IBTRFL Chapter 17

Repetition

Spring blooms where winter has melted away.

A small raindrop tapped the still face of the water, and softened the frozen ground. Beneath the drifting ice, a shoal of fry swam. A seed that endured its hard, patient time twisted itself this way and that, and began its long journey again.

The spring rain washed the winter clean.

Green showed here and there in the forest, its long rest finally over. A few impatient plants had already put out their first green shoots.

A water drop hung trembling on the tip of a leaf too tender to have ripened. Wind flew in like a bird and shook it. A young mountain bird flew in like wind and pecked it.

The small drop, dyed gold by the sun, soon fell to the ground and scattered like gold dust.

Time was that same precious gold, and so Aer had spent the past year diligently.

Her control over magic had grown razor-fine. Swinging broken branches and the like, she'd gotten her feel for the sword back.

Life at the orphanage had also been richer and warmer than she could have asked for. She could say, without reservation, that it had been the most peaceful stretch of time she had lived through.

It went smoothly. Though not all of it did, of course.

The darkness. That fucking power wouldn't be tamed. Try to use it and it went berserk, like a foal that ate the wrong mushroom.

One night she lost her sight completely. Once the power ran wild and erased a boulder outright. A soggy, clinging shadow snagged her ankle and dropped her flat on her ass.

When the rebounding force hit her and cracked a rib, even breathing was a chore. Couldn't show it, though.

The pissed-off rookie mage decided to seal the unfamiliar power away—until she found some way, another mage, some relevant text, whatever.

Just when she'd thought that particular problem was behind her, an entirely different one turned up, from a direction she hadn't expected at all.

The orphanage, as it stood now, did not stint the children on food.

Fish, chicken, cheese, pickles, black bread, grain porridge. Thanks to Valor's support and the donations that came with it, a table that would once have been unimaginable had become the ordinary run of things.

A body finally fed enough shot up like it'd been hit with some devil's sly curse. Vicious growing pains came to torture her knees, every night.

Her joints throbbed like they'd caught a chill, sleep ran off somewhere far away, and Aer had no choice but to lie awake all night, clutching her knees.

She'd rolled through every kind of pain there was, but growing pains were completely foreign territory.

At the old orphanage she'd been robbed of the chance to grow at all. Later, as a mercenary, once things got better, all she'd managed was half a finger-joint's worth.

Never having gone through a normal growth process, she'd never known growing pains either.

Unable to stand it anymore, she'd even gone begging the clerics for help. But even holy power only worked in the moment—the second a cleric's hand left her, her bones ached exactly the same as before.

It wasn't some outside problem she could point to and fix. It came from inside her. Aer had no choice but to grit her teeth and take it.

"...Piece of shit."

Aer spat the ugly words out and started rubbing her knee, rough as anything.

When her hand, warmed by magic, touched the spot, the pain seemed to ease a little. An irritated sigh echoed through the well-kept room.

"Today's the last day..."

Aer scowled, rolling around on the bed.

The straw had just been changed, softer than usual. Thinking she'd have to leave soon, she didn't want to pull herself off it.

"...I should go."

Aer got up, unsteady on her feet, and went to the drawer. Inside sat her last lingering regret.

The letters she and Valor traded over the past year. His work as Inspector-General kept them from meeting, but they kept the thread between them alive through letters, unfailingly.

She'd wavered dozens of times, but never once told him the secret.

Didn't matter, though. The guilt was one thing. Writing to him—that had been pure joy, nothing else like it.

Please, uncle—I hope you were the same as me.

Aer smiled, hollow, and tucked the very first letter she'd ever gotten deep inside her clothes.

"..."

Aer stood with her hand on the doorknob and looked back. The first space that had ever been entirely, only hers.

Even before this, she'd lived as a drifting mercenary—a home, a room, she'd never even dared imagine such things. Sleeping under a roof was extravagance; having anywhere to lie down at all was luxury itself.

She'd already finished getting ready to leave. Aer took the room she'd grown fond of into her eyes one last time, then stepped out.

Night lay thick over the orphanage. Meant if she listened even a little, she could catch the faintest sounds.

Even a secret plot hatched by a pack of disobedient little brats.

So it happens no matter what, one way or another. Guess those three rigid, stuffy goddesses are dead set on snapping a life-thread that hasn't even ripened yet.

Aer's face went hard, and she bolted toward the voices.

Behind the orphanage, in brush just gone green with new shoots, round little butts stuck out here and there, wiggling.

Not knowing they were already caught, the little troublemakers snickered to each other as they talked.

"We didn't get caught, right?"

"Right!"

"Let's hurry and go!"

"Shh, you're too loud."

"Yeah. Way too loud. But—where are you guys going, anyway?"

"Um, we're—huh?"

The three children hiding behind the brush startled, shoulders jumping.

Aer crouched down in front of them. It was a natural entry into the group, as though she'd been part of it from the start.

"What are you three actually up to?"

The kids went stiff as day-old black bread. Aer clicked her tongue and drawled on, cocky as hell.

"Little scraps like you, out at this hour—going where?"

"U-um, sis."

"Answer. Or I'll go tell the cleric."

The threat landed dead-on. One kid, pale with fright, stammered out an answer. His fingers, short and stubby as a scrap of sausage, fidgeted nervously.

"I-it's just—tomorrow's the cleric's birthday. We wanted to give her flowers, so..."

"That so?"

The children nodded and rolled their eyes shyly. Aer looked at them without a word.

She'd been right, then. These were the children who had died, that time.

On a day not long after spring had come, three children who couldn't bear their hunger had slipped off into the forest. A forest just waking from winter, in spring, wasn't nearly as generous as it might have been come autumn.

The children hadn't known that. They'd lost their way, wandered, and ended up going deeper and deeper into the woods.

A monster lived in the forest's depths. A monster that crunched lost children between its teeth, gnawed them down to nothing.

Starved, weakened, the kids couldn't run right. Only one—just one, both legs gnawed clean through—crawled back toward the orphanage, desperate.

The greedy Director, of course, didn't treat him. Snorted like he'd seen something filthy, just ordered the kid dumped in a room.

Two days. That's how long he clung to a lifeline that had already snapped.

She didn't know what had happened after that. Once she was old enough, she'd have been dragged off to the Bishop's operation, thrown in with monsters to fend for herself, right up until she escaped.

She was certain the Director hadn't given him a proper funeral, hadn't reported the monster to anyone.

Aer propped her chin on her hand, asking, all innocent-like. "So? Picking flowers in the forest, huh?"

"Yeah, we thought there might be some early bloomers in the forest."

The cause was different. But the result would be the same. Of that much, she was certain.

Let the kids go like this, and that accident would happen all over again.

After everything, the orphanage had only just clawed its way back to some hope. For the kids' sake, that hope had to keep burning—couldn't go out.

Aer smiled, forcing it, and stroked the boy's head.

"Better one than three, don't you think?"

"Huh? Sis?"

"Never mind. I'll keep it secret from the cleric. So—how about letting your big sister tag along?"

Aer pointed to herself, asking, sly as anything.

Blinking in confusion, the children exchanged glances. She could practically hear their eyes rolling back and forth.

A moment later, having finished their silent conference, one of them asked carefully.

"Sis wants to give the cleric flowers too?"

"Yeah."

Aer answered without hesitation. The children's faces brightened all at once.

"Yeah! We'd love that."

"Me too! Let's give the cleric flowers!"

"Let's go! Let's go!"

Bursting into laughter, the children grabbed Aer's hands and pulled her toward the forest.

A forest that had, until then, held nothing but the quiet sound of insects rang, unseasonably, with cheerful voices.

"..."

Aer blinked, her face drained of any life.

Having left the orphanage for the first time, the children lost their attention entirely to nature, poking around here and there. The goal of giving flowers seemed to have already been wiped clean from their minds.

Dug in the dirt, poked at mushroom caps, picked up sticks and swung them around. No productive value whatsoever—but their attention was completely hooked, plenty of joy in it.

"Grass!"

"That's poisonous!"

Aer bolted over in a panic and shoved herself between the kid and the plant. The boy looked briefly downcast, then immediately spotted something else and ran off toward it.

Curiosity's the root of every invention. Also the root of every danger. Especially for kids who can't tell the difference between the two.

Aer let out a sigh, sick of it all. Some half-cracked adult she turned out to be—already worn clean out.

"Anyway, where'd this one wander off to?"

Only two of the others were nearby. Aer scanned the area, anxious.

Fortunately, a head sticking up out of the bushes, plain as a sore thumb.

"I told you not to wander off!"

"Sis! There's something weird here!"

Something weird? Frowning, Aer gathered up the two children still playing off on their own and headed that way.

The turned-back child held out something cradled in his arms. The two nearby lit up at the sight.

"Whoa! What's this."

"It looks like an acorn."

"Cute, right? I picked it up."

"Drop that. Now."

An ice-cold voice dropped onto the children's heads.