Little Bird
The girl’s first memory was from when she was four years old.
A gentle voice. A cold gaze.
They say even a hedgehog loves its own child, but not a shred of affection showed on the faces of the parents looking down at her.
“You know this? In the old days, people used to take a bird called a canary into coal mines. Canaries had weak respiratory systems, so they reacted very sensitively to poisonous gases that humans couldn’t notice. When the canary died or showed signs of distress, people knew it was dangerous and evacuated.”
A bird that warned of death. Canary.
“So your name is Canaria.”
Please, die gladly for our sake.
Little bird of the coal mine.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
A face drenched with concern.
How long had it been since she’d seen someone look at her like that?
Really, there was no need to count the time at all.
She had simply never received this kind of look from other people, not enough times to count on one hand.
The ones tied to power, whether royal faction or noble faction, were always busy mocking, criticizing, and cutting her down. The people beneath her, knowing full well how strong she was, didn’t worry about her—they trusted her instead.
And of course the Empire bastards had no reason to worry about her.
Since the beginning of her memories, everything she’d received had been far removed from warm feelings like affection, which was why Joni’s expression felt so strangely unfamiliar.
Annoying.
For some reason, the inside of her chest had started to itch unbearably.
They said you should scratch when something itched, but she had no idea how to soothe this one.
“Canaria Grasis. That’s my name.”
After she looked away from the heart that kept reaching toward her so honestly, and after she finished off the swarm of flies that had rushed in without knowing their place, the itching finally began to subside.
She gave her sword a light shake and walked toward the only fly left.
Fortunately, the blade did not crumble into dust.
“K-Khh…!”
“What a shame.”
What a miserable bastard you are.
What in the world had you done to get on the snake brat’s bad side?
People sometimes imagined that the choices they made were wholly their own.
It was only natural. If you didn’t even know that a great being existed, how could you possibly know that it was steering your fate?
For this one, that great being had just happened to be a snake.
Maybe she was no different.
“If only you’d had a little more time, maybe you wouldn’t have realized.”
Even if it hadn’t been a full-power attack, he’d survived a strike meant to kill him, so he wasn’t without talent.
He was alive in the most literal sense of the word, but still, it was probably fair to call him talented.
But what could she do? She wasn’t soft enough to spare someone who had tried to kill her.
Casually, she raised her sword.
The captain, armor and all, clutched his waist where it had been cleanly cut apart and kept gasping for breath.
“P-Please… spare me….”
“Ah, I know this one.”
He definitely meant for her to let him live, right?
“Yeah. That’s too bad.”
Thud.
“Grrk….”
With the sound of blood frothing in his throat, the light vanished from his eyes, and the final sensation of life’s end ran vividly through her fingertips.
There was nothing new about it.
Someone who once spent their side job putting eyes on cat dolls wouldn’t exactly feel anything special just because, one day, they were putting eyes on dog dolls instead.
For her, that was all this was.
Ah, still, maybe she shouldn’t have used a sword.
It was annoying to have to return something borrowed after dirtying it up.
“I used it well.”
She shook off the worst of the blood and handed the sword back to Joni.
Maybe she didn’t like that. Rather than taking the blade she offered, Joni wore the look of someone with something to say.
“Grasis…? Wow, were you royalty?! I did think your face was a little too extraordinary, but does that mean I’m going to get arrested for treason now? What do you mean it doesn’t matter since your kingdom’s already destroyed? No, still… huh? Just ask directly?”
Joni muttered furiously in Arkish before carefully asking her, “Kana, Grasis?”
She traced something spiky over her own head with a finger, a shape like a crown.
Her Granic was clumsy, but Canaria understood what she was trying to say.
She shook her head.
“No.”
What a disgusting idea!
Just the thought that the blood of those idiots who did nothing but stuff themselves into the castle and live in luxury might be flowing in her veins made every hair on her body stand on end.
So she knew Granic after all, which meant she’d done some digging into Grasis. But not this part?
Well, it made sense. Only nobles would know something like this anyway.
It was an old custom tied to the founding of Grasis, really, a hollow tradition that existed in little more than shell form.
According to The Adventures of Zigrid, Grasis was the kingdom founded by its first king, Zigrid, with the help of the Red Dragon Grasid.
Whether Zigrid’s devotion in naming the country after himself had moved Grasid, or whether there had been some other reason, Canaria didn’t know.
Either way, Grasid had given Zigrid the language called Granic and a treasure: a ring named Grasid’s Protection.
The ring, forged by Grasid and filled with mana, became the greatest treasure in Grasis, but…
The problem was that its power was too overwhelming, so very few people could actually handle it.
Keeping it in the treasury felt wasteful. Letting the king use it was impossible. And they couldn’t exactly just hand it to the first person who was capable of using it.
After agonizing over the matter, Zigrid came up with a brilliant idea.
He would create an order of knights, appoint the strongest person in Grasis as their captain, and entrust Grasid’s Protection to him.
It was a position responsible for protecting the kingdom, so the name fit. And since Grasid’s arrangement had made it impossible for the blade to turn toward royalty, there was no reason to hesitate.
Besides, given Grasis’s reverence for the Red Dragon, it would have been unthinkable to treat lightly someone who, even in a tiny way, could wield the dragon’s mana. So they gave those people the surname Grasis and honored them.
It was something like a proxy, really.
Frankly, it was just blindfolded self-deception.
Honored, my ass. As time passed, the meaning only faded, and by her era it had become a completely empty custom, nothing but a name.
So ordinary kingdom citizens, far removed from that world, wouldn’t know it. Even the royal court only brought up the surname during ceremonies.
In any case, that was why it made perfect sense for her to bear the surname Grasis.
She had been the last captain of the Crimson Flame Knights.
Though saying that now would only confuse her anyway.
So instead of explaining, she brushed aside Joni’s question with a light denial.
Joni still looked utterly lost.
“…Not that? So it is a ‘not that’ kind of thing? Damn, then what is it…? No, wait, that’s not important right now….”
The more Canaria watched her, the more it seemed like she talked to herself constantly.
When she held out the sword again, clearly meaning for her to stop muttering and just take it already, Joni scrambled to accept it.
Then, stealing a glance at Canaria, she suddenly bent deeply at the waist.
Canaria stared, dumbfounded by the abrupt—no, downright random—action.
“Sorry. Secret, name.”
“Ah.”
Only after hearing that stammering Granic did Canaria understand what Joni had been trying to say.
An apology made of only three words.
And yet, for some reason, those three clumsy words hit her deeply.
From the way things were going, it seemed likely that the rumor had spread because of Joni, but it didn’t seem like she had been the one to report it to the Empire….
For a coward, she had still stood against the Empire, which meant she hadn’t simply sat around without trying to take responsibility for her mistake.
More than that, for some reason she couldn’t quite explain, looking at Joni made the itch she’d forced down earlier start to peek its head up again.
“Well… whatever.”
Canaria looked away from her eyes.
Then she reached up to pull her hood back over her head, only to remember the connection had been torn and awkwardly scratched at her hair instead.
“Uh… do you want me to fix it?”
“…?”
“I’ll mend it. I can mend it.”
Joni, who had been looking at her with guilt in her eyes, now flailed her hands.
With one hand she seemed to be clutching something wide, and with the other, something long.
“Mend…?”
“Yeah! Mend!”
So, she meant she’d repair it?
Canaria stared blankly, and Joni moved her hands again.
This time, the gesture looked a little more like sewing.
After tilting her head for a moment, she agreed without much thought.
It was a ruined cloak anyway. It didn’t matter whether Joni really repaired it or took it away and sold it.
Still, if possible, it would be nice if she fixed it.
When she took off the cape, a thread of wind brushed across her arm.
Step, step.
“Hey.”
The Apostle who had been fighting with a greatsword while she was talking to Joni took a step closer and addressed her.
Then he thrust his greatsword toward her, a weapon nearly as tall as she was.
“Fight me.”
“…?”
“Lady Yuki!”
“Hey!”
He didn’t seem hostile.
Canaria tilted her head at the greatsword being pointed at her, and the people around them started making a scene instead.
She already knew Joni well enough.
And the man behind her… hmm.
Thanks to Edel’s blessing, his face was still hard to make out, but in another sense, he felt familiar.
Like someone she’d crossed blades with many times.
Right?
Stare.
Flinch.
“….”
“….”
“…Ha, ha ha.”
…She didn’t like it much, but since he’d fought the Empire bastards coming to drag her off, she’d let him have one.
There wouldn’t be a second time.
She looked away as though she hadn’t noticed, and a relieved sigh reached her ears.
Canaria studied Greatsword Chick’s eyes, trying to read his feelings.
There was a quiet flame flickering in them.
Ah.
There were people like that now and then.
Types with a fierce competitive spirit, the kind who wouldn’t flinch even when facing someone far better than themselves, and would rush forward without hesitation.
People like that usually had a strong drive to improve themselves, too, so she didn’t hate them the way she hated schemers who hid their intentions. They were honest enough to throw themselves at the world instead of wasting time on plotting.
It was only annoying because this one had chosen her as his target.
After thinking for a moment, Canaria didn’t answer him. Instead, she held out her hand to Joni.
“…Huh?”
“Your sword. Lend it to me one more time.”
Especially this Greatsword Chick—whether during a fight or right now, he was exactly the kind who would keep following her around and pestering her if she ignored him. It would be easier to just give him what he wanted and be done with it.
“No, Lady Yuki, you’re seriously going to fight that? Are you out of your mind? Seriously? Seriously?”
“Wouldn’t that make it more fun?”
“Not at all.”
Joni shook Greatsword Chick’s shoulders back and forth, but he didn’t budge an inch.
“I know you can’t understand me anyway, but please don’t kill him….”
Canaria gave the sword-borrower a dry smile and shrugged.
Yeah. She still had no idea what he was saying.