Lapis (3)
Every witch possesses a Mystery.
A Mystery: a law that transcends providence itself.
Witches come by their Mysteries either by birth or by acquisition. Lapis belonged to the latter. The day her Mystery was decided was the day she turned fifteen.
Until she was fifteen, Lapis had no idea she was a witch. She lived among humans. A girl with a modest talent for magic—that was how she thought of herself, and the villagers treated her as an ordinary human in turn.
Until a knight and a priest came to the village and exposed what she truly was.
"Filth."
"Filthy, vile, wicked thing."
"Did you think hiding among people would mask the stench? Your essence is that of a filthy witch. A madwoman who takes joy in killing and burning humans!"
The priest pointed. The knight drew his sword. Lapis turned to her friends and the village elders, but they only stared back with eyes full of terror.
Fear. Hatred. Contempt. Betrayal.
There was none of the familiar warmth in their gazes. Of course she could not blame them. In that age, their reaction was only natural.
It was the era when the Witch of Kamran had burned half the world and stained the rest black, when the demons and witches gathered beneath her shadow slaughtered humankind.
In such times a witch was a virulent plague, a being more terrifying than anything else. Countless people had lost their villages and their loved ones to witches, and so all their rage poured onto Lapis.
They carved her with blades.
They ran her through again and again with swords and spears.
They set her ablaze and stoned her.
The mother who had taken her in when she was abandoned in the forest, who had whispered, You are my daughter, and I will always be your mother, the mother who had once smiled so gently—when that mother's stone split Lapis's forehead and blood ran down her face, Lapis thought:
How worthless trust was. How hollow the promises and oaths that left human lips.
Fifteen years old. A girl who met the world's malice at so young an age was a witch, and she held the right to choose her own Mystery. On the day everything she had ever believed in became utterly worthless, Lapis chose.
That day, in that moment, the course of her life was set.
Distrust.
She would believe in nothing. If she never gave her trust to anyone, she would never be hurt. Trust was worthless, nothing but empty form.
Lapis, the Witch of Distrust.
That day Lapis burned every single person she had ever trusted. And so the Witch of Distrust was born.
Ten years, fifty years, a hundred years…
The Witch of Distrust lived long ages hating humanity, yet she could not spend her entire life on that hatred alone. At the origin of her existence there had been a human.
She never forgot the gentle smile of the mother who had smiled so softly for her. She longed for the warmth in that smile, for the quiet peace of the little cottage she had shared with her mother.
In the end she let the flames die down.
She shut herself inside her cottage seeking peace, yet she remained the Witch of Distrust. A witch who could trust neither human nor witch—nor even herself.
"…"
Then one day—
"Child."
Lapis found a human who resembled her.
A human who lived by burning through his own life, yet had nothing left to burn. A human who wished to give up living and, at the same time, wished to live—a man of dual, contradictory longings.
"Are you that famous witch hunter?"
She spoke to the human who was like her.
Perhaps, she thought.
"Me?"
A flicker of interest. A slight deviation from routine. A spring breeze that merely tickled the hair. With a heart that light, Lapis reached out to a certain human.
"Lapis."
The Witch of Distrust, Lapis.
It had been a light heart.
She had expected nothing great.
A fleeting amusement, a pinch of salt or sugar to scatter over a dull, dry life—that was all Lapis thought he would be.
"Hey."
But—
"Hey, witch."
Just as the world had always betrayed her—
"Lapis."
Anton openly refused her expectation. As if to declare he was no such trifling man, Anton Quijano kept knocking on the cottage door without cease.
"Lapis, today's are morning glories."
Covered in dirt, he would appear and hold out flowers, eyes shining as though he could hardly wait to see how she would react. Whenever he did that, Lapis would debate whether to offer a reluctant smile—then catch sight of the flowers he had brought and burst into real laughter from sheer absurdity.
"Where did you even get these? Morning glories aren't easy to find in the Outer Land, are they?"
"Ah, true, it wasn't easy. But between 'difficult' and 'impossible' lies an enormous gulf."
"I can already tell this is going to be a long story. Come in first. And shake off that dirt."
"Oh dear. One cannot set foot in a lady's home covered in soil."
At Anton's theatrical fretting Lapis covered her mouth again and laughed, a soft little pff.
"So where did you get the flowers?"
"Do you know Heavenly Meteor?"
"Ah, that control freak? Of course."
"The sky whale of Heavenly Meteor has a vast garden, does it not? I plucked them from there."
"…From there? Are you insane?"
"Truly a heart-pounding adventure. Shall I tell you every detail? The grand adventure tale sealed inside those morning glories."
Pale violet morning glories.
She had thought nothing of them when she first took the flowers, yet the tale Anton told made Lapis look at them with real interest. By the time the story ended she carefully set the morning glories in a water jug.
"They're pretty, these flowers."
As though handling a precious treasure, Lapis gently stroked a petal. And without even realizing it, she smiled.
"It was worth the trouble of fetching them."
Whenever she smiled, Anton would nod in satisfaction, as if he would endure any hardship just to see that smile once more.
Days like that continued.
Anton found every possible way to make Lapis laugh. She who had believed herself someone who rarely smiled found herself bursting into laughter again and again in his company.
"Pfft—ha, haah… What—what even is that!"
She clutched her stomach and roared with laughter.
She hung her head and shook her shoulders.
Sometimes sheer disbelief wrung a dry chuckle from her.
The longer those days went on, the more Lapis found herself looking forward to the days Anton came. On the days he did not, she would sit by the window and stare idly outside. On the days he did, she would spend the previous evening fretting over what to wear and what they might talk about.
A throb.
And every time—
A squeeze.
Lapis felt her heart race. The racing came with pain. Distrust—the fear that someday Anton, too, might betray her. Taboo—the law carved into her very soul that a witch must never love a human.
"…Let's stop here. Here, Anton."
One day when her heart pounded as if it would burst, Lapis finally chose.
To put distance between them.
Not to draw any closer than this.
"Let's stop here, the two of us. I don't want to be hurt by you."
"…"
"Here. Just to here. Yes—let's not cross the line. Life's become bearable now, hasn't it? I'll return your heart, you'll keep only the good memories, and that's the end. Clean and neat."
Leave only happy memories, and end the story before either of them could betray the other. She could still end it now. So Lapis took one step back—yet Anton did not retreat.
"Then take it. My half."
"What?"
"If you think I'll betray you, just crush that heart, won't you? I'm not telling you to trust me. Doubt me. Keep doubting me all you like."
Instead he closed the distance.
Affirming even her most terrible part—Distrust—Anton sank to one knee and smiled. As always, a smile that was magnificent yet a little clumsy.
"I love you. Lapis."
She never forgot those words.
"Me."
And so, even as she told herself she must not, she must never, she spoke the words that answered them.
"Find me, Anton."
I'll be waiting.
That was the trust the Witch of Distrust offered.
The witch who had resolved never to believe in anyone offered belief while denying her entire life. As she held that trust out, Lapis denied herself without end. He'll betray me. As always, hope will be betrayed and trust will be trampled.
Yet at the same time Lapis thought:
If it was Anton Quijano, that would still be all right. Even if the trust was betrayed, even if he wounded her—if the one who did it was Anton, it would be all right.
And so time flowed on.
Ten years, fifty years, a hundred, two hundred…
Four hundred years in all.
On this day, after four hundred years, Lapis raised her head and looked ahead.
"Lapis."
There he stood.
"I kept the promise."
Anton Quijano held out a red rose.
Even after four hundred years he still wore that magnificent yet still slightly clumsy smile. The moment their eyes met, every worry and torment that had filled Lapis's mind simply blew away.
Once again, Lapis burst into laughter.
A smile that had not changed in the slightest from four hundred years ago.
"A rose."
"A rose it is."
"And a red one, at that. How did you manage it?"
"Spend four hundred years researching and something eventually works out. If I started unraveling the story behind this rose we'd never finish. I'd have to begin with the oldest garden of all."
"Honestly."
"Yes."
"Truly."
Lapis carefully stroked the rose's petals.
"You kept it. The promise."
She was not speaking of the rose alone.
Lapis had asked him to find her, and Anton had truly found her across four hundred years of time.
"It must have been hard. Finding me."
"Ah. It certainly wasn't easy."
"Was it painful?"
"It wasn't painful. I traveled thinking only of gathering stories to tell you, and the time passed in a flash."
And that friend over there helped as well.
Anton said so while glancing back over his shoulder. There stood Najin, still catching his breath after clearing away the monsters. As if telling him to talk it out, Najin gave Anton a small nod and stepped several paces farther back.
"There is much I wish to say."
Anton drew a long breath.
"But right now there is only one thing I want to say. Lapis?"
"Yes, Anton."
"Thank you for trusting me. And thank you for waiting for me."
Lapis sucked in a sharp breath.
Just as she opened her mouth to make excuses, Anton shook his head and pointed at her heart—more precisely, at the half of it that was his own.
"Don't say it isn't so. You were nowhere in this tower. You could have waited for me inside a dream. On the floor right below this one—the floor that shows happy dreams—you could have lived lost in dreams. You had that chance."
But you did not.
"You waited for me in reality."
For a full four hundred years.
"I am grateful for that waiting."
"…Honestly."
Lapis dragged a hand down her face.
"You—do you not know my name?"
"I know it. It's Lapis."
"I am Lapis, the Witch of Distrust."
"That hardly matters. Whatever sits in front of the name, you are still you."
"It's Distrust. My Mystery. I cannot believe in anything. I cannot give trust or open my heart to anyone."
Because humans had betrayed her.
Because everything she trusted had betrayed her.
She had simply distrusted.
"So I am the Witch of Distrust."
"I know. You told me so yourself."
"…"
"…"
"At this point, take a hint, you fool."
Lapis gave a short laugh.
"I may be the Witch of Distrust—"
She looked at Anton.
"—but I ended up believing your words. I believed you when you said you would come for me, and I waited for you at the top for four hundred years. I tried to doubt you, but I couldn't. Even if a thousand years had passed it would have been the same."
Lapis wept, and she laughed.
"You said you would give up being a knight because you loved me, didn't you?"
As if it were nothing, as if it did not matter in the least, Anton four hundred years ago had said he would cast everything away for her sake.
"As for me—"
The thing she had not been able to answer then.
The thing she could say now.
"I gave up being a witch so that I could love you."
Anton's eyes went wide.
Lapis laid a hand over her heart and spoke.
"What kind of Witch of Distrust doesn't distrust?"
Just as you discarded everything for me.
Just as you changed everything for me.
"I am Lapis."
I, too, will change everything for you, and cast it all away.
Wouldn't that be fair?
"Simply Lapis."
The Witch of Distrust had placed her trust in a human. After four hundred years that trust was answered. In the first moment her trust was ever repaid, Lapis's Mystery lost its color, and the elements that composed her faded.
The chains that had bound her to the Black Spire.
The "restraints for imprisoning witches" created by the Witch of Kamran loosened of their own accord. Because Lapis was no longer a witch.
"Thank you for finding me. Anton."
As she spoke those words, Lapis looked ready to crumble at any second. For this single moment of reunion with Anton she had denied her Mystery and the very element of "witch" that formed her soul. Without denying them she could never have met him again.
But the price of that denial could not be escaped.
A star that denies itself is doomed to break.
A flash.
The nine stars she possessed plummeted. Lapis's soul and body began to erode and crumble. For all the weight of a four-hundred-year reunion, the moment of parting was drawing near.
"Ah."
Watching her own body disintegrate, Lapis murmured.
"When I watched Lena—the witch who loved a human—I called her a madwoman and laughed. I never thought I'd make the same choice. It's all your fault, Anton."
Lapis smiled bitterly.
"I'm sorry, Anton. Love between a witch and a human always ends like this. Still, there should be about ten days left. In those ten days we can make unforgettable—"
"Ten days after four hundred years of waiting. Far too short."
"It can't be helped. Love between human and witch is nothing but tragedy."
"Tragedy, is it."
Anton grinned.
"Lapis, do you remember what I told you before?"
This time the smile was not clumsy at all—it was perfect.
"Whether it becomes tragedy or comedy is up to me to decide."
"…What?"
Anton pulled Lapis into his arms. He pressed his forehead to hers. At a distance where their breath mingled, he whispered into her ear.
"Did you think I wouldn't know my lady would make a choice like this? And did you think that even with four hundred years to prepare I would have no countermeasure ready?"
Anton smiled mischievously.
"Not a chance."
Anton split the star he possessed in half. The half he divided flew straight to the half of Lapis's heart that was already his own heart.
Because Lapis held Anton's heart.
Because each had abandoned self for the other.
Because each was everything to the other.
Half of Anton's star passed perfectly into Lapis. This was nothing so simple as dividing a star or gifting starlight. It was two humans sharing one complete constellation.
Lapis's body, which had been eroding after the loss of her stars, began to restore itself.
While a startled Lapis stared at him with wide eyes, Anton smiled as though even that expression was precious, and kissed her.
"I love you. Lapis."
Even after four hundred years, still.
As the nine stars fell, a new star rose among them. The legendary romantic—or the legendary fool—who had loved a witch had, across four hundred years, finally achieved a feat no one in human history had ever accomplished.
And the heavens acknowledged that feat.
Anton Quijano and Lapis received a new star.
When they saw the name that had been given to it, both Anton and Lapis burst into laughter.
Trust.
For Lapis, who had ceased to distrust and ceased to be a witch, there could have been no more fitting star.