Confessions to the Moon
He thought a strange current was flowing between them. In every moment they exchanged words, this fragrant tension was surely something that passed between a man and a woman.
Was it all just my imagination?
Yes, it must have been. The smile Tichite had shown him was clearly nothing more than the bare minimum of courtesy toward a superior.
He, who had little experience speaking with young women, had foolishly let such feelings intrude.
Damn it. What the hell was I expecting, like an idiot?
A young, pretty woman had merely humored him a little, and he had grinned like a fool, deluding himself. It was deeply regrettable. That sort of foolishness was precisely the kind of lapse Nyx most guarded against and despised.
He was disappointed in himself. And above all, he was ashamed. His heart filled with mortification. He could think of nothing except the desire to flee this humiliating situation as quickly as possible.
So Nyx raised his voice.
“I don’t need it. I said I don’t need it, didn’t I? I already told you. I don’t expect anything from you. How many more times do I have to repeat the same words before you understand?”
The man rose abruptly from his seat and looked down at her from a height that brooked no challenge. His raised voice concealed a crack.
“Asking me to show you, to take it off—you overstep sometimes. No matter how small, harmless, or favored you are—favored because I allow it—you have no right to order me around. Do you understand? So what I’m saying is, never again… to me… from you… ah, from now on, to me…”
Nyx’s tongue began to tangle as he shouted. What he wanted to say, what he ought to say, what was safe to voice and what was not—all tangled together in a dizzying mess.
Meanwhile, Tichite once again felt hollow when her persuasion failed. Yet she could not understand part of what Nyx had said, and her brow furrowed.
When had she ever ordered him around?
She searched her polite request for anything that might have offended him, but found no answer.
Just as she was about to ask the reason in hopes of clearing the misunderstanding, someone suddenly knocked on the door.
“Commander, it is Milvian. I have brought the saint as you ordered.”
“Come in.”
Nyx swallowed the words he had left unfinished and spoke loudly enough to be heard beyond the door. He no longer wished to spare Tichite even a glance. He felt a secret relief that an excuse to send her away had appeared.
The door opened, and the young knight and the elderly saint entered in turn. The saint was an old man with a full head of white hair. The laughter lines folded into several layers of wrinkles made him look very warm.
“May the bright moon rise.”
The saint spoke with a bright smile. The two Sunset Religion followers exchanged the ritual greeting wishing for the Moon Mother’s blessing.
“May the moonlight of truth illuminate the path ahead.”
“May the moonlight of peace be with the believer tonight.”
After shaking hands with the saint, Nyx quietly turned to Tichite. He tried to speak as curtly as he did to other men.
“What are you doing? Get out.”
He jerked his chin toward the door, as if he had nothing more to say to her. This, even though he had ended by stammering and spouting things no one could interpret.
Perhaps out of indignation, Tichite gave no reaction. She stood there, shifting her weight, searching for something to say.
Nyx raised his voice a little more, afraid Milvian or the saint might notice how unseemly he had looked moments earlier.
“I said get out.”
Then Tichite looked at him with sorrowful, pitiful eyes. A damp resentment settled in her dark pupils, and the woman turned and left the room. She bit her lower lip over her upper one, as if holding back a surge of emotion. That was the last expression of Tichite’s that Nyx was able to see.
In a single second, the man felt a pang of regret.
When Milvian was about to leave, leaving only the saint and Nyx behind, that had been his last chance. A chance to leave behind the embarrassing request to watch over the woman so she would not be harmed by some strange man.
The saint looked back and forth between the suspicious knight and the door, then asked,
“Will you offer the evening prayer?”
Nyx felt the urge to turn the clock back a mere five minutes and answered reluctantly.
“…Yes.”
He then knelt before the hem of the saint’s long robe. The saint placed his hand upon the hard helmet that showed no sign of being removed.
“Before the sun sets and night comes, we look to You and weep. Now we close our reckless mouths and will confess without falsehood the sins we committed with the sun; do not let us remain in the sins we have committed. Forgive and judge us, who are clumsy and weak.”
“Judge us.”
The saint opened the first page of the prayer in a thin, long melody without inflection. Nyx Farrow knelt in the most obedient posture before the representative of God. He clasped his hands and closed his eyes. Yet it was not easy to focus on the prayer as usual.
Perhaps sensing this, the saint asked with a white laugh,
“Do you have a sin you wish to confess today, believer?”
“…Yes, I do.”
“Confess it.”
Nyx pressed his forehead against his clasped hands and spoke.
“As you just saw… I raised my voice at a w-woman…”
His voice sounded as though sweat were trickling down. The old man heard this and chuckled.
“That is quite a grave sin indeed.”
The old man stroked his thin beard and replied teasingly, then sat in the chair and set down his staff. He also tidied his appearance with a leisurely air, as if relieved of a burden.
“In truth, I was rather frightened. I wondered what great sin you must have committed to donate such an excessive amount while requesting a repentance prayer.”
It was about the offering Milvian had brought on his behalf earlier.
Whenever Nyx requested a one-on-one prayer with the saint, he paid a generous “offering” as travel expenses. He was always happy to donate that much for the development of the local parish.
“Those who receive money sometimes have to say they ‘forgive’ theft, fraud, even rape and murder. At such times, no matter how old and weathered the man, his throat cannot help but feel rough.”
“No, I merely…”
“But it seems it was not the sort of thing I feared.”
The saint looked the suspiciously wealthy knight up and down.
Since the other party had hidden his face, there was no way to know his identity. He could only guess.
The voice that had become politely deferential before the saint, and the attire with not a single shabby detail.
People who offered such a large donation for a single night’s prayer were rare, so he must be someone with wealth to match his devout heart.
“Our gentle believer is tormented by nothing more than raising his voice at another, like a child lying to his parents for the first time. The Goddess surely knows the sincerity of our pure believer better than anyone, so She will gladly absolve that sin. Now, repent. Lay bare all the worries that have blackened your mind and find comfort.”
The man did as he was told. A devout Sunset Religion follower was supposed to set aside all reservations and be honest before the saint.
“I am a man deeply ill and hideous, with many flaws.”
As if to prove that hideous aspect, the man removed the gauntlets from both hands.
The saint glimpsed the tragedy staining those hands yet did not dare express sympathy. He neither pitied nor felt sorry for him, but simply listened in silence.
“So I have never married, never even courted a woman, never fallen in love with anyone. Even at an age when I should have, I have never held a woman’s hand or kissed her.”
The man, who had been speaking as if filled with resentment, suddenly felt ashamed and looked up at the saint.
“It may not be proper to pour out such complaints to someone who has devoted himself to the Goddess, but…”
“It is fine. Please continue.”
With the saint’s permission, he went on.
“I was afraid of women who knew me well and would insult me. So I avoided even women I did not know. During my time on the battlefield, that was not difficult. I could remain surrounded only by men like myself. But when the war ended and I had to return to a normal life… I could not. When facing women, I could feel that something that should have allowed me to function normally was severely broken.”
The saint stroked his white beard and nodded. Before the benevolent old saint, the inexperienced believer could become endlessly unseemly. He began to pour out, without concealment, the deep-seated, moldy inferiority complex and the anguish born from it.