Dust and withered leaves floated in the air as a cold breeze howled down the main street, making the scene feel more intense.
It was midday, and the crimson sun had just touched the ashen peaks of the Unison Mountains.
The red radiance spilled down through the outskirts, leaving most in awe.
Aghh… so bright. Too bright, Sefall thought, his eyes shining coldly as sunrays fell onto his dull, unattractive stall.
Was age catching up to him? His eyesight has been getting worse lately.
No. It couldn't be. Am I really that old.
Looking up at the sun and then back at the main street, he murmured to himself, no it is just that time of year.
The time of year when the sun shines brightest before its flame is snuffed out for seven days.
They are preparing for the Light Festival, and I am here doing nothing.
It is only natural. Anyways, I am not entirely doing nothing though. I am benefiting myself and providing for myself.
Chuckling, Sefall gathered his merchandise. Maps, newspapers, and a handful of other useful items lay scattered across his desk.
He had positioned himself at the entrance of the main street, closest to the academy, hoping to catch the attention of the new students.
But his grand plan had failed.
No one had come in the past few days, and when they did, they were never from the academy.
Well, he could not complain.
Sparing a glance at his unusually plain stand, he thought, Mere youths do not care about the situation in the city, nor our situation in the outskirts.
The newspapers Sefall sold usually sold out fast, and as he expected, they did again.
The news of an intruder had been shadowing the outskirts streets for a few weeks now, and only yesterday did they find out who it was.
It seemed that the night of the loud crash into the academy building, an outsider had trespassed.
Sefall glanced, hearing the many whispers of the vast outskirts streets.
The crowd was filled with mothers, fathers, and children alike.
They gathered toward the vendors who, unlike him, were giving out free supplements.
"That mentally ill man had been correct."
"So it wasn't one of the Ru."
"There really was an intruder."
"To think he was found, then beaten, trying to enter the border with no yie."
Even the beggars were interested.
But as his wistful gaze explored the city, he noticed something out of the corner of his eye.
Another person was approaching his stand. The youth moved with quiet confidence, his white robes trailing along the ground.
He wore a calm, thoughtful expression that dulled his handsome face. It gave him an air of age and wisdom that made even Sefall feel young in comparison.
The youth went unnoticed by the ever growing crowd until Sefall saw his eyes.
The boy's face carried a subtle strength. He had a high, defined jawline and sharp cheekbones.
But his eyes made those features, what most deemed great, look no more than average.
They were a brilliant gold, yet tainted with a shadowy black. They seemed to hold both light and void.
When the sun caught them, the pupils blazed with molten gold.
In the absence of light, they darkened into the color of the abyss, and in certain shifting glimmers, they shimmered a deep, burnished gold that perfectly contrasted his raven black hair.
Are they fake? Those beautiful eyes cannot be natural.
Despite being mesmerized by the man with golden eyes, Sefall briefly ignored him as he drew closer.
Sefall looked away at the mountains, unable not to wince, as though haunted by the past.
Before he could remind himself of the good old days, the man had passed the crowd and reached his stand.
When he had arrived, the youth spared Sefall a smile, then gave the newspapers a thoughtful glance and spoke, breathing indifference with each word.
"Greetings, my name is Oren. Are you currently in possession of a map, one of the great Unison Mountains and the surrounding fields of the outskirts?"
…
In the far edges of the second district, Sable sat below the embankment wall.
A narrow strip of grass stretched beside the stone pavement, running toward the terraced steps cut into the wall.
The steps allowed entry into the vast and abundant second district beyond.
Sable's light blue eyes had grown dull and empty over the past couple days. Despite no longer caring for many things, he still cared.
He watched silently as children and their parents walked, traveling in and out of the second district.
His dirty blonde hair had grown to his ears, and he could barely sit still.
Beneath him, the pale wooden bench creaked faintly. The wood was splintered, the steel long rusted, awkwardly placed along one of the narrow grass strips.
Behind it stood one of the many trees that ran along the thin grassy verge.
Its last leaves were shedding, falling to the ground where grass and a few stubborn flowers clung to life, though most had already gone dormant for the winter.
The river flowed calmly just beyond the pavement, reflecting the pale autumn sky.
Further down the murky stream, a bridge marked both the exit from the second district and the entry into the third.
To Sable, though, this place, the stream, the bridge, even the third district, it was called Riverbend, his home.
Well, it was most likely called other things by now. He had not been there in a while, a few years maybe. No, a dozen perhaps.
Sable was often conflicted, mostly tempted to cross the bridge into Riverbend, but he knew he could not.
He knew he was not allowed.
Because what he had done was far too grand to deserve mercy and forgiveness.
Gritting his teeth weakly, Sable looked down at the bench he was sat on, deep in contemplation.
Then, as if it never existed, he looked behind him, somehow sensing a presence.
Something. It was strange.
It felt as though around this time of year, during these seven days, he could predict when someone was walking toward him, feel them, read them, their demeanor and emotions like an open book.
But it was also this time of year when he especially felt the most vulnerable and feeble.
To think he had been so scared to ask Elder Tie Ru about his problem. To think he was scared of the reason he had met the elder.
Because even Elder Tie Ru did not know what was wrong with him.
Sable used to think he was slowly dying.
Only after speaking with the elder did he understand that thinking that was very pessimistic.
Instead, Sable had concluded that he had a lifetime illness.
Because of it, he could not help but feel cursed and condemned.
His dark blue eyes dimmed.
And because of his disease, he knew that Oren, the person who felt the most warm to his weakening senses, had nearly arrived.
It was as though he could feel every step and every moment Oren took, sometimes even the strangers around him.
Sable's gaze paused on the wall for a moment. The chipped stone, blurry and dull.
To Sable, the embankment wall felt like another tower he had yet to overcome, despite its height only being ten foot tall.
That meant it would not be too difficult, but Sable could not help but question himself.
Riverbend. That was my home. Third district.
Am I still attached to it?
He already knew the answer.
Because if Sable was no longer attached to such a place in his past, why would he have chosen to come here?
To simply sit on a bench and sight see?
He looked across the stream to the other side. That was where he used to sit, too young to leave the district, but old enough to admire the beauty.
Rubbing his cheek, he thought.
I wonder if it will be my trial. My trial of longing.
If his suspicions were correct, this place would be the real tower he would have to overcome.
Sensing a small, indescribable shift, Sable glanced to his right, but it seemed he had turned too fast, predicting where Oren would eventually appear.
It took a few seconds for Oren to walk down the steps and come into view.
But Sable had been watching even before Oren descended the steps.
…
To Oren's surprise, as soon as he descended the wall of the embankment, he was met with Sable's smile.
It did not creep him out. It only made him wonder if young innocent man knew that he was there.
He quickly dismissed the thought.
It would be impossible for sable to know were he was unless heard him.
Staring at sable for a moment longer than necessary, Oren did not return Sable's somber smile.
He maintained a calm expression, standing on the pavement, looking down the dam, then to the small bridge.
For some reason, today, the world seemed darker.
Dark enough to make Oren think that it was slowly turning midnight at midday.
Was it the turning night already, or was it only there at the bridge between the districts?
Stepping to the edge of the concrete, where below him the tide slowly eroded the stone rims, he looked at the river.
He saw the myriad of fallen leaves and orange, green, and silver fish.
Just like the tiger striped fish and frogs in the fountain outside the academy, these creatures were not even close to the fish he knew of.
He had heard that people used the stream in between the two districts to flush, but had taken it for a lie.
Becuase why would there be fish in the water they drank?
Only when Oren noticed the water filter downstream did he understand.
He sighed with an amused expression, then turned back to look at Sable, walked over to the bench, and sat down beside him.
For some peculiar reason, Sable's smile never seemed to reach his blurry blue eyes.
But today, of all days, he felt different.
Maybe this change started after the assembly.
But his entire demeanor had shifted.
Or maybe it was never demeanor, and what showed the world was his ugly facade.
That was what Oren suspected, at least.
Sable sunk into the wooden chair as Oren walked over and sat down.
Oren was first to speak.
"So this is what the third district looks like. To be honest, it is nothing much. It looks identical to this district."
The third was filled with an abundance of people and tattered houses that, from what Oren could see, were rarely new.
He had been given two weeks before the Trial of Longing and had tried his best to explore the second district, but it was too vast.
He had bought a map early on in the day.
Only when looking at it did Oren learn that the surrounding districts combined were bigger than the actual Union City they surrounded.
It made sense in a way.
Sable looked across the river that separated the two districts with a wistful expression, then turned to the bridge and replied.
"It is nothing much. I agree. But it is precisely because the third district is nothing much that it is so beautiful compared to the Unison City."
He glanced at Oren with a short, dim smile.
"Have you ever… have you seen it? The fields and lakes that surround Riverbend?"
Oren shook his head.
"No, I have not. But I assume Riverbend is beautiful. Is it one of those places where it is more than meets the eye?"
Sable nodded, then paused.
There was a long silence that felt neither welcoming nor awkward.
Oren quite liked being able to listen to the waves of the stream without any background noise.
But Sable looked unsure.
After a dozen minutes, Sable suddenly asked a question that made Oren pause and ponder.
"Are you religious, Oren?"
"No."
Oren tilted his head.
"What do you mean, religion?"
But of course he knew what Sable meant. Who did not know of the term religion?
Oren shortly added with a smile.
"What religion is there to speak of? Why does religion matter at this moment?"
Sable's grip loosened. He stared into the stream with a somber expression.
"It does not," he murmured, his blue eyes fixed on the water.
"Still… if I were you, I would pray."
Pray?
Oren frowned hearing a whisper but not hearing the words.
"Have hope."
For a while Oren did not reply, he did know what Sable was implying.
Unless Sable was simply putting his beliefs onto Oren, or was he trying to make Oren long for something other than the past?
Oren dismissed the thoughts, listening to Sable tentatively.
"Pray to the Red King. That is who I preach to. If not him, pray to whatever name fits your space, gives you hope and serenity."
Red King? Was that not what the drunken man had said?
He claimed it must have been the Red King's choosing that he, Liran, Hemel, and I met.
Only after thinking on it did Oren uncover one of the many reasons the drunken gambler believed and was religious.
He was scared, and the Red King promised hope.
In a way, the gambler's belief in the Red King, and his attachment to the world, including his brothers, Hemel, Liran, his friends and family, perhaps even Oren, was part of that light.
And Varos's death was the void trying to consume it.
After understanding that, Sable's words felt truer than before.
Sable sighed, his eyes rarely drifting from the bridge.
"Belief is all religion ever is, after all. That is something most people here, in the outskirts, forget. Religion is only belief.
If it is true, it is fact. If it is false, it becomes belief. And when certainty is absent, belief is chosen without reason.
While some beliefs might be truths, most are false.
And that is why, despite this, I will pray. I will still believe, despite falsehoods and facts.
And that is why I want you, Oren, to believe, to strive for success and beat the Trial of Longing."
He gave a small, indifferent chuckle and looked back at Oren, waiting for a reaction.
But there was none.
Oren was calm, deep in thought, genuinely questioning what Sable said.
He partially agreed, and despite not being religious, Oren still believed in many things.
Sable's light chuckle broke his thoughts, his tone curious yet uncertain.
"I find your calmness peculiar. Here I am praying that you win, that you succeed in the Trial of Longing and become enlightened.
But you, you dont care, or is that you do care?"
Squinting at Oren in confusion, he added, "Are you not scared? Are you not worried about the Trial of Longing, or are you sure that my prayers will work?"
Oren said nothing, letting the words settle. Sable exhaled.
"The trial is tomorrow. Are you ready?"
Oren chuckled.
"Ready?"
Oren knew what Sable meant.
Was he still attached to things. Oren could not answer the question. Only question himself.
Am I still attached to things, do i still for anything?
Thinking about it, he realized that to succeed in the trial, he would have to let go of parts of himself, or else grow exponentially to not feel anything for a long period of time.
From what he had gathered from lecturers and elders, to pass the Trial of Longing, one must not long for anything.
One must desire, and yet not let that desire control them. Not be ruled by too many emotions.
If only this were the Trial of Anger or Laughter, Oren thought, because longing is desire, and desire touches nearly every emotion.
As Elder Idris had said, this was not a trial of combat. This would be strictly mental, and Oren already had an idea of what he would face.
Instead of chuckling or moaning at the little resources and information the academy had given, Oren shrugged lightly.
"As ready as I will ever be."
Hearing that, sable smiled sincerely for the first time.
"That is good."