The Loki Familia (1)
"...So this is the Loki Familia home?"
"Yeah..."
Ais rubbed her sleepy eyes as she said it, and I found myself unable to answer, staring blankly up at the Loki Familia home.
It was a place I could never forget.
A stately, well-proportioned building fronted by a broad garden.
A home that had originally belonged to the Apollo Familia—and in time, to the Hestia Familia.
Hearthfire Manor...
The place where we had once eaten and slept, now standing as the home of the Loki Familia. The irony of it left a strange taste in my mouth.
"...What are you doing?"
"Ah, that is, um..."
I had always wanted to see it again someday—but never like this. Words came tumbling out all wrong.
The basement of that church—I hadn't even lived there two months. It was, quite literally, a place of little more than memories. A spot where we scraped by day to day, memorable only because it was where we'd survived. So seeing it again hadn't stirred much in me.
But this place was different. This was where I had spent the better part of my days as an adventurer—a place that had been both my destination and my home.
I'd told myself it wouldn't faze me, but standing before it now, I could barely keep my composure. Confronting a place I'd never believed I could return to was a far more disquieting thing than I'd imagined.
Perhaps that was why—
"Ais!"
—that sharp, shrill voice actually came as a relief.
Ordinarily, trouble brewing would have been the last thing I wanted. Right now, though, it was a welcome kind of trouble.
With the house right in front of me, emotions too tangled to name had begun churning inside my chest. I wanted to turn my mind elsewhere, if only for a moment.
"Ais! Why are you only coming home now?! Do you have any idea how worried I was!"
"Well... I suppose I'm in for a scolding. Failing to make curfew is a problem, after all."
"Tch, go easy on her. Anyone can be late once or twice."
"Shut it, you insensitive dwarf! She made it back safe, thank the gods—but what if she'd been snatched away, eh? What then?!"
They were completely ignoring me, crowding around Ais and pecking at her from all sides.
...I feel a little bad, since she's getting chewed out on my account. If I'd known I'd sleep that long, I would have woken her up sooner.
"Hm...? You're..."
"Ha ha... we meet again."
When the bewildered Ais turned her gaze on me, the others' eyes naturally followed.
I had my hood up, face hidden, but Lady Riveria—whom I'd crossed paths with once before—had apparently seen through me all the same.
"...Why are you with Ais? And in the dead of night, no less."
"...Um, it's night, certainly, but I wouldn't exactly call it the dead of it..."
"Answer. Or else..."
Mr. Gareth's interjection dissolved into the empty air. Lady Riveria, ever the protective mother hen, was gripping her staff and drawing up her mind, ready for battle at a moment's notice.
Ugh... I was only worried about her, so I walked her home... I understand the suspicion, but it was hardly a pleasant misunderstanding.
"...Ais. Can you explain what happened?"
"Hmmm...?"
It was Mr. Finn who posed the question to Ais, who was still standing there in a daze, staring blankly into space with a foolish look on her face.
More to the point—how is she getting sleepy now? This woman really does march to the beat of her own drum.
"Training. And sleep."
"No, not sleep—"
Her answer was so abbreviated that anyone who didn't know better would have taken it entirely the wrong way.
"...I will kill you."
See? Now she's got the wrong idea.
Lady Riveria extended her staff and began her chant. Judging by her expression alone, she didn't quite intend to kill anyone... no, actually, she very much did.
Better to dodge for now. Explanations could wait.
"Hold, Riveria."
It was then that Mr. Finn spoke up.
That's Mr. Finn for you, I suppose. Even at this age, there was a considerable shrewdness about him. The Hero really is built differently.
"Calm down first. You know Ais isn't good with words."
"..."
Lady Riveria slowly lowered her staff. But she kept her mind primed to raise it again at any instant, and the murderous look—the suspicion—still lingered plainly in her eyes.
This is unfair. No—I understand how the situation looks. Still, all the same...
"I'd like to hear the circumstances. Would you cooperate with us?"
"...Briefly, please."
"Ha ha, well, that depends on the circumstances, doesn't it?"
With that, Mr. Finn gestured toward the door, inviting us in.
"..."
The lamplit room on this dark night was exactly as it had been in the past—unchanged down to the smallest detail.
Two days since I'd been flung into the past. I had set foot in a place I'd believed I would never walk again for as long as I lived.
"Hmm, I see. So that's what happened to Ais..."
The misunderstanding was cleared up quickly. With Ais sitting right beside us, there was hardly anything to clear up in the first place. We'd trained on top of the city wall, and she'd simply fallen asleep—that was all there was to it.
"...Is that truly all?"
"...You can keep asking, but the answer won't change."
"Honestly, this is what elves are like. You ought to learn to place a little trust in someone outside your own kind."
After more than an hour of relentless interrogation, the people around me had started coming to my defense before I could. Ais, for her part, had long since fallen asleep with her head pillowed on my lap.
Because of that, Lady Riveria's glare had only grown more intense—but faced with her comrades' support, she had apparently decided, for now, to set her doubts aside.
"Um, may I ask one thing as well?"
"Of course. Ask anything you like."
"Why... why was Ais alone out on the street?"
Honestly, this was something I'd wondered ever since we first met. I mean—why would anyone let a child wander off by herself?
"Ha ha, well, about that. It's embarrassing to admit, but Ais climbed out the window and ran off. Honestly, she gave us quite the fright."
"...Sigh. I truly thought I'd scolded it out of her, but it seems she still hasn't learned her lesson."
Lady Riveria glowered at the sleeping Ais. It seemed a stern lecture was all but confirmed for tomorrow.
The one small kindness was that she refused to wake her while she slept.
"...Ahem. I owe you an apology—again. Yesterday as well; I've done nothing but inconvenience you."
"Not at all. It was a situation anyone would have misread."
"...I am truly sorry."
Her sincerity made me fidget with embarrassment. If the other elves ever found out about this, it was going to be a headache later.
"Well then, I'll be on my way—"
Squeeze.
I hurried to leave before things grew any more troublesome—but something had hold of me and wouldn't let go.
Looking down, I found it was Ais. Where such strength came from in that tiny body, I couldn't say, but she had a fistful of my robe clutched tight, pinning me in place.
"Mmm..."
"Ha ha, it seems Ais has taken a liking to you."
"It's true. I've never seen her cling like this. She doesn't even follow Riveria around that much."
"Hmm..."
The three of them stared at her as though witnessing something extraordinary.
Had Ais been this shy of strangers back then?
"Sorry to ask this of you, Vesta, but if it's no trouble—could you stay just as you are a little longer? It's been so long since I've seen Ais sleep this peacefully, and I'd hate to disturb her."
"Aye, I'd ask the same. That girl used to cry herself awake even with a lullaby sung right beside her. I'd been worried."
"I don't mind at all... but are you certain? Welcoming an outsider into your home in the middle of the night?"
"Ha ha, we're the ones doing the asking—hardly the time to stand on ceremony."
Having said his piece, Mr. Finn excused himself to attend to some work and headed off somewhere. From what I'd heard, even now he serves as the captain of the Loki Familia—so he was no doubt off attending to a captain's duties.
Guh... That dignity and poise I never once saw from him as captain!
"...How curious."
"...I'm sorry?"
"That girl. I've never seen her sleep so at ease."
"She's the youngest by a wide margin, both in age and in when she joined. Within the Familia, she's less a comrade than a little sister—almost a daughter, really."
Come to think of it, given the Familia's average age, the gap really was too wide to treat her as a simple peer.
"That's why everyone in the Familia worried about her. Such a young thing, and yet so utterly filled with steel—we didn't know what to make of it."
"..."
"Still, seeing her like this puts my mind a bit at ease. She never paid the slightest attention when Riveria fussed over her, you know."
"Oi, keep it down."
The two of them, laughing and bantering, carried themselves far more lightheartedly than I ever remembered from the future.
Apparently, back in this era there were still seniors above even them. That might be why their shoulders were so loose.
Standing at the top was a burden in itself. A burden I'd never known—not that it was a road ever open to me.
"So if you would, forgive the imposition and keep her company just a while longer."
"Ha ha..."
I couldn't bring myself to answer that.
Because I knew better than anyone just how absurd this whole situation was.
One day I blinked, and I was in the past. Did that make any sense at all?
Why, of all things, had this happened to me...
Oh—come to think of it.
Before I'd been flung into this era, it had been Elegia. I'd been making preparations to honor the fallen, and then...
What day is it now?
"Eh? Elegia was yesterday, wasn't it?"
"Hard to imagine entering the Dungeon on Elegia of all days, but..."
So not much time had passed at all.
...This is the first time.
The first time I'd let Elegia simply slip by, since that day.
I'd always spent it alone, gazing up at the sky, choking back sobs. Perhaps with everything that had happened, I hadn't even been given the time to grieve.
I didn't know what to call this feeling. Relief, maybe? Or something else entirely...
"Nnn..."
"Oops. Were we too loud?"
"You're the one who's too loud. Honestly, this is why dwarves—"
"Whaddya say?!"
"Quiet..."
As their squabble broke out, Ais rubbed her eyes and sat up.
She'd napped a long while, so waking this early made sense, I suppose.
"Since Ais is awake as well, I'll be taking my leave—"
"Whoa whoa, what's all this rush, eh? Stay a wee while longer."
...I was too late, then.
I'd known all along that their hospitality wasn't mere kindness. They'd needed to confirm something—whether I was friend or foe, at the very least.
I wasn't their enemy, but I was carrying more than a few things that couldn't bear the light, so I'd been trying to slip away quietly... Too slow, apparently.
"Well met, I say."
At some point, a woman with an easy, breezy air had appeared behind me.
Flaming red hair beneath a mass of squinting eyes—and glinting between those lids, a serpent's keen glimmer.
"Name's Loki."