Coloring (12)
Coloring (12)
"I'll help. Though I'm not sure how much help I'll be."
She tilted her head slightly.
As if turning my words over in her mind.
Her lips parted, then closed.
Then she smiled brightly, like a child.
It seemed like genuine delight.
"Whether it helps or not isn't the point."
Estelle leaned against my shoulder.
Her hair tickled my cheek.
She smelled of wine.
"Just having you beside me... I feel like I could do anything."
She said it while taking my hand.
The touch was warm and soft.
Her fingers slowly traced the back of my hand, then my palm.
It might have been teasing, or maybe she was checking something.
It didn't tickle, but it wasn't unpleasant.
"Your hands are cold. Are they always?"
"Just... habit."
"Want me to warm them up?"
Estelle wrapped both her hands around mine.
Then she pressed them to her cheek.
"See? Warm, right?"
She closed her eyes and whispered it.
Instead of answering, I focused on the feeling of the back of my hand against her cheek.
Her fingers swept slowly across my face.
Along the ridge of my brow, down the bridge of my nose, lingering over my lips.
Estelle always liked touching things like this.
We'd only been around each other for barely two months, but fruit, food, tobacco, liquor — whatever it was, she always ran her fingers over it once.
"Thank you."
A smile tugged at the corner of her mouth.
I had no reason to refuse the offer.
If I could step off this endless treadmill and live a different life, even briefly, that was enough.
At least for now.
"Alright. Shall we go, then?"
After we finished dinner, Estelle led me outside.
The cold night air wrapped around us the moment the church doors opened.
We crossed the Academy grounds in silence.
The streetlamps stretched our shadows long and thin.
Our silhouettes overlapped, drifted apart, overlapped again.
"Nighttime's wonderful, you know.
You can walk around and no one recognizes you.
During the day they all call me Lady Saintess, and it's sort of...
Uncomfortable? Annoying? Something like that."
"So where are we going?"
"You'll see. I'm sure you've been here a few times."
We headed toward the Grand Cathedral.
It was night, but the spire still glowed faintly under the moonlight.
When Estelle stepped inside, the believers and priests who recognized her bowed their heads in greeting.
They bent at the waist in unison, like it had been rehearsed.
"We behold the Saintess."
Their voices brimmed with reverence.
No one seemed to find Estelle's arrival strange.
Even though she'd shown up late at night with an unknown man in tow.
Apparently, coming and going as she pleased was just her way of life.
A priest glanced at me and asked a question.
He was an older man, bearded.
Open wariness sat in his eyes.
"Saintess, this gentleman is..."
"My guest."
Estelle's answer was curt.
The priest asked nothing further and quietly withdrew.
He backed away with his head still lowered.
We walked down the central aisle.
The ceiling was so high that every footstep seemed to make the whole building resonate.
Click. Click. Click.
Enormous pillars rose toward the heavens on either side, and the stained glass covering the walls glowed with an eerie light under the moon.
"What do you think? Isn't it magnificent?"
Estelle whispered.
Her voice was thick with mischief.
"You'd think the people who built a thing like this would take care of the folks living around it.
We're taught since we're little that our god is that kind of being.
Overflowing with love and mercy and all that. Right?"
She turned her head to look at the stained glass.
It depicted a benevolent god tenderly embracing a small child.
But Estelle's eyes seemed to see something else entirely.
"Turned out it wasn't built for some dying commoner brat.
They call it the house of god, but does god actually give a damn about all this opulence?"
She was smiling.
Calmly, casually, as if it were nothing.
But her eyes looked hollow somehow.
Like someone who hadn't slept in a very long time.
"That's when I learned that without money, you can't even receive god's grace.
Some son of a bitch said divine power is only cultivated for the nobility.
Found out later that bastard was a lunatic who played with little boys behind closed doors."
As she passed, the priests and believers lining the aisle kept their heads bowed or found somewhere else to be.
Not one of them tried to meet her eyes.
Estelle didn't look at them either.
She treated them like air. Like they didn't exist.
"Is it always like this?"
"Ah, yeah. It's been like this lately."
"You're a bit different from the Saintess I know."
"Different, huh. Spend the whole night with me and your opinion might change again.
There's a lot I want to show you. Just you."
Estelle giggled.
Her laughter echoed off the high ceiling.
She walked down the corridor, ducked into a room, and came back out, tilting her head.
Then she headed for the innermost part of the cathedral, toward the altar.
Estelle casually perched herself on the altar.
And called over a passing priest.
"A moment."
The priest looked young, barely more than a boy.
He rushed over at her summons.
"Where's Perion?
I don't think I've seen him today."
Estelle asked.
"Ah, well. I'll find out right away!"
The priest stammered his reply and scurried off somewhere.
His retreating figure was almost comical.
"Doesn't the atmosphere feel a bit... gloomy?"
Estelle swung her legs, kicking the golden candlestick below the altar with her foot. Tap, tap.
"Why?"
"A few days ago, the Archbishop died. Shockingly.
Found beaten beyond recognition.
I suspect it might've been divine wrath."
Estelle smiled broadly, as if pleased.
"So why did we come here tonight?"
"There's someone I have to meet. Name's Perion."
Estelle kept swinging her legs, answering like it was nothing.
"I told you earlier, about being turned away when my little brother was sick."
Her voice remained even.
Like she was telling someone else's old story.
"You know what that man said to me when I was a kid?
A pretty little thing like you could earn the treatment money fast.
Or, if I lent him my little brother for just one night, he'd think about making a special exception.
Preferably while the boy was still sick, he said."
She smirked.
"That's why they tell us to love our neighbors and spread love.
Otherwise, who would've guessed a person like me would suddenly become the Saintess and turn the Order upside down like this?"
Just then, the young priest from before came running back, panting.
He stood before Estelle, gasping for breath.
His face had gone pale.
"So. Where is Perion?"
"Lord Perion is unwell and remains at his private residence."
The priest stammered his reply.
Sweat ran down his forehead.
"Oh, is that so? He's sick? What's wrong with him?"
"That, I couldn't say...."
"Forget it. You can go."
Estelle waved him off.
The priest fled with an expression of pure relief, like a condemned man granted a pardon.
"Let's go. That's enough night walking for now."
Estelle hopped down from the altar.
She took my hand and headed out of the cathedral.
We made our way to Perion's house.
It was a sizable mansion, not far from the cathedral.
Beyond the fence, an ornate garden was dimly visible.
Rare flowers of every kind glowed in strange colors under the moonlight.
"Living in goddamn luxury.
Looks like divine grace reached all the way here."
Estelle spoke with heavy sarcasm and walked into the estate without hesitation.
"Wait here a moment."
She stopped in front of the mansion door.
She closed her eyes and clasped her hands together.
Her lips moved faintly.
She seemed to be reciting some unknown spell.
A moment later, she opened her eyes.
"Alright, shall we go in?
I've already repented in advance, so he'll forgive everything.
I asked him to forgive you too, so he'll probably grant that. Probably."
Estelle laughed like a child and walked toward the door without a moment's hesitation.
As if it were her own house.
She reached for the brass knocker, then gave up and kicked the door instead.
The servants bustling about inside came into view.
Estelle murmured something, and they collapsed one by one, as if they'd inhaled gas.
"They're not dead. Follow me, Ravin."
She climbed the stairs to the second floor, walking slowly.
I didn't say a word as we ascended.
I just followed her.
Her black priest's robe fluttered in the darkness.
The second-floor hallway was long and dark.
Doors lined both sides.
From the room at the far end, faint laughter seeped out.
Estelle stopped in front of that door and took the handle.
The door opened without a sound.
The room was crammed with every conceivable luxury.
On the bed, a fat middle-aged man lay sprawled between two half-dressed women.
"Who is it? Did I call for another whore?
I don't think I asked for a man today...."
Perion shouted.
He tried to scramble up, but he was too drunk to manage it.
Estelle approached him without a word.
With a single gesture from her, the women beside him collapsed like dolls and fell asleep.
"S-Saintess? H-how did you come to such a humble..."
Perion floundered, trying to get off the bed.
Then he got a proper look at Estelle's face, and his own drained white with terror.
"It was you who killed the Archbishop!
You demonic, insane bitch!"
He shrieked.
Estelle just smiled.
She grabbed Perion by the hair, dragged him off the bed, then hauled him out of the room, down the hallway, and into an empty room.
She flung Perion into the middle of the floor.
Then turned to look at me.
"You can just stand here and watch.
Or if it gets hard to stomach, go downstairs and rest."
I said nothing.
Estelle seemed to take my silence as agreement and approached Perion.
Leaning against the wall, I thought it over. Around this time, Estelle must have shown her true colors and gotten caught by Kyle.
My memory's a bit hazy since I've died twice already, but still.
Well, if you're only killing bastards connected to your little brother when you get caught, it's not a bad scene to play for sympathy.
Scratching the back of my head with the distinct feeling I was fucked, I pulled a cigarette from my coat and lit it.
Estelle grinned, took the one dangling from my lips and stuck it in her own mouth, exhaled smoke, and spoke.
"Help me. So I can see you only as Ravin."