Jay's Journey

Chapter 17

Thankfully, the next leg of the journey was nowhere near as eventful. There were a few river crossings where Vayen slipped in and sulked in soggy misery for the next couple hours, but nothing aside from that. Each night became marginally colder, but it was nothing that they couldn't easily acclimate to.

Jay stayed up later than the others to feel the Omnocean to ensure they didn't have any more sudden encounters with magical creatures. Since there was nothing, they were spent mostly thinking about what it was like watching Vayen take the magic of the unraveling Valerhöest. He had almost empathized with the magic, and thus from there was able to possess it. Was that what Jay had to do to the entire Omnocean? How could one possibly empathize with the unfathomable thing that could not be perceived by sight, sound, or smell? Each night he seemed to run around the answer, covering distance but never once making it closer.

When they made it to a fork in the road where they didn't recognize the immediate locations that were depicted on a sign, they randomly chose the pathway that went to the right. For a while, they regret it, as the pathway went uphill for a day and half. However, they broke a treeline into a pristine valley. It was about five miles wide. The center of the valley was spacious meadows that stretched into foothills of mountains that stood a mile high into the open sky.

In the distance, the three could see a village. It was a series of small tower-like structures about two to three stories tall. Each of them had a pointed roof so steep and thin Jay could picture being impaled on them if things somehow went horribly wrong.

On the side of the road, the three stopped to make themselves look remotely presentable. Jay wrapped a scarf around his neck to hide the climbing golden cracks. Vayen attempted to brush his hair with his fingers. Zira tore a strip of fabric off her sleeve and tied her hair back with it. The three weren't filthy, as they had bathed in rivers and washed their clothes several times throughout the trip, but they had clearly been out in the wild.

That wasn't why they stood out as they walked into town. Everyone in the town was decorated. They wore necklaces of fabric flowers and bore pendants of perennial blooms encased in golden amber. Almost everyone wore long flowing clothes embroidered with flowers and other verdant flora. Jay was entranced by every piece of clothing. In Lunabae, there had not once been a chance to make any garment that was any bit glamorous. Very few of the people Jay had passed while walking to work could afford such things. But here, everyone seemed to have a loose flowing shirt. They could tell it was an occasion, as there was constantly music playing somewhere and far too many people weren't working for it to be anything else.

"What are you celebrating?" Jay worked up the courage to ask someone, a woman with tan skin and black hair that was half up in a bun and half left to hang over her shoulders.

"Spring!" She answered excitedly.

"It's been Spring." Vayen pointed out.

"It's been two full moons since it last snowed." The woman replied. Looking at the attire of the native villagers again, it was clear that the full moon was also a common motif within embroidery and jewelry alike.

The three wished the woman farewell and began to look for a place to stay for the night. It soon became clear that, at the moment, they probably wouldn't find one. Nobody was working their usual jobs, and the only thing that vaguely resembled a business were the various vendors for games, foods, and garments.

"So uh, what should we do?" Jay wondered.

"I wanna go kick someone's ass at a game." Vayen declared with a grin.

"Go ahead, but I'd rather do something else." Zira said.

"Oh! Right! We can split up. Let's do that." Jay said, eyes immediately drawn to a group of mostly elderly women who were doing something related to making clothes, although it didn't appear to be stitching. The moment Jay said it, Vayen set off into the town and away without a second thought. Zira glanced at everything around her. Nothing stood out to her aside from the food, but that could wait. Instead, she decided to follow Jay towards the group of women.