Lingering Echoes — 2
It was a dress the color of flowing water.
Paired with the cold moon it took on a somewhat chilly hue, yet set against her face, it left an impression that was not quite so cold.
The woman who was always so haughty wore a flush of color. As if embarrassed, she hesitated, tugging at the hem of her skirt.
Was this the first time Adele had ever worn something other than her usual attire? My breath caught in my throat, and the moment I failed to open my mouth, her eyes narrowed.
As her head moved, her hair flowed naturally along with it.
That snow-white hair brushed against the dress, and for a moment it seemed to drain the world around her into monochrome.
What struck me alongside it was a sense of déjà vu.
I had already seen this dress somewhere before, and that kept me from simply looking at it now and calling it beautiful.
A voice bored into those hazy thoughts. Adele's, her brow creased.
"Not to your taste, then?"
"No, it's just..."
What was I supposed to say? The sight before my eyes was beyond anything I had imagined.
Adele, in a dress — if high society ever laid eyes on this, they would likely faint on the spot.
And yet even in a dress her posture remained as crooked as ever, and a laugh slipped out of me unbidden.
"Then why are you laughing? Don't be so infuriating. It's my first time... yes, the first time I've ever worn one. I only wanted to ask what you thought."
"Why haven't you worn one until now, then? It suits you remarkably well."
"Hmph."
Even as she scoffed, she swept her hair back slowly — apparently not entirely displeased.
Looking again, I still couldn't quite believe it. It wasn't that the look was awkward on her; it suited her as though she had been dressed this way all along.
That was why I had lost my words.
I didn't know what she intended by bringing out a dress, but if her aim was to fluster me, I'd have to call it a success.
...Honestly, she was beautiful.
I could find no other word for it.
She had always been beautiful, but Adele in a dress brought that beauty into especially sharp relief.
Watching her fuss awkwardly with her skirt, I found myself wondering why she had put on a dress at all.
When I asked, she shot me a sidelong glance, as if the answer were obvious.
"Did you forget there's a New Year's event at midnight tonight? I told you to stay two extra days because I meant to show you at least that much before sending you off."
"Ah."
My mind had been so consumed by the South that it had slipped away from me entirely.
So once this midnight passed, it would be the new year. Even so, dressing up in a gown hardly seemed her style.
But her whims were notorious for shifting with the moment, so I accepted it without protest.
She had probably simply wanted to wear a dress. Even if I couldn't deny that the reason had something to do with me, it suited her so well that I had no intention of objecting.
My own attire, however, looked rather shabby beside her dress.
I hadn't anticipated any of this, and as I moved to change, Adele spoke.
"You don't have to go. It's not as if I wore this for anyone's eyes."
"Still, there is such a thing as courtesy."
"And just who are you planning to be courteous to? I told you I don't care, so hush and play the escort."
Just as she had at the Full Moon Festival, she extended her hand toward me and beckoned.
At the gesture urging me to take it, I clasped her hand lightly, and Adele gave a soft laugh before stepping to my side.
Adele in a dress instead of armor or a cloak — and it seemed I was the only one shuffling about, unsettled by the sight.
Wearing an awkward smile, I fell into step beside her.
Toward the festival that would crown our last night — our last day — in the North.
"Let's be off, then. The North's festival will be something new."
"Something new," it turned out, did not seem to mean anything good.
It was presumably the cultural gulf between the North and the capital at work.
Many of the amusements were a touch too rough for Adele in her dress, and the spectacles, every last one of them, were bleak to behold.
It was a festival for the new year, but its character leaned heavily toward the shamanic.
Nothing like the sorcerers of the South. These people simply revered beasts and nature, offering thanks to their gods for carrying them safely through another year.
No doubt that was why the Church found the North so uneasy to stomach.
Here was a gathering of people who served nature more faithfully than the Moon God — perhaps the reason Adrian and Adele made each other so uncomfortable lay in this land itself.
I had barely finished my aimless survey of the surroundings when Adele spotted Bunta tearing around with a keg under his arm, and her brow furrowed.
"I told him to behave himself while he was out here. Seems he's beyond saving."
"Well... I'd say it's fine, so long as he doesn't harm anyone."
Crash. The moment I watched him demolish a vendor's stall, my brow twitched.
Then again, expecting Bunta not to cause trouble had been naive of me. Adjutant or no, even Adele couldn't let this pass.
As the Grand Duke's man, he ought to set an example. It was the very moment Adele sighed and moved to intervene.
"Hey, Bunta. I believe the Grand Duchess told you to stay out of trouble."
Lotos came trudging in from somewhere and seized Bunta by the collar.
Feigning anger, he bored into Bunta's eyes — then tilted his head slightly toward us.
And then, with a glance, he met my eyes, broke into a wide grin, and carried on.
"The Grand Duchess is busy today, you see. She hasn't the time to mind your every little move. Grab that keg and follow me. You're going to help fix this."
Lotos winked one eye in a way that made me want to gag, dipped his head toward us, and promptly vanished.
Was that quick-witted of him, or hopelessly oblivious?
Adele stared after Lotos with a look of sheer disbelief, shook her head, and gave a hollow laugh.
"He's gone completely mad."
"Then what will you do now?"
I asked, glancing at her dress. Even walking beside me, her movements looked distinctly awkward.
Her feet had to be starting to ache — high heels were hardly kind to her.
I couldn't quite understand why she would put herself through this, but neither did I want to keep watching her walk in discomfort.
Whether she grasped my meaning or not, Adele studied me for a moment, then nodded.
"...I suppose I could use a short rest."
"I only hope your feet are holding up."
"They're fine. A pair of shoes isn't about to hurt me."
She shook out her feet a few times, then strode off toward somewhere.
The direction Adele was heading led, unmistakably, toward the forest.
A quiet place, empty of people — a forest where, in this season, the whole sky lay open to view.
Walking between the bare, stripped trees, I caught her whenever she slipped.
"Are you all right?"
"You don't need to catch me. I won't hurt myself even if I fall."
"There's no need to take that chance."
When I took her by the waist and slowly steadied her, Adele looked at me blankly, dusted off her dress, and started walking again.
If she was going to be like this, her usual clothes would have been the wiser choice. I had assumed she'd worn the dress to deliver a speech, but there was no speech from Adele at this New Year's festival. The reason: she couldn't be bothered.
Coming from Adele, that was a perfectly credible reason.
So in her spare time, she must have gone and dug the dress out, and put it on.
If asked why, I couldn't have said. In any case, deep in the now fully darkened forest, a small flame bloomed to life.
The artifact clutched in Adele's hand kindled a tiny flame that spread through the forest, raising a soft, gentle glow all around.
That was why it was not so dark.
In that twilight-pale light, reaching our destination was no great trial.
It was a place familiar to me, too — one Adele had often brought me to.
I had wondered when it would come in this life; apparently today was the day.
The one spot in the forest where the sky opened wide, with a fallen tree laid out like a seat.
In the round gap of sky, only a single full moon hung, lonely. Beside it, countless stars pricked like pinpoints.
We stood quietly for a while in the wind seeping through the trees, and then my eyes met Adele's as she looked at me.
Even in that faint light, her face was unmistakable. Perhaps because her presence was so striking by nature,
looking at an Adele who seemed entirely shed of the name of Grand Duke, I slowly parted my lips.
"Is this the place you wanted to bring me to?"
"Yes. It's where I come sometimes. When I want to be alone."
"There are two of us today, though."
"I know. I brought you here on purpose. Didn't I tell you? There's something I want to show you."
I had assumed the dress was that something, but it seemed something else remained.
What could it be? As I quietly watched her, Adele noticed where my gaze had settled and hunched her shoulders.
Then I noticed how thin her dress was.
It had been treated with magic, so it was likely fine to a degree — but still, this was the North, was it not?
I stared at her for a moment, then spoke again.
"You look cold."
"I'm not cold."
Me, wrapped in a cloak — and Adele, in nothing but a dress, without a single layer over it.
Anyone who saw us might well conclude I was subjecting her to something dreadful.
It gnawed at me. Even if she was fine, I was not — that was the trouble.
I strode over to Adele, seated on the base of the tree.
She started at my approach — and then, as the cloak settled over her shoulders, she looked up at me blankly.
"I told you I wasn't cold."
At the sight of her knitting her brows, as if to ask what on earth I was doing, a small laugh escaped me.
My shoulders felt bare without the cloak, but in exchange, my heart was easier as I watched her.
"Just keep it on. I'd worry you'd catch a chill."
"...Don't waste your worry on nothing. I'm leaving tomorrow, after all."
"Then why the dress? If you knew we were coming all the way out here, wouldn't your usual clothes have been more comfortable?"
She wasn't giving a speech, and she hadn't been making any official appearance at the festival, after all.
At my question, Adele's lips fluttered open and shut, as if deliberating her answer.
After a long moment of thought, she met my eyes and answered slowly.
Her eyes were different from the ones I always saw — soft, as if summoning some distant memory, wavering as though ripples might spread across them at any moment.
"A very long time ago... I think I wanted to show you this."
"I'm... sorry?"
When I instinctively pressed her on it, Adele only shook her head and said nothing more.
A very long time ago. I didn't know what moment she meant, but it didn't feel all that distant to me.
A strange question took root in my mind.
The way she had just spoken — it was as if she were talking about a 'past' that only I knew.
The dress Adele was wearing was one I had seen once before.
The dress I had found when I entered the room she had lived in — back when I failed to stop Adele from dying on charges of treason.
The memory of standing before that ownerless dress was still vivid, and seeing her say such a thing to me now, that memory seemed to stir uneasily back to life.
She had probably said it without thinking. A mere coincidence — no one had ever once recalled a previous loop before.
So I turned my gaze away, shaking free of the old memory — and it was just as I lifted my head toward the sky.
"Robert. This is what I wanted to show you."
Fwoosh—
With Adele's voice, something streaked across the sky.
The same sound I had heard at the Full Moon Festival — the sound that had, even then, roused me from a reverie much like this one.
Boom—!
The fireworks that had arced overhead burst all at once, and in an instant the surroundings drowned in noise.
Sounds vast enough to deafen, light bright enough to blur the moonlight beyond seeing — they painted the night sky.
White, red, blue. A riot of colors, each vying for my eyes.
"I liked what I saw at the Full Moon Festival. So I had them brought all the way here, to the North."
Boom—!
The deafening din erased every other sound, yet Adele's voice alone came through crystal clear.
Watching the light from the middle of that open clearing in the forest, I turned to look at Adele once more.
For an instant, shadow fell. Beneath the blazing sky, Adele's face was veiled in darkness.
And still her eyes reached me. As our gazes met, her lips parted once more, and a voice followed.
It was a somewhat careful voice.
"Pretty, isn't it? Your expression, though... could use some work."
An old memory bloomed. The woman who had once said she had something to show me, who had told me to wait — and who never returned — was here.
This was an echo. For me, who lived on within memories, it was a reverberation akin to a curse, and in the end, all I could do was lay it over Adele as well.
When the blurred afterimages overlapped and fused into a single image, at last I saw it — a faint smile on the face before me.
Light, darkness.
Amid the repeating scenes, what remained in my eyes was not the light of the fireworks.
Nor the moon hanging in the sky, nor the stars reclaiming their light.
It was simply a woman in a dress the color of flowing water.
"...You're beautiful."
I answered, looking not at the sky but at Adele.
Without adding the fireworks, that is — and at my unblinking gaze, Adele's eyes slid away.
Watching her like that, I added softly, and smiled.
"Very much so."
Words I should have said long ago, yet only now let loose.
And then I understood.
Even now, I was living in the lingering echo of memories.