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On Those Brave Yet Ridiculous Ones (3)
The world is not beautiful like a fairy tale.
Noble knights are rare. Grand adventures rarer still. And above all, stories don't end in satisfying ways the way fairy tales promise they will. Just miserable endings, dull ones, and ones that leave nothing but a bitter aftertaste.
Alonso Quixano thought: reality is no fun. Reality brings no joy. Open a fairy tale and look inside, he told himself, for that's where a delightful world lives. The story of a brave knight standing against a dragon. The story of an old knight, ridiculous but magnificent, spinning tales of adventure. Alonso lost himself in the knights of fairy tales.
Reality was dull and dreary, but fairy tales were joyful and beautiful. Living that way, absorbed in stories, Alonso Quixano arrived at a thought one day.
"The world is starved of laughter!"
Reality was dull because there was no laughter in it. Because there was no cheerful knight like Don Quixote anywhere to be found.
Alonso Quixano pressed his thumbs against the corners of his lips and pushed them up.
He had lost his mother at nine, and with her, his smile. The expression that ford was sohow wrong. So wrong that without propping up the corners of his mouth with his thumbs, a proper smile wouldn't co. Even so, Alonso Quixano smiled. Forced. Ridiculous, even. Like a clown.
"Laugh. What reason is there not to? Even the hardest things start feeling bearable once you laugh at them long enough."
Speak like the knights in fairy tales.
Smile like the knights in fairy tales.
"I am Quixote."
It made things just a little better.
"The ingenious gentleman, Don Quixote!"
Alonso Quixano laughed.
To endure the pain.
Hoping the world might be just a little more joyful.
Blink. Najin opened and closed his eyes.
His vision was blurry.
He blinked a few more tis and sorted through his mories. What had happened? The last clear thing he rembered was charging straight through the windmill, driving clean through it. He rembered destroying the binding point tethering the Carnival King's domain of rrint and La Mancha together.
'And after that?'
What had happened after?
He'd glimpsed a hazy vision. A figure he guessed was the Star of Scorn's past self, and that figure's Squire...
"Ah."
That was as far as it went. The fog clouding his vision lifted. Looking around, he was definitely not in the Outland. No tavern like this had any business being out there. Worn wooden walls. Cheap liquor and food.
"Bwahaha, that's exactly it!"
"This guy's had way too much, hasn't he?"
"Who could stand against this valiant Paolo? I swung my axe like this, yeah, like this, whoosh, and they all bolted, I tell you."
And there were the rowdy rcenaries to match.
The scene had shifted in an instant. Najin held still for a mont, lips parting slightly. Unfamiliar and strangely familiar at once.
'Sa as when I entered the Star of Detachnt's tomb...'
That sa feeling. He was in a Star's Tomb. Had breaking apart the Carnival King's domain opened a path to La Mancha?
"......"
That didn't quite add up.
If the path had truly opened, Yuel and the Star Incarnation who'd traveled with him should have entered La Mancha as well. But no matter where he looked, neither of them was anywhere to be found.
'rlin. Can you hear ?'
-Yeah. I hear you.
rlin, at least, was with him.
Najin stroked his chin and asked.
'You haven't materialized this ti? You did before, in the Star of Detachnt's tomb.'
-The Star of Detachnt's tomb didn't discriminate between visitors. The conditions for entry were fairly lenient, too. This place is different.
rlin said.
-This is a Star's Tomb with strict conditions. I'm not entirely sure what the requirents are, but they're clearly demanding.
'Conditions?'
-Right. There are tombs where anyone can walk in and wander freely, no restrictions at all...
rlin pointed toward Najin.
-And then there are tombs that aren't like that.
Najin looked down at himself. His body was unchanged, but his clothes had been swapped out. Not the Free Knight's coat, but a light cloth armor. The kind an apprentice knight or squire might wear.
-I ntioned before that a Star's Tomb is like a play, built from a Constellation's dreams or mories, didn't I?
She had. Najin nodded.
-And a play has roles. There are open plays where you can step onto the stage without being assigned one, but there are plays like this one, where you must receive a role before you're allowed on stage at all.
A play called La Mancha.
The only one given a role in that play, the only one permitted to step onto its stage, was Najin. What that role was, he still didn't know.
"......"
Najin looked around without a word. A tavern, still loud and raucous. A rcenary stood on a table, swinging his cup wildly as he belted out a song, and the laughter of the patrons watching him filled every corner of the room.
Singing, laughter, shouting, and the shaky voice of soone trying to drink quietly who couldn't hold back.
And then.
"Bwahahaha!"
Among all that noise, one laugh cut through the rest. The mont it rang out, the tavern went quiet. Every rcenary's eyes drifted toward the center of the room.
There sat a knight in fine armor that had no business being inside a cheap tavern like this.
"Valiant Paolo! You shared such a splendid adventure with , so I simply cannot hold back. I must repay the favor with a tale of my own. Would you not care to hear the story of this ingenious gentleman, Don Quixote?"
"Ah, my lord! I've been waiting for exactly those words. Please, co sit here."
The quiet dissolved into laughter. The rcenaries shoved their cheap snacks and cups aside and made room for the knight.
"Listen well, friends. I'll be telling you about the most magnificent and splendid adventure this humble self experienced today."
The knight who had introduced himself as Don Quixote began his story. He set his cup down with a thud and launched into everything that had happened to him that day.
"A giant stood there, with four arms. So enormous that even straining my neck upward I couldn't see its face. Startled by its sheer size, I hesitated. Just for a mont, mind you. Shaful, I know!"
"Bwahaha, there was a giant in the Quixano domain? That must have been dreadful, my lord. If you hadn't stood your ground, the maidens of Quixano surely would have been carried off!"
"Yes, exactly, Paolo. Frightening as it was, what choice did I have? Had I stepped aside, that dreadful giant would have stord the Quixano domain and stolen away the maidens, and the young n of Quixano who'd loved them in secret would have wept bitter tears. Could I, a knight of Quixano, stand by and let such a tragedy unfold?"
The rcenaries erupted in laughter. Not mockery. No one mocks a bard for telling an absurd but delightful story, and the rcenaries were no different with Don Quixote.
"And then what happened, my lord?"
"I charged. Barreled right at it. Fully intending to drive clean through the giant's arm!"
Whistles from the rcenaries. Louder laughter still. Don Quixote recounted it like a song.
"Though the giant's arm sent flying and I ended up covered in dirt, I still wrested a promise from it. That it would never again set foot in the Quixano domain, so long as I, Don Quixote, stand watch!"
The rcenaries applauded.
My lord is a model knight. As expected of Don Quixote. The praise kept coming. They raised their cups and drank, his story the finest accompanint.
"A toast to the ingenious gentleman of Quixano, Don Quixote!"
The raised cups clinked against Don Quixote's. Between them stretched a wide gulf, rcenary and knight, commoner and high noble. But in front of a cup of drink, none of that mattered.
"The glory earned from this great adventure today, a portion of it I dedicate to my dear friend and Squire."
Don Quixote extended his cup outward. It pointed toward the corner of the tavern where Najin sat. He shook the cup in Najin's direction and grinned.
"Co have a drink with us, Sancho!"
Sancho. Don Quixote's Squire.
That was the na of the role Najin had been given.
Like an actor reading the script before stepping onto the stage, information flowed naturally into Najin's mind.
Don Quixote, true na Alonso Quixano.
The second son of the Quixano family that ruled the Quixano domain, and the family's troubled one. Alonso had no interest in inheriting the seat of family head. Honestly, he had little interest in most things.
Around the age of nine, Alonso Quixano lost his mother and shut himself away in his room.
To him, the world wasn't sothing that existed outside. The fairy tales, The Chronicles of Arthur, and chivalric novels that crowded his shelves, those were his world. Living locked inside that world of his own making, he threw open his bedroom door one day and ca bursting out.
"I am Quixote."
Carrying a ridiculous paper helt and a stick.
"The ingenious gentleman, Don Quixote!"
Suddenly he declared he would beco a knight. His father, at a loss, thought it over, then decided that wandering outside was better than being locked in his room, and gave Alonso a fine suit of armor and a spear.
And so Alonso Quixano beca a knight.
Naturally, having no idea how to handle a sword or spear, he was laughed at constantly. But Alonso, who'd never been good at smiling to begin with, would laugh for reasons no one could fathom and shout at those who mocked him.
Co, listen to my tale.
Then he'd spin outlandish stories. That he had fought a giant. That the flock of sheep that knocked him flat was actually a pack of terrifying monsters in temporary disguise.
Listen long enough to those stories and even mockery fades. You end up laughing, half-exasperated, before you know it. One adventure after another, and before he even realized it, Alonso had beco a well-known figure in the Quixano domain.
The ingenious gentleman of Quixano, Don Quixote.
Ridiculous, but impossible to dislike.
And by the side of this inexperienced young lord who knew nothing of the world, there was always one Squire.
'Sancho.'
A boy from so poor farming family, brought back by Don Quixote from a journey beyond the Quixano domain.
'Sancho Panza.'
That was the role Najin had been given.
"......"
Najin was quiet for a mont. Because he knew. He knew what fate awaited the boy nad Sancho.
"The mont I was tossed aside by the giant, Sancho ca running and saved . Without Sancho, I wouldn't have co out on top against that terrible giant."
Listening to Don Quixote's words, Najin silently lifted his cup. Sancho seed to be a person of few words in public, soone who didn't push himself forward. All of this felt perfectly natural to him.
The drinking went on for a long while.
When the rcenaries had drunk themselves to sleep and the night had deepened, Najin stepped out of the tavern and looked up at the moon. He drew a long, slow breath. A place where everything felt endlessly real. He'd been sowhere like this once before, but the Star's Tomb still refused to feel familiar.
"Haah......"
He exhaled slowly and thought.
About what to do from here. About how to work through the Star's Tomb called La Mancha.
"Sancho."
Lost in those thoughts, he heard a thud beside him and soone dropped down to sit at his side. He turned. Don Quixote.
"What are you thinking about so hard? Is it the adventure we had today?"
"I was thinking about the adventures still ahead of us."
Don Quixote laughed.
"Adventures still ahead... what sort do you think wait for us? Do you truly think adventures like fighting giants, facing dark mages, and driving off dragons are out there waiting for us?"
Najin went quiet for a mont. Sothing was off about the way Don Quixote was talking. The Don Quixote he'd imagined was a man lost in delusion.
'The story Anton told , and the information that just flowed into my head, both say the sa thing.'
A man so imrsed in fairy-tale characters that he'd lost himself in fantasy. But right now, there was none of that in Don Quixote's words.
"What do you an, 'truly?'"
The Don Quixote in front of him spoke as though he knew full well he was caught up in delusion. When Najin pressed him, Don Quixote smiled bitterly.
"Sancho, I am no fool."
He let out a long breath.
"How could I not know that all of this is delusion? I know. I know that what I fought today was not a giant but a windmill. I know that the adventure before that was nothing but the stupid act of charging headlong into a flock of sheep."
Don Quixote touched his helt.
"You've had a hard ti of it, going along with my ridiculous adventures. But, Sancho."
He lifted the visor and looked up at the sky.
"If you dream, and laugh your way through life, then perhaps one day all that delusion will beco real. Maybe a day of shining achievent, brilliant as those stars overhead, will co to too."
Najin watched him in silence. Objectively, the man who had spent his whole life locked in a room and only just stepped outside was weak. Not even close to an Expert, let alone a Sword Seeker like Najin.
A young lord who couldn't even properly wield a spear.
Nine out of ten people would hear soone like that speak of the stars and call it an empty dream. But Najin was the one in ten. He listened without mockery.
"Is that so?"
"Yes. And if the glory of having my whole life written into a book ever cos to , I've already decided what the first line will say."
"What line?"
"I'm telling only you this in advance, Sancho."
Don Quixote's lips curled into a grin.
"The world is dull because it has no laughter. And here stands a knight who never lost his smile through any journey. That knight's na is..."
Quixote.
The ingenious gentleman of Quixano, Don Quixote.
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