Alma 155 The Fields of Forgiveness

Reed stopped questioning her method the instant she uttered the fateful phrase, "Wouldn't that be easier?" She had wrapped him around her finger with those four magical words. That was all it took to for her to win over the previously outraged and offended partner. 

To him, it was as if he'd heard the sound of heavenly trumpets in the distance. He dropped onto one of his knees in mock-subservience and said, "O, merciful beauty, you bless with me your presence! Please grant this humble peasant a morsel of your wisdom!" 

Lu'um laughed and said, "Stop it, you fool." She pulled Reed up and held him close in preparation for what she was about to do. 

"We're going to be waiting a bit, so take a break and enjoy the scenery with me until we reach our destination." Lu'um raised one of her hands up in the sky and then made a twisting motion, as if she had spun a toy top in action. 

The world around them rapidly started to move at speeds beyond the norm. She had, for the lack of better words, hit the fast forward button on the world itself. Clouds raced sideways across the sky, chasing each other into the horizon. The sun and moon waltzed around the sky together, rising and setting without end. 

They had been left behind. The Silvermoon Grasslands bloomed with color in spring as a sea of wildflowers blossomed around Reed and Lu'um. Lush fields of azalea flowers covered the grasslands, dyeing the grasslands with the potent blond hue, like golden wheat. 

"Oh? These flowers are such a wonderful shade of gold, yet this place is called the Silvermoon Grasslands. Runs contrary to the flowers, no? Why do you think it they did that?" said Reed. 

"You'll see." Lu'um said with a small smile, "Keep watching the grasslands and you'll understand." She made a small gesture and in return, time slowed down for them back to normal.

It was late in the evening. The stars above had already begun to appear out from the inky curtain of the night sky. Reed guessed that it would only be a few minutes before the sun completely set underneath the horizon. He looked up at the darkening, violet-azure sky and quietly observed three familiar moons as they slowly crawled their way up onto the throne of the heavens. 

There was something about the three identical moons that had always made him feel strange. It wasn't an unpleasant feeling, but it was certainly a peculiar sensation. 

The back of his neck sometimes tingled when he had his back turned towards them, as if someone had been watching him. Not once had he been able to discern the identity of the mysterious individual, so he assumed it to be nothing more than his own paranoia. 

Still, it always happens at night, especially when there's a full moon happening. It keeps happening in a recurring pattern, so I'm pretty sure that it's more than my own delusions...

Reed shuddered. He didn't want to even contemplate the idea that someone had been watching him in secret since his trainee days. That a bogeyman has been keeping tabs on him every full moon. 

As if! My life isn't some kind of horror story in the making... right? 

Unbeknownst to Reed, the very same boogeyman he suddenly found himself dreading... was standing right to next him. 

Lu'um would not have been very happy about being labeled a boogeyman, though. It would have been too great an accusation for her not to defend herself. 

Simply put, she would have denied any involvement in such a matter, even to her dying breath. She would have rather preferred to die on her hill -- denying the truth -- than have the title, "boogeyman," stuck onto her for very obvious reasons. 

Most prominently of those reasons being that Reed would never let her live it down. Never. It would haunt her for all eternity, like a permanent black cloud over her reputation. 

And Lu'um valued her feminine reputation very much. She was forever an eighteen-year-old maiden with a pure heart. Anyone who tried to contest that would very likely find themselves buried out in the Shadowlands in some shallow grave...

Of course, though... Lu'um was only for the first couple times Reed felt that eerie sensation of being watched. After she met Reed, she no longer continued her questionable activities at night. 

Which meant that several other instances were still unaccounted for. Not that either of them knew this chilling fact, though...

When the sun finally set below the horizon, it began. The Silvermoon Azaleas, which glistened golden in the day, transformed into something else as soon as the sun disappeared. 

Under the light of the three moons, the flowers shone radiantly like in a silvery-golden hue as they released their radiance one last time in the night. 

During the day, the blossomed naturally and released their seeds out into the winds to be carried away, their short life's work completed, but at night...

The stage was theirs alone -- this was the farewell of the Silvermoon Azaleas, which they were known for across the East. They had held onto to life until nightfall for this very reason: To shine one last time before death, a final victory cry of the passing. 

Millions of Silvermoon Azaleas shone like the glowing silver moons at night with all the force they could muster. Each one was a flower that would not see tomorrow, yet it did not seem to deter them in the slightest as they shone brighter than the very stars above them. 

"...They were planted here for a reason. Each one represents a life lost, not only during the Unification Wars, but even further back -- I'm sure you understand, yes?" 

Reed nodded. 

"That man, Velvund, is one of the few living people who can still remember those terrible days. He survived that horrible age and then had to deal with the Unification Wars, too. It would not be an understatement to say that he has seen the full extent of what people are truly capable of in dire situations. 

The great evils that people can end up performing in order to survive. It is why he is probably the only person I have ever explicitly trusted to truly have your well-being in concern. 

Do you know why I trust him?"

Reed shook his head. "Why do you trust him?"

"Because he is the one who planted these Silvermoon Azaleas." 

Lu'um flicked her hand and a faint, ghostly apparartion appeared in the distance. A tall figure walked across the glowing Silvermoon Azaleas and showered the grasslands with flower seeds by hand as he walked to-and-fro in silence. 

It was Velvund. 

"Is it to give the dead some form of recompense for their suffering? To give them some form of burial, so that their souls may rest in peace. 

Perhaps it is a form of penance for him. To ask forgiveness to the deceased on behalf of all Chosen. 

Or as a way to make sure that he would never forget what happened? I do not know. The only thing I do know is that he did not stop planting Azaleas until the entire Silvermoon Grasslands was covered with them." 

Why here? Why did the fissure appear here? What does that mean? This tormented history and these grasslands... what connection do they share? I do not understand..."

Reed felt it. For the first time in many years, he recognized the subtle pull of fate. How it had brought him, Lu'um, and Velund here, to these grasslands. He felt it deep in his bones. 

"We were brought here by fate for a reason. To these Silvermoon Grasslands. Can you feel it?" said Reed. 

He gazed at the scene and said, "I can feel it on the tip of my tongue. It's like they're right there, but I can'r get them out. The words are there, but they're evading me. The more I try to search for them, the more they hide away from me." 

Reed shut his eyes, paused for a moment and then grasped the words that had been eluding him.

"Avatyar-."

Lu'um tilted her head and said, "...Avatyar?" 

"It means, 'forgive,' in High-Alfven, the Avuvinians' mother language they refer to as the Old Tongue amongst themselves. I finally remember now." 

"But what does that have to do the Silvermoon Grasslands?"

"Silvermoon Grasslands is what this place is called on normal maps, but when I saw this place on gramps' holomap in the Spirit of Bountiful Chartity, it was called Avatyar-Tarwa instead.

'Forgiveness Field' is what it sounds like if was translated literally, but I'm pretty sure a more liberal translation of the name would be 'The Field of Forgiveness.'" 

The those tiresome days learning High-Alfven had finally come to bear fruit. Reed would have to thank Rivia for her all the hard work she had put drilling the language into his skull. 

The princely education he recieved against will had come to help him in his hour of need, almost three years after the intial investment. Who could have thought?

Hell, he had even gotten one in on Lu'um. For the first, in... well, ever -- he had been the one to teach Lu'um something new. It was a refreshing feeling, if Reed had to be perfectly honest. 

Is this how Lu'um always feels whenever she teaches me something? I could get used to this...

Lu'um smiled a little bit and said, "...The Fields of Forigiveness? A truly beffiting name, don't you think?"

How mysterious that we, of all people, should end up here and end up forgiving each other here. 

"...Hm? What do you mean?" 

Lu'um lightly sighed. She was always amazed at how frighteningly perceptive he was when it mattered, but always failed to grasp the final part of his hunches. He was far brighter than he knew. If he could sharpern his intuition a little more, it would certainly become something genuinely terrifying...

Chapter end