Rubina (1)
If one had to put a name to it, it would have to be called a whim.
Yona couldn't understand why she was doing this herself. Far from understanding, the thought that she shouldn't be doing this at all came first. And yet the warmth now pressing into her left hand—such a small hand that it fit entirely inside Yona's palm—was clutching tightly at her fingers, as if it had no intention of letting go.
"What's this?"
Kayak's voice was the first to greet Yona.
Alec's gaze followed, turning toward her.
"Isn't that the kid from this afternoon?"
James seemed to recognize the girl—probably because he was a married man with children of his own.
"...It's just a whim."
Yona didn't bother explaining at length.
It was a decision she didn't understand herself, so there was no way she could explain it anyway.
"I'm going to wash her."
"Okay."
Alec looked like he had something to say, but he shut his mouth shortly after. Yona gave him a brief glance, then led the girl by the hand toward the washroom.
Then, halfway out, she turned back and poked her head into the room.
"Alec, see if you can find some clothes that'll fit this little one."
"...At this hour?"
"Ask the village head. I doubt there's nothing."
"Uh, right. I'll do that."
"Yona."
While Alec nodded, Kayak's voice called Yona to a stop. She turned back to look at him.
"...Sympathy is the kind of thing that gnaws your life away. You know that, don't you?"
"I know. Very well."
Yona nodded and turned away.
It wasn't as if she didn't know. She knew it all too well.
"Let's go."
Taking the hand of the girl who had been watching her anxiously from the hallway, Yona headed for the washroom.
Washroom was a generous word for it—a great tub pieced together from wooden planks, a single catch basin fed by a channel from the well in the yard, and a brush made from the dried, hollowed-out husk of a soapberry. That was everything.
"Wait here."
Yona went out into the yard and drew water from the well. She'd toss the rope-bound bucket down into the well, haul it up brimming, and pour it into the channel; the water would come trickling into the basin inside. After repeating this five or six times, she returned to the washroom to find the girl still standing exactly where she'd left her, waiting quietly.
"What's your name?"
The girl rolled her black eyes upward, studying Yona for a long moment. She only opened her mouth, small and hesitant, right before Yona's patience finally ran dry.
"...Rubina."
Rubina...
A pretty name.
"Alright, Rubina. Arms up."
"Up—"
The instant the girl raised both arms, Yona peeled her clothes off. The hair that brushed her fingers as she undressed her was so hopelessly matted that it came away in clumps rather than strands. Once the clothes were off, Yona stripped down as well.
But the holy shroud wound around her right arm, she did not remove.
It wasn't something she wanted anyone to see.
Moonlight spilled in through a window cut into the wall near the roof, so the room wasn't all that dark. In that washroom of moderate size—neither spacious nor cramped—Yona scooped water with a gourd and began scrubbing Rubina down.
When she opened the wooden tub sitting in the corner, she found it full of brown chaff. There was no such thing as shampoo in this era, so this was what people washed their hair with—the husks left over after a harvest was threshed and the grain winnowed out. You worked it between your palms, then rubbed it into wet hair to scour it clean. It lifted grime and scalp oil better than you'd expect, and Yona used it for her own hair too.
Once she was washed, Rubina finally looked something like a person. The grime had been running off her in streaks—Yona had figured she'd scoop extra water to wash herself afterward, but there wasn't nearly enough, and by the time Rubina was clean, the basin had run dry.
— Yona, I brought the clothes.
"Leave them by the door. Thanks."
At Alec's voice, Yona twisted a cloth into a roll and wrung Rubina's hair out in one long pull. Once the water had run off, there was nothing to do but let it dry naturally.
"Hold still."
Rubina, who hadn't said a word the entire time, nodded. Yona cracked the door open, picked up the clothes left outside, and shook them out—thankfully, they were at least somewhat more clothes-like than what the girl had arrived in.
Having finished washing the girl, Yona settled for a quick wash of her own face and hands. Figuring that much was enough, she led the child back to the room.
The three men were still gathered inside. Alec, Kayak, and James all turned to look at her at once as she stepped through the door.
"What are you all staring at? You're making her uncomfortable."
"You stare when someone walks into a room. That's all."
Yona ignored Alec's retort and pointed to her own bed, showing Rubina where to go.
"Sleep there. Got it?"
Rubina nodded without a word. Then she padded carefully over to the bed, lay down, dragged the blanket up to her chin—and within moments her breathing had settled into the even rhythm of sleep.
"Well then, Yona. We need to talk, don't we?"
As if he'd only been waiting for the girl to fall asleep, Kayak stepped down from his bed. Yona glanced once more at the sleeping Rubina, then nodded.
"Right."
The moment they filed into the common room and took their seats around the table, Kayak opened his mouth.
"So—don't tell me you're planning to take her with us."
"No."
The answer came without a beat of hesitation. Whim or not, she had brought the girl in, washed her, and put her to bed—but that was as far as it went. Nothing about taking the child anywhere.
"Sympathy kills adventurers, Yona. The kindness you can afford ends here. No further."
Kayak drew the line firmly. He understood that the girl was pitiable. He even understood Yona bringing her in, washing her, putting her to sleep. But carrying the child along on this journey—that was another matter entirely.
"I told you, it's not like that. It's just a whim. A whim."
"Then why did you bring her here at all?"
At Alec's question, Yona smirked.
At least Alec asked a sensible question.
"...Like I said, just a whim. She lived alone with her older sister, and she told me the troll killed her sister today. She was just huddled there by herself, so I brought her back, washed her, and put her to bed. That's all."
"That's it?"
"That's it."
That really was the whole of it. There was no other reason. There couldn't be—and Yona wasn't so thoughtless as to suggest taking along a child she'd met for the first time today.
"But I don't see why you need to draw such a hard line about it."
It was James, silent until now, who spoke up unexpectedly. When the other three turned to look at him at once, he seemed a little embarrassed—rubbing his molars with a fingernail and flashing a vaguely good-natured smile.
"An orphan left alone in a village like this, well—most of those stories end badly. And the kid's a girl, on top of it. Think about what happens to a girl like that, and I can't exactly picture a happy ending. Or her growing up well, for that matter. Might just be because I'm a father myself."
"James."
"Ah, I know exactly what you're about to say, Kayak. I'm only offering my two cents."
James was the only one in the party with a family, so it figured that a child left alone—a girl, no less—would weigh on him.
"Well, that's just it. It's not about sympathy or anything of the sort—it's that we happen to be headed for the Grand Duchy of Carpatia. There's a cathedral orphanage there. Handing her over to a place like that wouldn't be any trouble at all, would it?"
"A cathedral orphanage, hm..."
Yona fell into thought at those words.
When Yona had first fallen into this world, the place she'd stayed, however briefly, was a cathedral orphanage. It was because she'd come to grasp holy power there that she'd been elevated to the cathedral's academic division and moved into the dormitories—but the orphanage itself had been remarkably well appointed. The meals were good, and they provided a proper, systematic education. If a child came to awaken holy power while living there, she'd have a far better life than anything a village like this could offer.
—All the more so if she were identified as a priestess.
"...I'll give it some thought."
"I'm against it. That's nothing but sympathy, plain and simple. Think about it, all of you."
Kayak remained opposed. A troll attacking a village like this was unquestionably strange. And on the way here, they'd had oddly frequent encounters with monsters as well. He couldn't say for certain what was happening—but something strange was unfolding, that much was clear.
"And the journey gets tangled up besides. Yes, we'll be passing through the Grand Duchy of Carpatia, but only as a waypoint. Our actual goal is to cut through Carpatia and cross the Medial Plain. Cathedral orphanage or whatever else, stopping there means another delay. How do you plan to deal with that?"
"That much is true, I'll grant you. Still, Yona's schedule comes first and foremost—I was only putting the option on the table."
"...You're not just trying to provoke the holy healer, are you, you damned orc?"
"Heh heh, does the lizard fancy a taste of arrows again after all this time?"
"An axe in that fat belly of yours would land a lot quicker."
While Kayak and James scowled at each other, one breath away from throwing down, and Alec moved to intervene, Yona quietly sank into thought.
*
The next morning was fairly noisy.
The people sent out from the cathedral to haul away the troll's blood and carcass were haggling loudly with the village head—and since the village head could hardly know the worth of troll byproducts, Kayak had attached himself to the negotiation to help things along.
In the meantime, Yona sat with the girl on the open ground nearby, watching them.
"Would you look at that."
The words slipped out of her before she realized it.
There were quite a few of them in the pure-white vestments of the Heavenly God Church. Everyone working for the cathedral was dressed in full ceremonial robes—and among those robed figures were beastkin with sharp ears, orcs, and even dwarves, short as stumps with their beards braided in strangely elaborate patterns.
"I've never seen anything like that before."
It had been roughly three years since she'd left the cathedral, but had things really changed that much in the meantime?
Only humans had ever been permitted to devote themselves to the Heavenly God. The Heavenly God Church, the faith that enshrined and exalted the Heavenly God, was a religion of humankind—one that accepted no other demihuman races. Even back when Yona had lived at the cathedral, every last soul there had been human.
And now beastkin and orcs and dwarves in holy vestments.
It was, once again, the strangest sight she had ever seen.
Unable to hold her questions in any longer, Yona sprang up from where she'd been sitting. She patted the girl's head as she moved to rise too, told her to wait, and then made her way over to one of the beastkin standing amid the bustle of preparations to move the troll's body and blood.
"Hello there."
"...Hello."
When Yona—dressed in her nun's habit—offered the greeting, the beastkin gave her a brief look and returned it.
"Whew, you all have it rough, don't you?"
"Not at all. Word came that a rare troll haul was waiting, so we've been running ourselves ragged since last night."
Thankfully, the beastkin seemed gentler in temperament than her appearance suggested.
"I'd believe it—no one could have guessed a troll would show up in a place like this. Still, seeing how fast you got here, the Church really is something."
"Naturally. Though I'm still only studying the doctrine, myself."
At the beastkin's words, Yona gathered that she hadn't yet been fully received into the Heavenly God Church. Still learning the doctrine—so, what, roughly a novice in training?
"I see. Though—impressive, truly, that a beastkin would become a follower of the Heavenly God."
"Oh, you hadn't heard?"
"No. The truth is, I spend my days out ministering with the Heavenly God's grace, so news travels slowly to me."
Well, it wasn't a lie—she did go around healing people with holy power.
"Half a year ago, the Church's policy changed—the Catus Empire, Capitulos, and even the League of Eight Brothers granted permission for missionary work."
"...Missionary permission? Then those folks over there—the orc and the dwarves...?"
"Priest novices. In the middle of their training. When their education is complete, they'll return to their homelands to carry out the missionary work."
Ah.
So that was how it was.