Editing City Series:Volume5b Chapter16 (section)

===Rosetta’s Journal: Today’s First Entry===

It is before dawn and I am inside the shrine on the mountaintop.

If my memories are accurate this is my first time mountain climbing. It was my first time for a lot of things. The mountain path was dimly lit with dawn approaching. We used the fading moonlight in order to climb the mountain.

I could see the forest on the valley side of the mountain path at first but we quickly moved up above that. At some point the sky came into view there. The valley river slope was not too steep to descend but it was still dark and I did not want to take a peek down.

While climbing the mountain path I realized my legs were working well. I usually only use my legs to walk but I started to think about what it meant to “move forward”.

<It has grown a little chilly.>

My sweat may have grown cold. I do not know the current time since there is no clock. But I do know that it is shortly before dawn.

<The sky has grown purple and a scattering of cirrus clouds is visible as if blown in from the east. The sky in that direction is a little bit yellower and brighter. The sun will probably rise soon.>

On the mountaintop the north side is a steep cliff. The east side contains the mountain path we climbed. And the south and west sides are gentle forested slopes. The mountaintop is about the size of the mansion’s courtyard.

<The mountaintop shrine is not a shrine with a connection to a god. It is a bowl-shaped hut of about 2 yards high made of stone and cement. The inside has a drafty window and a hole to let smoke out. There is also a strange rectangular hole near the smoke hole.>

Lady Beretta says the strange hole is a whistle that emits a tone to keep the black dragon away.

She has been using a pair of binoculars to view the area around a distant cliff face.

We had brought some firewood with us so I placed that in the shrine’s sunken hearth and started a fire. I am preparing some breakfast.

I was right to gather some water on the way up the mountain path. There is no water on the mountaintop.

<Lady Beretta has walked over.

“The sun will rise soon. Come on out.”>

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This is my first time seeing the sunrise from atop a mountain.

I saw the sunrise.

I was excited to see it rising but it took an awfully long time to do so.

The eastern sky grew too bright to look directly at and it stayed like that for several minutes. After that light shined up from beyond the eastern mountains and then the large round sun seen in picture books rose up. I could not help but stare in wonder.

This was very different from the small sun I saw from beyond the rows of buildings in Paris.

<The sunlight is sweeping away the purple remaining in the sky. The sky shines a bright yellow and it eventually changes from a light blue to a rich azure.

The sun has already shown its full form and it has risen high above the eastern mountains.

The front of my body feels warm in its light. My back still feels the chill of the night.>

Lady Beretta has still said nothing about breakfast or tried to eat anything which is unusual for her. She is once more looking through those binoculars. Since she is jotting things down on a notepad I assume she is interested in something that has fallen into the forest below. She must sometimes accidentally aim the binoculars toward the sun because she will suddenly cry out in pain. Is she okay? I wonder what she is looking at. If she is willing to tell me I would like for her to do so after we head back.

While bathing in the morning sun I noticed a cluster of flowers growing toward the mountain path. They were the same as the flowers in the Paris mansion’s garden. There were a lot of yellow and white and red flowers spread out within the small leaves.

Lady Beretta told me what they were.

“Those are four o’clock flowers in English but aren’t they known as belle-de-nuit in French? The French add ‘belle’ to a name to say it’s cute. That means these flowers are cute and it means Belle de Marionnettes are cute.”

I see. Apparently these flowers were my cousins as far as names are concerned. I wonder if the ones at the mansion are blooming like this right now.

“What was the language of flower meaning for belle-de-nuit again? Was it shyness?”

At the very least that word did not apply to Lady Beretta in the slightest.

I would like to pick one but I know I should not.

I will instead invite Lady Beretta to eat breakfast.