To My Dear Younger Sister (Part One)
Piel.
From the time I was small, I wanted to become someone like you.
You know as well as I do — until that single year of difference in our ages began to matter, the gap between us was never so wide, was it?
I grew up on the old stories Mother told. The legends and myths your mother spun alone, all by herself.
The monstrous strength of Heracles.
The thunder-wielding might of Zeus.
The boundless wisdom of Metis.
And yet I was born with none of it — just an ordinary child.
The only things I had over anyone else were that I was a little sharper than my peers, a little quicker to tell right from wrong. Even that was pitiful beside the extraordinary gifts you carried, but I decided it was still better than being worthless, and so I clawed my way forward.
It wasn't that I longed to become some great hero.
I simply did not want to disappoint Mother — not as a man who would one day rule the barbarians. And, well, not wanting to fall behind my little sister was a bonus.
That was why I envied you so sincerely: you never had to watch anyone's face. It was a wretched feeling for an older brother to hold, but I was jealous of you all the same.
Every time Mother told me to protect you and cherish you, I never understood what she meant. When we were little, you were so much stronger than I was.
I never let it show, but that was the honest truth of my younger self. And the inferiority you made me suffer lasted right up until my twelfth birthday.
That day was the one that closed the chapter on little noble society and marked our growing into true nobility. Fresh from graduating the Little Academy, I came straight home and tore through the study. I was desperate to cram even a scrap more knowledge into my head. At the Academy I would enter next, the real competition would begin.
Looking back, you may have found your older brother rather pathetic.
Still, Piel — try to understand. People who are not special the way you are get thrown into competitive society like that. The ants you would call insignificant will always find some way to rank themselves against one another.
"Hey, you fucking bastard!"
A familiar ring. That day, too, you planted yourself in front of me while I was reading, spitting curses. Your spotless white hair and blue eyes were the same as mine, but the pure light held in them was something I could never match.
The little lady, just turned nine, thrust out chocolate made from tangerines, a silver dress sword, and a bear-hide cuirass she had stitched together as best she could. And last of all, a citrus blossom — the flower that stood for Mother.
"Take 'em if you need 'em."
What were you so afraid of, offering gifts to an older brother you had always treated so roughly? Both your hands were shaking.
You shoved the things at me with nothing but swearing and no explanation at all, so I could only tilt my head, unable to grasp what you meant.
"I-if you don't want 'em, I'll just throw the whole lot out!?"
Only when you, still hesitating, forced that out did I finally understand why you had come. And honestly — I was glad. So my little sister truly meant to congratulate her brother on his graduation.
Mother had said nothing beforehand, and you had slipped in alone when no one else was around. It did not look as though our parents had put you up to it.
In truth, it was never only that day.
When I think back carefully, you seized every chance you could to look after your idiot of an older brother. Even in the letters you sent from the Magic Tower, while you pretended to worry over Mother, there were always one or two lines about me.
Things I had never seen before graduating the Little Academy only then began to come into focus.
The fidgeting anxiety that I might refuse your graduation gifts.
The affection for your own blood, held quiet behind the walls of your heart.
The way your eyes always followed me the moment Mother stepped out of the room.
Why had I never noticed your kindness until then? Perhaps because I had been so absorbed in rolling through the mud of social circles with the other young noble sons.
You, too, had memories and meetings you had to surrender as Bayorn's living weapon. I, born ordinary and forced to attend the Academy, felt inferior — but you may have been looking at me with envy all the while...
That must have been why you clung to Mother so fiercely. Or perhaps the trouble was simply that Mother was far too lovely. Either way...
Your foolish older brother had been under the delusion that you always had everything.
Your wretched older brother could not even cherish his little sister — he only envied her.
What in the world had I been looking at, while I left this precious treasure standing alone?
And then I understood.
A base bloodline does not come from birth. It comes from the heart.
Yes.
Your older brother had been a blind man who only then opened his eyes.
You — warm enough to look after even an ugly older brother who harbored improper longing for his own mother.
"……"
In that brief instant of realization, I must have worn a thoroughly stunned look. Young as you were, you took it for rejection, and your face crumpled as you spoke.
"Y-you really hate it? Is it 'cause I'm always mean to you…?"
It was nothing like that, little sister.
A boy forced to face his own dullness had only shut his mouth because tears were rising.
I had always pretended to be more grown-up than the rest, but you would know, wouldn't you — how often I had burst into tears in Mother's arms before you were even born.
I shook my head with the biggest smile I could manage, fighting the slide back into that crybaby self. If I opened my mouth, I was certain I would only show my little sister something shameful.
Only then did the pretty little dew gathering at the corners of your eyes settle. You looked at your brother's smile and finally grinned, bright and easy. You resembled me, and yet you were so much more lovely, so much more beautiful — standing before you moved me in a way entirely different from facing Mother.
Before long you passed me the carefully chosen gifts that had filled your small arms. The moment I gathered them tight against my chest with both hands, the white-haired girl's face lit up at once.
Piel, my one and only sibling — you cannot know how great a joy I felt in that moment.
"Hey… are you really busy?"
That was what the child said — the one I had expected to hand over the gifts and leave at once. I shook my head. I had already understood that what I needed to do just then was not bury myself in books.
"Th-then… wanna look around the garden? It's not like I'm inviting you or anything… Mom said you looked pitiful so I should play with you, and I-I already set out tea and sweets…!"
Haha. My lovely girl.
Then as now — you truly never did learn how to lie. Unlike those black-hearted wretches, your nature was without a single stain.
People who did not know you called you a tomboy and a hoyden behind your back, muttering that you were hardly a girl at all. But you, with that clear heart of yours, never needed to spare them a thought.
Even if they claimed to understand you, they would never understand all of you — and fools are forever quick to measure others by their own narrow sight. And more than anything…
The vermin who dared speak ill of their own liege were dealt with by this older brother long ago.
I know plenty of young ladies who swish about in glittering dresses, playing at refinement, playing at demureness, while their minds churn with calculation. Set those girls beside you, and deciding who is the truly noble daughter of a house is the easiest thing in the world.
Looking at that, I think I know exactly whom you take after. Unlike your charm-less, brooding older brother, you are an angel the very image of a certain crimson-haired woman.
It is hard to believe we came from the same womb — and yet that, too, is simple truth. You may find the thought embarrassing, even distasteful, but I could not be prouder.
In any case, my younger self nodded to you without the slightest hesitation and agreed to share the tea and sweets. And once we had finished, I did not forget to take up a sword and roll with you through the dirt. You were Mother's daughter through and through — never more beautiful in a ballroom than when your feet were on the earth.
Piel.
That day felt strangely, impossibly beautiful.
Warm sunlight fell across the two of us, brother and sister, and the russet tide rolling from the tangerine trees became the tender stage on which we danced.
Not that what I had to do changed in any way.
I still turned pages and swung an axe just as before.
But thanks to you — the one conceived in the same body as I — a great change had come over my heart. Of that much I am certain.
I had finally understood that the hard road to becoming a true barbarian was not for the sake of one woman alone.
Call it an awakening if you like; it was nothing so grand.
It was only an obvious truth I had been late to face.
Mother was my love. Father was my hatred.
Then was the only true family left to me not a single soul?
Apiel Bayern.
You alone were my true blood.