Around the Ghost Festival in August, it is the season change period in Suomir.
Although the Lamanites have divided the year into the four seasons of spring, summer, autumn and winter since classical times, like many other Laman-made things, it is not completely applicable in this northern land.
The Suomir people often say that Aurora has only two seasons: summer and winter. There may be one or two days of spring and autumn, but generally speaking, except for the summer which lasts about 4 months, it is cold most of the time.
The temperature begins to warm up and summer begins at the end of April, and the Ghost Festival around August 15th is a harbinger of the end of summer. This traditional celebration festival was originally created by the people in the northern region to pay homage to their ancestors before gathering for winter. Later, the White Church emerged and absorbed these cultures, and today it has become a traditional activity for believers of the Eastern branch of the Yetina Sect.
In the final analysis, many things that people today consider to be an integral part of "traditional culture", if traced back to their origins, were not closely related to these things from the beginning.
History will inevitably have similar situations happen, and as an outsider, every time I hear about it, I will sigh at the vicissitudes of life. So what would people who have experienced all this personally think about it?
In the cool morning, people couldn't help but put on their cloaks, and the three of them moved forward. But Mira grasped the reins with a skillful gesture, but her mind was distracted, her eyes looking at the back of her teacher.
He did not break his promise. After separating from the Queen's group, Henry spent a long time telling them a story from a long time ago under the swaying bonfire and lantern lighting at night.
The story of how it all started.
History develops in a spiral, I don’t know who has ever said this. And who once said that there is nothing new under the sun, and everything that is happening now is just the same old story that happened many years ago.
It is indeed a story with a sense of déjà vu.
Between two countries that have always been in conflict, certain crises are brewing, and the wills of many people are intertwined. Many people have made their choices, and these choices have led to a series of things that happened afterwards.
After all that Henry had experienced, she didn't know what Henry would think about such a thing.
The amount of information on these things was a bit huge, and she couldn't sort out the whole picture for a while.
Mira felt her heart congested.
I originally hoped to get closer to him by understanding what happened in the past, but now after learning the truth, I feel that he has become some kind of distant existence.
After one night, all three of them remained silent during the several hours of march since early morning.
This was a rare silence with a sense of distance, different from the previous silence where they just quietly enjoyed each other's company.
Like a stranger who has just arrived, he wants to touch but doesn't know how to speak, so he subconsciously keeps a distance.
This has never happened before, and she was not so unfamiliar and reserved when they first met.
If you ask her true feelings, Mira naturally doesn't want to do this. But she couldn't control herself.
From Heimerning Heinzworm to Henry Meyer.
She knew the end of the former and the origin of the latter, but how much had happened in between, in that vast adventure that she was not traveling with.
Mira suddenly felt that she was a little selfish, a little superficial, and a little childish.
This kind of thing should be a past that her teacher doesn't want to mention. Just thinking about some things will be as painful as uncovering scars - she should know all this, because she also has many things she doesn't want to go through. Things he recalled, and he never asked about those. This is not entirely a sense of distance, it's just that she allowed him to have secrets in the past because she trusted him to tell her when she needed to know.
But people will change after all, and even she herself cannot fully understand the complex emotions in the growing girl's heart. So she asked him to speak out, and he did so, but after hearing all this, she now felt extremely contemptuous of herself but helplessly, all she could think about was——
"Am I just one of your many adventure companions in this long life?"
Before he was born, he had experienced many things, and there was not a white-haired Luoan girl accompanying him in those legendary stories.
It was clear that he wanted to know, so he asked, but after listening to it, he felt lonely and distanced from each other, so he was depressed the whole morning. She hated her immature selfishness, but she couldn't control herself from thinking about it.
People always hope that they can be "special" in the minds of others, and for Mira, Henry is undoubtedly this role.
But what about him?
Are you just "another" partner on the road? Maybe we are really happy together and have established deep emotions, but this is just "another one".
What on earth was he thinking?
Mira suddenly remembered the question he asked Henry when she met Prince Edward many years ago.
"Are you still human?"
At that time, she had no way of understanding that question. After she more or less guessed Henry's secret later, Mira thought that the question should be based on Edward's understanding of his long life, and it was just a question about life span. .
But now, after knowing the whole story, she completely understood the deeper meaning of Edward's question.
Are you still human?
After experiencing so many things and experiencing so many losses, are you still human at heart?
She could not imagine how many people and things she would experience in two full centuries of life. In his opinion, maybe everything cannot be considered fresh. After you have experienced everything countless times, what else can still arouse your interest, and what can still arouse your love? ?
No matter how much scenery he saw in the future, nothing could replace the scenery he saw in the first place.
No matter how many people he met in the future, there was no way to replace him in his heart.
That her.
Is it even her? Mira, who felt that she was childish, had mixed emotions and lowered her head gloomily.
There is no going back to his world.
This may have been the reason why he had been reluctant to return to Suomir for so long. Because if he doesn't come back, he can still retain the impression of his former hometown in his heart.
My teacher was obviously shaken after he came to the east coast. He hid Kramer and ordered new weapons. In many ways, it can be seen that he did not want this past to be discovered by the people of this land.
But he came back after all, and finally pulled out the sword. Everything could be said to be fate, but could the person driving him behind the scenes be the one who has always been with him?
This is the past that he doesn't want to touch. After so many years, the wound may still have not healed.
But I pushed forward with willfulness and wanted to know all this. But after learning about it, he felt that he might never be special to him and felt lonely without permission.
She hates herself like this.
But he couldn't control himself not to think about this.
he is.
People abandoned by time.
If it could be forgotten, it would surely be an extremely gratifying blessing. But he couldn't forget it. It could be seen from all the vivid details when he told it all last night that Henry still remembered it all, still remembered everything.
It was these realizations that condemned him to eternal wandering.
His body returned to Suomir, but the further he advanced, the more specious scenery he saw on the roadside, and the more he felt out of place.
"Stranger"
Wandering between heaven and earth, there is no place to return. Those familiar people and things are already in the distant past. They are all gone, inevitably disappearing or changing in the face of time, the greatest force in the world.
The only thing that remains unchanged is him.
Suomir is still there, but he is no longer the Suomir that Henry is familiar with.
Before leaving, he said to the great swordsmen, "It doesn't matter if it's twenty years late." That was the relief that people in the same situation could only say based on understanding - but what if it was two hundred years?
He can't go back.
Belongs to Suomir of Heimirnin Heinzwom.
The one with the laughter of the people, the white dragon flying in the sky, and the companions of the Silver Guard Knights that he knew well.
Suomir with Sania.
It’s gone.
It was himself who forced him to face all this - Mira lowered her head.
If he could forget, if he were sitting in his position, he would probably want to forget and escape.
Are you still human?
After all this, you have nowhere to go. You are incompatible with this world.
Even if you are chatting and laughing with others, even if you can discuss eloquently about the new things that are produced nowadays. But deep in my heart, in the lonely night with no one by my side.
You will still remember it.
Everything that can't be returned.
And then you will remember it deeply and realize it deeply.
He is just a person disguised as a human being and placed among them, but he has never been able to truly integrate.
Stranger.
Edward's question was not about life span.
Rather, he wonders if he still has a human heart.
Mira was convinced of this, but after learning about his past, she inevitably began to doubt it.
She thought of many things she had encountered along the way, as well as those people and things, those who seemed to know his past and what they said to him based on that knowledge.
Constantine was probably the most direct one. He directly told Henry the fact that there was no place for him in this land. And that sentence "Even what you start can't end well" - Mira originally thought it was a remark to express anger, but under the sage's own explanation, she also understood the meaning.
"Hemelen Heinzwom's death was perfect."
"I wanted to work hard to change the destiny of the country, but I was surrounded by the coalition of the royal family and the church who were greedy for profit. In order to save my subordinates, I chose to sacrifice myself, just like a tragic hero in a legendary story." When mentioning such things, Henry's tone was Self-deprecating.
"Because it was so perfect, few people noticed that there was actually a second possibility for this matter."
"Haimirnin Heinzwom Sekesiuttu I." Under the light of the swaying campfire, he pronounced the name without any emotion, as if he was just reading from a script to a certain stone tablet.
“This is what Constantine believed, giving up halfway and not starting well and ending well.”
Marshal Suomir, who had an unprecedented reputation, was still a young man, while the other person with the right to inherit the royal family was only a three-year-old child.
But he gave up all that.
I chose to end with that day.
Because he has an agreement that needs to be fulfilled.
People will eventually go on a journey because they want to find something. What they want is different from each other. Some people just follow the agreement and want to find the scenery in their hearts, so they head towards the seaside.
And this agreement of his.
It's just a little, slightly harder to achieve.
It also takes a little, a little longer.
In order to realize it, he can no longer be the marshal of Suomir, because in that case he can only fight for the interests of Suomir; nor can he be the emperor of Padrosi, because in that case he can only fight for the interests of Suomir. Think about it from a Western perspective.
He must throw away all those shackles, those constraints brought by identity.
But choosing means losing.
The choice Henry made abandoned all those who had relied on him.
Constantine says he won't make the same mistake, and no one knows what he wants to do.
The matters involving the Great Swordsman, the Dragon Wing Knight, and Queen Suomir cannot be considered completely resolved, but since they have taken this step, it cannot be said to be completely hopeless.
After more than 20 years of wandering, in order to survive, the great swordsmen have also given up the traditions they stubbornly adhered to.
They were no longer limited to Claymer, but also made new types of swords. Magic, gunpowder, spears, anything that works well will be absorbed.
New life always requires the destruction of old things before it can be achieved. Back then, the Silver Guards chose the Great Sword not because it was unique, but because they designed the most advanced weapon at the time based on the situation they needed. Therefore, they should not stick to all that. The tradition that the Great Swordsmen have been struggling with before made them eventually eliminated. Although giving up completely is not a good move, in short, after being expelled, they have also been in the past 20 years. That step has been taken.
Henry's final words to Hymel, "Maybe it doesn't have to be Kramer?" are just such a wake-up call.
The conflict between the Lamanites and the Suomirians cannot be resolved in a day or two, the power struggle between the great swordsman and the dragon-winged knight, how the queen who has been ignored by the nobles can regain power, all these things are not It can all be solved in a few clicks.
But they have already taken this step.
Henry made them aware of this.
The man who returned to Suomir was not Hemelning Heinzwom. It is not the nightmare of Aurora, who was once the marshal of Suomir and whose name is the Miracle of Eternal Night.
But the sage Henry Meyer.
He changes the direction of the story by what he does, not what he once did.
Even though this was the land he had fought on, Henry's approach remained unchanged. He acts as a "sage".
There is no going back.
The person who realizes this most clearly is himself.
In today's Suomir, he is a stranger in a foreign land with nowhere to go.
And why isn't she?
The Loans also lost their homeland, although with Henry's help they were building in full swing across the inland sea at Avenella. But deep down, I don’t know how many Luoan people still miss their past hometown.
Even Galeva is like that.
Having Suomir blood but growing up under the influence of Lamanite culture, is he also confused about his future and at a loss as to his identity?
"Teacher, what do you want to do in Aurora?" Mira, who had been depressed for a long time, spoke because she wanted to break the silence.
She had never asked a question like this before because Henry always told her when he got somewhere.
But this time, under the complicated emotions in her heart, the girl chose to ask about the destination of the group.
"Going to meet an old friend."
"Borrow some things and make you a sword." Henry replied without looking back.
The girl was stunned for a moment: "Sword?"
"Well, at least he must be on the same level as this guy." Henry patted Kramer, who was clearly exposed on the horse, and then turned back.
"after all."
"It's the first time I've accepted a disciple." He said this, but the Luoan girl froze on the spot and subconsciously pulled the reins to stop the horse.
--what the hell.
All of a sudden, the haze in my heart was swept away. Isn't it like a child being as moody as a child?
Her expression changed for a short while, and finally she gave Henry the same eye roll as always.
"Mr. Sage is the worst adult ever!"
"Yes Yes Yes."
"Then the story is also told for the first time."
"Yes, you two are the first people I have the patience to tell those things to."
"Kaleva is just a bastard!"
"Why am I involved?" The young porter looked helplessly at the two people in front of him, holding a charcoal pen and notepad in his hand. Henry looked back at him, remembering what he had seen at a glance on his notepad before, and shook his head in amusement.
"This can be regarded as some kind of fate." He said this, and Galeva, who didn't understand what he said, scratched his head, put away the charcoal and closed the book.
"Wow--" The distracted young man was about to take the notebook back but dropped it on the ground.
"Crash-" A gust of wind blew and the notebook flipped quickly. The densely packed records turned from page to page and finally landed on the first page.
It was written in faded, childish handwriting.
Kaleva Katayanan.
