Chapter 1
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Translator: 8uhl
Chapter: 1
Chapter Title: Hilde of Dithmarschen
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Some say the people of the North are tough. That they must be, to survive in a land of endless winter. They’re half right.
Admirers of nature claim it strengthens humanity, but not so in the North. This land offers no quarter. Only those born strong survive here.
When it snows, it piles higher than a man's head, and the snows of yesteryear often linger until the following summer. Monsters from before recorded history roam day and night, sometimes even scaling the citadel walls. Weakness cannot exist here. It is simply another name for death.
However, that saying is flawed. Summer does come to the northern lands. Whether naturally or by artifice, it arrives. Though it barely shows its face before vanishing, leaving the crops unripe.
Sometimes, very rarely, once in several decades, a summer descends that is long enough to parch the earth. The last such year was more than fifty years ago. A lifetime past. Yet I remember that time vividly.
A memory pocked with holes by forgetfulness, perhaps even distorted by fondness. What is certain is that I was not alone that year, and that she was by my side.
“Ulrich.”
She, Hilde, called my name.
“You don’t age, do you?”
We were walking through the fields.
As the snow that had blanketed the fields in white began to melt, green sprouts pushed up through the soil, fresh as morning dew. The scent of grass, a rarity in the North, tickled my nose. The sky, perpetually overcast and dreary, was a brilliant blue, and the wind that once carried snow now blew with warmth.
“I do not.”
“And you don’t die.”
I wondered what Hilde was trying to say. Why was she suddenly asking about such obvious facts? She knew I had lived for a very long time, despite not being a half-elf.
“Isn’t it painful?”
But this was the first time she had ever asked about my eternal life. I had never considered it a secret, but she had always remained silent, as if it were some great taboo. Why ask now?
I stopped walking. She, who had been walking beside me, stopped a step later. She turned to face me, and I saw her eyes tremble slightly.
“Was that rude of me?”
Perhaps my silence made her anxious, for she asked cautiously.
“No.”
“If it's difficult, you don't have to talk about it.”
“It’s not that.”
I was just at a loss for how to answer.
“As you know, I neither age nor die. Time always flows past, leaving me behind. Even elves, who seem to embrace immortality, eventually succumb to the weight of years. They possess only the privilege of not aging; they still face a slow death.”
“...”
“Dragons are the same. When the third human empire arose, the first dragon turned to dust in a distant land. They were born long before me, of course... but now I have outlived them. And look at me. Is there any difference between the man you remember from long ago and the man I am today?”
Hilde shook her head, indicating there was none.
“I have bid farewell to many. I will do so again and again. The pain you're asking about is this, isn't it? Whether it's painful to see others go and be left all alone.”
“Yes. I... you—”
“If you ask if that is painful, of course it is.”
I raised a hand, stopping her.
“But life itself is not painful. Fortunately, I too am blessed with forgetfulness. Memories fade, becoming fond recollections. You understand what I mean, don't you? The present always becomes the past, but remembering the past is not always a sorrowful thing.”
She looked as if she were about to say something, but she swallowed her words. After a moment's hesitation, she spoke again. Her voice trembled, as unsteady as the gaze she lifted to mine.
“Someday, I'll become one of your memories, won't I?”
“Yes.”
“Isn’t that when you’re supposed to say you’ll remember me?”
“I suppose so.”
“You’re a cold man...”
Hilde laughed softly.
“So? Why did you bring this up?”
“May I ask a favor of you?”
A favor?
“When I die, I want you to accept the fief.”
“You want me to inherit your title?”
“Yes. You, and no one else.”
Then I understood her true intentions. But I feigned ignorance and asked.
“Have you no thought of passing it to your kin?”
“You know how I feel about them.”
Yes, I knew all too well.
She had inherited her title at the age of eight, and I was the one who had watched over her. I was the one who had thwarted the grasping hands that tried to snatch the title from her, so I knew all too well.
“Please.”
Hilde took my right hand in both of hers.
Gaunt hands, etched with fine wrinkles. The sight of them caught the words in my throat. I had been about to refuse, to say it was too much to ask, but now I was truly at a loss. How many times in her life had she ever asked anything of me?
I understood the intent behind her request. I knew it was no different from a last will and testament. And I was not so heartless a man as to coldly brush either aside.
#
The man awoke from his reverie.
What had they talked about after that? He searched his memory, but nothing came to mind. The preceding memory was so vivid he could still recall the scent of the grass, yet of what followed, not a single word remained.
Perhaps oblivion was stronger even than death, he thought. It was so very difficult to hold on to a memory.
- Hilde Dithmarschen
As the winter wind blew, carrying flurries of snow, he stood looking down at a gravestone. It was this that had trapped him, however briefly, in his reverie. He knelt and brushed the snow from the stone, revealing her name.
He was the one who had carved her name. He was the one who had placed her in her coffin, and he was the one who had kept vigil at her deathbed and inherited her title.
“...”
Hilde died toward the end of that summer. Like all those he had ever formed a bond with, she had returned to the earth. Fifty-three springs had passed since then. Summer had visited a few times in those years, but never one as long as that one.
“You never cared a whit for your relatives, did you.”
He placed a hand on the gravestone and smiled.
The reason she had passed her title to him... she had wanted him never to forget her. As long as he remained the lord of Dithmarschen, as long as he resided in the manor where she was born, where she grew up, and where she died, he would not forget her.
He was that kind of man. And she had known him well.
The time they had spent together was but a fleeting moment in the grand scale of his life. A past destined to be forgotten. And for that reason—or perhaps in spite of it—she had wished to be remembered for a long, long time.
“Lord Ulrich.”
The sound of crunching snow drew closer.
“It's cold, my lord. You should go inside.”
The man called Ulrich turned his head.
An old butler stood behind him. His name was Hohenlohe. A boy Hilde had taken in as a page seven years before her death, now grown into an old man.
He worried for his master, but it was the old man who was in need of concern. His face was pale from the cold, his frail body trembling like a gaunt thornbush. When he was gone, there would be no one left who had served her.
When everyone who shared these memories with him was gone, when even his own recollections of her began to fade, he would leave. That was the extent of his promise. It had always been so.
“Yes, I should.”
As he rose and left the cemetery, he fell back into old thoughts.
He was born in the age when gods built palaces in the sky and dwelt there. After the gods departed, he watched the dwarves raise a tower to the heavens. There was even a time when the ruined tower, overgrown with vines, was called the World Tree.
Three ages had ended, and the age of man had twice crumbled and risen anew to bring about the present day. Though the world had undergone such tremendous change, he still retained the appearance of his ancient self. His heart, it seemed, had changed many times over, but even he was unaware of those transformations. They happened little by little, never all at once.
Day by day, he lives within the flow of time that leaves him untouched. With even death passing him by, all he can do is accept life as it is.
Still, life was not made of pain alone. Though it was sorrowful to bid farewell to loved ones and be left alone, he believed that in time, new bonds would form. Some called death a gift from the gods and immortality a curse, but that wasn't necessarily the case.
His name was Ulrich. Currently, Ulrich of Dithmarschen.
A hundred years ago, he went by the name César de Guise, and in an even older time, Arturus Magnus. But these were only a few of this man's countless names. For now, they need not be known.