A Night When the Moon Dances - 2
There was not much in the way of amusement in the North. The closest thing to a festival was roasting beast-meat over a fire, or each household pitching a tent and singing through a single night's sleep.
Adele's gaze turned to the sea of light that filled her surroundings. Lamps and glowing orbs conjured by magic — and, on top of those, the torches people carried about in hand. Even the alleys running between the buildings were bright. Where flames burn, shadows are bound to be born; yet here was light that filled every last crevice of the world. What a convenient thing it was.
She had never once attended the Full Moon Festival — never once attended any sort of festival at all, for that matter — so none of this was familiar to her.
"It seems you'd know the streets well enough without me."
"No. You'd know this already, but this is my first Full Moon Festival."
"That may well be... but why did it have to be me?"
"Because I decided it would be."
She had no particular interest in festivals, of course. Adele turned her eyes on the man grumbling at her side.
He was nothing like the rumors. She had heard he was a wilting, delicate sort of man — dull company, the kind you'd tire of quickly — but could anyone truly call such a man weak when he wore this much insolence openly to her face?
She had felt it the last time they met as well: he was a rather interesting man. Few people ever stirred her interest, yet the man called Robert Taylor met that condition admirably.
What would Lotos say if he saw this?
She had spoken harshly, but she had never truly meant to drag him all the way to the North. The plan had gone no further than frightening him a little — demanding why he hadn't come when she called. But far from frightened, he had looked plainly ready to bolt, protesting how busy he was... and so, just the tiniest bit, defiance had stirred in her. That was all it was.
And here was the result. Adele smirked at Robert, whose displeasure sat written across his face for anyone to see. Do you hate it that much? Most people were far too busy forcing smiles whenever she stood beside them.
She had expected exactly this reaction, yet now that it was truly happening, it somehow soured her mood all the same. Perhaps I'll be petty about it. But there was hardly any need. It was her first festival too, after all — for now, simply taking in this thing called the Full Moon Festival would be no bad way to pass the time.
Withdrawing her gaze from Robert, Adele looked instead at the spire reaching high into the sky. What was that one called again? She came to the capital so rarely that keeping each of these buildings straight was a chore in itself.
Just as her brow began to crease, Robert, having read her expression, spoke up.
"That's the Moon Tower. Where the Saintess lives."
"Ah. So that's where the Saintess lives? I thought she stayed in the cathedral."
"The cathedral sits directly beneath the Moon Tower, so you wouldn't be wrong. But then, the Saintess is rather a special existence."
A special existence. Adele narrowed her eyes at the tower stretching toward the heavens. What was so special about living in a stifling place like that?
She had met the woman a handful of times, but she was not one whose temperament mixed easily with her own. When a person is too good, it makes them ill. Every once in a while, a person ought to follow where their heart leads. The way that woman lived... was simply living as she had been set to live, nothing more.
Strange, to call such a life good — and just as strange were the people who heaped endless reverence upon the Saintess. Pity suited that woman better than reverence did. The woman called the Saintess.
"Have you ever seen her? The Saintess?"
"Yes. I have."
"...You have?"
She had been certain he would say no, and so Adele asked again, caught off guard by how readily he answered.
Robert had no particular reason to hide it, either. That the Saintess occasionally went out among the people on her charity rounds was, in truth, something anyone with a reason to know already knew.
Feeling awkward for no reason she could name, Adele coughed dryly and pursed her lips. Even she found it a struggle to meet the Saintess in person — so when on earth had he? But their relationship was far too ill-defined for her to go prying.
Shaking her head back and forth to shake the thought loose, Adele drew a peculiar look from Robert.
"That's an insolent expression you're making. Is there something strange about shaking my head?"
"I'll simply conclude that you're a peculiar woman."
Adele gave a wry laugh at the man who would not concede so much as a syllable. Why on earth had the rumors about this man been so vile? It was almost as if someone were deliberately sowing malicious gossip. He was hardly so terrible in person — but going by rumor alone, one would be forgiven for taking him for the worst scoundrel alive.
Whenever she looked at Robert, her gaze always found its way to those eyes. Her own were blue as well, but the essence of the color was different. A blue that shone for no reason at all, purely and only blue — that was what Robert's eyes were. Not a shred of emotion dwelt in them; even she could read nothing there.
It was something altogether different from a person hiding their own feelings. It was as if they had been worn down past all bearing, until nothing more reflected back through them. And yet — how could a man of barely twenty years have lived through whatever did that?
And so, whenever she looked at this man, a strange feeling she knew from nowhere else always rose in her. Kinship — would that be the word? Or déjà vu? A sensation, almost, of having met him somewhere once before.
She felt a quiet unease — that if she left things exactly as they were, he would simply crumble away. Even though in the moments he stood at her side, grumbling all the while, he truly looked fine.
"...Is there something you wished to say to me?"
At the question, Adele smiled briefly, then shook her head. She could hardly admit that the urge to keep watching over him from beside him never stopped rising in her. And so she only said something else. Come to the North — then I'll be able to hear your story.
Not that the asking had earned her anything but a refusal, delivered as plain as day.
"I just watched you for a moment. You haven't changed."
"So it would seem."
Why was it that, unless she kept her eyes on him, it felt as though he would simply vanish like the wind? He had always had a way of offering nothing but the "correct" answer — and yet today, oddly, he seemed a rather different thing altogether.
She had whined so persistently that I finally bought her a skewer, and Adele promptly quieted down, chewing away at it. She kept glancing this way and that at her surroundings — this festival was evidently a marvel to her. Well, of course it was; she had known nothing but the North, so a festival on this scale had to be her first.
They said the Full Moon Festival was held throughout the Empire, but the North held it the Northern way. Which is to say — after the manner of the barbarians. Slaying wild beasts to offer up as sacrifice, holding rites before a roaring fire. Having known nothing else, it was only natural that her eyes should fly wide open the moment she came to the city.
Between explaining the things she didn't know, one by one, and eating whatever she bought and pressed into my hands, the hour had crept toward midnight before I noticed.
"This Full Moon Festival isn't half bad. Maybe I'll do it like this myself someday."
"I'd say it's an improvement over offering up beasts as sacrifice. That always struck me as rather dreary."
"The old fossils had better learn to listen when I speak. It isn't as though I can kill them for displeasing me."
It went without saying — yet Adele looked so genuinely put out by it that I found the words almost chilling.
Come to think of it, it had been the same even back when I served at her side. They spoke of Archduchess Adele's influence as though it were boundless, but her authority had never reached every tribe on the frontier. And so, once or twice a year, we would ride out on subjugation campaigns together. Thinking back on it now, I honestly wonder how I ever endured those forced marches. It was never merely one tribe — we would stir up several dozen in a single campaign.
However accustomed I had grown to living by whatever came to hand... that much would be a strain even now.
"So today's events are finished? I expected them to run until dawn. Wrapping up by midnight, of all things."
"People do need their sleep. Speaking of which — when might Your Grace be planning to return?"
"When I feel like it."
"...That is precisely what I expected you to say."
We can part ways once midnight passes. I had just begun moving on that thought when Adele spoke up, pointing off to one side. Turning my eyes along her finger, I found an enormous crowd thronging there. There could be only one thing in a spot like that — the place where the fireworks would soon begin, one of the few true attractions of the Full Moon Festival.
"What's a fireworks display?"
Adele asked it again, in evident, genuine bewilderment, and I bought a sparkler and handed it over.
"Light the end, and you'll understand. Just don't hold the flame too close to yourself."
"Hmmm. Ah."
Sssss—
After a few fumbling attempts, she got the tip lit — and Adele's eyes lit up along with it. As the scarlet flame came crackling to life, a line of red began to draw itself across the pitch-black curtain of the sky, following her hand wherever it moved, tracing whatever her heart desired. Perhaps it was the first such thing she had ever seen; she waved it this way and that several times, plainly fascinated, then murmured as she stared into the flame.
"So this is the sort of thing that bursts in the sky?"
"Far more splendid than this. Beyond any comparison."
"Then I suppose I'm staying for it. Although — where do you think you're going?"
The moment I made to slip away, Adele's eyes narrowed, having read my intent. I had business of my own to see to soon, and I had meant to use the moment to escape. And yet some stubborn part of me insisted I ought to stay planted right here — at least until she left first.
I regarded her for a while with a disgruntled look, then opened my mouth on the off chance.
"If I simply walked off now, your impression of me would be the same as it was before, I imagine."
"That's right. I'd be hurt. And I'd remember it for years and torment you over it."
"As I recall, no mention of tormenting was made earlier."
"It's the principle of the thing. A man who would abandon a poor, delicate woman and run off ahead of her — honestly."
Watching Adele refuse to yield so much as a single word, I could feel a headache coming on. I had appointed myself her babysitter of my own accord — so really, what choice did I have?
Deciding I could at least stay for this one fireworks display, I took my place at her side, and Adele broke into a soft smile and patted my shoulder.
"There. That's more like it."
"It will begin soon. Perhaps... once the moon has fully emerged from behind the clouds."
Come to think of it, I had never once watched this fireworks display at my leisure, either. Mist-thin clouds veiled the moonlight, and that light wrapped itself around everything near us. Each time the clouds drifted, the glow streaming through the gaps seemed almost to dance. A night when the moonlight dances — when had it been, the last time I watched this scene with nothing but an easy heart?
"You look off, somehow. Did some bad memory come back to you?"
"Something like that... though it's nothing worth mentioning."
Whenever this full moon rose, something always happened that decided my fate. Saving the alchemist Jay had come at this very hour of the night — and in my past lives, whenever I died, it was always beneath a moon hung this large. People could call this moon nothing more than beautiful, but for me, this night was... not exactly a kind one. Even this brilliant light, I could not simply see as pretty.
As always, I kept my silence, watching the moon hang quietly overhead without a word.
Before long the clouds broke apart, and in their place the whole of the moon emerged. The crowd's gasps of awe had scarcely risen when, from somewhere beyond, fireworks began to thunder skyward.
Fweee—boom.
Trailing ribbons of every color, they climbed to the very center of the moon and burst once more into brilliant light. Throughout the days of the Full Moon Festival, the stars were not easy to glimpse at all — and so these fireworks, wrought by human strength alone, were what imitated the moon. Bursting, and bursting, and bursting yet again, the light began to paint countless clusters of stars across the dark.
I turned my head and found Adele gazing up at that sky, blank-faced. The many lights gathered in her eyes and scattered into single stars again — what could she be imagining, watching that? To me it was light that held no meaning anymore, none at all. But for the her of this cycle, it was going to become a scene she remembered for a long while.
And perhaps it would be that kind of scene for me as well. Things that had never happened once across all my past lives were unfolding one after another — those flames might well be called a signal flare. This time was different. I had built a personal friendship with the Saintess I had never once been able to meet, and Adele had come to the Full Moon Festival for no reason other than me — a single person. The difference was plain to see.
This time is different.
Even after living through so many countless lives, there had never been a time like this. And so, faintly but surely, I turned the hope over in my mind — that this time, at last, my wish might be granted. I had no idea what the odds of that were, but surely even I was allowed to make a wish.
The fireworks died out, and stillness settled over the plaza once more. Gazing up at the last fading sparks, Adele murmured, almost to herself.
"...It's beautiful."
She was right — the opening of this Full Moon Festival was more beautiful than any before it. Naturally. I had watched this beginning how many times over now? The beginning itself had never once been twisted out of true. Not once, in all those lives.
But when that moon sank once more beneath the clouds — a darkness the people knew nothing of would begin to writhe anew. A darkness that would be known to me alone. Stamping out that shadow was the work I had to do, and so even looking at Adele as she was now, I could not smile with an easy heart.
It was only natural, wasn't it? For soon — it would be dawn.