To the 35th You, from the 101st Me — 6

"Now then — say ahh."

I stared at Mirajane as she pressed a spoonful of soup against my lips. Her brow was furrowed as if to say open your mouth already, and the moment I parted my lips a crack, the spoon pushed in and slopped soup over my lip.

Anyone who witnessed this would take me for an invalid. I had merely been wrapped in rather a lot of bandages — there wasn't a single part of me that couldn't move.

"I am capable of feeding myself."

"Your arm is injured. And... I just feel guilty, all right? You got hurt because of me."

"I have never once thought of it as being hurt for Your Highness's sake. Was it not I who insisted on blocking that blow in the first place?"

When I plucked the spoon from Mirajane's hand, she pulled a briefly sullen face, then drilled her eyes into me. Still, I could hardly accept being spoon-fed mouthful by mouthful. It wasn't as though I was gravely wounded — I had simply bled a good deal. Enough to lie unconscious for the better part of three days.

Mirajane and Adele alike had been badly shaken by that. I hadn't expected to faint either; my stamina, it seemed, was more depleted than I'd thought. Under the care of a priest dispatched from the Church, my body was slowly mending. I would be free to move as I pleased in two days, he said — from then on, I would need to start rebuilding my strength in earnest.

"Still, I'm not certain it is proper for Your Highness to keep staying here. If I recall, word came that someone would be sent from the Imperial Palace."

"It will take them ages to get here. The North and the capital lie a good distance apart. The Archduke is still away on the subjugation, so I ought to stay put, shouldn't I?"

"...What does the Archduke's campaign have to do with whether Your Highness stays or—"

"Then would you leave a sick man behind? If I come across as someone that heartless, I'd like you to know you have me all wrong."

I smiled awkwardly at her huffing about being wounded on my behalf. When I had first woken, her eyes had been swollen red. She had cried, I imagined. Given her temperament, my injury must have gnawed at her — watching me lie unconscious must have wrung her heart thoroughly.

The moment Mirajane arrived and joined us, I had lost consciousness on the spot. Today was the first time since then that my head had been clear. Perhaps because of that, watching Mirajane speak to my face stirred a feeling I couldn't quite name. Mirajane — alive, safe, without a single wound. Along with the impression that I truly had changed something, the voice that had been ringing in my ears began to blur at its edges.

In truth, it was hardly more than an auditory hallucination. To hear again a voice I had last heard more than a hundred years ago — one might as well call it an affliction of the mind. It lingered only because the memory had branded itself in so fiercely: the memory of a man who regretted without end, and swore with iron resolve that if that moment ever came again, he would never repeat his mistake.

Had I succeeded, this time? At the question rising unbidden, I huffed a quiet laugh. I had succeeded splendidly, hadn't I? Mirajane and I were both still alive. I had been hurt badly, granted — but a few more scars on my body meant nothing to me now.

"Oh, I have something to say. May I?"

Two voices had arrived at once, and I turned my head. One sounded from directly beside me, crisp and clear; the other was dimming little by little, slowly scattering into the air. A memory of the past. Something that could not be heard — something that no longer existed. Words the Mirajane of the thirty-fifth life had spoken.

No more blood ran from Mirajane. Not the blood that had welled up in choking surges, nor the breast where the blade had been buried. All that stood there was a woman hesitating over her words, and nothing more. I blinked once, and the illusion clouding my sight dissolved cleanly away. Only Mirajane remained. Watching her wet her lips again and again, wavering over what to say to me, I smiled faintly.

"Please, speak freely."

There was no longer any need to beg her to live. To say such a thing to a woman already whole and untouched would only earn me strange looks. Somehow, my mood lifted. The stifling thing that had been blooming in a corner of my chest was gone, and in its place something cool and clean seemed to fill me to the brim.

"It's because I've been thinking I should repay you for saving my life. So — next time, you see. I was thinking I'd invite you, Robert... mm."

"To the Imperial Palace — formally. I intend to drive the carriage to House Taylor myself. May I?"

The overlaid voice had been faint beyond measure. Mirajane's voice rang clear and close, and the one so swiftly buried beneath it scattered away on the next gust of wind.

So much was different. Near-identical words, yet what she asked, what she hoped for from me, even the circumstance in which I heard them — none of it matched. I regarded Mirajane quietly as she waited for my answer, then at last inclined my head and spoke. An answer I could not give in the thirty-fifth life — and so, only as the hundred-and-first, did I finally open my mouth. It was an answer I had always carried in my chest. Clotted over with regret, an answer I had held for decades on end. Even back then, surely, this was what I had wanted to say.

The first time we met, we parted as nothing to one another. In the thirty-fifth, I saw you off without ever becoming your beloved. In the fifty-fifth, I lived for you and died by your hand. And now, in the hundred-and-first — looking upon you, alive like this, I finally set the long-unspoken answer to my lips. Was that not enough? It was proof enough that my life had never been wasted. The single fact that you were still breathing was... enough for me.

Robert, gazing at Mirajane ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠as she beamed with unguarded joy, returned a small smile of his own. The voice at his ears sounded no longer — and he doubted it ever would again. His regret and lingering attachment had already ridden off on the north wind; all that remained was a cool breeze, idly brushing at his cheek.

The subjugation of the outlanders had been expected to take a month, but once Robert put Temuchin to the sword with his own hands, it could only be called a bloated anticlimax. One week — that was how long it took Adele, hurling her soldiers forward like a storm, to finish the campaign. The outlander tribes, robbed of their Great Chieftain Temuchin, crumbled with almost insulting ease, and surveying a victory wrapped up in so short a span, Lotos pulled a wry face.

"If this was how it would end, we ought to have simply kidnapped him — carried the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Young Master off with us."

"I was quite enough on my own. Hauling him out here would have earned nothing but reckless strain and fresh wounds."

"...In any case, save for the unexplored wildlands, the matter is all ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠but settled. There will be no call to squander resources on subjugation for some time yet."

At the mention of Robert, Adele's gaze had whetted to a razor's edge in an instant, and Lotos, meeting her eyes, flinched to his very marrow. She had been like this without pause since Robert collapsed. In truth, they ought to have reported days ago that he had woken — but with the subjugation unfinished, they had let the news lie, hadn't they. And what if he told her now? Lotos swept a hand across the back of his neck, gone inexplicably cold. Still — no adjutant alive had served at her side as long as he had. Surely she would not actually cut him down.

If there was one thing he had grown certain of of late, it was this: whether or not Robert was Adele's destined beloved, the man was beyond any doubt someone she cherished. Recalling Adele's conduct in the days after Robert's collapse, Lotos allowed himself a quiet chuckle.

Whether she had meant it in earnest, who could say — but the murderous air she had radiated from dawn to dusk only settled once Robert's condition had stabilized. That old instinct of his was starting to look like no misreading at all. Robert Taylor... he could not imagine what the man had said to the Archduke, but would he not become the one to turn the entire board of the North upon its head?

And lining up early behind a rising star had always been Lotos's particular talent — he had already sent word to Robert of this and that. A few choice details concerning Adele slipped in besides. Watching Adele ride on with the wolf's reins in her fist, Lotos at last steeled himself and sidled up beside her.

"A letter arrived from the main castle some days ago, my lady."

"A letter?"

"It says the Young Master has woken. Her Highness the Princess is tending to him at this very moment, I hear."

Adele halted stock-still. She took the letter Lotos held out and read it through. Her eyes thinned; the furrow between her brows deepened. Her mood, evidently, was curdling by the second. He edged back a prudent step in case of flying sparks — and in that moment Adele crammed the letter away and murmured, almost to herself:

"...So he's awake."

Palpable relief ran beneath the words. She startled even herself, hearing it — but it was the truth. That Robert had woken relieved her. When he had fallen, she had been more thrown than she had ever been in her life. Fainting not for a day, but for days on end — the sheer audacity of the man.

"We pick up the pace."

"At once."

Yet contrary to all such thoughts, a faint smile had found its way to her lips. The main castle was not far now. Adele gathered the reins and dug in her heels, and the other adjutants quickened to match her, the column breaking into a run.

What Adele had felt when Robert first dropped had been a simple thing. She could not comprehend what was happening, and the bewilderment curdled, for no good reason, into fury — and she had taken that fury out in all the wrong places. In hindsight, she had failed to judge with a cool head, and no mistake. A little more composure, and she would have known it for what it was: plain exhaustion.

But composure was exactly what those feelings refused to grant her — feelings she had never once known in all her life. The cause, no doubt, was the anxiety that had taken root in her skull and would not be pulled free. ...Always, she was left with the sense that he might simply cease to be. The uncanny familiarity and the unease she felt whenever she looked at Robert — at Robert, and at no other soul — had not faded with time. If anything, it only compounded; perhaps that was why she kept finding herself in their grip. Anxious when he was not beside her; irritable at the very fact that he stood beside someone who was not her. By these incomprehensible emotions, of all things.

Arriving at the main castle, Adele made straight for where Robert was. The other adjutants, blinking in puzzlement, trailed after Lotos instead. Adele always did precisely as she pleased once a subjugation was done, and so hardly anyone thought to question it.

Was he with the Princess at this moment? She had resolved not to care — and yet Robert's words kept circling her skull, and her brow knit all the same. It had grated: the talk of how he'd been ready to throw his life away to repay a debt even the Princess knew nothing of. And so her mood had soured. She was angry — and she saw no harm in speaking a little roughly.

Knock, knock. The voices within cut off mid-word.

"It's me, Robert."

A beat of silence — then the door wrenched open, and beyond it stood Robert's face. Pale still. A proud, sharp-bridged nose, hair the gray of old ash. What had changed was his eyes. In those once-hollow depths, some new emotion had taken up residence. For whom, she wondered, was that emotion meant?

"I heard the subjugation was finished, but you've made remarkable time, Your Grace."

Smiling faintly at her own idle thought, Adele reached out and laid her hand against Robert's face. The warmth beneath her palm was as soft as ever. Alive. Not dead, not vanished — alive, right here before her. Why did ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠that alone summon a smile to her face? She nearly let her fingers caress his cheek the way she had last time, then drew the hand back and shrugged instead. There was no need to be buffeted about by this nameless feeling. To act against her own recent habit would come across as nothing unnatural.

Robert stared openly at the little pantomime, and Adele huffed a short laugh.

"Awake awfully fast, aren't you. I never knew you had a talent for keeping people worried."

"...My apologies. I didn't realize I had driven myself quite so hard."

Adele felt the Princess's presence within the room, and her lips pressed into a thin line as she studied Robert. She did not much care for the two of them sharing a space. He was awake now, after all — and was there not business waiting ahead? A way to pry the two apart. No sooner had it occurred to her than she added:

"Change your clothes and come to the banquet hall. There will be a feast before long."

"Is today not your day of rest, Your Grace? Since when was this on the schedule—"

A day of rest, yes. True enough — but not a soul in the world would dare take issue with this decision. The capital might play by other rules, but this North was the land of Adele Igrit, a domain governed by the Archduke alone, was it not?

Adele smiled, small and brief, and went on with her eyes on Robert.

"Because I decided it would be."

Here in the North, at least — not even the Princess was an exception.