Chapter 2: The Casterilla Festival

Its a new day and Ethan has taken a rare hike from training today. He is preparing to visit the Casterilla island for the summer festival which is celebrated for almost the span of a week. Casterilla island is the biggest island among the 21 islands of the archipelago and so much prosperous that even the whole archipelago is named after it. It has branches of several organizations stationed on it like a naval branch , a branch of The South Heart Merchant Association, which is one of the three largest merchant associations of South Blue, a branch of Sumitomo Shipbuilders , a well known shipbuilding company in this sea and allegedly the island even hosts a branch of the Four Seas black market.

The summer festival was historically said to be celebrated to welcome the ripening of Casterillo fruit which is a local specialty of this island. The fruit has almost perfectly spherical shape with the ripe fruit spotting a mixture of purple , red and yellow hues. It is said to be rich in vitamin C and minerals and can be preserved for about 10 days in temperatures even up to 35 degree Celsius, which makes it almost a perfect fruit for voyages on sea. This fruit has a major hand in the prosperity of the island.

The summer festival has now become synonymous to a carnival with many provisional markets which attracts many people from all the islands of the archipelago and even from the islands beyond. Ethan had visited the festival a few times before with his uncle and aunt but this year he would be accompanied to the festival with his 60 year old neighbor, Mr. Stephen who lives with his wife Mrs. Marie next to their house.

They used to have an adult son named Albert enthusiastically joined the flow of countless people who went to the sea in this year after Roger's execution but has lost contact with his parents ever since , most likely swallowed by the endless seas. As Mr. and Mrs. Stephen are already old , they spend most of their time with Ethan's family and are quite attached to them and have much closer relationship.

After trying for many years to successfully conceive a child Ethan's uncle and aunt finally succeeded and Ethan's aunt is currently seven months pregnant which is a very happy occasion for the family of three. Ethan is also really happy and excited as he didn't have a sibling in his last life even though he badly wanted one. Hence this year his uncle and aunt have decided to rest at home and Marie too is not in the mood to visit the festival and is staying with them to take care of his aunt which leaves only Stephen and him going to the festival.

The sailing vessel leaves early in the morning from the port on the East side of the island and it would take almost 8 hrs to reach Casterilla island. Stephen and Ethan left at dawn and boarded the small ship along with man others who are going for the festival. As Ethan usually kept to himself and played or loafed near his home on the west side of the island , so apart from his uncle and aunt, Mr. and Mrs. Stephen are his only acquaintances on this island. The 8 hrs passed in a jiffy with Ethan eating , watching the sea , listening to people talk about the various news on the sea and sleeping.

They safely reached their destination by evening and then arranged their luggage in the lodge room provided by the branch office of The South Heart Merchant Association for the premium members, and went out to the market. Ethan's parents were premium members of the association with a fair bit of money deposited in it and they had left him a membership card when going out. The evening is very lively due to hustle and bustle , the streets are lit up by the flashworm snails (special category of snails which give out light for illumination) , the navy is quite active in maintaining order and can be seen at various intersections.

Ethan felt that the navy is much more active and diligent than the last years and soon he learned the reason why from the discussions of the passersby. It is said that just three days ago a warship from naval headquarters passed through here carrying Admiral Sengoku who is said to be visiting South Blue due to some work. You know Sengoku belongs from South Blue and his achievements are a matter of pride for its residents , so his return is a big deal for the whole sea and even the pirates and the shady elements are much more honest these days. Only Ethan thought that this visit may not be as simple as it seemed because at this time the world government and the navy had already suspected that Roger may have left a child behind during his disappearance for 2 years and must be searching for his child in full force .

He remembered that there is also a Baterilla island in the Casterilla archipelago , to which he had not paid much attention to earlier but in conjunction with the movement of the navy these days , which even involves an Admiral of the Navy Headquarters had to visit here personally this might be the same Baterilla island on which Portgas D. Rogue resides. Even though he feels sympathy for her, he lacks any power to help her and any impetus action may put her in even more danger and can implicate his whole family.

The festival continued for 4 more days with Ethan and Stephen fully enjoying themselves. They even got to try some specialties from other sea areas ,finally on this morning they packed their stuff and boarded the familiar vessel to return to their home on Dastellia island. The boring journey passed safely as they arrived at the pier of the island by evening.

While discussing about the various things in the festival, Stephen and Ethan slowly walked back to the west side of the island to their homes , when they arrived near their destination what greeted them was not the familiar scene of lights and chimney smoke that they expected but an eerie quite. Ethan started having a bad felling about all this and hurriedly ran back to his house where he found the door already open.