The Grand Temple

*Disclaimer*

I am just trying new styles,

'...' is used for when the characters are thinking...

"..." is used for dialogues

Orchid

'Should I just tell them..., they look worried...' it bugs Orchid that his friends were in the dark on what happened. But some things have to be dealt, on your own, it is a way of growing stronger. Not everything requires a second opinion, sometimes the one you have of yourself is the one that matters the most. It's a mindset that Orchid always practiced.

'Knowing Alek he is gonna try to get back at him and it's gonna be ugly.' he also assures himself. 'I don't want to see him get hurt, that bastard doesn't know how to hold back.' he mumbles cursing Jake.

He knows that whatever it is his friends are the only ones he truly can find solace with but telling them this will only lead to more problems and the chance of them getting hurt was there so he'd rather not risk it. He settles his thoughts as he already makes a decision.

He walks on his way to the temple, he wasn't spouting crap all day, his dad actually asked him for him but it's just this time he didn't bale out with an excuse of having extra class after school. He needed a distraction and manual labor seems to be it.

*****

The temple was the biggest place of worship in the whole district where Orchid lived. This temple is where most of their celebrations are held and the biggest of them all is the water festival. The water festival is a festival where worshipers showed their gratitude to the goddess of luck who protects them from harm.

She is depicted as a goddess with six arms. Her statue is 200 feet tall, it's a golden statue of her sitting cross-legged in a bloomed lotus which is made out of gold as well. Her 6 arms are said to also protect her worshippers from demons each arm protects them from all the 6 sub-classes of demons. They orchestrate this festival for her every year around spring. To show their gratitude and devotion they place bloomed lotus flowers in a pond surrounding her. It is a symbol that represents luck. It was tradition to do so. At the end of the celebration, the sight of thousands of flowers floating beside her is something many from all walks of life come to see. This is appraised as the highlight of the festival.

The giant temple is considered the main of their district which mainly healers reside in. Loads of people from different classes come to visit, it's kind of their pride. It's usually around this year that there would be lots of tourists coming to witness the festival. But this year it seems like the whole temple would only consist of healers. It seems really odd.

The most exciting part of the festival is the water fight. Everyone launches water at each other regardless of whether they know each other. Drinking is also a part and parcel of the festival. It has become an excuse for men to drink in broad daylight without their wives complaining.

There is also a carnival held in front of the temple this year, it was most probably planned to adhere to the tourist and kids coming for the festival. I guess the kids have it all to themselves.

*****

As Orchid was walking on his way to the temple he sees a girl in a crimson dress walking towards him, the bottom of the dress has fringes and just barely touches her knees. She has rich long brown hair that falls all the way to her hips and it sways as she walks towards him. They both have eye contact as they got closer to each other. Orchid almost sees his reflection in her eyes which seems to be as dark as an abyss. When he turns back to look at her when she passes by she was gone.

'Wow, who was that?'

He walks away not realizing that their paths would cross in the near future. He will soon regret not killing her the moment he had arm's reach. It would have saved him a lot of pain.

When he reaches the steps to the temple he takes off his shoes then proceeds to attempt on walking the 100 white marble steps to reach the top. He looks up after climbing for a while and realizes he is really not in shape. It's only been about 20 steps and he already is feeling it. He exhales in annoyance and continues to climb again. Just as he was going to step on the next step a hand lays on his shoulder, he tenses and looks back. He realizes it was his father and loosens up.

"Father, why do you always do that? Can't you just tell me if you're there!"

"Why do you call me father, like that, why can't you just call me dad like how the other kids call their dads?" his dad asks playfully. Orchid's dad has gray hair and is more muscular than him. He looks young for his age and he has kind eyes. He had a cloth wrapped around his head as it seemed he was working on some construction work for the festival. Most probably he was working on the construction of the rides for the carnival. His dad usually helps out and is well known around the district for being super obliging.

"The festival might be postponed, it seems there have been several demon sightings recently and we most probably have to cancel the whole thing. It seems the military spotted them too far from the north. You better be careful when you walk back home from school." he adds

"By the way, your mom's here too, I think she's in the temple praying with your sister. "he points his index finger towards the temple approximating their location.

"I am going to meet with some of the townsfolk first to see if we are actually postponing it, take your mom and sister back home once they are done, I don't want them to go alone since they might come across a demon. " he looks at Orchid anticipating him to complain

"You have to protect them okay?" he smiles

"Sure, I'll get them home once they finish up, go get to your meeting." he says softly thinking back to the fight he had with Jake and wonders if he could actually protect them if they ever come across a demon.

"Is something wrong, why do you seem so down?" he questions his son worryingly.

"No it's nothing I just had a long day at school, we had a long period of herbology" he lies to make sure his dad doesn't ask him anything else.

He quickly dashes up the stairs. His father looks as if he was about to say something but as he ran up he could only see his mouth movements and his worried eyes in the distance. He would soon later come to regret not listening to what he had to say and may do so for the rest of his life.

Orchid reaches the top of the temple. He was astonished at the amazing view of the well-designed architecture in front of him. He hadn't been here for a while and by a while, it was since the last water festival. He goes in to find his mom and sister, he walks through the temple admiring all the stone carvings that represent many of their other deities. There was a mixture of old and new designs here as this temple was founded and built long ago. It had been renovated a few times and now it looks like this, marble tiles, smooth concrete walls, and also a few new porcelain statues. You could find no other place like it. It was huge as well and had a view to die for, as it was built on the 3rd tallest mountain in their kingdom. A small girl came running to Orchid as he was walking through the temple.

"Brother! When did you come?" she looks at him excitingly asking her brother to carry her, gesturing it by opening her arms wide. Her eyes sparkle her brother picks her up placing her on his shoulders. She was a small girl with 2 pigtails on both sides of her head. She looks like a carbon copy of Orchid but only with lilac eyes.

"Where's mom Violet?" both the brother and sister pair were named after flowers as their mom really loved them. She works at a flower shop and has had many years of dealing with flowers, so it was only natural to name them after her favorite ones.

"She's over there!" pointing to a distant figure walking towards them. Orchid's mother had silky black hair and was almost the same height as Orchid. She smiles as she sees both her jewels together in the distance and walks towards them.

Orchid's mom was very optimistic and always had a smile plastered on her face. She always reminded her kids to smile no matter what, no matter the problem, and life should be lived while smiling. She explained to them ever since they were young that bad days may come but it's up to you what you make of them. Every moment, any situation is a miracle and should be treated as such. As you can see Orchid's life had been filled with cheesy quotes like this.

Rumor has it that she was actually set on marrying a high-ranked priest but didn't once she found her husband, Orchid's dad. The priest had seemed to be smitten by her ever since he laid eyes on her and even went to the point of arranging a marriage between their families behind her back or that was rumor had said to be true.

The husband and wife pair had met each other in school and fell in love. The end. They never explained any further even when prompted. Orchid always found it weird that he had been on this planet longer than the both of them had been married but never got the answer from either one of them. The excuse was that their marriage certificate was delayed due to system errors but Orchid is still skeptical.

Once they were all together Orchid realized someone had been following his mom. She introduced the man and told him that he had something to tell Orchid. And what he said disturbed him...