The End of the Hourglass
As the final grains of sand in a permitted hourglass come into view, humans can't help but reminisce about the past. Zepeto's eyes quietly fixed on the weathered wooden door. Just moments ago, the child who had offered him herbal tea out of worry had left the room. His memories naturally wound back several winters.
The day he had first arrived at the cabin, led by the hand of an elder. Zepeto still couldn't forget the eyes of that hesitant child. Eyes that were utterly empty, worn down to nothing. How tirelessly he had worked to bring light back into them. It hadn't been in vain—the child's gaze had softened a little. She had learned to respect others and compromise. She still didn't laugh or cry. But occasionally, she would express her mood with a sharp edge.
He remembered the moment in the middle of the village street when she suddenly thrust out her small hand, begging him to hold it. The dark aura dwelling in her left arm had frightened him preemptively, and like a foolish old man, he flinched and grabbed her other hand instead. Zepeto inwardly clicked his tongue at his own patheticness, yet the tiny warmth in that grasped hand overwhelmed him. The child had gripped the callused hand of the forest hermit without the slightest hesitation.
So, he thought: If he could just be a sturdier fence around her, someday she would fully remember the name she had lost. She would throw tantrums befitting her age, sob loudly when sad, and finally smile purely and innocently like any ordinary child.
But time passed, and the child never remembered her name. She neither laughed nor cried. Her time remained frozen five years in the past.
—Zepeto, your Heart Image is useless. No power, no miracles—just a frail thing that only embraces.
The first voice he heard was that of his master.
—But if it's your path, embrace it gladly to the end. And prove it. That's what we wizards are.
He had lived with those words etched in his heart. Yet now, at the very last grains of the hourglass, Zepeto could only muster a bitter smile. Had his way been wrong after all? Perhaps keeping the child confined in this narrow, stifling cabin had been the mistake. Maybe it would have been better to let her walk the wider world, clash with countless people, and feel raw wounds and joys directly on her skin. Then, even if she broke against the world, she might have anchored herself with her own strength and reclaimed her lost name and whole heart.
No, she surely would have. She was that strong and talented.
But deep down, he wanted confirmation that he hadn't been wrong. That the grandfather's choice had been right. That she hadn't been cold because of him. That his path, even if it couldn't work miracles on the world, had been miraculous for someone.
"………."
How much time had passed? For days now, Zepeto had lost all sense of it, reflecting on his life. At the tail end of his existence, he retraced every path he'd walked, leaving footprints backward. And at last, the hourglass stopped.
The end was near. The old man turned his head to gaze at the two children keeping vigil by his side.
"Hic, waaah, Grandpa…!"
Evel buried her face in one of his arms, sobbing aloud. A wail far more heartbroken and desperate than when she'd buried her fox, as if she'd lost the entire world. Zepeto barely lifted his hand to stroke her head.
His gaze then shifted to the child standing rigidly on the other side. She still wasn't crying. Just staring at him with the same detached expression as always.
Yes. Always. As ever, Zepeto asked again.
"…Have you remembered your name?"
"………."
The child was silent.
###
They say farewells always come suddenly, but that's not true. Some partings approach steadily, like a meticulously prepared schedule.
As winter's tail end drew near and the blizzard's fury waned, Zepeto noticeably began eating less. At first, he left half his soup. Soon after, he could barely manage a few spoonfuls of thin porridge. These past few days, even that was too much; he sustained himself only on sips of herbal tea to moisten his lips.
No one said it aloud, but everyone in the cabin knew. Me, Evel, Zepeto. This was the process of preparing for death.
And when that day finally came, he called us to the bedroom in a voice like shattering glass. We quietly gathered by his side. And simply took in with our eyes how he was filling the final blank spaces of his life.
"…Child, come here."
I knelt silently by his side.
"Have you remembered your name?"
Instead of my usual "No," I stayed silent.
Zepeto, instead of his usual "Don't rush it," said something else.
"I'm sorry."
Zepeto reached out with a trembling hand and grasped my right hand. A faint warmth flowed from his fingertips.
"I… was wrong. Just embracing everything isn't always the way. This old man's stubbornness ended up narrowing your world instead."
Sadness and regret seeped from his voice. The distinctive self-mocking tone of realizing his choice had failed.
"Now go out into the world. Walk countless paths, grasp hands with innumerable people. Then… surely you'll find your name. You're a strong child."
Zepeto spoke slowly in a hoarse voice. Even hearing his final words, I remained detached.
"Weren't you going back to the White Tower?"
"Tsk tsk… Don't go to the Tower. That's no place for you."
Zepeto's hand gently stroked the back of my right hand. Wherever his rough touch passed, faint trails of light seeped in. The neat geometric equations of clean lines he loved so much. Not world-shaking miracles or grand powers, but something that crept into the lowest, narrowest places and pooled there. The gentle warmth he had crafted his whole life, embracing and purifying all irregularities.
Those equations etched themselves onto the back of my right hand.
"This is…?"
"I hope it helps on your journey ahead…."
With those words, Zepeto seemed to run out of strength, breathing slowly. His eyes moved sluggishly, as if gazing far away. The end was close.
Am I sad? Hard to say. I still don't know.
…But even if emotions fade, memories remain.
I left my hand in his grasp and turned my head to follow his gaze. Like him, I slowly scanned the traces of the past five years left throughout the cabin.
Herbal scents, dry wood smells. After causing trouble at the Tower, traversing the long forest path to reach this cabin—there he was. His teachings had rounded my view of the world, taught me respect and compromise. The worn oven and pots in the kitchen. He loved cooking. More precisely, he loved people eating his cooking. I remember the taste of the fresh cookies and black tea he brought. Cookies so sweet they stung the tongue. Black tea that filled the mouth with bitter warmth.
I didn't hate it. But his stew, attempted in imitation of the village tavern's beef stew, was honestly awful. That's why I stepped up to say I'd handle the cooking from then on.
Stepping out of the kitchen and opening the outer door led to a small greenhouse. He loved watering the potted plants. He found fulfillment in nurturing life, coaxing forth sprouts. I remember your stubbornness. Even dragging your old, sickly body, you insisted on keeping that tiny pot by the window and tending it yourself.
I looked up at the pot on the windowsill. It's withering. Slowly, from the tips of the petals.
Come to think of it, I'd never smiled for you. Not just for you—I'd never smiled for anyone. I never laughed or cried. To you, I was a child whose hands you didn't reach for because she wouldn't cry, but also one who wouldn't smile.
His gaze drifted away. I followed, winding back through memory's thread to the past. There was the mansion. A child huddled in a remote annex, knees hugged tight. Mother's cold eyes. Sharp edges trying to erase the child. Staring at the sunlit window, vaguely yearning for warmth that might someday come. The child who would later go to the Tower, cause an incident, and end up here.
That child's name was.
"…Iris."
My lips moved. A flicker of light returned to his eyes.
"I… I remembered my name."
The child born with black hair in a family symbolizing bright golden blonde. Deemed ominous due to the bizarre misfortune that shattered glass and injured servants when kept nearby. But the child who made it to this rundown cabin and met you. The cursed shadow of the Ertain Count's Estate.
Iris Ertain.
"That's my name."
"Heh heh…."
His ragged breathing eased for a moment. Faint relief welled in the old man's unfocused eyes. A subtle smile spread through the deep wrinkles.
I smiled back at him. The first smile I'd ever given since birth.
"Yes… That's a… pretty…."
And then.
The old man's hand fell onto the blanket. His closed eyes held an expression of utter satisfaction.
"………."
I looked out the window. Everything blurred, impossible to make out the outside.
Only then did I realize. Ah, I'm crying. Smiling and crying at the same time.
Fumbling to open the window, I saw spring approaching. Leaving behind Evel's plaintively echoing sobs, I looked up at the sky. The clear, bright blue was slowly filling winter's blanks.
Wiping my blurred vision, I took a deep breath.
Then I, too, would gladly let flowers bloom in the blanks of your life.