Homecoming (5)
Around the time Ariel quietly slipped out onto the balcony behind Yohan, Yuna and Lobelia sat side by side, watching the scene unfold.
"How unexpected," Lobelia remarked.
"What is?"
"Well..."
"Did you think I was going to interfere?"
"I cannot say the thought didn't cross my mind."
"Puhehehe!"
At Lobelia's distinctly uncomfortable admission, Yuna broke into an amused giggle.
"I can read the room, you know."
"Hmph."
Lobelia nodded, feigning complete composure, but in truth she had rarely felt more perplexed.
Then what was with everything she's done up until now?
Even now, Lobelia still vividly remembered the sheer living hell she had endured on their journey to Damos Territory. Yuna might have insisted it was merely 'pretending to date,' but her true feelings were so blatantly obvious that even Ariel could see through them.
"We can't be at each other's throats every single second, can we? In a setting where she's so clearly the star of the show, I should at least show a little courtesy."
"That is..."
"Besides, I'm confident."
A shiver ran down Lobelia's spine.
It was an overpowering confidence.
And an absolute, unwavering conviction.
The banquet wound down, and guests began trickling back to their respective chambers to wash away the fatigue of the long journey.
"Um, Yohan. I'd like to go for a brief walk... Would you mind showing me around the garden?"
Ariel drifted over to my side and whispered softly.
Was she still reluctant to call it a night? I felt like I had kept her company for quite a while, but considering the yawning chasm between her stamina and mine, it wasn't all that surprising.
"Our family garden isn't much to speak of—just a patch of Rosemary Blossoms I planted myself. Would you really be fine with that?"
"To be honest, the place doesn't really matter to me. Hehe."
"Ahem... Very well."
The garden wasn't the point. What mattered was being 'together.' Fortunately, I wasn't so dense that I failed to grasp that much.
Ariel and I slipped out of the banquet hall into our own private world once more. While I was somewhat mindful of curious eyes lingering in our wake, it shouldn't cause any real harm. And so, I guided her out into the backyard garden.
"It smells wonderful. Honestly, having just one kind planted makes it feel even lovelier."
"Thank you for saying so."
Though she meant it kindly, I felt a conflicted twinge inside. I hardly thought this modest patch of soil deserved such praise.
"Yohan, may I ask you something?" Ariel asked, gently caressing a Rosemary Blossom with the tips of her fingers.
"Why did you choose rosemary of all flowers?"
"That's..."
"Ah, was that an awkward question? Every time you looked at this flowerbed, you seemed to wear such a complicated expression."
"Well, considering we're hardly strangers anymore, hiding it would be poor manners."
"Oh... H-Hearing you put it like that makes me blush."
She truly was endearing through and through.
"It isn't a particularly pleasant story."
"I still want to hear it. Just as you said, Yohan, we aren't strangers anymore."
Her face was flushed bright crimson, yet her voice remained quiet and steady. A hollow, self-deprecating chuckle escaped my lips.
"Rosemary was my former fiancée's favorite flower."
"..."
"Not the most delightful tale, is it?"
"It's... rather bittersweet..."
"And... Huh?"
Right as I was about to tell Ariel about what happened in the past, my vision suddenly swayed. For a split second, the surrounding space seemed to warp and wriggle before my eyes, and overlapping layers of reality began superimposing themselves over everything I saw.
"Ugh..."
I awoke to a splitting headache.
Blinding sunlight pricked at my eyes, accompanied by the cheerful trill of songbirds and the agonizing stiffness of an awkward position.
"Did I pass out right at the banquet table last night?"
By the time my head cleared enough to assess reality, I realized my face was planted squarely against a tabletop. Good grief. Even if I'd collapsed, you'd think someone would have had the decency to haul the young master of the house to his bed.
"Huh?"
The moment I lifted my head, however, I realized this place was not my home.
First off, it was outdoors. Looking around at the surrounding terrain, it wasn't anywhere I recognized. But most critical of all...
"Oh! My friend! You're awake! The tea party must go on!"
"..."
There was a talking rabbit sitting across from me.
A rabbit. Talking. Not a beastman, but an actual, literal rabbit.
"Ehehe! Eheheheh! Delicious!"
With its eyes spun half-mad in their sockets, the creature was unquestionably deranged.
"Mind if I ask you a question?" I said, lifting the teacup sitting before me.
With no grasp on the situation, the only source of information within reach was this chattering rabbit.
"Ah! I know what you're gonna say! You want to know what tea leaves we brewed today, don't you?!"
"No..."
"The exact same as yesterday! Eheheheh!"
"Right. Of course."
I came to an immediate realization: the ability to speak a language does not guarantee the ability to communicate.
"Hey! Dormouse! What tea leaves did we use yesterday and today?!"
"..."
The lunatic hare babbled at a ball of fluff curled up beside him. At his screech, what I had assumed was a stray cushion gave a tiny twitch. Apparently, I wasn't the only guest seated at this table.
Still, the pieces were slowly beginning to fall into place.
"The Dormouse says he doesn't know either!"
"Fascinating..."
A tea party. A mad rabbit. And a Dormouse.
I was intimately familiar with this setup. It was an exact duplicate of a scene straight out of a certain fairy tale.
Indeed.
"Just drink up! Hatter!"
"Suppose I will."
Alice in Wonderland.
From the looks of it, I had been cast in the role of the Mad Hatter. I had no idea how this bizarre scenario had come to pass, but what I needed to do right now was crystal clear.
"Could you pass me those cookies over there?"
First, fill my stomach.
"Get it?! Ahahaha!"
"Yeah, brilliant story."
"Right?!"
For a while, I humored the rabbit's incomprehensible punchlines with empty nods while sustaining myself on tea and biscuits.
"H-Help me!"
A voice cried out from the woods.
Well now, was it finally time for the protagonist to grace the stage? It seemed this excruciatingly dull interlude was finally coming to an end, paving a way forward. Filled with anticipation, I watched as someone burst through the thicket.
Snow-white hair.
A pair of rabbit ears twitching atop her head.
"Yo-Yohan...?"
"Ariel...?"
A teary-eyed Ariel stood before me. What in heaven's name had happened to reduce her to such sniffling distress? Honestly, having never witnessed her looking so utterly helpless, I was taken aback.
I'd already written this off as a surreal predicament, but perhaps it was far more dangerous than I'd estimated.
Like a heroine in a horror film, Ariel desperately stretched a hand toward me.
"Yohan! Help m—"
"Gotcha at last!"
"Eek?!"
And right in line with the horror movie trope, she tripped and sprawled flat on her face.
"Whoa!"
"Oops, sorry! Tackled you on instinct!"
Pouncing upon the fallen Ariel and pinning her down was a little girl with golden hair. She wore a smile so brimming with insatiable mischief that it surely gave her parents grey hairs.
There was no mistaking it.
"Since running around must have worn you both out, why don't you get up off the dirt and join us for some tea?"
The protagonist of this tale: Alice.
It seemed the frozen Gears of the plot had finally begun to turn.
Fortunately, the tea table we gathered around was quite spacious. Between the lunatic introducing himself as the March Hare, the Dormouse who slept like the dead despite all the racket, Alice, Ariel, and myself, five seats were occupied.
"Yohan, do you know this child?"
"Well, she certainly doesn't know who I am. It's more of a one-sided familiarity on my end."
"She's dreadfully ill-mannered."
"Children that age tend to be a handful, don't they?"
"That may be, but this is undeniably suspicious! The moment I opened my eyes, I was stranded in the middle of a forest... and before I could even get my bearings, she was hunting me down!"
"Come to think of it, why was she chasing you?"
"I don't know! She just charged at me out of nowhere! I tried to halt her with magic and telekinesis, but nothing worked on her at all!"
"Aha."
Hearing that explained why Ariel had fled in such frantic terror.
Some sort of protagonist plot armor, perhaps?
Alice was the main character of this story. It wouldn't be surprising if she carried a special narrative protection. Then again, the entire situation was absurd from top to bottom. Out of nowhere, without warning? I'd never heard of such a phenomenon in my life.
In that case, expecting the unexpected was only natural. If there was any silver lining or lead...
"Let's just observe for now."
"You're remarkably calm, Yohan."
"I suppose... Every disaster that befalls me tends to be roughly this ridiculous, which might explain it."
To Ariel, having her magic neutralized was an unprecedented shock, but being utterly helpless was my daily routine. In fact, I couldn't recall a single crisis I'd ever resolved through sheer physical might. Without someone else's aid or frantic negotiation, I'd have perished a dozen times over. To me, this predicament was hardly any different from my everyday life.
"Still... Yohan, look. That rabbit is talking."
"Since you're both rabbits now, shouldn't you try getting along instead of discriminating?"
"Yohan, that is beastfolk discrimination! That thing is a wild beast!"
"Yet it is equally true that you can communicate."
"That's..."
Ariel pursed her lips, hesitating, then cast a deep glare toward the March Hare, who was currently babbling away with Alice.
"Ehehe! Eheheheh! I tell you, the ground used to be in the sky!"
"I see! This rabbit has lost his mind! I figured it out!"
Ariel turned back to me, staring blankly, and mumbled under her breath.
"...Do you really call that communicating?"
"I retract my previous statement. It's just a beast. Even so, let's treat all living creatures with warmth."
"Yes, sir..."
Ariel grumbled with a lukewarm pout. Understandably so; swallowing this absurdity in stride was no easy feat.
"Ariel, it seems we've fallen into a fairy tale."
"A fairy tale?"
"Yes. That young girl is the story's protagonist, while you and I appear to have been cast as side characters."
"...It's all so sudden that I barely understand, but may I ask just one thing?"
"We seem to have plenty of time, so ask as many as you like."
"Does this fairy tale have a bad ending?"
"No, it doesn't."
"Then that's all that matters."
At least, if I remembered correctly. Considering there was a sequel, it had to have a happy ending—or at least a survivable one.
For now, I decided to share our next steps with Ariel. Operating together was infinitely better than stumbling through this alone, so cooperation was essential.
"So to sum it up: we've dropped into a storybook world, and we need to guide the protagonist, Alice, all the way to the ending?"
"I can't say for certain, but I believe it's worth testing."
If this followed traditional narrative clichés, that would be the path forward. Of course, if it was a subversion, the opposite might hold true. Still, with zero clues at our disposal, keeping a watchful eye on Alice remained our best bet.
Except...
"Mister, what are you doing here anyway? Are you friends with this lunatic?"
"According to the premise, yes."
"Aha! Hearing you talk, you're just as crazy as he is! Got it!"
Traveling alongside this 'Alice' was clearly going to be a massive headache.
To gather some baseline information, we initiated a conversation with Alice.
"I'm Alice!"
"This is Ariel, and as for me... just the Hatter will do."
"I see! Big Sister Ariel, nice to meet you!"
"Y-Yes..."
Alice beamed with radiant cheer as she thrust out her hand toward Ariel. Glancing nervously in my direction, Ariel gave the girl's hand a tentative shake. The second she pulled back, she whispered urgently into my ear.
"Should I have used a fake name?"
"It probably doesn't matter. I only introduced myself like that because the March Hare already recognizes me as the Hatter."
If I gave my real name here and the March Hare threw a manic tantrum over it, things would turn ugly fast. Alice already grouped me in the same category as that lunatic; the last thing I needed was to be labeled a madman who couldn't even remember his own name.
"By the way, Alice. How did you end up here?"
"Ah! Well, you see, I've never seen anyone as pretty as Big Sister Ariel in my whole life! And it was obvious right away she wasn't from our village. So I just followed her like I was enchanted, and before I knew it, I wound up all the way out here without a clue!"
"...Yohan, I think Alice is remarkably well-mannered after all."
"Is that so."
A complete reversal from her assessment five minutes ago. Then again, if praise can make even whales dance, swaying Ariel with flattery was child's play.
"So anyway, where are we? Was there always a place like this in the back hills?"
"That's what we're trying to figure out ourselves."
"Huh? Ah... I get it. Makes sense that you wouldn't know, Mister."
Alice peered at me for a beat, then glanced over at the March Hare greedily licking a porcelain plate clean, and gave a quiet, knowing nod.
That tiny gesture stung far more than it had any right to.
"Yohan, let me handle the talking."
"Please do."
In the end, I had no choice but to pass the conversational reins to Ariel. As far as Alice was concerned, anything coming out of my mouth would only sound like the ramblings of a pitiful madman.
"What the Hatter meant was that we were somewhere else entirely, and when we came to our senses, we found ourselves here."
"You too, Big Sister Ariel?"
"Yes. The Hatter and I were in the very same place."
"What about that crazy-eyed rabbit over there?"
"Definitely not."
"Ah, figures."
Ariel shook her head emphatically. The sheer contempt dripping from her tone was palpable. Was she really that repulsed by the association? Not that I wanted anything to do with him either, but I was starting to feel a shred of pity for the March Hare.
"Then what kind of relationship do the two of you have?"
"Uh... W-We're engaged. We'll be getting married before long."
Ariel scratched her cheek bashfully as she stammered out the confession. To which Alice cheerfully replied:
"Turns out you aren't right in the head either, Big Sister! Sheesh, what a waste of time taking you seriously."
...A grueling journey lay ahead.