Tsuki had just received a new set of warm and comfortable clothes that Yuzuha absolutely didn’t steal from the store. The young girl shared a lot about her condition when she saw light slowly seeping from a window in the bathroom. It pushed Yuzuha to delicately consider what would be good for the girl to wear.
Yuzuha, who shouldn’t be able to see with her glassy eyes, was able to fetch clothing with confidence as if she knew by heart where everything was and what they were. She explained that she would often visit Rouhong and help him with the mess another employee would often create.
Thus, Tsuki exited the store towed by Yuzuha who didn’t care about the bright sun outside and only muttered a pleasing sound from its warm caress. As for Tsuki, her eyes were blinded for a moment, and had to pull down the hood of her new dress. She wore a simple cloak with soft fur sewn inside which she loved to brush her skin over. The outside material was dyed with an impressive gradient of a blue-like calm sky descending to a hearty green with embroidered stylized flowers.
Below this large cloak wasn’t very interesting. Yuzuha wasn’t too sure what would be best for Tsuki. After all, Tsuki needed something that was light, easy to move in, offered protection, could shield her from sunlight, and wasn’t too warm. It was easier to ask than to find something which fit those requirements. As such, Yuzuha simply gave light baggy pants with a shirt that was slightly too big yet allowed Tsuki to easily cover her hands with the long sleeve. It wasn’t too big to make movement difficult.
“Want to make a stop for some food?” Asked Yuzuha with a beaming smirk on her face after hearing Tsuki’s stomach grumbling. Her white summer dress radiated a calm aura contrasting her expression, making it look as if she was teasing the hungry girl
Tsuki wanted to ask how the woman could wear such a thin dress. Summer was finished and the trees were already shedding their dead leaves painted in warm colors as if to recall one last time the warm sun before the coming winter. The temperature never went above 20 degrees Celsius (68 F), and the low salty breeze entrapped in the crescent formation of the town made Tsuki shiver in her first set of clothes. She was fine with what she was wearing now and understood that it might be a good idea to not ask why Yuzuha was in such light clothing.
“But” responded Tsuki. “I don’t have anything to pay for it”
“It’s fine, I’m paying. My family is loaded, I guess.”
Yuzuha headed toward a cart manned by a strange creature lacking any separation from its head and body which was like a white gelatinous mass. Deep creases created facial features on its egg-like shape with stumpy limbs. Oddly, it had carnivorous plants growing over its arms and cranium as if they were capillaries. The creature was cooking all sorts of meat based food that many people bought and ate as they walked.
“Yuzuha… What’s that thing?”
“…Tsuki… Rouhong said that you might have been a noble of some sort. Could it be that no one taught you about the outside world?”
Tsuki was at a loss for how to respond. She couldn’t just say that she wasn’t from this world. Although there were a lot of strange monsters in her own world, they weren’t common, and most were violent by nature. She did accept that many strange creatures existed, but she still didn’t like to see them because she had no way of knowing, with how her senses were basically cursed, if they were even real.
“No, I lived secluded from the world with only a few people and guards around me.”
She told a lie mixed with some truth which Yuzuha didn’t seem to even care about.
“The one that takes care of this shop is a nuppeppo-soji. Do you know what the soji part means?”
“Huh? Nupp…”
“A nuppeppo. It’s the type of demon this person is. The soji part means that it, or its parents, was purified from any demonic essence… Also, it’s fine if you don’t know what they are. There are so many different types of demons who were purified that it’s impossible to know them all. They all have consciousness like you and me and are intelligent. So don’t call them ‘things’ if possible.”
“Ha. Sorry…”
“Don’t be. You didn’t know. Wait for a moment, I’ll get something nice. Anything you don’t like?”
“Egg, milk, nuts.”
“Well then, someone has strange dislikes. I don’t have that kind of money on me anyway.” Yuzuha talked with the nuppeppo-soji and bought two leaves-covered balls from him that he had just finished cooking. “Here you go, princess. It is pretty cheap, but I like it. The meat inside comes from a fish with a sort of spongy flesh, different from the usual fish in which meat is layered like the rings in trees and not many like its texture. It’s hard to cook but they manage to make the meat soft like butter after frying it. The leaves are there to keep its heat otherwise the meat starts to solidify.”
“Thank…” Tsuki shyly took the food with one hand and took a small bite. As medical technology wasn’t that advanced, people of this world didn’t really know what allergies were and this forced Tsuki to gravely inspect what she was given. It was safe. She did her best to remain stoic, but a tear managed to escape her eyes. It was the first meal she had in a long time. She was made to remember a time when she sat together with Alice around a warm meal. She didn’t know how to cook but Alice ordered her around—.
“—Tsuki, let’s go. We need to go all the way to the west wing and it’s almost an hour’s walk for me.” Yuzuha was pointing at her cane which she was holding together with the leaves-wrapped fish.
“Hm! Let’s,” responded Tsuki with loneliness in her voice.
꙳꙳꙳
Inside an old dusty house, with but a small window to light the ever-present dust which shined weakly, was an old man carving silently a small cat while a tall boy with blond curly hair of age 18 or about was drawing with impressive realist a bear made of bone and wood. The duo was working silently on their task as if nothing else in the world existed, only coming back to the real world to take a sip from a cup of warm tea. The young boy was called Alphonse while the oldest was Carlson.
There wasn’t much left to be said About Alphonse other than that his disposition was as light as his sunny hair even with all the hardship he faced every day. He was more like a child than an adult. But for Carlson, he had a history as long as this village existed, for he was the one who had laid the first brick. It was 253 years ago, when he built a house to protect two famished deserters by the side of his lover’s tomb, his other half whom he promised to find a cure for her sickness...
“Brother!” Shouted a voice outside the calm house. “Where are thou brother? I have a present with me and to you and only you shall it be handed. My finest find of the year I must proclaim. Come and be glad, for my find shall bless your day, ho dearest brother of mine!”
The two men inside the house turned to one another with a sort of defeated look.
“Go see him, Alphonse. Your brother is a looney who learned to lick his bosses behind more than the value of silence. You’re a good boy, so don’t try to become him…” Carlson said with a raspy voice mixed with pain before returning to his carving. He cleansed the pain with the warm tea inside a cup detailed with a beautiful cloisonne of a tree in bloom.
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Alphonse sprung up and exited the house to be faced with his brother who wore a smug on his face. “Ho Alphonse my brother. You bring me joy with how dazzling you are. But brother, BEHOLD, a rock! Striped like Bernard’s favorite cow and porous like… like the walkway! What say you, brother? Don’t you like it?” Said Belmond with exaggerated movements.
It was always strange for Alphonse to see his brother acting with so much zest. After all, Belmond was shouting at him not too long ago with a seething rage that seemed to mask this jovial man. As for the rock, it was a strange story. When the boys’ mother died, they were devastated and Rouhong, who worked with Belmond’s father in the past, tried his best to cheer them up. His attempts were awkward yet wholesome when he picked up a rock in the form of a heart and accidentally broke it after it slipped when showing it to the boys. Alphonse tried to light up the mood by taking the broken rock and promising to keep it. Since that day, Belmond would find interesting rocks to give to his brother thinking that he was collecting them.
Alphonse faked a smile and accepted the strange rock from his brother. They didn’t matter to him, but their gestures and existence were like containers that all kept a part of a happier time… Taking the rock, he left his brother alone to take it to where he hid his collection. It was a simple bucket behind Carlson’s house that held his solidified memories and it seemed that it was filled to the brim. It was time for him to go empty it by a certain tree of his liking so that those stones personifying what little joy he had left may bloom one day and be dispersed by the singing wind and embraced by the dancing wave…
❀
“Ha, you must be talking about Totomo. He’s a good one who likes to make people smile,” said Yuzuha.
“No, he’s a demon! He tried to kill me!” responded Tsuki with power.
The two girls were talking about the strange races in this world and their conversation landed on the strange fish who threw tomatoes at Tsuki. Yuzuha tried to explain that even if it wanted to injure the girl, it wasn’t something it was able to do.
“Totomo’s a kappa-soji. Even normal kappas aren’t that hard to beat and usually won’t attack people. There used to be a lot who lived not far from here but they kind of all left because my friends and I would bully them…”
“I didn’t think you would stoop so low… You looked like a decent lady, I guess it’s…”
“What were you going to say?”
“Nothing.”
“I could have sworn you were about to say something mean again…”
“…”
“Anyway, they were an invasive species and would attack all sorts of small things, ranging from pets to babies… Their flesh is pretty tasty. If you meet one out of the water, just trip it. They have a bowl on their head and die if it ever becomes empty.”
Yuzuha was the one talking the most while Tsuki simply reacted to her from time to time. The two girls looked like a pair of mother and child with Yuzuha holding Tsuki’s hand that was hiding in her long sleeve because she didn’t want anyone to see the chain.
The duo left the busy street to enter a lofty wooden path amidst vegetation which climbed upward at a slight incline around a cliff wall that gave a full view of the calm sea. The wind lifted itself with harrowing cries as it followed the cliff after coming from the beach down below. It scared Tsuki on the spot, but it was soon washed away after seeing the confident smile of Yuzuha.
A few birds perched in trees painted in warm colors sang in tune with one another while the crunching of dead leaves coming from the girls’ advance was like tambourines played to dictate the beats. It was as if something nostalgic was tugging at Tsuki’s heart; a memory trying to resurface from disgusting bile sedimented from the years. But before she could dwell on it, Yuzuha captivated Tsuki with a calm song, melodious to the ears.
I hear whispers of black coral under the waves
rumors that tarry not to reach our heads under warm eave
Ho knave of the land, I shan’t allow your lips to make my mind a grave.
I’ll wave my words to quarry you a bark of white.
Be brave with your eyes or your ears will make you a slave.
Don’t listen to the cries of Scylla, your eyesight is your birthright…
“What does it mean?” asked Tsuki who was looking at the sea instead of Yuzuha.
“Nothing much. Legends, rumors, stories, and others are all in the end just legends, rumors, stories, and others. You don’t live with words but with experiences. You only see how much you love something when you lose it…”
Yuzuha sounded sad and nostalgic, remembering the time she would watch the sunrise. Now, she could only imagine its colors washing the horizon with a blur of uncertainty. A memory of a memory of a memory…of a memory of sight: it is but now rumors she makes herself believe.
Tsuki could see the sadness in Yuzuha’s gray eyes, and it distressed the girl. She in turn allowed her own voice to sing a tale of clouds and gray flowers in a language that was unknown to Yuzuha. It was melodious and filled with a mournful feel. The birds who were singing a moment ago left the stage open to Tsuki whose voice mixed with the howling wind and transformed its sadden cries into longing whispers. As beautiful as her singing was, it was filled with many flaws. She wasn’t used to Alice’s body which had a higher pitch voice than Tsuki. Her voice would crack when she tried to sing high, and it trembled when it was low. Even her pronunciation was shoddy with her words stumbling in her mouth.
But nevertheless, it managed to amaze Yuzuha who never expected the rude girl by her side to have such an incredible voice. “What was your song about? It wasn’t that bad, I have to say.”
“It’s about a flower that grew above a brave hero’s grave in an empty field. All it could see moving were the clouds above and it grew lonely. The flower became the desire of a certain ruler and many brave people were sent to secure it. But when they cut its stem, it lost all its beauty such that no one wanted it. Those who came to take the flower grew old and died before leaving the empty field, a new white flower bloomed over them.” Tsuki appeared to be distraught with every new word she said as if they were distant.
“Then, what happened to the first flower after the other bloomed? Did it die? Was it still lonely?”
“I…I think it was fine? I don’t remember that well… I…took? It took care of the other flowers, I think.” It was apparent that trying to remember the song’s meaning was difficult for Tsuki whose breathing was accelerating.
It was a simple question, but it was as if the answer was inside a giant hole in her memories and she was slowly being dragged into its endless darkness. Her body was now trembling slightly while the ground seemed to be twisting under her feet. There was a buzzing coming from her left side, most likely Yuzuha who was still asking questions as if nothing was ever wrong. It annoyed Tsuki more than it should, knowing that what she might perceive possibly wasn’t real.
“Did you know the flowers?” seemed to ask Yuzuha.
“N-no! WHY! No… I don’t know them!”
“Them?” asked Yuzuha at the same time as Tsuki’s body began trembling more violently.
“Sahama, Jyliac, Abeline…Gardal…Helionas…” she responded with a list of names, all harder to say than the last.
This time it was the wind crying cruel words that made her mind in pain: “Everything and you’re still chained… Pathetic.”
Even if she couldn’t understand what the voices were referring to, by reason of simply not knowing, it wrought extreme damage to her mind. She was screaming incomprehensible words in an unknown language while having a seizure. It scared Yuzuha whose arm was pulled painfully. From her perspective, Tsuki started to act strange when Yuzuha asked her the meaning behind the song. She was now worried for her own safety since the last time something similar happened, Tsuki had apparently pulled a knife and tried to attack Yuzuha.
Luckily for her, the shouting girl managed to alert someone in the distance and Yuzuha could hear them move closer at a quick pace from the crushing of leaves.
“HELP!” begged Yuzuha to whoever was coming.
A boy with curly blond hair came from a bush with a bucket of stone in his hands. “Husu?” he said with a slur caused by his deformed face after recognizing the lady in a white summer dress.
“Alphonse? Is that you my dear? Please, help me! We need to get her to Carlson!”
The boy seemed to react a bit to her words, but he was hesitant and didn’t move, his eyes darting from the two girls to his bucket filled with happy memories.
“ALPHONSE! This is the girl you’ve talked about! IS SHE NOT?! Do SOMETHING if she IS!”
“De baa…baa… tha lash… isj lash o-ke?” he said while in shock at the sudden event that was taking place. He simply wanted to make his memories bloom by giving his precious rocks to a beautiful tree. It took him time to process what was going on with his sense assaulted from all the screaming coming from both girls.
But in the end, the young adult dropped his heavy burden to help carry the girl to where he came from; his rocks dispersed in the dying leaves on the ground to never be found ever again…