The Festival (1)

In hindsight, Ellen's response had been remarkably composed.

Ellen was the sort to be swept along by her own moods, and the groundless rumors must have stung. But it was festival season. When it was time to play, one played — the knights of the Great Wall deserved it more than anyone, and Ellen knew their labors well. That was why she had held her tongue: one word too many, and the knights might have lost their chance to enjoy the festival at all. It spoke volumes about just how much the North's events meant to her.

The Elaine of her past life had been every bit as sensitive to them. The New Year subjugation and the festival were among the few chances she had to express her love for the North outright — and so there could be no failure, and not a single northerner left unable to enjoy them.

"The scale of it is tremendous."

The territory was already abuzz, the din carrying all the way inside the annex, and Kubel marveled at the North's vitality.

"This isn't your first, is it? Ah — though I suppose it might as well be."

"That's right. I always made a point of looking the other way, so I never really saw it... but now that I have, it's overwhelming."

Kubel had come to Serzilla four years ago. He had never once enjoyed a festival — because he was a mage. The grown-up Shura had always kept close at his side whenever the festivities began.

"Firsthand, it will be something else entirely."

Harad smiled gently as he spotted Shura wriggling her way up onto Kubel's lap.

"Is it really that amazing?"

"Of course. Amazing."

Anyone could see the excitement written all over Shura's face.

"Shura, you're the star of the festival too."

At every event in the North, the children were the main characters. Shura would be loved wherever she went.

"Hehe."

Shura laughed like the child she was. The new year was fast approaching, yet Shura was growing younger — the adult composure she had carried was settling back into what befitted her true age.

"Kubel, I'm afraid you'll simply have to play with everything you've got. Along with Shura."

"I'll make up for all four years at once."

"A fine resolve."

Kubel beamed. Not because he loved festivals — because he loved the Shura who would love them. This was her first festival ever.

"What about Ellen?"

"Most likely not, I'd say. She'll be busy."

The woman called Ellen would have no time to enjoy the festival. Her past life was proof enough. The time and devotion she poured in were as immense as her love for the North — even the old Elaine, who vanished ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠at the drop of ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠a hat, had never once gone missing during festival season. She was buried in her duties, and Harad had been pinned to her side the whole while.

"She didn't come yesterday, either...."

Shura said, her voice on the verge of tears.

Kubel, who had been stroking her hair, abruptly spoke with heavy gravity.

"Harad... um... I'm sorry."

"Out of nowhere?"

"About... what happened before."

Kubel still seemed to carry the guilt of the First Knight Order's kidnapping fiasco.

"I'll say it again — you did nothing wrong."

If Kubel was guilty of anything, it was only of feeding the First Knight Order.

"You did try to stop them, after all. Those bastards simply wouldn't listen."

Kubel had raised his objections, but the First Knight Order hadn't so much as pretended to hear them. Even supposing it only worked because Kubel was the more terrifying of the two, those men would have hatched their abduction plan somewhere other than his annex regardless.

"Outrageous, granted — but even a spectacle like that has its place now and then. The knights garrisoned at the Great Wall need to cut loose when it's time to cut loose."

Say it again: it was festival season. If only Ellen hadn't caught them, the Harad-abduction affair would have made for a truly unforgettable festival memory for the First Knight Order.

"So it isn't the knights that weigh on you."

Harad read Kubel's expression.

"The knights, um... I consider that their own karma."

Kubel had a surprisingly resolute streak.

"Then what?"

Kubel looked at Harad.

"......."

That was all. His mouth opened, then closed again. As Kubel saw it, this was no matter he had any standing to meddle in.

"If you've nothing to do, then go watch the Grand Duke's Heir come home. That'll make the festival all the merrier."

Today was the day Elaine Serjilla returned from one subjugation and set out on another.

The North called the new year Subjugation Day — yet the subjugation itself began days before the new year arrived. At some point, the festival had come to be held before it ended. The certainty that Serzilla could never fail a subjugation had moved the festival up, and that faith of the North had gone on to move even the subjugation itself. In this age, the new year was the day that proclaimed the subjugation's end — and the festival's grand finale.

The avenue leading out to the western gate was a crush of humanity. Kubel set Shura on a wooden horse and gripped her legs tight; the crowd was dense enough to make even Kubel — a man who could strangle a bear to death — stagger on his feet. The cheering was greater still. Northerners had lungs to match: there was even a saying that a deaf man's ears opened at the new year. And the new year in that saying meant Serzilla's new year.

From afar, Elaine led the procession at its head. She rode no horse — she came on foot, unarmored, with only a single sword at her hip, her clothes caked thick with snow and ice. She had just returned from the subjugation of the Eastern Great Plain, and was on the verge of setting out for the Western Snowy Mountains.

Two subjugations. The monsters beyond the Boundary were weak, granted, but the Great Plain and the snowy mountains were vast — far too vast. Toiling away for days on end in that killing cold was no small feat. As proof, the soldiers and rear-guard knights who made up the procession behind Elaine were spotless: the personnel for the two campaigns had been split. The Great Plain contingent would rest, while Elaine alone marched out again with fresh soldiers and knights.

A punishing schedule, that.

Historically, when a generation had but a single heir, that Serzilla chose to lead only the harder of the two subjugations — plain or mountains. Elaine commanded both. Not because she had been born with Heavenly Might, but because only that made her, in Elaine's own eyes, a perfect heir.

"Well. Not that I'm truly the type to live like a wreck."

The words of Grand Duke Elaine — she who had once regretted never living however the fuck she pleased — rang true. Living ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠however the fuck she pleased. That Elaine, soon to turn twenty-one, had resolved to do just that, yet she could not throw the subjugation aside. Perhaps because the resolve was still fresh — but then again, who could say. Even if Elaine lived entirely however the fuck she pleased, that side of her would never change. Then as now, Elaine was simply that kind of person.

Waaaahhh!

The cheers swelled. Elaine, come in through the eastern gate, was drawing near.

Harad, brow furrowed against the roar, caught sight of her.

The perfect Grand Duke's Heir. The perfection in question did not refer solely to innate talent and honed skill; character mattered no less. Gentle, benevolent — as virtues in a private person, such a temperament is admirable. As virtues in a ruler, they are wrong. All the more so in the brutal line of Serzilla. The ideal Serzilla was never a virtuous one. Why else would Elaine have been called the Iron-Blooded Grand Duke in her past life? That seat demanded utter ruthlessness — and so the ideal heir had to wear that ruthlessness openly.

"Gah."

Kubel, raising his hand to wave in welcome, flinched. The Elaine who had once grinned her way into his annex for supper was not the one over there. What stood over there was the ideal Serzilla.

A human being so chillingly cold that she seemed liable to swing her sword the instant you came close was basking in the cheers. That cold-blooded creature — the sort you'd expect molten steel to pour from a wound instead of blood — was the ideal Serzilla in Elaine's mind. And in truth, she was right. To the continent, and to the northerners themselves, that was what the name Serzilla was meant to be. What the North asked of its lord was not the soft heart of a pushover. It was an overwhelming presence before which no one dared lift their head.

Still, she's milder than back then. Is that simply because she's young?

Elaine's public image in her past life had been this very thing. No — far worse. In those days, the title Iron-Blooded had been well and truly earned. Which was why, whenever the two of them were alone, the dissonance had struck him more than once. A dissonance that only Harad could ever feel. The continent clicked its tongues at Grand Duke Elaine, calling her a merciless cold-blood; the North either cheered that harshness or bowed to it.

"I wish I could just disappear like this."

"...What?"

"I hate this, Grand Duke."

And Elaine had never known.

"...Oh, no."

Fire was busy devouring his sleeve. Harad smothered the flame out with his palm. Thankfully, no one had seen — every soul on that street had eyes only for Elaine, cheering her and her alone.

"Over here!"

Shura cried out from among the crowd. The roaring cheers should have swallowed her whole, yet Elaine turned her head toward Shura. She didn't exactly do anything. She merely cast her a glance — an utterly glacial one.

As unreadable as any mage.

Elaine had a gift for keeping her face in order.

Shura waved back without a care. Through that other eye of hers, she would be seeing not the icy heir but the ever-laughing Ellen. And Elaine, it seemed, had no wish to look coldly at Shura even in pretense.

Elaine turned her gaze away. At the end of it stood Harad. The instant their eyes met—

"Tch."

Elaine scowled.

"...?"

The western gate opened again three days later. When it swung wide, there was Elaine — her whole body painted in blood, snow having fallen so thickly over it that the blood hardly showed. She looked as though she had been through hell, but only on the surface. Heavenly Might does not tire from a mere subjugation. The soldiers and knights trailing behind her, on the other hand, looked genuinely spent. In Elaine's mind, they were the true protagonists of the subjugation — so she kept it to herself.

Showy words and grand gestures were nothing but recklessness. Silence was what granted dignity.

The subjugation force made one full circuit of the territory's main avenue, festival and all. Harad might have called it empty pomp, but it had its purpose, sure enough: it set the festival humming even louder. This was no occasion that called for speeches — to Serzilla, a subjugation was light work, and light work is passed over lightly. Linger on it with needless words, and those words only beget more.

"You've worked hard."

It was upon entering the Inner Castle that Elaine first opened her mouth.

"They worked harder."

Elaine wiped her face with the towel Arika handed her and looked back. Through the closing Inner Castle gates, the exhausted faces of her soldiers were still visible. Their subjugation rewards would be paid out in full.

"And the festival? No problems?"

"No matters have come up."

As if there would be none. There would have been — and Arika would simply have resolved them. Last year there had been quite a few. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Back then, there had been no Arika.

"You've toiled hard. My thanks. This year has gone smoothly thanks to you."

"Do rest a little."

"This body needs no rest."

Elaine gestured at herself. It was true: two subjugations finished, and her flesh knew nothing of weariness.

"The subjugation ended a day ahead of schedule."

Ordinarily, a subjugation ended with the new year — but half a day still remained until it arrived. The sunset burned quietly behind the snowstorm.

"How about going to enjoy the festival?"

Go and play as Ellen — that was what Arika was saying. Elaine smiled faintly.

"No need. I have my fill of play the rest of the time. These hours were granted to me for work."

Insofar as her indulgences were permitted, the rest of her hours could admit no waste.

"Did you not say you would live however the fuck you pleased?"

"I am. This right here is my 'whatever the fuck.'"

"......."

"A jest. In time I will — but that is my affair alone. The North cannot be included in it."

One could not act however the fuck one pleased from beginning to end. That frame of mind had to remain, above all else, Elaine's private domain.

"This is official business. It must be perfect."

She had no intention of letting it touch anything beyond her.

"Smile for them, and some begin to take you for a joke."

In public, Elaine had to be Serzilla.

"And how were Kubel and Shura?"

"They are having a marvelous time."

"Good to hear."

Elaine smiled, soft and content. It was the North's new year — every last northerner had to be brimming with life. That was what the festival existed for.

"Harad, I imagine, is off enjoying himself with Shura."

"...I didn't ask."

"Your face did."

Elaine's eyes went round. Arika had never been one for jests.

She had been the perfect Grand Duke's Heir's most excessive devotee — the sort who believed that whatever Elaine did, some grand, unfathomable intent lay hidden behind it.

"...You've changed a great deal yourself."

The Arika before her was not that person anymore. Half a year. In a mere six months, the scales had fallen from her eyes.

"Harad's influence?"

"...No."

"Then what?"

"Because like this... your face looks far better."

"So it is Harad's influence after all."

Elaine smiled wryly. Harad came to mind, and the dream, and Moresz Palaz. No one in the North would take against the Heir for having changed. When she had once told Moresz that she meant to try living however the fuck she pleased, that was exactly how he had answered. And just as he'd said: Arika did not hate the changed Heir — if anything, she bent to meet her. They followed Elaine not because she was perfect, but because she was Elaine.

Moresz's words came back to her.

"Do everything you wish to do..."

And seize everything you desire.

"Arika."

"Speak."

Arika smiled wryly. She had guessed what would follow, and was already fishing out the clothes for Ellen she had ready.

"I'm sleepy."

"...Pardon?"

"The dream..."

Elaine keeled over where she stood.