strange request. “How did you find me?” She guided Cédes onto the step beside her.
“I know this place very well,” the Furosan said and hugged her knees to her chest. “It is only when something is shifted that I run into trouble. Literally.”
“Did you just make a joke?” Stefi asked her. She smiled even though Cédes’s voice had betrayed no emotion.
“I… think so. Is that all right?” Cédes said as her blind eyes searched Stefi’s.
“Of course. You don’t have to be so formal all the time. Chill out, take it easy.”
“Chill… out?”
“Relax,” Stefi said. “Sit calmly for so long that you cool down, I guess.”
“Oh, okay,” Cédes said. “However, I find it most difficult to relax in the presence of one such as you. I just came to see if your feelings have improved after what I said earlier. Now I know you are fine, so I shall take my leave. Please forgive my rude intrusion on your evening.” She got up, looking rather flustered as she stood, and started to leave.
“Sit down.” Stefi giggled. Cédes obeyed. “As long as we’re friends we’re equals, okay? I don’t want you thinking you have to be nervous around me just because of what I am. That’ll only make me feel worse.”
“Do you… truly consider me to be a friend?” Cédes asked, her eyes and mouth both wide with surprise.
“Is that really so amazing?” Stefi said. “You must be loved by all the people here. I saw the way they looked at you when you led the praying. Not one looked as if they didn’t hold the highest respect for you. Except Ifaut. That girl always looks distracted.”
“Th-thank you,” Cédes stammered. Her cheeks flushed with embarrassment. It was a startling effect on her pale skin. “I never thought a human could think so highly of someone like me.”
Before she could say any more she was interrupted by a low growling sound. “I… I must apologize,” she said. “I was so busy with preparations for tonight, and meeting you, that I have not eaten a thing all day.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Stefi said. Many other people may have grown impatient with Cédes’s constant worrying and apologizing by now, but Stefi felt there was something about this pale Furosan, some sort of aura of peace, that meant even a hundred apologies would simply leave her smiling.
“Then,” Stefi said, “how about we get something to eat? You deserve it.”
“That would be nice. Could I please trouble you to lead me? I must have bumped into several objects on my way over that are not normally there.”
&n
bsp; Stefi linked her free arm with Cédes’s, taking care not to disturb the ferrets. As she led her towards the many tables of food spread out under the warm glow of lanterns and braziers, she noticed a soft and content expression on Cédes’s face. It was the sort one wears when coming home from a long trip away and seeing a missed loved one, perhaps, or a longed-for home.
The two, with Stefi’s sleeping ferrets, found a small table for themselves separated from the crowd and illuminated by a single small brazier providing just enough light to see by and ample warmth to stave off the chilly air. An island all alone in a sea of night.
Cédes had no trouble rousing an attendant to bring them and the ferrets something to eat, and at the smell of it both Gemmie and Maya sprang awake and fell to it as if they had had nothing to eat in days. Cédes only poked at her food as if she couldn’t decide whether or not she wanted any, despite the protestations of her stomach.
“What’s up?” Stefi asked after swallowing a mouthful of a purple peach-like fruit indigenous to the area that the Furosans called a yuje.
Cédes sighed. “The trees, I suppose. The stars, the moons, the sky. Why do you ask such a strange question?”
Stefi laughed. “It means ‘what’s going on?’.”
“I have been thinking,” she said, “about the journey before us, to where it may lead us. I may know the destination, the end, yet I do not know the exact path. And I am both terribly comforted and terribly frightened that there is something out there that I do not yet know.”
“You’re talking as if you’re coming with us,” Stefi said.
“Of course. For I am one of the Fieretka also.”
“Really? That’s a surprise!”
“I do feel out of place and that I may be a burden due to my lack of sight. You will help me, won’t you?” Cédes asked.
“Of course. But do you still want to go despite what you’ve seen?”
“Yes. There is something you must know. What I have seen is the future based upon certain preceding events. Perhaps if we can change those events, we may be able to change the future. But I do not know what must be changed and what must not, or even if it can be. It is sure to be interesting, isn’t it?” She smiled slightly, the corners of her mouth twitching. “Perhaps we are heading to oblivion with no way to stop it. Quite exciting, one might think.”
Her mood seemed to be somewhat improved by what she herself had just said and she began to eat for the first time that day.
Presently she offered Stefi a bottle from which she frequently sipped containing an amber colored liquid. It looked much like honey, only clearer.
“Blech!” Stefi spat as it passed her lips. “What is this stuff?” It tasted nothing like honey. She set the bottle on the table. The ferrets, drawn by the irresistible odor, gathered around it. Gemmie stood up on her hind legs and grasped the bottle’s neck with her paws to get a better look. It toppled over before she could get so much as a single sniff in. Both ferrets began licking at the pool that spread across the table, taking great delight at the unique taste.
“It is wheatgerm oil,” Cédes said. “A delicacy reserved for special occasions such as this. Do you find it displeasing?”
“No…” Stefi said, trying not to offend, “It’s… interesting. How about you two?” she asked the ferrets and righted the bottle.
Gemmie was too busy to reply but Maya said, It’s… It’s heavenly. How come you never gave us this before?
“The ferrets like it,” she told Cédes.
“Ferrets, like us, love oil. I am just surprised that you do not also enjoy it. You are a rather strange one indeed. I like you.”
Throughout the night Cédes and Stefi talked about nothing in particular, making small talk about life and the everyday. The ferrets, full of food and made happy with wheatgerm oil, fell asleep in Stefi’s lap.
Shortly after Phastus had announced the final dance of the night, Cédes excused herself. “If you do not mind, may I go to bed? I am growing quite weary.” She gave a small, suppressed yawn as if to emphasize
“I’m tired, too,” Stefi said. “Do you need help getting home?”
“Need, no. Want, yes.”
Stefi carefully balanced her two sleeping ferrets in one arm and led Cédes back to her house with the other. Throughout the town the Furosans had just finished their final dance and were quietly dispersing back to their homes. Many were yawning and weaving from side to side under clouds of alcohol. Others lay passed out beneath trees or draped across hammocks. By now the fires had died down to glowing embers, casting an eerie twilight across the grass and making Lidae’s statue stand out as a stark silhouette so that it looked like a monster looming from the night.
Once they reached Cédes’s house, the Furosan did something Stefi never would have expected. She threw her arms around her, taking her in a hug of surprising strength but surprising gentleness so that the ferrets weren’t disturbed in the slightest.
“Thank you for your company tonight, dear heart,” Cédes said. “It was much appreciated.”
“No need to thank me,” Stefi said with a laugh. “So, what about that training you mentioned earlier?” she added. “Do we start tomorrow?”
“Most definitely,” Cédes said. “I shall come for you early tomorrow morning. You have much to learn and we must also prepare for our journey, all of us together. It is sure to be a busy day.”
“But we won’t be starting too early, eh?” Stefi asked jokingly.
“Let me just say that you ought to go and sleep now. You shall need your rest come morning. Although, in a manner of speaking, it will be morning soon.”
Once they had wished each other a good night, Stefi returned to the place she now called home, even if only temporarily. She found her bed from that afternoon and climbed on, too tired to change into the provided nightshirt or even crawl beneath the blankets. She quickly fell asleep with the ferrets in her arms, satiated with the happy times of Lidae’s festival.
“Oww!” Ifaut yelped as Sansonis trod on her foot yet again.
“Sorry…” he said, even though Ifaut wasn’t apologizing when she did the same. She only seemed to laugh and shrug it off.
And as it turned out, Ifaut didn’t know much about dancing herself. Sansonis looked about and noticed that the same was true with just about everyone else. But they were happy. As Ifaut had said, it was now a time for fun, not formalities.
Now truly realizing this, he heeded Ifaut’s advice and shut off his head and allowed the sensual assault of the celebrations to bombard his soul: the lively music of the band with its guitar and odd flute and ocarina instruments sounding like the voices of long forgotten forest spirits; the alluring smells of countless tables of foods richer than any that he had ever seen before; the comforting glow of fires and lanterns illuminating small patches in the darkness that whirled past like meteors as Ifaut spun them both round and round.
As the night wore on and the band played song after song, some accompanied by the voices of both Furosan men and women (although not Ifaut’s, who refused to sing despite everyone’s protestations), Ifaut began to appear increasingly tired. “Last dance soon…” she said and yawned. Shortly after, Phastus announced the final dance of the night and the band struck up its last song, a slow, relaxing melody that seemed almost like a lullaby accompanied by the haunting voices of several young Furosan women.
It all became too much for Ifaut and suddenly the tired Furosan yawned and pitched forward, snoring deeply, into Sansonis’s arms. He caught her and lifted her, surprised by how heavy she actually was. Not that she was small to begin with, standing taller than himself.
“So much for the last dance, eh?” he whispered to her serene, smiling face. He carried her back towards their small house. “At least it was a fun evening. And you know what? You’ve taught me more tonight than the stars ever could.”
Sansonis pushed open the door with his foot and stepped over Rhaka. The Otsukuné was sprawled out on a rug before the fire’s dyi
ng remains. He carried Ifaut into the bedroom. Stefi was already there, sleeping deeply. Balancing on one foot while supporting Ifaut on the other knee, he pulled back the blankets of a bed with one hand then laid her down, careful not to wake her. Several flower petals fell from her hair and onto the pillow and she warbled softly in her sleep. He thought he heard her mumble his name before she returned to her snoring.
He patted her head, seeing her as more of a ferret than Furosan for a second. “Nighty night, kamae,” he said and, though he didn’t quite know why, kissed her forehead.
She warbled again and settled back down into the deep depths of sleep.
Sansonis lay on the couch and slipped his knives and their scabbards from his belt. He shut his eyes and began the usual long wait for sleep to come. “It was a nice day,” he said to himself. “I only wish it could last.”