The Announcement

It's been about seven days since I went to Mr. Smith to ask about a sword. During that time, I decided to work more at the diner to handle lunch in addition to dinner so I could afford more equipment. In the mornings before work, I would help Dr. Jones by gathering medicinal herbs and watch him prepare ointments. Hopefully if I'm injured while exploring, I'll be able to find some and use them, so the wound doesn't get infected.

"Thank you for helping me these last few days Prestin," the doctor said, "I know you've been busy helping Itsuki at the diner."

"Oh, it's no problem, Doctor," I replied. Honestly, I think I gained more out of helping him than the doctor did. As I turned to head to the diner, the doctor asked me: "By the way, have you heard about the announcement Mayor Machi has planned for tomorrow?"

I paused for a moment, and then I remembered, "Oh yeah, I remember hearing someone talking about it in the diner last night."

"Good. Last time there was an announcement it was the formal adoption of the Sil as currency, so it's bound to be important. I'll be there, so don't come here tomorrow, ok?"

"Ah, got it." I had almost forgotten about it, so I'm glad the doctor reminded me, although I probably would've heard it from customers again today.

As I walked back home to help with the diner, I saw something dash into a bush out of the corner of my eye. It seemed small, about the size of a large dinner plate. Curious, I turned and went over to the bush. It hadn't made noise to leave, so it had to still be in there, but as I got within a meter or so of the bush, a wave of emotions washed over me.

I was flooded with feelings of fear, so strong I fell back onto the ground and the critter in the bush flew off, but under that strong fear, I could feel concern and love. These feelings dissipated after it left, and even during the short time I felt them I knew something was off. I knew these feelings weren't mine, but I felt them just as real as if they were my own. Whose feelings were these? Did they belong to the thing that was in the bush? Probably, I felt them by going too close. Did it send them to me, or was it something I did? These questions and many more flooded through my head as I remained on the ground. Then my vision clouded, and it was then I realized I was crying and feeling something else: sadness. This wasn't in the wave I felt just before but originated from myself. Whatever was in the bush, I found myself feeling sad for it.

I sat there for what felt like only a few minutes before looking up at the sky and seeing the sun was almost at its peak, when I finally wiped away the tears and ran back home. Luckily, I made it back before the midday crowd, went up to my room, changed into a clean pair of pants, and headed downstairs. It was then I saw my mother and said, "Hi mom," as I went to start taking orders, but before I could she caught me by my shoulder.

"Prestin, is everything alright?" she said, "Were you crying? What happened?"

I didn't know what to tell her. I was worried that she would worry if I told her what actually happened, so I quickly conjured up the story that "While I was headed back from helping the doctor, I tripped on a stray tree root and smacked my knee on the ground."

Then came the usual motherly questions: "Does it hurt?", "Are you ok?", "Are you sure?" before she finally said, "Ok, good, just don't strain yourself today ok?"

I went along with it and said I wouldn't, but during the time between the lunch and dinner rush I stared off into space as I wondered about what happened that morning. I decided that if it happens again, then I would investigate, but otherwise it'd be better not to worry about it. I went back down to take more orders and, surely enough, during the dinner rush at the diner, people were talking about the announcement tomorrow.

I woke up the next morning just like any other, the memory of the encounter yesterday still lingering in my mind. I went through my normal routine: getting water from the well, pouring it over myself, drying off, getting dressed, brushed my teeth, and ate breakfast with my family. We had the usual type of conversations, a bit of it small talk, but the rest just catching up with what we've each been doing. My mother told us how she's started learning to sew, grandpa told us that he's planning to try something new tomorrow, and I told them how I've been helping the doctor in the mornings, and when I mentioned that I wouldn't be today, it led into talk of the mayor's announcement. Since we had all heard about it from the customers, the only talk was about who would go.

"Prestin, when you go could you come right back to tell us about the announcement?" my mother asked, which wasn't unexpected, she probably planned to stay and help grandpa prep for the day.

I went to respond but was cut off by grandpa. "Now hold on a minute," he said, "I may be old, but I'm not so decrepit that I need to be watched all the time. You should spend some time with your boy Sarah, not with some old geezer."

My mother looked shocked to see him talk this way, but for me this was normal, whenever we talked, he was always like this, saying I shouldn't worry about him and live my life. I thought he was this way around everyone, but maybe it was just me. Then I thought to when he interacted with customers and came to the realization that he's only not like this with my mother.

After this realization I quickly interjected with, "Come on mom, it's been a while since we went out. It'll be fun. And like grandpa said, he's capable of handling himself."

My mother sat looking down at her now empty plate for a moment, before giving in and sighing, "Alright, you both make valid points." She turned to look at grandpa, "But you have to promise you won't do anything where you could hurt yourself." Grandpa nodded. "That means no climbing ladders, stools, or chairs, no tossing around food, no large fires, no…" she went on for a while listing the things she thought would be too dangerous for grandpa to do, and he just nodded along absent mindedly, and I couldn't help but chuckle as I snuck back upstairs to put on a jacket.

As my mother and I approached the town square, we noticed that almost everyone in the town was here, it had to be nearing a thousand people by now. We all gathered in front of the governing building that doubled as a house for mayor Machi and his family. Everyone's murmuring permeated the air with curiosity, as no one knew what the announcement would be, until it became silent as mayor Machi stepped up to the podium outside his front door.

"Good morning everyone," began his speech, he continued with greetings and then went on a long spiel about what had gone into this new development, but I'll sum it up short and sweet: The thing being announced was the formal adoption of a 5-season calendar system with 3 wet seasons and 2 dry seasons. These seasons would be divided into "decems" which would be 10 days each. The first wet season would start the year and the second dry season would end the year, with the same season type grouped together. The seasons total up to 35 decems, so years have 350 days. The order of seasons is as follows: Spring, Straat, Jown, Harvest, and Winter. Jown is the shortest with 5 decems, followed by Straat with 6, then Spring, Harvest and Winter all have 8.

I know that's still a lot, but it beats the half-hour explanation that I listened through. Although I can't blame Machi for the speech being long, we were given a lot of important information, like how the first "year" was shorter because the Voyagers arrived mid Harvest season and that year will be referred to as year 0. So according to this new calendar today is the 34th of Spring year 20 and I was born on the 74th of Harvest, year 0.

After the announcement everyone dissipated and returned about their day. Mother and I talked about this or that about the calendar, which is how I found out my birth day. When we got back to the house, grandpa was already prepping some meals for early lunch customers. Something new he made with some river fish called "sashimi." I tried some and it had a nice light flavor, something I never expected from fish. While taking orders in the early noon many customers asked to try it and had the same good impression that I got from it. Everything went smoothly for the rest of the day, customers came and went, I had a nice conversation with Mr. Smith about the status of the mining party: he said there were 5 other volunteers that he had gathered, including the guard's vice captain, so things were going well on that front.

After all the customers dissipated for the day and the diner was cleaned up and ready for tomorrow, I went upstairs to go to bed. As I was cleaning myself up from the day's work, I thought I heard skittering on the roof and on the shudders. I paused and went as silent as I could waiting to hear it again, thinking for a second that it could've been the bush creature from yesterday. But after a minute of hearing nothing, I figured it must have been a branch falling onto, and then off of the roof. I then went into my bed, but I lay awake wondering what was in the bush yesterday, and if or when I'll get the chance to see it.