The Guard Captain's Apology
"Forgive me for this discourtesy — I haven't even introduced myself."
"Not at all. Please don't give it another thought."
That should have been Olivia's line. But she and Sylphy were both radiating tension so thick you could have cut it with a knife, so I had already decided to step in as mediator. Olivia would insist she hadn't done anything wrong — I knew that much — and yet she still had the social sense to read the room.
"So... ah, pardon me. May I ask your name?"
"I am Les, captain of the Elvenheim Guard. We met earlier in the audience chamber."
He spoke as he reached for his water, the meal not yet having arrived. A trained hand. Elves were born with an innate gift for the bow, so those who took up the sword were rare. It wasn't as though they were looked down on for it, but as a matter of actual ability, it was practically common knowledge that an elf with a bow outclassed one with a blade. For an elf like that to take up the sword and climb as high as Guard Captain was proof of both natural talent and effort that had never once stopped. That effort was written into Les's body itself.
"So what's this about?"
Olivia asked, her voice a little awkward, a little unsteady. Les closed his eyes as if gathering his thoughts, then spoke at once.
"I may not have the standing to speak for Elvenheim as a whole. Even so, I have come to offer an apology."
"An apology? To me?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"When you last visited, I had left my post to deal with monsters nearby, so I do not know the precise circumstances. But I was told that we elves conducted ourselves with discourtesy."
"Discourtesy?"
Olivia looked at him with genuine bewilderment — what discourtesy? — and it was Les who seemed the more flustered of the two. I let out a small sigh, leaned in close, and murmured near her ear.
"Last time, you cut down the forest while fighting monsters, remember? He's talking about how they drove you out like they were banishing you."
"Ah. That."
Olivia took a sip of the water set before her, then spoke.
"You don't need to worry about it. Back then, I believed nothing weighed heavier for a person than a life. More precisely, I believed that unless something was already broken beyond repair, nothing could take priority over a life."
Of course, that varied from person to person. The survival instinct sat quite high in the hierarchy of instincts. And yet there were people who ignored that instinct entirely, staking their lives on what they meant to do. Or perhaps it was more accurate to call them people who threw their lives away.
"I simply failed to show Elvenheim the respect it was due. If I'd come at it with a little more humility, the elves wouldn't have gotten so angry."
On top of an already charged situation, she had made remarks that sounded like racial prejudice — of course the elves, already worked up, couldn't have kept their composure. That didn't make it justifiable, exactly. But at least in Olivia's own mind, it seemed she considered it something she could understand.
Les was silent for a moment. Then he bowed his head.
"Uh — wait? W-what's going on? Why are you doing that?"
Fortunately we were in a private room. Had this been an ordinary dining hall, the sight of the Guard Captain bowing his head would have been quite the spectacle.
"My thanks to you, who saved the world."
Olivia said nothing.
"I do not know how you came to be as you are now, but you were someone who should have been treated far better. I only ever saw the you of the past from a distance. Even so, I can tell that the you of then and the you of now are not the same person."
"How?"
"The eyes."
"The eyes?"
"In your eyes back then, there was something I would call venom — something other than goodness. It was not that you stood in the light in order to destroy evil. It was that you stood in the light because you wished to destroy evil."
Sharp insight. Olivia made a face that all but shouted, ugh, he hit the bullseye. I had said it before and I would say it again: this was not a woman cut out for politics. Fortunately, she had no interest in that direction herself.
"So this meeting wasn't arranged simply for thanks and an apology, I take it."
"...You are sharp, Lord Lois."
Les let out a short breath, then continued.
"Hmm."
"What it is, I unfortunately have no way of knowing — I was born dull to such things. Regrettably, loyalty alone has not been enough to make me a knight she would trust with her confidences."
Loyalty. Devotion. You could feel it, unmistakably. Knowing that the current Titania was concealing something, what occupied his thoughts was nothing other than self-reproach. That his queen was wrestling with something, agonizing over it, and that he could do nothing — that she had confided nothing in him — that fact had surely been eating at Les.
"Dull...? Sir Les, you're a knight every elf looks up to."
Sylphy opened his mouth, then flinched and bowed his head the moment Les looked at him.
"Ah — no. I'm sorry. I spoke out of turn."
"That is not so, Lord Sylphy."
"Ah — you don't need to keep adding 'Lord' to my name. I'm an elf who stained the royal bloodline, after all."
"...To someone as dull as I, reading Titania's thoughts is difficult, and so is reading the hearts of the elves. I am nothing more than a warrior who took up a sword and swung it. And even that specialty of mine is child's play compared to the Hero."
Les carefully looked away from Sylphy, then looked back.
"You've grown a great deal. Do you remember me?"
"Yes."
"Perhaps because human blood is mixed in, you grow quickly. The feelings Titania holds toward you surely cannot be explained in simple words."
Sylphy said nothing.
"Hmm. I'm not sure if it's all right for me to ask this."
"It is no trouble."
Olivia looked at Les and said,
"Don't elves hate half-elves?"
"...Among the younger elves, that is sometimes the case. But among those of greater years, it is rather uncommon. We understand Titania's pain, and at the same time we understand that this is a sin that should never have been committed."
Olivia fell silent.
"Titania was a war hero, and she carried a great deal of pain. After she became Titania through that overwhelming charisma and power, she became the eternal queen of the elves."
Les shook his head, as if it pained him.
"And so we believed she belonged on the throne. Even if she made the wrong choice, she was a queen who protected the elves beyond that."
Olivia listened in silence.
"Is this the morality and ethics you have to throw away to keep a nation standing?"
"The difficult questions, unfortunately, I do not know the answers to. But that Titania's entire life has been spent protecting Elvenheim and the elves — that much, this Les can stake everything he has to affirm."
"...Don't stake everything on something like that."
"My apologies. I am a man without much tact."
Les bowed his head, then continued.
"To return to the matter at hand — older elves often have no particular feeling toward half-elves. Pity is far more common. ...And that is our sin."
"Your sin?"
"The sin of seating Titania on a lonely throne, pitying her for it, and failing to undo the wrong choice she made."
I watched Olivia and Sylphy's reactions. They both wore the look of people who wanted to say something and had no idea how.
"Sir Les. Then what you want from us is... no. More precisely, you have something you want from Olivia and Sylphy, don't you."
"...As you anticipated."
"I have no idea."
"Neither do I."
They said it with such confidence. Well, that was fine. I glanced at Les; he nodded as if to say I was free to speak, so I explained.
"From Olivia, you want her to draw out whatever Titania is currently agonizing over. And from Sylphy, you want him to help settle the sin that Titania and the elves have been committing."
"...Indeed. Excellent. ...I am well aware that making such a request is foolish, and I know how discourteous it is."
Asking this of Olivia, who had no fond memories of Elvenheim, and of Sylphy, a half-elf whose very existence was not welcomed here — it was certainly rude. But Les had already seen Olivia and Sylphy in the audience chamber, and he had made his judgment. This was worth attempting. It might have been something of a gamble, but he had decided that Elvenheim needed to change.
"I do not need an answer immediately. ...And I believe what Titania is currently struggling with is likely related to the World Tree. I dare to think it may also be necessary for the Hero to obtain what she seeks."
"I see."
"What will you do?"
When I asked, Olivia and Sylphy fell silent at the same time.
"First."
"First?"
"How about we eat and think about it?"
"I should be able to manage porridge by now, at least."
"That's why I ordered the porridge..."
A deep rumble shook the air. We all looked out the window. What was that?
"Kyaaaa!!"
"The building's collapsing!"
"The children! The children!!"
I grasped the situation at once. A house perched in the trees had suddenly given way, and the children who'd been near it were falling with it.
"Oli—"
Olivia smashed through the window and launched herself out. She caught the children immediately — then seemed to remember she only had one hand.
"Tsk!"
She clicked her tongue and caught another child with her foot, somehow. If they hit the ground like that, the impact would land hardest on Olivia, but it wouldn't spare the young elves either. And the problem wasn't only the ground — debris from the building was still falling from above.
Sylphy swiftly formed a bow from mana and began punching arrows through every scrap of falling wreckage headed for the children.
"Lady Olivia! Quickly!!"
"Kh—! ...Lois!!"
"I know."
There was time. This was Elvenheim. A nation of nature. It was enough.
"Hup."
I swept my hand, and water bloomed into being in an instant, catching the falling wreckage. Without pausing, I sent wind swirling around Olivia and the children she held, rapidly bleeding off their descent.
"Yes!! I love you!"
"...That's embarrassing, so please don't shout it — and please come here."
"Okay! Come on, let's go!"
"Ah, yes!"
"Th-thank you!"
Only once the children were clear did I slowly lower the water, setting the wreckage down safely. Then the water scattered in an instant, and I let out a long breath. For emergency response, there was nothing quite as convenient as my abilities.
Partway through, Olivia's movements had gone sluggish. She had probably overused her mana without realizing it, and the curse had hit her with a spike of agony. She was still smiling, but it had to hurt like hell.
"Whew. That collapse came out of nowhere. Scared me."
"Thank you for saving us!"
"Uh — me?"
The young elves were speaking to Sylphy, who went blank for a moment, not quite processing it.
"Big sis! That was amazing! You just punched through the rock that was about to hit my head! Amazing!"
"Uh, I'm not a big sis..."
"Ah! Is it because I'm an elf, so I'm actually older than you? Elves come of age late!"
"No, that's not it... I'm a man."
"What!?"
"I thought you were a super pretty big sister, but you were a big brother..."
Sylphy wore a complicated expression, but there was nothing to be done about this one. With that face and that body, being a man was, in Olivia's words, his gender committing dereliction of duty.
"Big brother."
"Yes?"
"Thank you."
Sylphy's eyes went wide. What did a young elf child's words mean to him? His eyes trembled. He looked, somehow, as if he might cry.
"It was nothing. I'm just glad you're all right."
"Les."
Les looked around for a moment. Elves were watching. Their gazes were troubled. There was the long-standing aversion to half-elves, and here were children who knew little of it, thanking a half-elf. And this was a situation in which, by any measure, a half-elf deserved thanks. Should he go and offer his own?
In the midst of that dilemma, Les bowed his head before all those watching elves.
"S-Sir Les! Please raise your head! I-in a place with this many people...!"
Sylphy was flustered. The Guard Captain had thanked a half-elf. And he hadn't merely said the words — he had bowed his head. That was surely the seed of a small disturbance. And yet Les had bowed. No — in this case, it was precisely because of that that he had bowed.
"Thank you, big brother!"
"Are you sure she's not a big sister?"
"You wouldn't know until you pulled the pants down, right?"
"I... I am a man..."
Sometimes a child's innocence was terrifying.
"We've never actually seen it, so we wouldn't know either, right? Lois?"
"Olivia..."
There was one more childlike person here.