"...You’re quite competitive.”Gripping into the newly won bear Liam gave me, I broke the ten-minute silence.
"A-Ah...that.” he stuttered a bit, "I am not usually like, well, that.”
"Uh, huh…”
"I am serious!” he stepped in front of me, loudly exclaiming with wild hand moments, "I just...well, I just thought it is was important to look cool for you! I am trying to become friends with you again, after all!”
We were talking about Liam's inability to accept a loss. I knew he was childish, but watching him throw a temper tantrum after his twentieth miss was something far beyond what I pictured of him. It was...honestly a bit scary. I never saw Lilith act like that so I had no idea what to do. I was also a bit sensitive to how we were looking to those around us and began to panic myself. Luckily, the shopkeeper realized this and simply gave us the toy with the words,” You paid more than enough! Just take it and go!”
I stepped back a bit, sinking my face into the bear. “Well, it’s fine. You are a kid, after all…”
“You say that as though you’re not.”
"W-Wait, I am!” I shot my face up in surprise, "I’m just saying that to comfort you! It’s fine to act like that now and then, okay!”
"I see…” he turned away from me with his hands interlocked behind. “I see... I see!”
While faint, he chuckled to himself. He was also swaying quite a bit. Was he excited? Or was he having a mental break down? Either way, I bet people were staring at us again...
"A-Anyway! We have a few minutes left until your promise!”
"Oh.” Foot mid-air, he turned over to me and smiled.
"That is right. Well, there is one more place I want to show you. It was something you liked to visit often before and since its quiet, maybe the current you will, too.”
"I-Is that so? Then we better hurry.” Nodded, he extended his hand out to me.
Though I wasn’t used to holding another man’s hand, I did not know my way around this area just yet. So I stuck close to Liam, and sometimes that included me reluctantly being pulled around by the arm. Thankfully because of my pleas, we moved around through quieter alleyways which sort of offset the unsettling feeling I had.
"Well, here we are.” he exclaimed, "The honorary Garden of Miron Le Quivin!”
"Quivin…?”
"I hope your family has a plan to reteach you what you forgot because this is an important detail about where you come from.” Liam sighed, shaking his head.
"To be precise, this garden and future burial site are for our current ruler.” He pulled me further into the garden before continuing, "This town is actually where he grew up, so five years ago it was decided to make a garden surrounding his old childhood home to honor him.”
"I never heard of him…” I said. And it's true. Even in my past life, I have no idea who this man was to our nation; even someone of such importance as the emperor! I never had the energy and well, I was always told such knowledge is not something a simple commoner's life should concern herself with. Though with my current situation, I wish I knew more about the world.
A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
"This is known even by five-year-olds, you know?” He turned and smiled, "He is certainly well admired by all the boys! You probably were his number one fan since you dragged me here all the time, spouting how much you would become his right-hand knight! We even did so much as to ‘train’. Well I say that but, we mostly just goofed off and climbed buildings.”
"I-I certainly had big dreams…” Even though I am not Hezek, I felt slightly second-hand embarrassment.
"I sometimes wonder how you would consistently rope me into his antics” He chuckled, "I am supposed to be the oldest, but I somehow couldn’t say no”
Wait, oldest?
"You’re older?”
"Mhm! I nearly 14, and you’re going to be 10 in winter. Did your parents never say?”
"F-Forgive me! I have been acting disgracious up until now.”
I was careless. Despite being mentally older, I neglected the obvious visual difference in social-standing. Even I know that where we come from, going against the social structure made you an outcast, or worse…
"‘Disgracious’? It’s funny hearing that from Hezek’s mouth.” he laughed, "And look, both you and I had an agreement not to act formally with each other. Plus, it’s not like it matters in this neck of the woods, okay?”
“B-But still, it is simply not proper and somebody might misunderstand…”
“Misunderstand what? Do you really not want to be friends with me?”
“I-”
"Wait, wait, wait!” he waved his hands in front of me while yelling, "You don’t have to answer that - at least, just yet!”
Our hands clenched together, he guided me further into the garden. Despite winter was approaching, the garden remained a bit of this flourish.
The orange, red, and yellow leaves added a mystical atmosphere to the scenery. As I gazed over to my right, I saw a few that broke away and fluttered off. Crossing a brick bridge, the river flowed quietly down the hill we were treading up - carrying from the leaves along with it. I also noticed several signs of specific parts of our walk. Though because of my illiteracy, I could not recognize most of the words. But from the pictures that a few had, I assumed the trail held some significance to this ‘Miron Le Quivin’s’ childhood.
“It’s right past here.” he pointed beyond the trail’s fencing.
“I don’t think that’s safe.” I hesitated.
"If you don’t come, I won’t bring you to the soldiers!”
Begrudgingly, I followed him further off the road. It was a bit harder to tread obviously, but he helped me walk my step and before long we reached an old oak tree. There was a wooden seat tied from it, and following the rope revealed a small, shabby house placed onto its branches.
"This is our hideaway, neat ain’t it?”
"You brought me here, because…?”
He twiddled his fingers, "Truthfully I wanted to bring you here much earlier thinking,’Maybe he’ll remember me by seeing this!’”
I stayed silent.
"But honestly, I realized earlier today that holding onto that hope isn’t too fair on you, is it? Still, you deserve to know your past so I decided to still bring you. Hey, why don’t we climb up?”
“I don’t know about that.”
"Aha, suppose it does look dangerous.” Up among the branches was a box. It seemed to have nails sticking out on the ends of planks of wood piled on top of each other in random directions. Looking closers, there were several gaps and wood rot, too.
"You built this yourself and when the final product was revealed, I was also nervous to go up. Though believe me or not, the foundation seemed solid and hasn’t changed besides the occasional squeak after a year of abuse.” He placed his foot onto the rope ladder, "Well anyway, just wait for a minute - I’m going to grab something.”
I felt uneasy watching him climb up. Though like he said, the structure seemed surprisingly solid as he crawled through the small opening. Then, I heard some ruffling and banging before he popped his head out again, "Hey, catch!”
"A-Ah!” He threw something into the air. I quickly stepped back, hands stretched out as I tried to keep my eyes on the object. Though once I walked out of the tree shade, the blinding sun hit my eyes and made me flinch. I then felt something slam against my face and I lost my footing.
"Hezek!” I groaned, opening my eyes to Liam leaning over me, "You okay, Hezek?”
"Yeah.”
"I’m sorry. Old habits die hard, huh?” he offered his hand, "But, this book might help a lot in getting back to normalcy!”
"Hm? A Diary?”
"Aha, Hezek would have killed me if I called it that. Though basically...yeah. You would show me only the pages with plans to achieve knighthood. But, I am sure there are plenty of others that will tell you more about your life before. You can decide from there how you want to live your future.”
"Thanks.” I suppose this can be useful to help me figure out what’s normal behavior around there. I need to lay low until I am old enough to search for my family.
"Mhm! Anyway, shall I fulfill my promise now?”