Coppelia handed an inconspicuous small burlap pouch to the bard, Kuris.
Kuris cautiously opened a small slit, glanced inside for just a moment, and immediately closed the pouch, stuffing it back into Coppelia's hands.
"No," he said, his voice hushed, eyes scanning the empty street warily. "You can't give these away."
Coppelia took the pouch back and explained, "They're just ordinary stones, only a bit prettier in color. They aren't real gems."
"It's because they're pretty that you can't give them away." Kuris shook his head, his face a mask of caution. "Those knights, and the nobles behind them, they can't stand to see us with anything nice." He sighed, his tone softening slightly. "If you really want to give the children something, give them food. At least once it's in their bellies, the knights can't see it, and they can't snatch it away."
Coppelia silently tucked the pouch away. The group returned to the cold, deserted street.
"It seems the 'gems' I promised the children can't be delivered for now," she said to Gunnhildr and Columbina beside her.
Gunnhildr said nothing, but silently committed to memory the unconcealable fear in the bard's eyes when he spoke of the knights.
Just then, a commotion arose from the street corner. The group immediately turned towards the sound.
A knight in standard-issue leather armor was violently snatching something from the hands of a woman in ragged clothes. The object reflected a glint of mottled color in the dim light.
"Have mercy!" the woman begged, her voice choked with tears, desperately clutching one end of the object. "It's just... just a pretty-colored rock! It's not a treasure! My child found it to play with..."
The knight was unmoved, his face arrogant as he tugged forcefully.
Suddenly, several youths rushed out from a nearby squalid alley. They weren't particularly strong, with youthful, sallow faces, but they tightly gripped wooden clubs and broken stones.
"Let her go!"
"Stop stealing from her!"
They shouted, striking at the knight with their clubs and throwing stones at him.
The knight brandished his scabbard to block, but facing an onslaught from several fearless youths, he was quickly at a disadvantage.
He shot everyone a vicious glare, spat on the ground, and turned to beat a hasty retreat, cursing foully under his breath.
The woman collapsed to the ground, clutching the colored stone and sobbing quietly. The youths didn't linger; they quickly helped her up and vanished together into the depths of the intersecting alleyways.
Gunnhildr silently etched this scene of brief yet effective resistance into her heart.
...
Around noon, the young bard Himmel, along with his three companions, silently departed from a noble's manor.
The braided pigtails on either side of his head seemed to have lost their usual liveliness, swaying gently with his dejected steps.
The manor gates closed behind them, shutting out the faint scent of wine and meat, and the sounds of insincere laughter from within.
"I don't like those poems," Himmel suddenly said, his voice soft and laced with disgust.
A fellow young bard clapped him on the shoulder, his face etched with the same fatigue. "We don't like them either. Singing praises to the nobles' false benevolence... but there's no choice, Himmel. If we don't play for them, we won't even be able to afford the worst kind of black bread."
Himmel pressed his lips together, offering no rebuttal.
They walked along the ridges between the inner and outer rings of fields, where the crops grew sparsely. Soon, Himmel spotted his own low-slung stone house, situated on the fringes.
He looked up, about to bid his companions farewell, when his gaze suddenly froze.
Standing at the entrance to his house were three unfamiliar gray figures.
In the center stood a poised, blonde woman with a serene temperament. To her left was a young girl with her eyes covered, her expression tranquil. And to her right...
Himmel's eyes lit up in an instant.
That person was looking at him with a beaming smile, her left hand holding something high. It was an intricately structured... feather!
The feather was dark brown, shimmering with a soft luster in the faint light that filtered through the wind barrier.
It was Coppelia! He remembered at once—the foreigner from before had promised to help him find a bird's feather!
For a moment, he completely forgot his companions, his pace quickening involuntarily until he was practically running towards her. The three young bards also saw the strange object, exchanged a surprised glance, and hurried to follow.
"Here, Himmel," Coppelia said, holding the feather out to him.
Himmel held his breath, accepting it with extreme care as if it were a fragile, priceless treasure.
His eyes were wide with incredulous wonder.
He reached out with a trembling finger, stroking the feather's surface with the utmost gentleness, feeling its unbelievably smooth texture and the sturdy quill.
He had lived his entire life within the wind barrier. The sky was a perpetual, hazy gray, empty save for the ceaseless, howling gales.
Flying birds existed only in the most ancient legends and the imagined ballads of bards.
He held up the feather, tilted his head back, and followed its curve to gaze at the sealed-off sky, trying hard to imagine how its former owner had spread its wings and soared freely across that boundless blue canvas. What a sight that must have been.
The other three young bards gathered around as well, their faces reflecting the same shock and fascination. It was also the first time they had ever seen this fabled creation with their own eyes.
Just as they were immersed in this moment of wonder, Gunnhildr's calm voice broke the silence: "A knight has noticed us."
Himmel flinched, instantly pulled from his state of extreme joy back to reality. The wonder on his face was immediately replaced by wariness.
"Follow me!" he said without hesitation, clutching the feather tightly in his palm.
The other six immediately followed the boy's agile figure.
Himmel wasn't tall, but he was as nimble as a rabbit in these complex, cluttered alleyways.
He led them left and right, sometimes ducking through a low, broken wall, other times squeezing through a gap so narrow they had to pass sideways.
Coppelia watched the small, fleeing back in front of her with some surprise, not having expected him to be so fast.
Behind them, the knight who had spotted them gave chase, but he quickly lost his targets in the maze-like slums and could only stop in annoyance, looking around.
Himmel finally led them into a half-collapsed stone building. Inside were piles of discarded lumber and stones, and the air was thick with dust and the smell of mildew, but it was sufficiently hidden.
"Don't worry, it's safe here," one of the young bards said, panting. He was clearly familiar with the place.
Himmel finally breathed a sigh of relief, his attention immediately drawn to the long bundle on Coppelia's back.
"Is that... a painting?" he asked curiously, his eyes sparkling from the run and the excitement.
Coppelia smiled, slipped the bundle off her back, untied the cord, and revealed its contents.
It was a collection of painted scrolls.
She carefully unrolled them one by one on a relatively flat patch of ground.
The first was drawn on tanned animal hide. The lines had been meticulously seared with a branding iron, then filled in with natural pigments. It depicted a powerful eagle, its great wings spread in a fierce posture as it soared through a cerulean sky. The eagle's gaze was sharp, and every feather was rendered with lifelike detail, exuding a sense of power and freedom.
Next came more paintings, all completed with Venerare's help.
One depicted a boundless ocean, where azure waters washed onto golden sands, leaving behind white foam. In the picture, people walked barefoot and carefree along the beach.
Another showed a tranquil island, surrounded by clear waters, a bright blue sky, and warm sunlight, lush with greenery like a paradise on earth.
One showcased the Temple of a Thousand Winds, built by the Lawrence Clan. The temple's stone pillars were magnificent and its archways soared high; even as a painting, it conveyed a sense of solemnity and grandeur.
There was another that depicted people farming in a vast landscape. The fields were neat and the crops were thriving, and on the distant horizon rose a continuous chain of majestic mountains capped with pure white snow.
Columbina and Coppelia knelt down and began to quietly explain the content and origins of these paintings to Himmel and his three bard friends.
They spoke of the salty tang and vastness of the ocean, of the warmth of the sun on one's skin, of the gentle breezes that echoed in the temple—so different from the howling gales—and of the silence and purity atop the snowy peaks.
Himmel and his friends were completely captivated.
They gathered around the paintings, their eyes unblinking, their breathing soft.
These images, these colors, these descriptions, forcibly tore a rift in their gray, monotonous world, letting in a brilliant and real light they had never even imagined.
They watched and listened, as if their very souls had taken flight with the eagle in the painting, soaring over the high walls to a new world of infinite possibility.
Himmel felt incredibly uplifted at that moment, but then a sudden breeze brushed against his cheek, startling him.
Looking in the direction the breeze came from, he saw a small, white spirit hovering and swaying by Coppelia's shoulder.
The little spirit greeted Himmel, "Hello! My name is Venti!"
___
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