Gilded Ashes: When Shadows Reign-Chapter 332: Sky Lantern

The boy had recovered his unicycle from the railing and was crouching beside the spilled bags, scooping them back into the box with practised hands, stacking them quickly and efficiently despite the rain, the wet platform and the fact that his hands were shaking slightly from the shock.

He noticed Raizen holding the torn one and stopped. His face fell - a quick, involuntary frown, the expression of someone who'd been counting on every single item and had just lost one.

"Eiyaah!" He sucked air through his teeth, a sound that carried more frustration than any word could have. "That one might be broken, senior."

He stood, walked over, and leaned in to inspect the damage. His eyes were quick, darting across the torn paper and the exposed ridges, assessing. Then he looked up at Raizen's face.

Something in his expression shifted. The frustration softened. He glanced at the disc in Raizen's hands, then back at his eyes, and made a decision that appeared to require no deliberation whatsoever.

"You keep it, senior!" he said. The accent turning the words into something warmer than they'd be in anyone else's mouth.

Raizen bowed his head slightly, a small instinctive gesture of thanks, and found his eyes lingering on the boy's face again. He was beautiful in a way that Raizen didn't have a framework for - a colour and a presence that didn't exist in Neoshima, that he'd only glimpsed once in a photograph and was now seeing alive and in motion, bright-eyed and breathless and grinning despite the disaster of the last thirty seconds.

The boy hoisted the box back onto his head. One smooth motion - knees bending, arms lifting, the weight settling onto his head. The box was lighter now by one disc, but still substantial. 𝗳𝚛𝚎𝚎𝘄𝕖𝕓𝕟𝕠𝚟𝚎𝕝.𝗰𝕠𝐦

He turned toward the group - Kenzo, Atman, Saffi, Raizen - and his grin widened.

"You are coming to the festival next tomorrow, right?"

Saffi wiped a bit of leftover sauce from the edge of her mouth with the back of her hand, a quick gesture that she probably didn't realize anyone had seen.

"Yes" she said. And the brightness from earlier - the excitement that had appeared when Kenzo first mentioned the festival - flickered through her face again, brief and genuine.

The boy's grin became enormous. "Good good good. It will be wonderful. You will see." He was already mounting the unicycle, one foot on the pedal, the box steady on his head, his body finding its balance with the unconscious precision of someone who'd been doing this since he could walk. "I am going now, fast fast."

And then he was gone - pedaling down the platform, the unicycle's squeaky wheel announcing his trajectory to everyone within fifty meters, the box on his head somehow staying perfectly level despite the speed and the wet wood and the turns he was taking without slowing down. He called something over his shoulder - a farewell, maybe, or another thank-you, the words lost in the distance before they reached them. Within seconds he'd rounded a trunk and disappeared, leaving nothing behind except the fading squeak and the impression of someone who lived life at a pace that exhausted everyone around him.

Kenzo watched him go with the expression of a man who had just been reminded that he was old.

"I couldn't do that at his age" he said. "The unicycle thing. With the box."

"You can't do it now" Atman frowned.

"Don't underestimate me."

Raizen looked at the disc in his hand.

The bag was torn beyond saving, but the object itself seemed intact. He turned it over, studying it again - the concentric paper ridges, the thin wire frame, the dark compressed wood at the centre. Up close, the paper was even thinner than he'd first thought, almost weightless, the reddish tint deeper along the ridges where the folds had concentrated the dye.

Saffi took two steps and was at his side, looking down at the disc with her head slightly tilted.

"Oohh" she said. A soft sound, almost involuntary. "It's a nice one."

Raizen glanced at her. "You know what this is?"

"Of course I know what it is." She looked at him with an expression that suggested the question was mildly offensive. "You never lit one before?"

Raizen shook his head. As he did, his eyes drifted briefly to his chest pocket. The lizard was suspiciously quiet - no commentary, no insults, no demands for anything too crazy. Either it was sleeping or it had exhausted itself from being insufferable and was recharging for the next round.

He looked back at Saffi.

"What is it?"

Saffi's fingers reached out and touched the edge of the disc, tracing one of the paper ridges with the tip of her index finger. Her eyes had that brightness again - warm, unguarded, the same look she'd had when she said "yes please" to staying for the festival.

"It's a sky lantern."

Raizen frowned and looked at the disc - the paper ridges, the wire frame, the compressed wood at the centre - and tried to connect what he was holding to the name she'd given it.

"Sky lantern? What, you light it up and hang it by the wire? But then… Why the "sky" part?"

Saffi covered her mouth trying to cover an upcoming laugh. "No, dummy. You light it up and It flies."

Raizen took a step back. "This thing flies!?"

He looked up, through the canopy, through the layers of branches and leaves and mist, toward the grey ceiling of clouds that covered everything. Then back down at the object. It didn't have any kind of propeller, electromagnet, luminite, or anything else that could make it float.

He scratched his temple. If the thing indeed flies, and Saffi knew how, it wasn't something to worry about now.

"And the festival" he said slowly, the pieces clicking together. "The firefly festival. That boy was carrying dozens of these for that."

Saffi's finger was still on the paper's edge. She smiled quickly.

"Now you understand" she said.

Raizen turned his head towards Kenzo. He completely forgot about what he wanted to ask him.

"Hey, Kenzo"

"Hm?" He rolled the stiffness out of his shoulder. "Ohh, you got that for free? Sweet."

"I wanted to ask you about that - Eon thing - the barrier"

"Eon suppression, you mean?"

"Yeah, that. Could you maybe… Teach me?"

Kenzo suddenly burst into laughter.