A Serpent's Tale
Chapter 121: The Winter Advent (3/3)

Chapter 121: The Winter Advent (3/3)

The lights that were scattered around the walled off area that the play was taking place in slowly faded away as another set of lights highlighted the main stage where a male elf walked onto the stage waring what looked to be ragged clothes from an older age.

He then began speaking loudly to us, the audience. "Long ago, we all were once many ununited, without order or peace. We were wild, we were unorganised and we were lost. And in that time, we were hunted by not only our fellow forest-folk, but by humans as well."

As he finished his words a bunch of actors wearing similar clothes of various races ran past the stage as people waring full plate armour chased them from behind with their swords raised. They then ran off stage and the elf resumed his narration.

"This carried on for millennia, until one day, our ancestors grew tired of running and hiding from our oppressors, so they banded together to form the first ever tribe. The name of this tribe has since been forgotten, but it’s legacy was not, and so the first counter attack against humanity was launched."

The play went on, with the elf coming on and off stage to document the history of the inhabitants of this forest from the first tribe, to the formation of several others before there was some sort of conflict about how some of them thought that they should remain in their current primal state while the others wanted to advance their ways so that they could improve their lives.

After the conflict passed, the two sides went their respective ways, becoming the primal and improvement factions respectively.

Time passed for the two side, with both fending off attacks from the humans and each other, with not much happening in that time period.

Eventually though, something did happen. A demonic invasion of some sort happened, possibly even the one that destroyed the body of Efyos. And my suspicions increased when the elven narrator came back onto the stage once more, explaining the next part of the story.

"After the demons invaded the forest, our ancestors fended them off and eventually managed to cull them to the point that they were very few in numbers, unfortunately, the damage was already done and the forest had become smaller, with the primal faction turning into rabid, senseless animals."

"With the losses incurred by fighting off the demons, the remaining tribes banded together and found their way to what would soon become Athenela!"

There was an applaud as he boisterously declared that statement, which I can understand. This is their home, of course they would cheer for it.

"They settled outside of what remained of this giant structure..."

He continued explaining the history while the other actors played out the scenes from behind, and they did a really good job of it, with the actors performance being perfect and the stage being changed exactly when it needed to.

They then continued for a little while longer, going on to display the creation of the city itself to the establishment of the nation all the way up to around a century ago. Though it appeared that the closer they got to now, the less they narrated which made sense.

"And that is our history, our HERATIGE!!!" He shouted which immediately got the everyone to cheer in exhilaration.

And with that, the play was over.

Some people left after applauding the cast when they came out to thank us for watching, while the rest of us stayed a bit so that we could discuss our thoughts about the play.

I found it intriguing as I didn’t know any of it while the twins found the performance amazing as it inspired them. The guys just thought it was good with nothing much else to add to the conversation.

As for Cythistia, she seems to have gotten out of her sullen mood and was actively engaging in the conversation, stating that she enjoyed everything from the historical narration to the performance and even the struggles of her ancestors and the emotions it brought to her.

After geeking out about the play, Cythistia and I went our separate ways from the group.

By the time we’d left the play, it was already evening and the sun was setting so we set off to find some place to get dinner before we headed to the last place that we wanted to go to today.

We wandered the streets a bit before we found an interesting place to eat, or should I say two places.

"Hmm, don’t think I’ve heard of either of these two before, must be new." Cythistia commented.

The places she was talking about were ’The Golden Egg’ and ’The Golden Eggs’. Yup, that’s right, those were the two restaurants that we were debating on which we should eat at.

’I say we go for the plural one.’ I suggested.

"Alright then."

So we made our way over there and took our seating at an empty table outside and after a few minutes of waiting, someone came over to serve us.

"Good evening, how may I help you two today?" It was a female bat in a butler outfit.

We asked for the menus which she gladly brought over swiftly enough and we soon made our orders.

Both of us spent a bit of time discussing and chose to get the same thing, which was a breakfast platter with three fried eggs, six pieces of bacon, four pork sausages, tomatoes and several slices of toast.

We also ordered some tea to go with it and overall it was really nice, the flavours complimented everything really well. I definitely want to come here again, maybe I can bring the boys here as a treat sometime?

We thanked our waitress after paying and headed over to a nearby park where we would spend some time just gazing up at the stars hand in hand.

We found a spot and leaned up against one another while looking up at the sky. Slowly we noticed several others couples doing the same, even Runaq and friends were her. We wave hi to them and let them be before returning to stargazing.

The sun had just finished setting and I felt this the perfect time to present my gift, which I had thankfully remembered to bring with me, almost forgetting about it.

’There’s something I wanted to give to you.’

"Right, I remember you saying you have a gift for me and have been waiting ever since to see what you’d get me." She said excitedly.

’Well...’ I didn’t know what to say so I just reached into my pocket and pulled it out and presented it to her.

It radiated a light that lit up the whole park with how dazzling it was and I could hear several shocked gasps as almost everyone looked over in astonishment, with Cythistia the most shocked of them all.

"Y-You made this? F-For m-me?" She stuttered, unable to believe that this was the gist I made for her.

I nodded with a red face behind my embarrassment.

"Ha... Hahaha..." I could hear her laughing, but not in a mocking way or anything, it felt more hysterical than anything.

I then felt someone take it out of my hands and whipped my head around, afraid that someone had stolen it, but I just saw her putting it one her hand with the other ring that I gave her from our first date.

I could also see that she was crying with a huge smile on her face.

"I-It’s perfect... Thank you." She stammered, her voice choking up from the overwhelming emotions inside of her.

She then pulled me into a hug, crying over my shoulder, so I hugged her back.