Beastmen Love
Chapter 233: The Goddess Festival

Chapter 233: The Goddess Festival

After spending two more days in the Jade Palace, Astri and her family head back to the Sacred Castle of the Mizuryuus. While they’re in the carriage, Koa was sitting on Astri’s side, and then sees her drawing a different castle that he never saw.

"Where is that?" Koa asks Astri.

"I don’t know. I was just drawing what I think I would like to build for us." Astri answers.

Claud, Renzai, Seijuurou and Seiryuu, who was also in the carriage, look at her drawing with curiosity.

"It’s beautiful." Claud smiles.

"You deserve to live in a beautiful place like this." Renzai says.

"Our castle is beautiful. It’s rustic, but I like it. Our garden is big, too. I’m just thinking that in the future that castle will become small." Astri says.

"It’s already small. The master bedroom is already cramped. I highly doubt our children will leave even after they find their spouses." Claud says.

"I understand what you’re saying. I like everyone close, but needs to be comfortable, too. Galion deserves his own bedroom. Caris and Carist, too. The girls deserve their own bedrooms to make it the way they want."

"You should build a palace for you here." Seijuurou says.

"I don’t know... I’ll let my spouses decide that together. We already have a castle near the ocean, that we built to spend hot seasons and we still didn’t have the opportunity to stay. However, I won’t deny that a place here would be amazing."

"If it’s my choice, it’s already decided. But I’ll bring that to the others for us to decide." Claud says.

"You deserve the best places to live. And as many as you want." Koa says, hugging her close, and kissing her head.

After some more time, Tyr opens the carriage door, then gestures Koa to leave. Koa rolls his eyes, gives Astri one last kiss, and then leaves the carriage. Tyr smiles and then comes inside to sit with her. They’re doing that basically all the time they’re with her and when they’re not training, and the others are more used to watch their proximity to Astri.

They can’t deny that if they had a great spouse like Astri, and she had spent eight years apart, they wouldn’t leave her alone by any reason, too. They’re actually impressed her spouses live well together and don’t fight, and they believe that who keeps that order is Astri’s energy.

When they arrived at the Sacred Castle of the Mizuryuus, Astri saw that some servants were excited about something. End of the afternoon, Astri was finishing bathing, and Yuki was there with Aurora when she was done.

"My loves! You look so beautiful!! Where do you think you’re going dressing like that?" Astri says.

Yuki was dressing a beautiful white yukata, with silver details and pink sakura petals. The belt was black with silver details. Aurora was dressing a red and orange yukata, with autumn leaves, and the belt was dark red with embroidered golden flowers.

"To a festival! We brought your clothes." Yuki answers.

"A festival? I didn’t know there was festival today. That’s great!"

Astri dresses the light yellow yukata, with golden little details and red flowers. The belt is red, and very light golden patterns of geometrical flowers. Right in the middle the belt there’s a thing golden line. She dresses a long light yellow jacket, which goes almost until the ground, and there are several silk golden and red embroideries of the Spirit Tree Shrine.

Then, Astri helps her daughters with their hair. They’re enjoying that girl time together, Astri makes beautiful braids pulled to the back of Aurora’s hair, then puts a more flashy hairpin since she likes flashy things like her father. Then she makes a beautiful loose long braid on Yuki’s hair, then puts a black and silver hairpin on the side of her head.

"You two look stunning! My beautiful girls!" Astri says, holding her own face excitedly, making her daughter laugh and also happy.

Astri makes a loose braid, but pulled over her shoulder, she chooses a red hairpin with pearls.

"You look beautiful, mom." They say.

"Thank you, darlings. Stay near your brothers or fathers always, ok?"

They nod in response.

They walk together to meet the others. The others are impressed with how pretty the girls look, but Astri was taking her spouses’ breath away. All of them praise Astri and the girls.

"Boys, if you leave Aurora and Yuki’s sides I’ll make you have worse training tomorrow." Hopin says to his brothers.

"Have fun, sweethearts. Just don’t leave each other’s sides, that’s all." Astri says to them.

While they were walking down the path to the village, Astri noticed that even Renzai, and the younger Mizuryuu heirs were coming, too. Seijuurou and his brother, Masayori, are there, too.

"Which festival is this?" Astri asks.

"A very special one. I must say that it’s probably going to be the most important of the year." Seijuurou smiles.

She looks at Kenzou, wondering if he knows anything, and he simply smiles in response. She looks at her spouses, and they have normal faces, but something is off.

She shrugs her shoulders, and keeps walking. At the end of the stairs, they meet with four males who also wears elegant clothes showing they’re also important people.

They bow deeply in great respect, and the guards behind them do the same.

"Thank you all for coming on such short notice, my friends. Please, raise your heads." Seijuurou says.

They raise their heads and stand up, not only the guards behind them.

"I called you here for a great reason. We have someone special visiting our realm." Seijuurou says, then points elegantly to Astri. "The Goddess of Nature."

They look at her amazed. They see Renzai and Seijuurou nearby, and they nod as saying it is true. Since all of them trust the Mizuryuus very much, they didn’t question anything and bows deeply to her again. She asks them to raise their heads.

"These are the other Shoguns of Tsukihina. The Bison, Daisetsu of Takigan. The Panda, Meikou of Hanakuma Mori. The Crane, Reiko of Tsuruishi Yama. And the Tiger, Kyoujin of Aratama." Seijuurou presents them to Astri and her family.

"It is an honor to meet you all, my lords. It’s good to meet great leaders that help Lord Seijuurou keeping this realm so prosperous and balanced." Astri says and bows slightly to them, making them bow deeply again since she lowered her head to them.

After raising their heads again.

"We learned that Lady Astri love festivals. Then, we prepared a festival worthy of having her presence. I must say that it will be the most special one. We decided to call it The Goddess Festival." Seijuurou announces.

"Oh! By my wings! That’s why there was something off!" Astri says amazed. "And you got me very me well! I must have imagined that those plain faces meant something!" She points to her spouses, Renzai, Seiyuu and Kenzou.

They chuckle by her reaction.

"You didn’t have to... People don’t even know me." Astri says to Seijuurou.

"They will now. It will be nice for our people know that you care for us and that you believe we’re aimed to the right path. Your presence itself proves us that." Seijuurou answers.

She smiles, a bit awkward, but accepts their appreciation sign. She doesn’t think she did anything for them, mostly they did for her, but she knows energies is what makes people balanced and these activities keep people happy, too.

As they descend to the Hinoshiki Village, they can see a golden glow across the rooftops of people’s houses. Lanterns bloomed to life like fireflies, strung from rooftops and trees. Astri walked with her family and companions, hidden at first by the crowd. Her expression was touched with wonder and disbelief. Everything looked so beautiful, full of life and color.

It was something her family also never saw, and they’re very amazed, too. They can see music playing a bit far away. Those many beastmen walking together called people’s attention, and they were more than amazed when they noticed it was the Emperor and the Shoguns together.

As they walk together, people were bowing deeply. Shinobu spots Astri walking with those powerful people, and is shocked to see her among them. Astri blinks an eye to her, and keeps walking. When most of the villagers had their attention on them, Seijuurou walks to the bridge and calls Astri to come with him. She accompanies him, and when he looks at his people it was enough for them to know that he has announcement, making everyone quiet.

"My people. I appreciate deeply all of your dedication and effort for making this beautiful festival. You made everything beautiful and worthy. You must be wondering the reason I asked for you to make a Festival in a short notice. And the reason is standing here on my side. This female is not only kind, different, and unique. Some of you might have already saw her walking here, and don’t even know the importance of her presence. She is the Goddess of Nature." Seijuurou announces, and everyone gasped amazed. "We are blessed to have her presence with us. But what amazes me the most is her humility. She could pass as a normal female, what she is above everything else."

This affirmation made Astri feel better, because she never liked to be put above everyone else.

"Her kindness made all of us feel embraced. Not as inferior, neither superior, but as the same. That proved us that we must have high patent, but we’re all the same. Her presence itself was enough to inspire us. And she loved something that makes the people united and happy. For this reason, this special festival was built. The Goddess’ Festival!"

They applaud, still amazed. The males who gave her gifts in the past were shocked that they courted the Goddess and not a simple female.