[CENTER][h1][color=EB054D][b]RICO[/b][/color][/h1][/center][hr]“Another one?” muttered Macklamalky as he scratched his black stubble, crate of apples at his doorway. “Damn, that was hopeful of me.” Lifting his cap, he wiped a bit of sweat as his wife Opal came up behind him.

“What were you thinking?” muttered the apron clad lady. “We make sweets, but this is way too much.”

“Well, the price wasn’t bad when I ordered them, but, you know, the festival and all. Our candy apples have been doing well since my granddad came up with the recipe ages ago. I was also really close to remaking whatever was special about the caramel we got from Goldenricht. It was all lining up, I just didn’t think the festival was going to get canceled a second time!”

“Well, people will still buy some of them I guess, but this is the third one! We can’t sell that many! Or eat them, for that matter.”

“I know I know!” the man muttered, leaning down, hands on the edge of the crate. “The rain came last year even without the festival, but I feel like twice in a row is tempting fate…”[hr]Evening shifting to night over the island, the lights of the town were beginning to drift out, one by one. The last disgruntled citizen left the dimly lit throne room in a huff, its residing king arched over, fingers drawn over his wrinkled face. “Festival festival festival,” King Lulouis DuPont groaned, his nose matching the arc of his back. His gray hair only having a few remaining strands of black, his hand scrapped against the five’o’clock shadow at his jaw, the man letting out a yawn. Plush red mantle over his back, glistening crown having grown rather accustomed to his head, he stood slowly, practically hobbling towards the back chambers, dreading the stairwell to his bedside while the knights saluted him in his passing.

“Economy this, livelihood that. You had your fun two years ago, didn’t you?” Passing by a window on the spiral staircase up, he glanced at the fading lights of the town. “My wife was laying in her deathbed, and you all carried on like it was your God given right.” These days, the Ko’Bo’Ka’Na Festival only filled him with disgust. He could hardly believe he’d ever enjoyed it, and any flashes to those memories were ones he quickly buried in his revulsion and anger. “The rain always comes, quit bellyaching,” he continued to mutter, taking to the steps one at a time.

Then, there was a sound unlike anything Lulouis had heard in a long while. It was a whistle of sorts, long and piercing. Lulouis had a brief flash to a military demonstration of cannonball target practice, his men spending their peacetime preparing for the potential threat of an enemy. Just as he dismissed the possibility, there was a rupture in the air, lights flittering through the stairwell in blue and green, reflected off the cold stone from the small windows, the explosion followed by the smattering of smaller crackles. The man nearly slipped from his step, a burst of adrenaline firing him to the nearest window. There was another whistle, another explosion, this time red and gold. Scrambling, he finally got a good view, this time watching a purple eruption over the lake, joined by a pink and orange one, both briefly forming flowers of light in the air.

“What in God’s name!?” Lulouis cried to the heavens, but the cavalcade of flame, light, and noise didn’t stop for the cries of one man.[hr]The distant light also reached the town below. The barking of dogs filled the gaps between the explosions, so no one was left out of the happening. The elders felt the hearts quaver as they waited for the explosions to reach them. The kids trembled in the arms of their mothers as though it were a passing thunderstorm. Men grabbed their arms, scrambling about as they wondered where the fire was. But not one firework strayed close to the village, even as the people called for their offender to show themselves. As the firework show continued, ramping up, some threw themselves behind buildings, hiding in fear, but others grew curious, and dared watch, observing a wonderful display of colors and shapes in the sky beyond prior imagination. Streams of silver, flowers of blue and gold, spirals of smoke shimmering against a white ball of light burning like a small sun as it streaked through the night sky, only to fizzle without a sound. Then, the spiral firework erupted into a ring of rainbow colored sparks and one final boom that echoed across the whole island. And for the rest of the night, all was silent, the townsfolk to mystified to easily sleep after that. It was only after the investigation of the local knights that some were able to find a level of peace, but despite the examination of the lake, nothing odd was found, baffling the soldiers who would have expected a high level of ordinance to put on a show like that. The matter was pushed aside to morning, but King Lulouis wasn’t going to rest easily, not after that.

Had the knights arrived a little earlier to the lake, they might have spotted a certain outlaw shuffling back to town after hiding a rowboat in the brush. Had they arrived just after the completion of the show, they might have spotted that lone rowboat adrift in the middle of the lake, its pilot collapsed in the middle, breathing heavily. [COLOR=EB054D]“Oh god my body,”[/color] Rico wheezed, the boy too fatigued to let even one popper hit the ground.