The Heat of a Tipsy Night (1)
On my way to Ariel's quarters through the north gate of the grand duke's castle, I ran into Lumiang with her hand stretched toward the sky.
She stood with her head tipped back, reaching into empty air. Her left hand clenched and opened again and again, as if trying to seize something that wasn't there. That hand was wrapped in several layers of thin bandages.
"……."
A person frozen in the middle of the path, stirring the void as though time itself had slowed around her—it made for a rather strange sight. And a precarious one.
A faint bruise on her cheek. The bandaged left hand. Eyes fixed on nothing, hollowed out. And that crooked little smile. What on earth had happened in a single day? What could she have gone through to end up like this overnight? I couldn't even begin to guess.
It felt as if something inside her had broken. As if some cord had snapped clean through. As if she had surrendered everything to something she simply could not bear.
After a while of that marionette-like behavior, Lumiang lowered her hand and her head. The unfocused eyes that had been staring at the sky settled on me. They no longer held fury or venom—only a depth of emptiness and resignation I couldn't measure.
"…What are you… doing?"
I asked, wanting to know. What she was doing out here in the middle of the road at this hour of the night. Why she had been waving her hand at empty air. What… had happened.
For some reason I couldn't simply look away and walk past the way I once would have.
The voice that should have rung clear only a day before now came out hollow, as if it were struggling up from the bottom of a deep cave.
"I was… looking at the clouds."
A vacant voice and sunken eyes, like someone who hadn't slept in days. She looked far too haggard for a change that had supposedly taken only a single day.
"How did your hand end up like that?"
I asked, glancing at the bandaged left hand.
And then—
"Y-you mean you… hurt yourself?"
—another hard-to-believe story reached me. That she had driven those same nails that had once raked my cheek into her own palm until she drew blood.
"The wound… healed……?"
Lumiang scanned my cheek, looking mildly surprised. At the cheek that Rachel's ointment had left smooth and clean.
"Yes."
At my answer, her cracked lips curved into a faint arc. A smile whose meaning I couldn't read.
"That's… good."
What was good about it? That the mark of her impulsive violence had vanished, and that somehow comforted her? That she thought she might be able to stitch her cracked convictions back together?
The chance reunion that had begun in questions only bred more questions, and with nothing but those questions left behind, she made to leave.
"I'll… go…."
Unlike all those days at the academy when Elden had always been the one to walk past her, this time Lumiang was the one walking past me—past Elden.
"Young Lady."
And then, for the first time across both original Elden's memories and my own, I called her to a stop.
I did not regret the things I had done to escape that unjust life. Not now. Not ever. I had no desire to revel in the catastrophe those actions had set in motion, nor to blame myself for the obsession that drove them. By the same token, I felt no pity for the heroine's emptiness, no urge to offer her sympathy. No guilt either.
It was simply that—
"Take this. It will keep the wound from scarring."
—I had no intention of hoarding what I could give. I simply didn't want to become the sort of miser who begrudged even the smallest thing. More than that, unlike the days when I had possessed nothing and could offer nothing, I now had something to give, and I was capable of a modest kindness. The situation had changed from those days when avoidance and looking the other way had been the only path to survival, and so I offered the help.
That was why, after pressing the little pot of ointment into the hand of the Lumiang who could only stare blankly at the gesture, I turned and walked on toward the north gate.
A short while later, a fine drizzle began to fall from the dry night sky, wetting the northern territory.
"Ugh. Rain, all of a sudden? Come on, Rachel."
"Yes."
We needed to hurry to Ariel's quarters.
"Everyone, assemble—!"
"Yes—!"
On the night the drizzle began, Ariel's quarters—already under emergency status—saw the servants snap into high alert to receive the guests about to arrive. It was also an emergency posture for delivering the finest possible party to the first friend their young lady had ever invited. The only problem was that the guest in question was a young lord with a well-earned reputation as a complete wastrel.
"Th-there's really no need to go that far, you know? Elden isn't a scary person anymore."
Ariel was doing her best to ease the servants' vigilance, fretting that she might have ruined their peaceful night by inviting Elden in the first place.
"Guys? You really don't have to be afraid. Elden's completely different now, I swear! Please believe me…!"
"Line everything up! Get the plates and bowls in perfect rows!"
"Yes!"
"Um? Why are you going this far? He's not the Elden you used to know!"
"Guards! Until the party is over, even those off-duty will enter emergency alert status without exception!"
"Yes!"
Feeling as though she had unintentionally inflicted a trial upon the servants and guards, Ariel hurried this way and that in a fluster—but there was no chance her words would reach ears already seized by terror. She half wanted to cancel the party altogether.
"Nnngh……."
He wasn't the old Elden anymore. He had become a man more splendid than anyone. There was absolutely no reason to be afraid. Ariel found the servants who still saw him only as an object of dread both frustrating and, in another way, a little hurtful.
She understood, of course. They had never witnessed the change in the young lord once called a wastrel—how could they simply believe it? Still, it pained her that her precious reading companion's efforts were being so thoroughly discounted.
In the end, Ariel gave up and stepped into the dressing room with her personal maid.
She couldn't even remember the last time she had held a party. There had been a few when she was little… but she had cared so little that she recalled neither what they had done nor what they had eaten. For a young girl who saw no need to mingle with people and simply preferred her books, they had been nothing but wasted hours.
Naturally—
"Do I really need a dress and makeup…? It's just a quiet meal with a friend I see all the time."
—Ariel was short on the virtues expected of a young lady, and dresses and cosmetics felt only cumbersome. But her personal maid was adamant.
"When a young lady of a count's house hosts a party, if she doesn't wear a dress or put on makeup, what becomes of House Elrond's dignity?"
"Well, that's true, but…"
She hadn't meant for it to go this far. Why was everyone making such a fuss?
In the end Ariel was led by her maid's hand and, for the first time in ages, put on a dress. A red one that suited her golden hair beautifully. The neckline was cut low enough to bare her shoulders, with a wave of lace along the upper edge—a dress that radiated femininity. Standing before the full-length mirror, Ariel awkwardly tucked her hair behind her ear. The back plunged all the way past her shoulder blades; it felt almost indecent.
"I-isn't this a little much…?"
"Not at all. Everyone wears at least this much. Do you know how important parties are to the nobility? Young Lord Elden will almost certainly arrive in a splendid formal uniform."
"A splendid… uniform?"
"Of course. And if my lady greets him looking shabby, who knows what kind of scene an angry Young Lord Elden might make…!"
Her maid gave a full-body shudder, face drained of color. Ariel only looked puzzled. Elden in a uniform? He always wore comfortable clothes; she couldn't picture him in formal dress. She had only ever met him on days without the final evaluation matches, or after they were over. What would he look like in a party uniform?
Curious now, Ariel waited for him to arrive—and when word came that he had, she rushed out barefoot to greet him, only to find her eyes going round.
"Elden! Welcome! ……Huh?"
It was the lovely silhouette standing at his side. A woman in a red dress just like her own. Rachel, who always wore nothing but stiff knight's attire, was in a dress, and the sight seized Ariel's gaze at once. She had even let down the hair she usually kept tied back. That unusually feminine look made Ariel quietly grateful she had worn the dress she had thought so shameless.
"Thank you for the invitation, Young Lady."
And Rachel, standing pressed right up against Elden's side as she offered the greeting, left Ariel with a strange feeling. Perhaps it was how perfectly the two of them matched, without a single note of disharmony. Or perhaps it was that she was wearing the exact same shade of red. Ariel decided the jealousy rising in her was a thoroughly ugly and wicked impulse, and greeted them with a bright smile instead.
"Welcome, Dame Rachel."
And so the party began.
Around the circular table in the party hall, Ariel, Elden, and Rachel sat at precise one-hundred-twenty-degree intervals, dividing it into thirds.
"Thanks for inviting us, Ariel."
"Hehe. Of course I would."
"That dress really suits you. You look lovely."
A flush of heat!
At Elden's casual greeting, Ariel's face burned so red even the makeup couldn't hide it. She fussed uselessly with the lace at the top of her dress. A compliment paid to her as a woman—she couldn't remember the last time she had received one, and she had no idea what to do with herself.
"Y-you look really good in that uniform too."
"Do I? Glad to hear it. I put a little effort into it."
Compliments went back and forth, and soon wine and food arrived in abundance. Scanning the dishes, Elden turned to Ariel with mild surprise.
"There's Monster Cuisine too?"
"Ah. Because you like it. I had some prepared."
If the servants' eyes and ears hadn't been everywhere, Ariel would have added that she had tried it herself and found it delicious. Swallowing the words, she lifted her glass. A deep violet wine. She was following her personal maid's teaching that the host must raise the toast first.
"Shall we toast?"
"Sounds good."
The table was too wide to clink glasses, so they raised them roughly to face height instead. Elden and Rachel drank without hesitation. Ariel hesitated a moment, staring down into the liquid. The truth was she had never tasted alcohol before. That earlier boast about knowing how to drink had been nothing but a small rebellion born of some nameless impatience.
Clack.
One by one the glasses returned to the table. Seeing that Rachel's was empty, Ariel steeled herself and tightened her grip. Spurred by that same impatience rising again, she squeezed her eyes shut and drank.
Gulp.
Gulp.
Huh?
Her eyes opened. The swallow wasn't bad at all. Just as the Monster Cuisine she had tried for the first time had been tasty, the wine she was tasting for the first time wasn't unpleasant either. She still wasn't sure whether it was truly good, but that first sweet-bitter flavor wasn't something she disliked.
And so—
Clack.
"Hwah……. What. Th-this is fine…?"
She exhaled the thick alcoholic aroma flooding her mouth and set down the empty glass. Then, with a proud look at that empty glass, she thought:
Oh? Maybe I'm pretty good at holding my liquor…
Perhaps that earlier grumble about knowing how to drink hadn't been pure empty bravado after all.
A short while later—
"Heheh, I'm drunk~."
—her tongue began to tangle.