The Saintess's Dream
It began with a saintess's dream...
"Hoo... it's cold."
Beneath a cliff where wind and rain lashed without mercy, I was shivering so hard the chill felt like it had carved its way into my very bones.
Then came the sound of fabric snapping overhead, and a black cloak settled over me. The black-haired man swept his cloaked arm around my body and drew me deep into the hollow of his chest.
"...What are you doing? You startled me."
"Are you not cold? In weather like this, sharing body heat is the only way we keep from freezing to death."
His low, gravelly voice tickled the edge of my ear. Any other day I would have recoiled in disgust, but somehow, strangely, the feeling wasn't unwelcome.
"I know that. So rein it in and give me some space, will you?"
For all my snapping tone, my body had gone pliant and still. Without a word of reply, he simply pulled me tighter.
His chest was warm. The hard planes of it pressed against my back, and his scent—soaked through with rain, sharper than it had any right to be—stung at the tip of my nose. Add to that the thick forearms wrapped around me.
It should have felt suffocating, and yet a strange sense of security seeped through me instead, leaving my whole body languid. In the end I gave up pretending to resist and settled my back comfortably against his chest.
"You see? It's warmer now than it was before, isn't it?"
"...It is. Maybe it's because I'm in your arms, but it feels warmer."
I smiled bashfully through the rain, then—perhaps to hide the flush burning across my cheeks—whirled around entirely and buried my face in him, hugging his firm waist with both arms.
As I burrowed into his chest and pressed my face against the broad expanse of it, his heartbeat came through to me unfiltered. Thud. Thud.
I couldn't tell whether the pounding belonged to me or to him, but either way, my whole body flushed hot.
"S-Saintess?"
"Shut up. You're cold too, aren't you? Just hold still..."
I mumbled the words into his chest, my face scarlet.
It was warm. Cozy.
I was even starting to think I wouldn't mind staying like this forever, when—
"KYAAAAAH!"
CRASH!
With a shriek of pure horror, I rolled straight off the bed and woke on the floor. The moment my skin hit the cold boards, the warmth of the dream evaporated like a mirage.
"...Ah, goddammit. A dream."
I wiped away the cold sweat, gasping for breath.
Thank God. Thank God it was just a dream. Right—of course it was. I lived over twenty years as a man; thirteen as a woman wasn't about to rewrite my identity. Obviously. Case closed.
But the relief barely had time to settle before one deeply unpleasant, utterly horrifying truth surfaced in my mind.
A saintess's dreams are Precognitive Dreams.
Visions of futures yet to come—a divine authority granted to no one in this world but a saintess.
"Don't you dare mess with me!"
You're telling me my future is grinning like an idiot while rubbing my face against some man's chest? Is this a joke?! Who do you think you're laughing at?!
"If any bastard shows up trying to make that happen, I'll just split his skull in two with a spear. Problem solved!"
—This is the story of the Saintess Who Never Falls.