Deviation
Deviation.
And so a few days passed...
A thin, glassy sound rang out across the night air.
Lakia slowly turned her gaze from the canyon floor below.
At the end of the rock path stood Carnepisara.
His white hair, catching the moonlight, spilled down his back like faint mist, and his wrinkled face wore its usual thin smile.
And more important than any of that—in one hand he held a long wine bottle, and in the other a small basket.
The red wine swayed slowly inside the glass.
Clink.
"...Don't tell me."
"A gift for my top student. I brought some cheese as well."
For a moment, Lakia lost her words.
Top student.
No matter how she turned it over, that word did not fit her current state.
What she had done yesterday was closer to an accident than any achievement in magic class. She had tried to raise a single ripple in a bowl of water, muttered under her breath that snow in the canyon would be nice—and the sky had taken that wish as a command.
Afterward, every time she looked at her fingertips, Lakia found herself clenching her fists for no reason.
But tonight she had no energy left to dwell on it. The questions lodged in her chest for days still caught in her throat.
Besides, the wine Carnepisara had brought smelled rather good, and the cheese in the basket was, honestly, a little welcome.
Lakia patted the seat beside her.
"Sit."
Carnepisara sat on the rock as though he had been waiting for exactly that invitation. An old elf of several thousand years was unnervingly skilled at setting up a drinking party. From the basket he produced thinly sliced cheese, dried fruit, and several small pieces of bread that looked far too hard.
The moment Lakia saw the bread, her eyes narrowed.
"Is that for eating, or for throwing?"
"Depending on the situation, both are possible."
"That's a weapon."
"Elven emergency rations."
Carnepisara said it so casually that Lakia quietly shoved the bread far away from the cheese.
The stopper came free. With a soft pop, a sweet fruit fragrance rose, mingling with the scent of old wooden casks and something like dried flower petals, and the night wind carried it all away.
Lakia thought it smelled good. The fact that it smelled good was a little irritating.
"Is there any human curse in this?"
"None in the traditional brewing process."
"And in this bottle?"
"A little."
"So there is some."
"Difficult to deny."
There were two cups. Carnepisara poured only a little into Lakia's and filled his own generously. She protested with her eyes at once, but he insisted it was merely a teacher's consideration for a student who looked weak to alcohol. Lakia accepted the cup, guessing her face had once again sold her out without permission.
The wine was smooth. At first it was sweet like ripe fruit; afterward a thin bitterness lingered at the tip of the tongue. At the end, a flavor like the bark of old forest trees spread slowly through her throat.
The cheese was salty. It went well with the wine. The knots of thought that had been wound tight for days seemed to loosen a little with a single piece of cheese, and Lakia found her mood strangely unsettled.
Since the philosophy lesson she had often drifted into a daze. Her hand would stop mid-stroke while petting the children; she would look up at the sky and forget to answer for a long time. Even when Masor deliberately made a soft sagak of his scales and came close, her reaction was a beat late.
Could you kill your smiling teacher for the sake of the children?
The question Carnepisara had thrown at her was a thorn lodged in her throat. Swallowing hurt. Spitting it out hurt more.
Lakia was angry at Carnepisara. Angry that he had put the children's lives in his mouth. Angry that he had laid such a cruel hypothesis before her under the name of a lesson. And angrier still at herself for being unable, even after hearing it, to say that it was completely wrong.
Carnepisara had not come with an apologetic face. He had not come to take back what he had said that day. He had simply arrived with wine and cheese and sat beside her.
Necessary words hurt. For someone who has heard painful words, sometimes a place at one's side is needed before any right answer. Carnepisara behaved like a man who knew that.
"I'm still mad."
Lakia said.
"I expect you are."
"At you."
"Yes."
"At myself, too."
"That as well is only natural."
Too cold to be comfort, too precise to be an attack. Lakia disliked the way he spoke, but she also knew it was better than being soothed with a lie that everything was fine. So she ate another piece of cheese.
When words stick in your throat, eating turns out to help more than expected.
Below, Alduin lay curled in sleep. His black scales blended into the night, and between his great forepaws a white hatchling was nestled like a pure snowball. Masor was invisible, but from a short distance he left a soft sagak now and then so Lakia would not grow anxious. The wind circling Gargantua stroked the entire canyon in slow passes, and the hatchlings' sleep-murmurs rolled low among the rocks.
Lakia listened to all of it, then looked toward the dark mountain road that led out of the canyon. That road had been there for a long time. She barely knew where it ended.
She said she did not want to kill humans—yet she had almost never properly seen how humans lived. What a kingdom's roads smelled like. What sounds filled a village market. Whether people truly feared dragons, or laughed them off as picture-book legends. The survivor of a burned village, the hatred he left behind, a name called Milia, and the kingdoms and magic towers and hunters Carnepisara had spoken of—that was far too little. To say she did not want to kill them, the world she knew was still too blurred.
"I want to know what's outside."
Lakia said.
Carnepisara looked at her with his cup still in hand. This time he did not joke at once. The silence was a little unexpected, but Lakia did not stop talking.
"I want to see how people think of dragons. Whether they're afraid, whether they hate them, whether they don't know anything at all."
Once she started, more words piled up than she had expected. She set down the cup in her hands.
"I've only been looking at the children here. I know how dangerous they are, and how precious they are. But I barely know anything about the human side."
It was an embarrassing admission. But that embarrassment was necessary.
"I want to see. It's scary, but still."
Carnepisara watched her for a moment. Then he smiled quietly.
"A fine idea."
Lakia had expected him to stop her. To say it was dangerous, that it was still too soon, that because her wishes touched the world too easily the world beyond the canyon was even more dangerous. But Carnepisara said that fearing a world after you have seen it is better than swearing to protect a world you do not know. The words settled strangely in her chest.
He knew. He knew that if Lakia idly wished for something in a human village, things could spiral. Snow falling inside the canyon had ended as a beautiful accident—but if the seasons tilted in a human settlement, that became fear and rumor and steel at once. And still he said he would help. Probably because he had judged that Lakia speaking goodwill from ignorance was more dangerous still.
"Is there a way?"
"There is."
"A suspicious way?"
"An elven way."
"That sounds even more suspicious."
"It generally is."
The night stretched a little longer. Carnepisara told a story of an elven king from long ago who was so moved by his own speech that he abdicated the throne. Lakia asked whether it was the emotion or the vassals' blades that did it, and Carnepisara answered that both were part of politics. Lakia ate more cheese, drank only a little more wine, and never touched the bread to the end. Halfway through, Masor tried to cut into that bread with a soft sagak, but when Lakia told him food-cutting was forbidden he obediently stopped. Carnepisara returned the bread to the basket with a strangely satisfied look on his face.
And the next day.
Carnepisara came again. This time there was no wine, no cheese, no elven bread hard as a weapon. Instead he carried a single long, dark length of cloth. The fabric gave back almost no light—too dark even for navy—and even held in his hands, the eye kept sliding off its edges. It was cloth like night that had been soaked in water, dried, and hung in a corner of someone's memory.
"What is that?"
"Agnotu."
An elven treasure. A robe that kept the wearer from being recognized by others. That was how Carnepisara explained it.
Lakia looked down at the robe. It was far more frightening than mere invisibility.
"Why would elves make something like this?"
"Because there were many things that needed not to be caught."
"So you're criminals?"
"...A long and storied history."
"Don't paper over it with that line."
Carnepisara laughed and held the robe out. When Lakia took it, a cold sensation touched her fingertips. Even in her hands the robe's presence was faint. If she let her attention slip even a little, she felt she might forget what she was holding.
"If I put this on, do I disappear?"
"You do not disappear. You simply do not remain in memory or recognition."
"That's scarier."
"Which is why it is a treasure."
Lakia held the robe to her chest and looked at Carnepisara. An old elf's appearance would stand out far too much in a human village. Silent, he looked suspicious; speaking, he looked more suspicious still. As if he knew that too, he lifted his staff as though he had been waiting.
"I shall serve as your guide. Though this appearance would be inconvenient."
"Well, you are something of a celebrity."
Mana flowed quietly. The aura that wrapped Carnepisara's body like thin mist soon rippled like water and began to reshape his outline. White hair shortened into rough, coarse hair. The wrinkled face became a warrior's face with thick cheekbones, a broad nose, and a jutting jaw. His skin took on a dark green like earth mixed with deep moss, and thick fangs showed between his lips.
Most terrifying of all was the build. It was not simply a thin elf's body growing larger. It felt as though the design of bone and muscle had been redrawn from the start. Shoulders spread wide, and the muscle stacked upon them rose thick as armor. His arms were as thick as Lakia's waist; his hands large enough to crush a human skull; his short, thick neck looked as though a blade would not easily find its way in. A great axe hung at his hip, and the sword on his back was less a blade than a slaughter tool forged from a long-beaten lump of iron. The worn robe became a warrior's kit of roughly tanned leather, chain, and thick metal plates layered together. There was almost no ornament. That made it more oppressive still.
"Prrrh... hmph."
A giant orc warrior.
For a long while Lakia could not say a word. There was so much she wanted to say that her mouth gave up first. The orc before her eyes looked natural. The problem was the direction of that naturalness. Anyone would see not a leisurely traveler but a warrior who looked ready to overturn a mountain stronghold by himself and come down. The kind of monster you would rather not even meet eyes with on the road, let alone pick a fight with. The fact that this was Carnepisara was the scariest part of all.
"...Who are you?"
"Carnepisara."
Even the voice had grown deep and heavy.
"Liar."
"It is magic."
"No, I know that—why do you look like that?"
Carnepisara smiled with an orc's face. Unlike the old elf's smile it was low and rough, but the slyness inside it was unchanged. That made it worse.
"An orc is an excellent choice. A race that is regarded with caution in human society, yet requires little explanation."
"That sounds incredibly dangerous."
"I mean it is extremely useful."
"Why an orc of all things?"
"Because in close combat they crush every other race. Ah—dragons excepted."
Hearing that, Lakia looked at the orc before her again. Orcs. They were not creatures of legend but a living race that bled on battlefields, traded with humans, and fought them too. The problem was that they were simply too strong—especially in close combat. Even three armed knights struggling head-on would find it hard to put one down, and even a seasoned swordsman crossing blades with an orc warrior was said to feel his arms go numb first. Calling them strong was not enough. Their very body structure was born for fighting—too thick, too tough, too unanswerable once they closed the distance. On the battlefield there was even a saying: if you cannot take an orc from range, leave the rest to the gods.
And Carnepisara had disguised himself as one of those. It was rational. So rational it was more frightening still.
"And you're going to guide me looking like that?"
"Yes."
"And protect me?"
"If necessary."
"And threaten people?"
"As little as possible."
"That means you will."
"Safe travel requires a variety of methods."
Lakia pressed a hand to her forehead.
Agnotu. An elven treasure that kept others from recognizing the wearer. And an old elf disguised as a race said to be unbeatable in close combat. The combination was far too suspicious. Any talk of a normal outing had already gone past the horizon.
And yet one corner of her heart eased a little. If Carnepisara looked like that, she would not have to worry much about strange people suddenly leaping out at them on the mountain road. He was a being who, when truly needed, could smile while crushing someone. That fact was uncomfortable and, at the same time, reassuring. Lakia disliked the feeling. But that, too, was reality.
In the distance Alduin raised his head. The black dragon's golden eyes rested quietly on Carnepisara-turned-orc. Somewhere Masor gave a low sagak. A hatchling, still half-asleep, sniffed the air—and the moment it saw Carnepisara, ducked behind Alduin's forepaw.
The honesty of that reaction made Lakia laugh a little.
"The baby is scared of you."
"A correct instinct."
"Don't sound proud of that."
"It seems talent cannot be hidden."
"We don't need that kind of talent."
Carnepisara adjusted the axe with an orc's massive hand. The motion was far too natural. Lakia suddenly thought he was not so much disguising himself as drawing out one of many faces he already owned. Elf. Archmage. Old sage. Human-hater. Teacher. And orc warrior. For a being who had lived thousands of years, perhaps he had already lived each of those faces somewhere.
Lakia slowly unfolded the Agnotu. Cloth light as night settled over her shoulders. In that instant her presence stepped one layer back in the air—a feeling of being right before one's eyes and yet not remaining visible for long.
Alduin rumbled low. Masor made a soft sagak. Far off, Gargantua opened his eyes and looked their way.
Lakia looked once around at the children, then said quietly,
"I'll be back soon."
Alduin heard. Masor heard. The hatchlings heard, and Gargantua heard too.
Carnepisara stood in orc form at the head of the path leading out of the canyon. A presence heavy as shadow pressed down on the rock road. Lakia walked to his side—as a traveler who would not linger long in anyone's memory.