A Sapling's Farewell (3)
So the fate of a nation reaches even a village on the edge of nowhere.
The Crown Prince and his retinue made ready to depart. Their escort, in his delight at the discovery, had let the secret of his master's identity slip, and now the elves who had come out to watch milled about restlessly nearby.
"He's the Crown Prince? So when he goes back, he becomes king?"
"Not the king. The prince."
"No wonder he seemed so aristocratic! So he was royalty all along?"
Yep. Nobody actually believed they were merchants after all.
A stunned murmur rippled through the gathered crowd. Thermia's shock, in particular, was colossal.
"That jerk was royalty?!"
Thermia clutched her head and paced in frantic circles around the corner of the room.
"Unnie, isn't this a disaster?"
Velesa said nothing, only kept turning her loom. The loom spun, and thread wove itself into cloth.
"What did I even say to him? Did I call him a jerk to his face? I think I did? We even sparred and I hit him—will I be okay?!"
Frankly, no, she would not be okay. A commoner striking royalty? There was no way that passed over lightly—though the Crown Prince himself hadn't seemed to care in the slightest.
Thermia groaned and writhed in agony. Then, all at once, she seemed to realize something, and her expression turned stricken.
"Unnie! Unnie didn't just hit him, did you? Mine was a sparring match, but you just outright slapped him."
Slap him she had—twice across the cheek, no less.
A faint, enigmatic smile crossed Velesa's face.
"Was it three times?"
Wha—? There was a third slap I never knew about?
I was genuinely dying to know what had prompted that one.
"Th-three times······."
Thermia staggered, gasping for breath. Then she dropped to her knees, pressed her palms together, and began to pray.
"O resonance of great nature, call of the high branches, peace of the spreading roots, your humble servant beseeches you from below. When worldly power threatens to burn down our verdant forest, please deliver us."
A faint ripple of prayer touched my awareness.
Wait. Is this prayer directed at me······?
Why she prays so devoutly, I'll never understand. She'd clearly been poring over religious texts in the village chief's study lately—no doubt she'd used those to invent her own prayer liturgy.
A prayer to me, of all things.
Somehow it felt like I ought to answer in a voice of grave majesty. But I was, at heart, nothing more than a mysterious sapling on the hill behind the village, so I held my silence.
Honestly, that sort of supplication is for a magnificent god looking down from the heavens. It's not a sapling's job.
"Whew."
Having prayed away her anxiety, Thermia returned to a settled state.
"There's not much I can do about it anyway, so it's not really worth fretting over, is it."
Her gaze shifted to Velesa.
"But unnie, isn't the Crown Prince's status awfully high? I thought he was a fallen noble, but an actual Crown Prince? That's way beyond anything I expected."
Velesa worked her loom in silence for a moment.
"······Going by the way he talked, I did think he was probably above the level of a fallen noble. But I never guessed he was the Crown Prince."
"Right? I didn't say anything, but I'd figured a wealthy fallen noble would suit you nicely."
Thermia looked at her sister with genuine concern.
"You ran that fancy clothing boutique back in the capital, unnie, and you only came here because you were sick to death of jerks throwing confessions at you. It's not like you'd ever have to bow to anyone. So deep down I figured some rich fallen noble would be about the right match for you."
The Crown Prince, though, was on an entirely different level. Not just royalty, but the next king.
"Hard to say."
Velesa gave a wry smile.
"If he simply leaves like you said, there's nothing I can do about it anyway, so isn't this worrying for nothing?"
"And if you asked him to take you with him?"
"Then······"
Velesa's smile turned razor-sharp.
"That would mean he's rotten to the core. Dragging me off wherever suits him alone—that's the path where I suffer the most."
Thermia sagged with relief.
"Oh, well then. Forget that high-and-mighty jerk, and just keep living here with me like you do now."
The girl threw her arms around her sister.
"I never liked that jerk from the start. He got slapped across the face and still wouldn't give up—what's the difference between him and all the creeps who drove you out of the capital?"
Whoa. Whoa there. Am I really allowed to listen in on what's shaping up to be some serious ex-boyfriend trash talk?
But then Velesa abruptly pushed back.
"Now that I've spent time with him, he turned out to be different in a lot of ways. He's a thoughtful man. Don't put it so harshly."
Thermia's face went blank with disbelief.
"U-uh, unnie? I thought you'd given up on him?"
Velesa smiled sweetly.
"I said I'd consider it if he asked me to come along. I never said I'd give him up. If it comes to it, I intend to go to the capital."
"Huh? Huh? Isn't that the exact same thing?"
"It is not."
Velesa offered no further explanation and threw herself into her weaving. From then on, Thermia clung to her, asking whether she truly meant to go, but all she got in return was an evasive smile.
Wow. Velesa really does know exactly what she wants. I suppose that's how she was the only elf to walk the path of a seamstress while everyone else took up the hunt.
Teacher Paelian walked through the forest. His steps were direct and unhurried, as though he had come with a purpose.
Yet the moment he arrived at the grassy clearing, he seemed to sink into reverie—circling to take in his surroundings, then tilting his head back to study me from root to crown.
This forest is truly beautiful, a lovely sight to behold, but having someone stare at it so openly is a little embarrassing.
I rustled my branches to urge him to speak. My dozens-of-meters-tall trunk swayed gently, stirring up a breeze. The wind tousled Paelian's hair. He closed his eyes, exhaled slowly, savored the breeze—and only then approached.
"I was worried I might be disturbing the tranquility you so enjoy, great Tree."
Tranquility, he says.
—A forest has never known silence. Beneath your feet, insects bustle about their business; up in that sky, birds beat their wings in flight. Just as the rabbit's visits to this forest are never a disturbance, neither is yours.
I added, almost playfully:
—You're probably being cautious because you don't know my history, but I'm really not standoffish at all. I don't particularly treasure quiet, either. What I love is watching people. Come by as often as you like, alone or otherwise.
Truthfully, if he visited often enough, he might notice that I rather quietly need someone to talk to.
"Is that so······?"
Paelian looked faintly dazed. Perhaps this was the sorrow of the newcomer—no help for being outpaced by the insider knowledge the natives kept jealously guarded.
Very well. I would share one more secret with him.
—I'll tell you a shocking secret. Right now, only the natives know it. It's enormous.
"I'm listening intently."
Paelian focused.
—The truth is, I am not a sacred tree.
"······."
The shocking secret was laid bare.
—The whole sacred tree business was a pageant staged at the village level—a spiritual anchor to help the newcomers assimilate. Originally, I'm just a sapling that sprouted on the hill behind the village. No one has ever needed special rites to visit me, and the village has never worshipped me. All of it, every bit, was theater born of necessity.
The natives all knew I was a sapling that had abruptly sprung up on the back hill, but the newcomers had surely assumed I was some centuries-old, wise old giant. The shock of the truth would be beyond words.
And yet Paelian hesitated.
"Well... I was already warned about that, by Thermia."
—Oh, really?
"Yes."
Paelian spoke slowly, as if searching his memory.
"We know perfectly well that you are simply a sapling on the hill behind the village. And that, if we stretch things, you are a mysterious simply-a-sapling-on-the-hill-behind-the-village. I concur with that assessment as well."
I was moved.
As expected of a teacher—he really is clever. So this is what they mean by elite.
"I have never once been mistaken on the matter, so you needn't worry."
—What a relief. Honestly, the lies have been piling up lately and it's been weighing on me. To be called a sacred tree when I'm just a young sapling with a bag of tricks—I mean, if I were a centuries-old giant, fine, but I'm a first-year seedling. The role doesn't fit at all.
Paelian laughed. Ha. Ha. Ha.
"Rest assured, then. Though so—you truly are a first-year sapling."
For a while, his gaze wandered over the emerald tree dozens of meters high. Wind blew through, stirring the branches. The leaves began to sing.
Lost in the moment, Paelian bowed his head with deep formality.
"I wish to nurture this village."
His voice resonated through the clearing.
"I want to build a village for the elves—a home, a foundation. Just as I studied and sought out my own path, I wish to create a homeland where elves can walk paths they were never handed down, and step out into the world."
The teacher bowed low.
"Grant me your blessing."
A single fallen leaf settled atop the elf's head.
I stirred my magic and brushed the leaf away for him.
—You needn't ask my permission. If you wish to do it, do it. Watching the village grow, and watching someone strike out on their own path and leave—that is a joy in itself.
The teacher lifted his head and smiled.
"It will be a joy indeed."
—Do you have a concrete plan?
The answer came without a moment's pause.
"Since we routed the slave traders in the area this spring, they've been lying low. As a result, newcomers have been flowing in as well."
Good news. Village Chief Eldrin had said they'd stay away through the summer, and so it had proven.
"However, the slave traders have by no means given up and walked away."
A finger pointed off into the far distance.
"Travel quite a ways east, and you'll find another village where elves have gathered, much like ours. Newcomers who wearied on the way to our village gave up and settled there instead, and that is how its numbers grew—by my understanding, it now stands at around two hundred souls."
Whoa?
"According to my sources, the settlement has grown unstable and dangerous, strained by more newcomers than the natives could absorb. And I am hardly the only one who knows it. The slave traders, retreating from our region, banded together and launched a raid on the village—their chief, I'm told, is now dead."
Whoa? Those slave traders have gone far, far too far. Shouldn't greed be trimmed down to a reasonable size?
"The raid itself was repelled, but the traders' alliance hasn't withdrawn, and the village's order is in disarray. Apparently the situation is dire beyond telling."
—And you're proposing we go help them?
"Precisely. And while we're at it, we absorb the entire village and relocate them here—growing our own village to a thousand strong."
Paelian's voice climbed with evident delight at the mere thought.
"That is far too large to be called a mere village. If one exaggerates generously, it borders on a proto-city. At that scale, we could realize a truly vast range of policies."
—And the slave traders won't be coming within a mile of it, I take it?
The teacher laughed heartily.
"The slave traders would cease to be a problem worth deliberating. The eastern elf village originally took in newcomers precisely to block the traders, but luck has run against them in every possible way."
It may not be my fault, exactly, but the urge to help was welling up all the same.
—Then let's put it on the agenda for the next village meeting. If we lack the capacity, so be it, but I imagine the chief will consider it very deeply indeed.
"······Pardon?"
Paelian looked flustered.
"No—Great Tree, if you would simply grant your approval, I will push it through myself. This is an urgent matter; there's no real need for the excess ceremony of a village meeting."
Whoa?
—Are you seriously trying to ride the authority of the sacred tree to bypass proper procedure? That's not allowed. Take it through the village meeting.
Paelian's face said his scheme had been caught red-handed.
A covert power grab, no less.
Whoa. Elites are terrifying.
So many visitors today.
"The hour of our departure draws near, so I have come to pay my respects."
The Crown Prince had come calling.
"I said I would show you a changed man, yet here I am, leaving as I am. It shames me."
He scratched his head sheepishly.
—I wasn't expecting anything, so no matter.
"What?!"
A ripple of laughter passed through my leaves.
—Still, you've changed since the first time we met, so I'll think kindly of you.
Hmm.
A busy Crown Prince would likely never return this way, so perhaps I ought to give him a keepsake. He carried a sword, so a single blade should do nicely.
—Wait a moment.
I prodded the Pebble Girl awake, poke by poke. When I conveyed my request, she rubbed her eyes sleepily, then shuffled off toward the iron ores I had told her to keep safe for me, the Tree.
The little girl stretched out her hand. A quiet asking of nature's leave rippled through the ore, stirring it. Rock parted from metal, and a lump of crude iron emerged into view.
The Pebble Girl narrowed her brow in concentration. Impurities bled out of the iron and streamed away, leaving the metal in a state of pure, snow-white clarity. At her second gesture, impurities selected from the rock and the earth itself flowed in and mingled with the iron.
But this was an artificial process, and it taxed the spirit sorely—she kept glancing sidelong at me even as she worked, pebble that she was.
So I have to help her, do I.
I gathered my intent and poured it into the iron. Light blazed brilliantly. The iron and the impurities blended smoothly, fusing into a single unified whole.
Satisfied, the Pebble Girl gave her hand a flourish.
The mass of steel sank into the ground. Deep within the earth, the steel received the pressure and warmth of tens of thousands of years, compressed by the land itself, its form slowly transforming.
When she gestured to raise it once more, a snow-white blade rose from the depths of the earth.
The blade was passed up to me. I received it on my branches.
Even if it had passed through human hands, whatever was fashioned from my branches was, in the end, still a branch of mine.
Intent poured into the branch. Light flickered. The branch grew of its own accord, coiling around the blade—binding it fast, shaping itself into a hilt, forging the whole into one complete sword.
The light subsided, and a dignified sword stood finished.
I carried the branch over and offered it to the Crown Prince.
—Your royal vaults will hold finer swords than this, no doubt, but take it with you as a keepsake.
The sun fell upon the sword—tempered by an earth spirit, completed by a sacred tree. The blade caught the light and split it, spraying a fan of radiance.
The Crown Prince stood speechless, and for a long while, did not take the sword from my hand.