The air was laden with the thick scent of something spicy cooking. An atmosphere of festivity and joy clotted the afternoon and worked its way into the heart of every man, woman, and child cavorting in the streets of town. Music from a nearby band of minstrels rode in the breeze and invitingly called all to join in the dance of the numerous people milling around, walking among the many colorful artisans’ tents, with merchants selling wares of all kinds and people who were contagious with their happiness.
All about the village, the people were dressed in bright, bold, and living colors, and nearly all were walking or dancing in rhythm with the music. The noise itself seemed to be part of the music's quick and steady beat, enhancing it rather than drowning it, laughter and singing making it richer, more vibrant somehow.
Amidst this gaily dressed crowd, a slender figure in a drab brown hooded cloak whose face was hidden and a wiry young man in a dark brown jacket with a wry expression on his face seemed rather out of place.
"I still donut think this was one of your more brilliant ideas, but I have to say that this is turning out to be a lot of fun," Lance teased on a chuckle as the cloaked figure finally gave in and skipped to the beat of the music. "Let's just make sure that no one finds out that you've flown the coop or they'll have my head, okay?" He shook his head sheepishly. "Why I'm such a sucker for a pretty face, I really don't know."
The Princess of Arus stopped swaying for a moment and fixed him with a playful smirk from underneath the hood of her cloak. "I don't know where you guys get the idea that I'm supposed to be a prisoner in my own Castle – I'm not," she quipped, then walked on with a little skip in her step, moving gracefully to the music.
"You're supposed to be there where it's safe because there's that little threat called ‘Lotor’ following you around," Lance replied, a note of reproach in his voice, following behind her as she blithely ignored him and stopped to buy a bouquet of pink roses from a roving flower girl. He grinned as he watched her exuberantly bury her face inside it, the delicate pink petals disappearing under the hem of her hood.
"Oh, Lance -- you know you would never had agreed to go to the Festival with me if you really thought it was dangerous," she said over her shoulder with a smug little sniff as she walked on with her precious flowers held close to her chest.
"At least you're still keeping your hood on," Lance said, rolling his eyes with an all-suffering sigh and catching abreast of her in two long strides.
"But it's so stuffy in this hood!" she said with an exasperated sigh of her own. Then, finally giving in to the impulse, she threw off the hood of her cloak with one graceful toss of her head to expose her unbound golden hair, quickly whipped behind her like a honey-colored waterfall by the brisk afternoon breeze.
Lance groaned and shook his head at her recklessness, knowing that she had just made his duty of guarding her a few notches harder, but he couldn't hide a smile at the pretty picture she made. Still, he had to make his point or she would continue to walk all over him.
"YOU know that I would have never gone with you if you hadn't promised to go back to the Castle right before dinner ," he said ruefully as he looked down pointedly at his watch. "That is, by the way, only one hour from now."
She paused in mid stride and in one graceful move turned to face him. She looked at him pleadingly, charmingly offering him her bouquet with a small curtsy. "But, dear Sir Lance, noble, brave, and most handsome escort of mine, I was hoping we could stay and light lanterns of my own to place them on the river..."
He scowled fiercely at her, trying to ignore the imploring, innocently longing look in her clear blue eyes and harden his heart. "This time, Highness, your flattery will not get you anywhere. You told me that happens at dusk… DUSK! We'll be riding back home in the dark," he squawked, rubbing his neck in agitation and eyeing the roses the way one would eye a snake. At the moment though, looking at the bouquet and at her smile, he felt as low as a snake's belly for even considering cutting her day of freedom short.
She silently continued to hold out the flowers, gazing at him unfalteringly.
He tried again. "Are you kidding, Princess? I happen to value my life -- and as it is, it's already in very dire straits for even agreeing to sneak you out of the Castle in the first place," he explained, a pleading note creeping into his voice as well.
"Please?" Wide, pleading blue eyes blinked up at him above the pink roses that set off the roses of her cheeks. She could sense he was weakening, he knew. "Please say yes, Lance. I've been so cooped up inside the Castle for so long, and this is the very first Festival of Lights since the war began and I never missed one from the time I was a little girl..."
Lance sighed, not immune to the longing look in her eyes. "Oh, all right. Fine. Let ME be murdered," he muttered, rolling his eyes at the light of happiness in hers. She hugged him on impulse and placed a light kiss on his cheek.
"Oh, Lance, you're a sweetheart," she exclaimed, letting him go and skipping like a child in utter delight.
"What I am, Princess, is a sucker," he said woefully, shaking his head. "A sucker who only has a few hours to live. It was Keith's afternoon off from guard duty, too... why in the world didn't you ask him to go with you? At least he wouldn't have to worry about ME coming after HIM in case anything happened."
He thought he saw the Princess blush prettily, but she whirled around before he could be sure. She skipped ahead of him, threw her bouquet in the air in an uncharacteristically unladylike gesture and caught it again with a breathless laugh. "I asked you because YOU happen to be my favorite co-conspirator," she evaded his question gaily. She shot him a look over her shoulder and blew him a playful kiss. "Aren't you going to dance to this glorious music?" And so saying she happily danced away, weaving in and out among the celebrating townspeople, leaving Lance to ruefully shake his head and follow as closely behind her as possible.
They passed by several tents, inevitably bumping into the other revelers in the crowd every now and then. But there were no flaring tempers or impatient glances, only shared smiles and an expression of disbelief on their faces to find that the person they had just bumped into was their very own Princess celebrating and dancing among them without a throng of guards around her.
Coran had allowed her to go to the festival on the condition that she bring a security detail of ten Castle guards, but she had vehemently refused them, knowing she would never be able to enjoy herself as much as she was enjoying herself at the moment. It was after Coran had decreed that she would not be allowed to go anywhere outside the Castle without the guards that she had enlisted Lance's help in this harebrained scheme.
Women, he thought with a snort. Give them an inch and they walked all over you.
The sounds of merchants and buyers haggling over prices and children giggling at the antics of a troupe of clowns created their own cacophonic symphony that washed over Lance, reminding him poignantly about home. It wasn't just the Princess’ pretty face that had lured him out here, that was for sure.
She stopped at a gaily colored purple and yellow tent with a sign out front that Lance was too far from to read. He saw Allura clasp her hands in front of her in delight.
"Lance, look – it's a fortuneteller!" she said, eyes alit like a little girl's as she walked back and closed the gap between them.
He raised his eyebrows skeptically, putting a hand to the back of his head. "If you think I'm going to allow you to enter that dark, musty tent by yourself…" he began, but she cut him off.
She raised her eyebrows back at him, a mischievous grin lighting her face. "Oh, but I had no plans of entering it all by myself," she said cheerfully. "You DO plan on going with me, don't you?"
He frowned. "Allura, I don't think…" But Lance
could say no more as the excited princess took him by the sleeve of his
jacket and led him into the fortuneteller's tent.
Allura was already stooping down to talk to a woman who sat before a brightly covered table about a knee high at the other end of the tent.
The woman did not look at all like his idea of a fortuneteller… instead of some dark and sultry gypsy woman with earrings as large as dinner plates, this one was a chubby and cheerful old lady who reminded him of his own grandmother, with rosy cheeks and snow white hair caught up in a bun behind her nape. A colorful knit shawl rode on her soft, rounded shoulders and her snapping dark eyes looked at him with the alertness of youth but with wisdom far beyond his years.
"He's with you?" the woman asked, looking him over from head to toe, grinning toothlessly at the Princess when she had finished explaining that they wanted their fortunes told. "I sense a presence of an unbeliever in him, Highness."
Allura had taken her place across the table, putting her bouquet on the floor and kneeling on a high cushion. She leaned her elbows on the table, cupping her face in her hands, and grinned back at the old lady. "Oh, it's all right – Lance is always that way with everything and everybody," she said blithely and chuckled at his outraged gasp.
"Now wait a minute…" Lance began scowling, but the old woman had turned her sharp gaze to him again and the words died in his mouth.
"It is all right to believe, young man," she said cryptically, gesturing for him to come forward. "Come, kneel down and I will tell you whether or not you have found what the future has meant for you to have."
Reluctantly, Lance knelt down beside Allura, cursing himself to perdition for allowing her to talk him into this in the first place. He sighed loudly, rolling his eyes. "No offense, madam, but if you don't even have a crystal ball, how are you going to look into my future?"
"I have my ways… don't you believe in magic?" The old woman laughed and held out her hand to him. "Give me your hand."
"You read palms?" he asked, stalling. "They used to do that when I was back home, and none of the stuff they said about me ever came true."
The old woman gazed at him steadily. "I do not read palms. I sense souls."
Even more reluctantly and only after much prodding from Allura did Lance finally put his hand on the old woman's fleshy palm. It was warm and comforting under his, and he was even more vividly reminded of his grandmother, who had raised him and his sisters after his mother had left them when he was a little boy. He stared into the wise, boundless eyes of the old woman before him, alit with sympathy and understanding. Then she looked down upon his palm and traced the lines upon them gently, quietly. The only sounds in the room were their breathing and the muted sounds of the music coming from outside.
"So much happiness and so much pain tightly laced together," the woman muttered, as she bent over his hand. "You've lost much, and it has jaded you – yet you have also had your share of true happiness. Draw on that to find your courage for you have a long life ahead of you." She looked up at him and pinned his eyes. "It is what your grandmother would have said, if I'm not mistaken."
He opened his mouth but before he could say anything, the old woman continued tracing his palm, smiling as she bent back down. "You are surrounded by people, yet you are lonely for the other half of yourself. The half of your soul whom you drove away because you were too afraid... ah, but that one will be back and with her your chance for completion. And when that chance comes – don't hesitate to take it. You find yourself only once in a lifetime, but love will not stay unless you let it."
"What does she look like?" Allura asked curiously peering at Lance's palm then back at the old woman. "And how do you know?"
"I cannot tell you what she looks like because it is not for me to tell," the old woman chuckled, letting go of Lance's palm. "It is his secret, for deep in his heart he knows whom it is I speak of."
Lance looked at Allura with raised eyebrows and shrugged. "Trust me, Princess, I don't know who she's talking about," he said, retrieving his hand from the old woman. He shot a wry glance at the Princess. "Okay, since you got to hear my fortune, I get to hear yours, too, fair enough?"
Allura stuck her tongue out at him and gave her hand to the chuckling old woman, who bent over it and began tracing the lines on the palm, her wrinkled old face made even more wrinkled by her small, secretive smile.
"Hmmm… my dear Princess, you too have suffered much pain and sorrow. But the time is at hand for true happiness to dawn on you... and the other half of your soul is very, very near. It's traveled miles before it found you. Can you not sense it, child?" the old woman intoned intently, her deep, dark eyes holding Allura's startled blue ones. "I do not think you will have to light the blue lantern tonight."
The sudden silence became heavy throughout the tent.
Lance broke the spell by nudging the Princess and waggling his eyebrows at her. "Aw, princess, I didn't know you cared," he quipped, placing a hand over his heart and ducking his head. Allura looked at him in confusion, still slightly disoriented by what the old woman had just said. He grinned at her, taking her other hand an kissing it with a dramatic flourish. "I always knew the two of us were meant for each other."
Finally getting the joke, Allura broke into a slight giggle. The old woman looked at them with a patient smile, shaking her head. "You have been very good friends from the beginning of time. The soul always recognizes its kindred, wherever and whenever it may find them," she said, letting go of Allura's other hand. "But you are not the halves of the same whole, and you know it. The heart always remembers."
Allura and Lance looked at each other and grinned sheepishly. Apparently, the fortune telling session was over. Lance raised his eyebrow and glanced pointedly at his watch. Allura, getting his message, reached for a small pouch of coins tied to the cord around her waist, under her voluminous cloak. "How much... I mean..."
The old woman looked at both of them and held her hands out, warding the offer of money away. "Please, child, do not bother to pay me with money. It is reward enough to have seen the daughter of our kind king and know that she will be living a long, happy life filled with love."
Allura blinked back tears, touched by the old woman's words. "You must let me give you something," she said, biting her lip in thought. Her eyes fell on her bouquet and she picked it up and held it out to the old woman. "Here. Take this as a token of my thanks."
The old woman took the bouquet and buried her face in it. "The last time I received flowers was when I was as young and almost as beautiful as you," she said, chuckling. Her eyes followed Lance and Allura's motions as they stood up from the cushions. "It feels wonderful, doesn't it?"
Allura's eyes met the old woman's eyes in understanding. "Yes. It does." On impulse, she leaned back down and hugged the old woman tightly. "Yes, it does. Thank you."
Over the back of Allura's head, Lance's eyes met the old woman's twinkling ones. He opened his mouth, closed it, hesitated, then finally spoke. "Uh... how did... how did you know about my... my Grandmother?"
She smiled cryptically up at him. "As I said,
young man, kindred souls always recognize each other," she replied with
a wink. "By the way, she asked me to tell you that she loves you and that
not all people leave."
"People of this town have always held a certain belief about our souls," Allura murmured reflectively as she emerged into the late afternoon sunlight, her eyes evidently lost in thought. "This is what this festival is all about, you know."
Lance raised his eyebrows at her as they slowly walked away from the tent. "Don't tell me you believe her?"
She paused and faced him, biting her lip thoughtfully. "I don't NOT believe her," she replied cautiously. " I guess I…" she suddenly paused. "What was that she said about your grandmother?"
Lance glanced back at the purple and yellow tent
behind them, frowned thoughtfully as well, then focused back at Allura's
curious face. "Nothing," he muttered. "Nothing important." He turned to
her with a bright, artificial grin. "Let's go get our lanterns."
Instead of dancing along the streets, the townspeople had now gathered by the riverbank, their hectic motion now replaced by stillness, the tense yet excited stillness of anticipation.
Allura watched the last rays of the setting sun dance upon the river, squinting her eyes against the shimmer of the sunlight on the water. She held one paper lantern in each of her hands, one white and one blue, as she stood with her people by the riverbank, waiting for the last section of the sun to disappear into the horizon, the signal for setting the lanterns afloat.
"What are the lanterns for?" Lance whispered beside her, holding his own lanterns, unusually subdued. He felt it in his veins, the heaviness of waiting, the promise of something wondrous to come.
Finally , the sun set completely and only the sky was streaked with red and pink as dusk fell. One by one the sound of matches flaring erupted all around them, and, as darkness fell, the lanterns blinked to life in time with the fading light in the sky.
Now even the minstrels had stopped playing their instruments, save for one musician, who blew a plaintive melody on a flute. The music carried itself over the air, its tone speaking of hearts’ longings and hearts’ joys in one sweet, lilting song.
Allura placed the blue lantern on the ground and lit the white one with the strike of a match. Lance followed suit and watched as Allura placed her white lantern on the river and gently prodded it in the direction of the current. The river had become another universe, the lanterns like moving stars, reflecting in the people's eyes. Lance stooped down and placed his white lantern on the river as well.
Allura knelt beside him as he set the lantern afloat on the water. "That white lantern is the Lantern of Remembrance. It is these townspeople's belief that upon lighting the white lantern, each of us send our love to the souls of those who have gone before us." The light of the lanterns floating by on the river reflected in her solemn blue eyes, the hint of tears there. "The river is their sky, the lanterns are their stars... the same way above us, the people believe that for every star there is a recently departed soul."
They watched their white lanterns float downstream for long peaceful moments, each offering a silent prayer, a wish, and a wealth of love in their hearts.
After some time, she gently reached beside her and took the blue lantern. Lance mimicked her actions, lighting his the same time that she lit hers. Together, they placed their lanterns on the river and watched them float slowly downstream, watched as they gently bumped into the other lanterns traveling the same direction.
"The blue lantern is the Lantern of Summoning," Allura explained softly. "Only those who are not married set a blue lantern afloat. It is a beacon set out for the other half of your soul, asking him or her to return and join you, so that you may live as one."
The music of the flute continued to float on the air, in time with the slow progress of the lanterns down the river. They mingled with one another, white with the blue, whirling in the current in an intricate dance.
Allura finally stood up, the flickering lights of the lanterns reflecting on the gold of her hair and the blue of her eyes. She continued to watch the progress of the lanterns on the river, even if she couldn't really tell which ones had been hers. Above them, the stars flickered to life, winking as if in answer to the messages that the people from below had sent. One by one, the people beside them also stood and all slowly made their way home, speaking in soft murmurs of their longings and their memories.
"It's about time we headed home, too."
The familiar voice sent both Lance and Allura whirling around guiltily, lanterns suddenly forgotten, to face Keith, who was leading his white horse, the flickering light of the lanterns on the river casting shadows on his face. He took a step towards them, grinning wryly at their sheepish expressions as they glanced at each other then back at him warily.
"How long have you known where we were?" Lance asked with a sigh. He had had a feeling this would happen, and now he was going to get into trouble. "How long since you found us?"
"I've been trailing the two of you from the time you left the stables," Keith said, still grinning. "I was on my way out for a ride when I saw the two of you sneaking out." He tied his horse to a nearby tree and approached them, stopping right in front of the Princess, who looked up at him with a wary look on her face. "I don't think I have to be psychic to guess that it was your idea, wasn't it, Highness?"
She nodded her head stiffly, refusing to cower to anyone even if she had made a mistake.
Keith shot a wry grimace at Lance, who was watching the exchange between his Captain and his Princess with mounting amusement. "Coran knows where you've been all afternoon, by the way. I had to tell him when he frantically began contacting me to say that the Princess was missing. I convinced him to stay the troops and that I'd escort you home."
Lance took in the sight of the two of them standing closely before one another, and he was suddenly hit by how right they looked together. A sudden glimmer of recollection hit him as the old woman's words to Allura rang through his mind. "The other half of your soul is very, very near. Can you not sense him?"
If that were true, then what she had said about him...
"I... I think I'll go get our horses," Lance said,
shaking off the memory. He was not going to believe all that nonsense about
soul mates and kindred souls. He knew better... didn't he? But even as
he walked away, he couldn't help but wonder. And on the brisk evening breeze
that had begun to blow, he thought he heard the beloved voice of his grandmother
reminding him to believe.
A wealth of feeling suddenly suffused through Allura at his gentle touch, and she stared at him for a moment, stunned by its intensity. It was as if something vital had suddenly passed from him to her, and she could feel its strength right through her heart. He had felt it too, it seemed, for he was looking at her with the same bemused expression on his face.
Their eyes met and in that one moment it seemed that she was looking into the eyes of one she had known for several lifetimes.
The moment passed.
She blushed, broke the stare and looked down at her feet. She bit her lip, hesitating, then, feeling it was safer now, looked back up at him again. "I... I believe you," she finally said, then she gave him a look of mock bewildered hurt, gazing at him from under her lashes. "Why... why didn't you join us?"
He shook his head as if to clear it, then shrugged and smirked playfully at her. "Don't give me that look, Princess. You and Lance were having a lot of fun on your own," he stated matter-of-factly, placing a hand on the back of his neck in a boyish gesture, his grin showing no trace of reproach. "I know the two of you well enough to know that part of the fun was believing that you were clever enough to fool the entire Castle." He gazed down at her, eyebrows raised in challenge. "Am I right or what?"
She gasped indignantly up at him, playfully placing her hands on his chest and lightly pushing him away from her. "That's not a very nice thing to say about me, you know..." she began, placing her hands on her hips, a look of pretend hurt on her face. "And you are absolutely -- right!" She ended on a bright grin up at him.
Their eyes met again, lights of a hundred candles reflected in them, and they both burst into loud laughter that flew on the evening breeze, above the softly fading music from a far-away flute.
On the river, the paper lanterns danced in time
with their joy, and one blue lantern's light suddenly flickered and died
in response to one summons that had been answered in this year's Festival
of Lights.