"This is where you'll be staying." Sumi announced. At the highest level of Kallistaia's mountains, their hollow was a lot more spacious than some of the others.
"This is actually the Kio'do's hollow, but he agreed to let you stay here during your visit."
"Decently furnished," Ghost said as he flew around the hollow in a trail of smoke. Hiukko didn't care about all of that for the moment. The walk all the way up to this mountain top was a long one, his legs were beat. He slouched down on one of the stools while Sumi gave everybody else a tour.
Olaani kept asking Sumi questions about each little thing she picked up, while that Dunadi girl kept staring bullets into his eyes from down on the floor. Ghost also tried his level best to drive him crazy by covering the room with smoke only he would be able to see. Speaking of which,
"So, can you see the ghost too?"
"Oh, well… no," Lukki explained as he straightened his back, "I can't see it, but I heard that you can see ghosts, so I assumed earlier that you were talking to them earlier."
"Do you believe in ghosts?" Hiukko asked.
"Well… no." Lukki admitted.
"So if I told you that there was a ghost in this room right now, covering the entire hollow in smoke while zipping around like a bug, would you believe me?"
Lukki went quiet for a moment, though Hiukko noticed how he kept peeling the skin of his thumb with his finger.
"Come on, Hiukko," Olaani cut in. "Nobody is going to believe that. There's no smoke in the room. At all. Please stop and leave Lukki alone."
"I wasn't talking to you, I was talking to him."
Olaani sighed, "Lukki, do you see any smoke here?"
"N-No"
"Sumi? What about you?"
Sumi shook her head, "No, sorry young master."
"And you, sweetheart?" She turned to the Dunadi girl this time. "I haven't gotten your name yet actually."
"Well, of course you haven't, she's too busy glaring at me for whatever reason." Hiukko's eyes landed on the Dunadi girl's emeralds again and sure enough, they were locked on him with a chilling focus. The worst part was that her expression was completely blank the entire time, so he had no idea what she was thinking.
"She isn't even blinking. Just staring at me like I did something to her."
"Well, you did just try to convince everybody that there was a ghost in the room." Olaani crossed her arms.
"I wasn't even talking to you! I was talking to… what's your name again?"
"Lukki"
"Lukki!"
"Would you like anything to eat or drink?" Sumi asked, bringing all attention to her.
"I'm okay." was Hiukko's response.
"I would like some water, please." was Olaani's.
"I will get some shortly," Sumi gave a small bow. "You there, Lukki, have you finished your business yet? Our royals' time is very important."
"Oh, yes, sorry." Lukki stepped forward and unwrapped the piece of cloth in his hands. "I-I came here to present to you this sword that I've been working on for the past couple of years." Lukki held the sword out for Hiukko to grab. His head faced the ground.
Hiukko took the sword in his hand. It was a classic Shinari, though smaller. Lightweight and rather thick with a slight curve of the blade. This blade was made of transparent material, likely crystal, with a few gold symbols and lettering shining brightly from inside the crystal.
"The stars on the hilt represent the day you were born," Lukki explained to him, tripping over his words. "I heard you fell with the stars rather than being from your mother's womb. I wanted to add that to the sword."
And just over the hilt where the blade started was the sigil of his Spirit Seed carved on both sides. Not the Heart of Seneva, but that other one. The one Ghost refused to tell him about.
"Here I put your Spirit Seed," Lukki went on, pointing to it this time. "I don't really know much about spirit seeds since I don't have one, but I heard about yours. I think that by adding your seed's sigil here, it might be able to become your own Spirit Blade or weapon in the future."
"Mm, not bad," said Ghost. "This boy knows a lot about you. Even how your birth played out."
"Everybody knows that by now." Hiukko shrugged. "No matter where in the world I go, I bet there will always be at least one new person to ask about it." Lukki interrupted their conversation.
"So… what do you think?"
"Hmm…" Hiukko studied the blade again, "I don't know. Ghost, what do you think of Lukki's Shinari?"
"It looks impressive, definitely better than the other Shinari's you humans use."
"Ghost says he likes it." Hiukko reported.
"Oh, is that so?" Lukki chuckled. "Well, what do you think?"
Hiukko paused again, before finally giving his verdict, "I like it. The colours are nice and so are the details, but it's far from suitable to use. I'll still keep it though."
Lukki finally allowed his body to breathe as he swept all his nerves away with one large breath. "Thank you. Thank you so much." His voice cracked. He started sniffling. "I worked on this for so long and… I didn't even think that I would get to meet you." He wiped his tears and looked Hiukko in the eyes for the first time, "You're my hero! I look up to you so much and… and… I want to be like you! I want to be strong and powerful and great and…"
He stopped, took a breath, then spoke again "Sorry, I lost control of myself again." He sat down, with a triumphant smile.
"So when are we going out?" asked Olaani.
"Tomorrow," replied Hiukko.
"I feel like we should be going as soon as possible."
"We just got here," Hiukko said, "We literally got off the Saami not too long ago, and we just stepped into our hollow. We haven't even gotten our glass of water yet."
"I know, but the people here need our help." Olaani pushed back.
"It's just a bad smell in the area," Hiukko reminded her, "It's not too serious for us to go now. Besides, do you really want to walk all the way to the other side of the island right now? Because there's nobody else who's gonna carry us there. I'm certainly not going, so if you really want to, then good luck." He slouched further on his stool.
"How could you be so selfish when everybody's counting on you so much? You don't want to go and help our people because you're too lazy to walk an extra distance? What about all the people who traveled from across the world and spent all their time and effort and money just to see you?"
"I never told them to do any of that," Hiukko said, "And just because they did, does not make it my responsibility to make their efforts worthwhile."
Olaani stood up, "Do you have any idea how privileged you are?"
"Priveleged?"
"You are the Spirit of Gold. You have more power than anybody in the entire world and people worship you like the gods themselves-"
"Did I say I was one of the gods, or was it everybody else? Did I say I was the Spirit of Gold, or was it everybody else? I don't owe anybody anything. Everything that I am was the making of someone else. But underneath all of that, I'm a human being too, as unfortunate as that is to admit. If you wanted somebody who was going to change the world and be a hero for humanity, then you chose the wrong person to crown as a Spirit."
"This isn't about you as the Spirit of Gold. It's about you as a person seeing other people in need of help."
"And as said person, I want to go out tomorrow, and so I will go tomorrow. The end."
Hiukko stood up and walked to the entrance of the hollow, circling past the Dunadi girl on the floor, "Ghost, come on. Let's go to the springs and have a race."
"You're going to lose, Hiukko," he said, floating around his body in his tendril form.
"Why are you always so confident? I've been getting better at gliding, you know?"
"You're trying to outfly a ghost. Do you really think you're going to win, you fool."