What we Know of Will -I-

"You're finally here," Diadna said to Moria and Stoker, the youngest of her brothers, Price, behind her.

Diadna had a slight frown on her face that portrayed a certain begrudging acceptance of her sister's decisions, while Price was attentive and somewhat tense from concern about procedure. Price seemed to have taken his father's stern words about doing this ceremony right to heart.

Moria and Stoker stood facing the two youngest Hebito children outside the front door of the home. An hour prior they were organizing a cargo transport for the provisions they had ordered for their journey to arrive at the shipyard where their finished ship should be waiting at when it was done the next day.

"Now then," the small child continued, "you guys can watch the ceremony alongside all of us, it's mostly going to be about Father and Elaina's interaction."

"and also," Price continued, adding to his younger sister's incomplete explanation, "The ceremony ends with the child leaving the building and being received by their friends or crew if they're there so you guys will need to be here out front waiting when it's about done. Before that happens, one of us will come get you."

"Interesting," Stoker commented, stroking his chin in contemplation at the sibling's words.

In turn, Moria merely replied with an abrupt "Gotcha."

"Then come on in," Price said before turning back to the paper doors, opening them, and ushering everyone inside before closing the doors behind them. Inside, near the door, a travel bag containing Elaina's clothes and belongings waited patiently.

The sight of the inside mystified Moria and Stoker as they walked to the far side of the room, at Diadna's instruction, to join Elaina's mother Diantha, Viktor, and a group of about 12 of the students who attended Iasus's Dojo who had been invited to bear witness.

As for the room itself it was mostly open with tatami mats lining most of the floor, martial arts instruction occurred there after all. It was dim, lit only by dimmed lamps hanging from the walls and candles set on furniture at the edge of the room. 

Elaina sat in the Seiza position on a cushion before a table in the center of the room with her eyes closed, waiting.

She wore a plain grey V-neck under an open, studded, cut-off, long-sleeved leather jacket, grey jeans, with fingerless leather gloves. Her hair was unbound and rolled past her shoulders.

In the center of the table was a single wide candle whose light revealed an ornate set of symbolic designs on the surface of the table. Most of them depicted serpents meeting with various peoples: one of them meeting giants, another of them meeting merfolk, and another of them meeting human figures with wings on their backs...

...and one more depicting these serpents looking longingly at the sun.

Once Moria, Stoker, Diadna, and Price took their seats it didn't take long for it to start.

---

"Are you ready Daniel?" Iasus asked his son. 

They were both in a backroom. Iasus, with Daniel's help, had just finished his preparations and took a small black gift box in his hand.

Iasus wore a black kimono with a scale pattern lining the sleeves and an ornate golden pattern lining the rest of it. Daniel merely had a more simple dark blue yukata.

"Yes father," he responded, "You don't have to worry, I'll be sure to remember all of this for whenever I'll have to do it."

"Good, just remember that you don't quite have to go by the script, every parting is a bit different."

Saying this, Iasus turned to the door leading to the main room and opened it, entering alongside his son and moving to the center table.

On the opposite side of the table from him sat his daughter.

As he sat Agura style while Daniel sat close behind him watching his every move attentively, Elaina opened her eyes and met her father's firm gaze.

"You stand ready today to become a pirate," Iasus said signaling the start before reciting dryly "A breaker of chains, of rules, a dreamer beyond constraint. This is no small undertaking and will no doubt draw the ire of the people on top, the rule makers.

"For so long as people seek freedom in this life: Inherited Will, The destiny of the era, and the dreams of its people shall never vanish from the world."

As he finished the preface he sighed before transitioning into addressing his daughter directly, "We the Hebito, the serpents of light, earthly creatures who cannot begin to pretend to the sheen of the Sun our Ancestors revered, have for the undertaker of this endeavor an accord."

Iasus took the gift box he held and placed it on the table before continuing.

"For the safety of the family; when you take your freedom, leave your name and be known only as Elaina. Do you accept?"

"Of course," Elaina responded firmly.

"Very good," Iasus confirmed before sliding the box, "then as a parting gift I ask you to take this."

Elaina took the box in her hands before taking its top off. She was greeted with the sight of a small knife with a bone handle resting sheathed in leather inside. Taking it in her hand she inspected it drawing the knife from the sheathe. Perhaps unsurprisingly it was made of obsidian, the rock chipped away shard by shard until this was left, the sharpest blade in the natural world and yet the most brittle. To be used sparingly for utility, not battle.

Elaina sheathed the knife and placed it down on the table's edge before bowing her head and reciting her part for the ceremony, "Go I shall, with spirit free and many thanks."

"Good," Iasus responded. He looked at the audience, meeting his wife's gaze, nodding to her. Diantha nodded back and stood up, moving around the room and opening a door to move into the Kitchen. Iasus then went on, reciting some more interesting lines that no one except the older folk in the room had heard of before.

"Observe the table before you and its inscriptions," he commanded softly, "For this occasion we took it out of storage. I ask you now, what do you make of these images?"

Elaina was somewhat confused but looked down at the images and analyzed them nonetheless.

Taking the images in, she spoke after a few seconds, "Serpents who revere the sun... The serpents in these images must represent our ancestors then. They meet several distinct races, I can't tell what for though."

"Good, Good," Iasus responded, "Indeed these serpents are our ancestors by blood. These images depict a time before they settled down in the Alclara kingdom when it was founded nearly 600 years ago. They were cast out from their homeland and roamed the seas, seeking the mysteries of the world as you now seek to do.

"These in particular depict them meeting several tribes who revere the same sun god as them."

Elaina looked up, brow narrowed as she met his eyes again.

Just then, the door Diantha had left through opened up and there she was, holding in her hands a tray with two small empty cups and a saké flask on it. As she moved over to the table and crouched to set the tray gently down on the side of the table, the eyes of everyone, including Elaina and Iasus, followed her. Once Diantha was done she stood up, moved back amongst the spectators, and sat back down.

Elaina's eyes settled on the saké with an eyebrow raised. Iasus looked down and moved his hand to the flask and delicately handled it, pouring some saké in both of the cups.

As Iasus set the saké flask down and took one of the cups in his hand he spoke again, "Now that we are not bound as family, let us bind ourselves formally as friends. The exchange of this drink will be a sign of that goodwill and friendship."

Elaina nodded, taking the other cup. Both of them raised the glasses and took a drink, Elaina thinking it a matter of course, but Iasus was relieved. It was a sign to him that Elaina valued what they shared enough that she felt comforted by the notion she could maintain it in some way despite resolving to leave.

Neither of them reacted to the taste of the saké at all as they put their cups down on the table. The vintage wasn't chosen for its taste after all, but it couldn't taste terrible either for the sake of the ceremony.

"Now then, as your ally I have but one final word of advice," Iasus continued, practically enslaving Elaina's attention, "Should you come across any group in your travels whose emblem contains the symbol of the sun or who otherwise revere the sun or a sun god, repeat this phrase: 'We too await the dawn',"

Elaina was confused but didn't show it on her face, merely responding with a "very well."

At this time, Viktor reached back, tapping Price on the arm to get his attention and signal him to lead Moria and Stoker out.

Price didn't even look at Vik, instead standing up, walking to the back of the small crowd of observers and tapping Moria and Stoker's arms to get their attention.

The chain of wordless signaling traveling from person to person continued to Moria and Stoker, both of them getting up and moving to the door alongside Price, but neither of their lines of sight broke with the exchange between Elaina and her Father. Even as their heads turned to the limits, the Gecko Pirates gazed over their shoulders while Price remained inside and closed the doors they left through.

"Alright," Iasus said. He stood up and lifted his hand, signaling Elaina to stand as well which she proceeded to do. 

As Iasus was about to close the ceremony, Elaina put out her arm with an open hand awaiting something. Though he was surprised he didn't think for a second about what she was asking and responded by locking his arm with hers. They shook hands and as they broke contact Elaina turned to walk away, her brisk pace causing her hair to sway behind her, masking her expression from her father.

Elaina opened the door, stepped through, and quickly slid the paper door back.

Iasus proceeded to turn to the audience and address his students waving his hand around, "Go, and whenever someone asks whatever happened to Elaina Hebito, Daughter of the Hebito, born to Iasus and Diantha July 11th, 1483, tell them the truth. No such person exists."

"Yes sir!" the students shouted in response, the signal for the end of the ceremony as a whole after which the first of the students started getting up and leaving.

When all the students were gone Daniel asked his father to answer some questions of his regarding the procedure of the ceremony in the basement, so that they could reference the actual instructions for the ceremony that had been handed down in the family and the various notebooks left by each of the family heads about their experiences performing it, to which his father agreed and they promptly left the room.

Vik and Diantha were left to console the distraught youngest children, Price and Diadna.

The kids, after a week had been convinced by their sister that she wouldn't be satisfied leaving unless the kids could see her off without a tear shed, for her own sake.

A sweet little lie they all told themselves, that they were above that feeling of loss.

And as she crunched herself into her mothers arms, eyes closed struggling not to cry, Diadna was irked by the much easier time her mother seemed to be having and she asked, "Mom. How do you do it? How can you just let big sis go so easily?"

Diantha's face dropped for a moment at that line. Soon though, not but a moment later she shuffled, pushing her chest out slightly to nudge her daughter off her chest, before taking one finger, pushing her daughter's chin up, and meeting her daughter's eyes with her favorite, gentle, motherly smile.

She relayed a story, which Price perked up and was distracted from his sadness by, "Once, when Vik had just returned home with me in tow, when I was new to Alclara, when I had just barely met and started getting to know you father, when I really started thinking about being a mother, I met the headmistress of an orphanage. The very same one who oversaw our friends Moria and Stoker.

"I was asking her about what it's like being a mother. I asked her the same thing about the kids she oversaw, who she loved like her own, despite not always being able to be a mother to all of them all the time...

"She said something I think I still agree with 'this is my family now, and I will stay with them until they are ready to leave the nest, and when they are I'll see them off with a smile, because that's what makes a mother happiest.'"

It only made the kids sadder, but it was useful advice so it was probably good that they learned that piece of parental wisdom at some point, no matter how much it seemed at the time to just be twisting the knife.