Happy New Year

**Happy New Year** is the fifty-sixth episode of Tales of Dikuda. It is also the eighth episode of the fifth season.

## Summary

With his long search for Falehi coming to an end, Bayroff attempts to finally confront her to keep the promise he made, only to have to confront himself instead.

## Episode in Detail

After recognising Derbri as Falehi, Bayroff immediately jumps to the occasion to attack with the intention to kill her. Instead of fighting him, she makes a run for the emergency stairs and up onto the roof with Bayroff right behind her, wondering why she just runs and if she has a plan.

On the roof he begins attacking Falehi, who manages to dodge and deflect all the arrows Bayroff sends out, using a sort of staff, which she reshapes into two fans then. Though part of him is impressed with the display of abilities, the other part of Bayroff wants to quickly finish up the fight and thus follows up with more attacks.

Right in the middle of their fight the New Year officially starts, with fireworks going off in the background. Momentarily Bayroff is worried that uninvolved people might be harmed during the fight, but Falehi leads the fight away from the people.

With the fight continuing on, Bayroff can feel himself being worn out, though he is also impressed by the display of Falehi's abilities in order to avoid or block his attacks. In the end it mesmerizes him so much, that he stops paying attention for a moment, which causes him to slip and inevitably fall off a roof, with everything turning black when he lands on the ground.

When Bayroff comes to his senses again, he finds himself on a small island in the presence of a lion. Bayroff wonders where he is, as there is no smell of the sea, no wind and not even sunlight, despite him feeling like it should be there. The lion replies that he is "where he should be," in the center of the Modesty Lake. He continues, stating that it's a reflection of Bayroff's internal struggles with himself.

After asking how he can get out of the location, it's explained to Bayroff, that he just has to get off the island, though it won't be easy. Looking around the sea and the island, he comes to the realisation that his own power and wisdom, symbolised by the island, is very limited and that he prefers not venturing out of the zone for the sake of safety. He wonders what the body of water stands for.

Thinking he might be able to just swim to the other side, if the water stays as calm as it is at the moment, Bayroff slowly gets into it, despite the lion asking him, if he wants to travel like this. He continues wading into the water, until it fully covers him, finding that he doesn't need to breathe and can see well, with everything around him peaceful.

As he continues walking at the bottom, he is then suddenly grabbed by a pair of hands on his ankled, pulling and yanking at him, soon joined by more and more hands, tearing him down into the sand at the bottom until he blacks out, only to find himself back on the shores of the island with the lion.

Again the lion asks him if he wants to travel in that manner, with Bayroff only vaguely guessing that he must have made the wrong choice and deciding to stay away from the ground and instead swimming across. But once more, after a while, he his grabbed by the dark hands and pulled down into the sand, waking up on the island afterwards yet again.

Frustrated, Bayroff then demands an explanation for the hands from the lion, who states that they represent sin. Even more angered by the fact that his sins are holding him back, he aggressively tries to cross in various manners, all with the same result, that he is grabbed and brought back to his starting location.

When Bayroff is on the verge of giving up and accepting his defeat, the lion approaches him once more, asking him, if he would like help. Wondering why he wasn't given the offer earlier, Bayroff still accepts, curious what the help would be. With his question ending, he can hear a noise in the distance, like something calling him, while his surroundings all react to the sound.

He follows the sound to its source and finds two people working on something, The Ink Butterfly and The All-Seer. Walking closer, he realises Falehi is working to cut a wooden canoe out of a log, while Yavei is working on a drum. With each hit of stone on wood, it's clear what the source of the sound was. As he tried to cross the waters before using a ship, Bayroff tries to tell them that their attempt is not going to work, with the two of them ignoring him.

Once again becoming frustrated, he sits down and watches them work, until Falehi throws him a rock in order for him to help. Unable to do anything else anyway, he helps her with the canoe. After a while Falehi states that he always puts himself against everyone else, even if the point of a challenge is not to overcome, or defeat it, but to be open instead and that this is the solution to crossing the waters.

With the canoe finished, the three of them then sit in it and start floating along the surface of the water, until they reach the distance at which the hands appear, grabbing and tearing at the canoe. Bayroff, panicking, turns his attention to Falehi, hoping that she has a plan. But instead Yavei starts making use of the drum, the sound making the hands join together to keep the boat steady, instead of tearing it further.

The further they continue onward, the more hands join together, creating an enormous black ship underneath them. When Falehi then begins chanting along to the drumbeat, the hands all seem to happily join in, as if they reflect different souls each. Slowly the hands then begin glowing white with the ship rising more out of the water and up into the air, the more hands start glowing.

Upon Falehi opening her arms, the sky too opens into pure light and the hands dissolve into energy, moving from the still moving canoe and into the light around them. Entranced by what he is seeing, Bayroff asks her if she is really a Buddha, though she never replies to him, only revealing her true before he falls unconscious again.

## Characters

The following characters appear in this episode (in order):

* Bayroff
* Falehi (also as The Ink Butterfly
* Ghess
* Sheenyai Yavei (also as The All-Seer)

## Trivia

* According to User:Zennore, this episode's build-up is based on the song The Humbling River. When reading fast enough, the song can be played along, and everything will fit.

* Symbolically however, the episode is not fully aligned with the song, as there is a lot of religious elements and stories put in place and because the episode makes use of more physical symbols (like water, the dark hands and ships) to describe the tides and turns of the mind.

* Following this explanation it may symbolise how most people have a lot of unorganized and dark parts both underlying (underwater) and within (above the surface) their thoughts. Bayroff's mind is calm and clear on the surface, with the darker parts laying underneath.

* Originally this episode was planned to take place in the land of Bandishei, but since the story of Bayroff and Falehi largely took place in Dikuda, it had to be moved.

* Due to the late location change this is actually an image of Bandishei scenery.