And Yet, I Won't Stop (3)

In the town square, I was showing a picture to the gathered children.

Huresio plucked at his lute, playing a somewhat melancholy melody.

As a bard—and an elf with a long lifespan—he apparently excelled at every instrument used around these parts, from the lute to the lyre.

"Long, long ago, there was a very poor, parched village in a certain country. The river that flowed near the village was narrow, and it dried up as soon as a drought set in."

Once I finished speaking, I took the first picture I had been showing the children, moved it to the back, and revealed the next picture in the stack.

The artist was Rebis, who had drawn it according to my request: not too realistically, but deliberately a little simplified—not quite cartoonish—to give it a softer feel.

The next picture showed a young girl.

"A single girl lived in that poor, parched village. Her name was Marie. She prayed toward the dried-up river. 'Please let me drink some water...' Something like that."

So what I was showing the children was a picture-story show.

After the caravan's elves asked me to put on some kind of performance as well, I agonized over it for quite some time before coming up with this.

Huresio came up with the story, and Rebis drew the pictures.

Airena was in charge of the staging, using the power of the spirits.

No matter how I looked at it, Airena was better suited to be the narrator and I to handle the staging, but the elves insisted on having me do the reading.

"At that moment, a miracle occurred. A water spirit emerged from the slightly damp soil at the bottom of the river and produced a cupful of water over Marie's clasped hands."

As I read those words aloud, Airena softly called to the tub of water beside her.

In response to her voice, the water spirit moved the water and formed the transparent figure of a maiden.

Well, not every water spirit takes the form of a maiden, but when most people imagine a water spirit, this is probably the shape they picture.

"Marie was surprised, but she was so thirsty that she caught the water in her hands and desperately drank it all."

By the way, this story was Huresio's own creation: a tale of a girl who happened to be in tune with a spirit and saved her village from thirst and poverty.

Apparently, he had expanded it from a story handed down in Paurogia, now a fallen kingdom.

Although the water spirit had cured Marie's thirst, the power she had only just learned to use was weak, nowhere near enough to give water to every villager.

Thus, the village chief came to harbor a wicked thought.

If the water spirit favored Marie, perhaps sacrificing her as a human offering would fill the river with water.

Of course, nothing of the sort could happen, but the chief of a poor human village, hardly an educated man, could not have been expected to understand spirits correctly.

Under the pretext of doing it for the village, Marie was nearly buried at the bottom of the dried-up river.

Doing that would only have made the tiny amount of water they were currently obtaining disappear.

Unsated human desire sometimes robs people of sound judgment.

But just then, a traveling elf visited the village.

The sight of Marie about to be sacrificed sent the traveling elf into a rage.

The water spirit wanted no human sacrifice.

If they were foolish enough to uproot their own tiny shoot of hope, then let them suffer from thirst and perish.

But it was none other than the rescued Marie who soothed the enraged elf.

She did not resent the villagers.

Instead, she wanted somehow to save every one of them.

Marie desperately begged the elf to teach her everything there was to know about water spirits.

Moved by Marie's strength of character and kindness, the elf decided to teach and guide her.

The village chief, too, was touched by Marie's words, admitted his mistake, and declared that he would hand over his position once she had grown up.

In time, guided by the elf, Marie became a full-fledged spirit mage. With the spirits' help, she led the village and made it a place where people could live prosperous lives without hunger or thirst.

...And that's what the story is about.

In short, it is a story meant to teach people what spirits are, and to show them that wonderful things can happen when elves cooperate with humans—but that spirits are frightening when angered.

Humans who happen to be in tune with spirits and can see them are exceedingly rare, but seeing what others cannot sometimes leads to persecution born of ignorance.

If this story spreads and even slightly reduces such sad incidents, I will be happy.

"And so Marie and the villagers lived happily ever after in their prosperous village, watched over by many spirits... The end."

As soon as I finished reading the story, Airena asked the wind spirit to raise a great gust, and the other elves all scattered flower petals at once.

Colorful petals danced on the wind, and not only the children sitting nearby but also the many adults watching from a distance let out a tremendous cheer.

Afterward, the children who had watched the picture-story show to the end each received a piece of fruit, while the adults around them received one cup of the liquor we had brought as a complimentary serving.

Additional fruit and liquor cost money after the first serving.

The children were delighted, and so were the adults, but to make the already lively scene even livelier, Huresio began singing loudly while playing his lute.

Soon the square began to resemble a small feast as children begged their parents for a second piece of fruit and adults asked for a second cup of liquor, and a large pile of tip coins accumulated in front of me.

The picture-story show was a tremendous success. Perhaps it could become one of the caravan's selling points.

After all, borrowing the power of spirits for the staging was such a lavish touch that it was bound to get the crowd excited.

If Huresio came up with the stories and Rebis drew the pictures, the variety of picture-story shows would surely continue to grow.

In truth, puppet theater might actually be better suited to this kind of spirit-powered staging, but if other people were to imitate it without the staging, picture-story shows would have a lower barrier to entry.

Only when more people imitated them this way would stories of elves and spirits blend naturally into people's lives without seeming contrived.

And no matter how widely they were imitated, the spirit-powered staging would remain unique to this caravan.

I smiled at the excitement filling the square as I patted the heads of children whose cheeks were bright red and who eagerly told me how much fun they had had.