The Cottage in the Woods, and Teacher
Somewhere along the way, I began to write a memoir.
I know well enough that calling the past back up is hardly good for me. And yet, if I am honest, for someone who felt as though she might come apart, there was little else to be done.
From of old, he told me, the keeping of records has been a virtue of the Fox Tribe. Those words Teacher once spoke came back to me without warning, and so I took up my pen.
There was a forest, and between the trees a modest clearing. A small house of solid brick, raised with the trunks themselves for pillars, was home to my mother and me. If I try to reckon when Teacher first began to visit that place, where a bird would cry out now and then, even my own memory grows hazy. All I can say for certain is that it was before I had properly come into my senses.
Like a dandelion seed that drifts through the air and comes to rest upon a shoulder, he appeared quietly, gently — and from some moment I can no longer name, he was simply there, always watching over me. As if it had been so for a long time, neither my mother nor I was ever ill at ease with him.
A teacher who would give us neither his name nor his age. The days I trailed after him like a chick, learning one thing and another, may well have been the happiest I have known.
If I had to gather him into a single phrase, he was a man colder than ice, and warmer than the sun.
A race nothing like my mother or me. I even wondered whether he might be one of the humans I had only ever heard of, but he never gave me a proper answer to anything. He had no sharply pricked ears, of course, and no warm, fluffy tail either. Mother would often say he was tall, and cleanly, strikingly handsome — but what gladdened me was not that. It was the tenderness soaked into the edges of his sharp way of speaking. He treated the two of us more gently than any of the Fox Tribe.
One day I gave him the slip and went deep into the woods. He found me in the grass, filthy with dirt, and his face twisted.
"...So this is where you got to. I told you not to go far."
"Teecha!"
"It's Teacher."
"Tea... Teacherrr! Look, this."
"Picking strange things off the ground and eating them again. Small as you are, you never tire."
"It's all sparkly! Hey — what kind of grass is this?"
"This is called flameheaven herb. It's a poison. Even if you only touch it, wash your hands well. A Fox Tribe with a strong resistance to poison will still be dead within a day if it isn't purged."
"N-no... I... uuuh... I don't wanna eat it..."
"...Still, you managed to find it. Flameheaven herb is a poison, yes — but it's also a costly medium for magic."
"Magic?"
"Yes. Magic."
"Magic! I wanna see it... Show me!"
"Is that so. Well... I'll teach you one formula. A simple spell. Memorize it, and it'll come in handy when you need to quietly kill off a nuisance or two."
Teacher taught me all manner of things: how to tell poison herbs from healing ones, the weak points of dangerous monsters, stories of the world outside, the histories of races other than the Fox Tribe, the reading and writing of unfamiliar letters.
And of all of it, what one could without question call him supreme in was the sword, and magic. His sword-dance was like a flower edged in steel, gliding cool upon the wind, and his magic was deep and dense, as if sunk into an abyss. I was forever stretching out my little hands and straining to learn such things.
The memories of him broke off in the year I turned ten.
It was late at night. I had been toddling along at his heels as always, until I wore myself out and sat on the bed, nodding off.
"Tea-cher..."
"What."
"Sleepy... Tea-cher..."
"Right. Go to sleep."
"......"
"Tea-cher..."
"Speak."
"Tea-cher... turn off the light..."
Teacher narrowed his eyes and stared at me without a word. On an ordinary night a short scolding would have come down. I, too, had only been fussing half-asleep, smiling a little for the fun of it. But that night, of all nights, he showed a rare and bitter smile.
"...Fine. This is the last time, so I suppose I ought to do at least this much."
The last?
That the meaning of the word felt somehow abstract — was it only because I was already slipping into sleep?
"Even if you forget... I... ah... ga... since that's what was said... yes. Sleep well. And..."
With that, holding a faint sigh, he mussed my hair and my ears.
"If the chance comes, I'll see you later."
The next morning, as I remember it, a bitterly cool autumn wind was blowing. Beyond the window, rustling leaves had begun to gather on the ground, one by one.
"Where's Tea-cher...?"
"Teacher? And who is Teacher?"
Mother blinked and toyed with my pointed fox ears. It was the show of affection I loved best, but that once I thrashed to get away from her hands. My heart seemed to drop with a thud.
Anxiety rose in me, soft and swelling. I burst from my mother's arms and searched the yard in a rush — and there, just as I had feared, was no one.
When she asked me who Teacher was, it had to be a white lie meant for my sake. She had so often talked with him, happily. She could not possibly have failed to notice that he was gone.
Ah. Teacher had left me. My own Teacher, gone without a single word of farewell.
From that day on... for some reason, his face would hardly come to me. As if, like the magic he so often showed me, the memories of him — and only the distinctive ones — had been cut away by some artificial hand.
Of that much I could be certain. Forgetting him had not been my own will. Someone had stolen my memories. That, at least, I could understand.
Teacher... Teacher... where in the world did you go?
Even his face forgotten, several years passed again.
"They say a hero has been summoned from another world. The master of the Sixth Holy Sword, I'm told."
"...Have the vicious Blood Kin of the Snowfield, and the monsters, begun to move again?"
"The worry is real enough. But with the master of the Sixth Holy Sword summoned, our Fox Tribe need not fear the monsters. ...The trouble is what comes after."
"When the master of a Holy Sword distinguishes himself, the state of affairs shifts enormously. It was so with the heroes of the other swords, and especially blatant when the Hero of the Second Holy Sword appeared. ...This time, our Fox Tribe must move quickly, and cleverly."
"I see. The Hero of the Sixth Holy Sword was chosen by the sword in another world, and summoned."
"Then let us put one of our own forward for the Holy Sword Party."
"The Holy Sword Party."
"Should she, by any chance, be bound to the Hero... I am certain our standing would improve."
"Hmm... Do we have a woman of a suitable age in the tribe?"
"......Wait. Why is everyone looking this way? Not my child. Cecilia is out of the question."
"Contributing to the village is a duty one owes, as a member of the Fox Tribe."
"No! Out in the world — have you forgotten how much persecution our Fox Tribe suffered in the past?"
"Calm yourself. The Hero will be different. He is one who comes from another world. He will bear no prejudice against our Fox Tribe, nor against the other races. You know it yourselves. There was a time when the Hero of the Second Holy Sword cherished our people dearly."
"She is a child who has not even held her coming-of-age! I will not make a gamble like that!"
The tray of teacups crashed down, and hot water soaked my feet. Mother came running in alarm, but the tops of my feet were already swelling red and beginning to sting.
"So you heard. Child."
"......"
"You will represent the Fox Tribe as a member of the Holy Sword Party. You will survey the Snowfield, and you will eliminate the monsters."
I could not set a single word against it.
And then the elder's final words fell.
"Your breeding is lacking. The forms of greeting are the foundation of every race."
"You know a great deal about history, and yet your view is hopelessly narrow! Where did you learn such ill-bred ideas? Are all of the Fox Tribe like this? How... how can anyone be so barbaric? The thought that a person like this will enter the Hero's party makes my skin crawl."
"You mean to use that worthless, vulgar way of speaking even before the Hero?! ...Truly. To think I must educate a beast. It sets my teeth on edge."
For the first few months, under the name of education, I lived in the Empire's Imperial Palace.
Drawn out as a representative of the Fox Tribe, I was given food and a bed lavish beyond anything I deserved — and that was all. Everything else was hell to me.
There was something in it that simple hatred of the Fox Tribe could not explain. Among those who pointed at me in the Imperial Palace, there were Fox Tribe as well. Their manners and their speech always had something staged about them, and some even turned an apologetic look on me.
As if they were under someone's pressure...
Behind it stood House Clorand. More precisely, Rebecca.
And it was the same once I formally entered the Holy Sword Party — no. It grew worse.
"Hey! You! What have you been scribbling all this time?! Were you even listening to the Hero?"
"...A diary... I was writing a diary."
"What? A diary? Tch...! Don't lie to me! A filthy little beast, reading and writing? Hand it over."
Rebecca snatched the diary from my hands. Had even the way she began to read it aloud, dripping scorn, been nothing more than a game?
Far off, the Hero was sharing a meal in easy murmurs with the others. Now and then, laughter drifted over.
"Hey. What's with you. You crying?"
"...N-no. I'm fine."
"Wow. Anyone watching would think I'd done something awful."
And with that, Rebecca curled the corner of her mouth.
"Heh heh... heh heh..."
Heh heh... heh...
Heh heh heh...
......heh.
And then—
"Hk—!"
Awareness slammed back into me, as if fire had flashed through my skull. I clutched my ears against the ringing and curled in on myself. At the sudden sound of insects in the grass, I slowly opened my eyes and looked beyond the window. Dawn had not yet broken.
I steadied my panting breath, and once more the dormitory room, gone quiet, sank under nothing but silence. I wiped the cold sweat gathered at the nape of my neck.
One sentence I had not been able to bring past my lips, back then.
Because there had been no one to hear it then, I let those words out only now — and with them, I sank slowly down upon the bed.