Triiffic-Soul: Can I Be In Control?

Chapter 33 – Wait… What’s Happening At The End Of The Year?

It had been a couple of hours now, Eva stayed determined and continued to scribble in their notebook. She made sure to only use one page by having extremely tiny handwriting. Out of the three of them, Eva was the most determined to find the culprit.

Not that Syrus and Luna weren’t active in the pursuit of the culprit, but both considered the limitation of their situation and left the topic on the back burner. 

However, they still let Eva explore this topic for as much as she wanted. Not only was she allowed to do whatever within reason with her time driving the body, but they were happy she found something to do, but so far this was one of the only things she did.

She talked and chatted when prompted or felt the need to say something, and enjoyed reading and listening to stories. But this mystery devoured most of her time, and to Syrus and Luna, she needed to give up for the time being. This wasn’t the whole problem, but it was the centrepiece of a larger issue they had noticed with Eva.

[Lilly, do you want to read the new books Jen got from us?] (Luna)

Lilly didn’t respond and continued her newest mini-mindmap in the bottom left corner of a page.

[I believe you need to take a break from this, just for the moment.] (Luna)

[Luna, attempting to talk to someone who cares little for their own well-being to convince them to stop doing work is going to get us nowhere.] (Syrus)

[It might, one day.] (Luna)

[You know I can hear you?] (Eva)

[Then are you going to do something different? I’m all for this, but moderation is an important concept.] (Syrus)

[...] (Eva)

After a few moments of awkward silence that none of them could walk away from, they heard the creak of the wooden front door opening.

Finally, George and Jen walked back into the house, Anna got off her bed and walked into the open area to meet them, where the two parents were still chatting away.

George clapped his hands, “Good, that should be enough wood for now.”

Jen replied, “I say give it a week, it will all be gone.”

“Don’t say that…”

“It’s good money, and do you really think Elly is going to be happy with her first hundred carves?”

“...That’s… fair enough.”

“Not to mention she is going to spend hundreds more just perfecting the ones she will be using around the village.”

George paused before he laughed, “Haha, yeah. I remember last time, there were so many wood scraps that we didn’t know what to do with them all.”

[What… are they talking about?] (Eva)

Syrus observed the situation and remembered all the small talk that happened when they were moving wood around and just shrugged, [Welp, looks like everyone’s been busy, is there something big coming up that I didn’t listen about?] 

[Nope, you’ve listened to everything, so it’s something that we haven’t been told yet, but with all the prep work that’s being done, I can only assume it is a big event.] (Luna)

[It’s 1318, if there was a big event, wouldn’t they only happen on round years or maybe quinquennial?] (Eva)

[...No…] Syrus replied, genuinely confused on multiple fronts.

They had learned what year it was and the calendar from their mum during a lesson. Because of this, they were able to confirm that Anna was born in the year 1308 EC and that they were born about three months after their respective deaths.

[Big events aren’t exclusive to every rounded year or even five years.] Luna replied back, [Well at least here, in the surrounding countries and by Syrus's reaction where she is from.]

[Oh… I see. Fascinating.] (Eva)

Syrus asked, [So, do you know what’s being celebrated?]

[I was thinking about that now.] Luna was going through the depths of memory, [Hmmm… I believe it's the Cancole celebration that happens every ten years. There are a few but the Alberest festival is the only one I know about that happens in the 8th year. But I thought it happens at the end of the year, not the start.]

[Neat, big festival. Any context what it is about?] (Syrus)

Luna finished going through the depths of her memory and began to list out what else she knew, [Four days of fun, drinks, dance, and food, so a pretty standard festival. From what I remember, it’s the combination of celebrating a rebellion and the reclaiming of most of the land that got overrun by monsters during the same time period. The celebration takes place in the capital and the four major cities surrounding it, so people from everywhere in the country come to visit and mingle with everyone else.]

[So we get to explore other parts of the country?] (Eva)

As Lilly asked this question, Jen ran up and hugged Anna, “Sorry for making you wait for the hug! I got lost rambling.”

“It’s fine…” Eva replied.

Syrus said, “So, you’ve been busy.” 

Jen excitedly answered, “Yep that’s right! We are preparing for the end-of-year festival.”

“Then why are you preparing at the start of the year?”

“Because we got a lot of work ahead of us!”

George, who was watching the situation, wondered, “Jen… did you remember to tell Anna about what is going to be happening, or anything about the situation?” 

Jen just let out a quiet, “Oh…” She had forgotten to.

George just face-palmed at his wife's response. She loved to teach everything and anything, but sometimes she had the order of priority not exactly perfect. 

“Did you mean to tell us during a lesson? Again?” Anna asked, this wasn’t the first time Jen had done this. No one was mad, George and Anna just found it funny. It only happened sometimes and only for slightly important information.

“Maybe…” Jen closed her eyes and smiled.

“Just give us the rundown…”

“Absolutely!” Jen yelled and ran to her room where she pulled out papers she had made for the lesson she didn’t run.

She went over similar points to what Luna had mentioned, but she talked more about the history of the event. The important figures in history who were involved and the multiple events that led up to the big moment. Jen also spoke about some of the food they only grew this year for the festival, how Elly made small to large wood carvings for the town and to sell to larger places, and some of the games and events they would play.

“So we get to visit one of the big cities?” Eva asked excitedly, a quiet curiosity filled her eyes.

“Ah… no,” Jen replied, becoming extremely sad at the realisation she would be upsetting her daughters.

George sighed, “We… can’t really. Not because we aren’t allowed to, but because we can't leave the town unoccupied for the one to two weeks we would be gone for. So as a village, we celebrate here.” Travel time alone would mean the town would be empty for weeks. Of course, someone could stay behind, but having one to three people stay behind–when everyone wanted to go–in a small town led to issues.

Syrus asked, “So the other farming villages and the people from Ihere will also stay behind?”

Jen said, “The villages yes, Ihere no… some would of course, but plenty will go and visit… It's a bigger town with more people…”

Syrus shrugged, “Oh… Well, guess we just gotta make it work.” 

Jen smiled, “That’s the spirit.” And hug Anna tight.

The family stood and prepared food for later. They discussed some of the work they had to do over the year, and what everyone else would be doing, and then Jen ended the talk by announcing she would start teaching Anna how to use her attributes and mana. 

[Should we tell her that we already know how to do that?] (Syrus)

At the very least, they all figured it would be an interesting year.