ACT 1 - A DREAMLESS, MEANINGLESS EXISTENCE

CHAPTER 1 - A GHOST FADES INTO THE CASTLE WALLS

Rei stood still. For many, it continued, but for him, time had stopped its march; the memories of that day were hazy and unclear, as if a white mist had come over his memory. The wind, stronger higher up where he stood motionless, blew against his long bangs, draped over his dull eyes and dry deadpan like a tablecloth as he stared into the expanse of Eria from the highest keel of House Hallieu. From here, the whole kingdom fell at his feet—if he could feel them—but he did not particularly care. Iron bars chained him to the little metal room in a tower, though it made no difference to him either because he was, in fact, a ghost.

He had a somewhat fear of the living; he did not consider himself to be afraid of them, nor did he know how this fear developed, but because he constantly consciously found himself in the keep, he grew nervous when faced with people that came and went, even though normally no one could see him unless he presented himself to them, which is something he was not fond of doing.

So unless he had to or had no choice, he rarely left the deserted cell he called his "room".

There was very faint energy contained in those iron bars that somewhat stung when he approached them, but he didn't particularly know what it was. Rei didn't like going around and about anyway–most times, it was his sister's insistence that led to his every-so-often wild misadventure around the castle. On that note, quite unfortunately, his sister Yu liked to flutter 'round the keep, down into the castle and across to the library in House Salwin to scare the wits out of the little lord Klug-which was not a good thing, because the only thing going for him was his wits.

How he got here was something he knew all too well, but didn't like to think about.

Flashes of that day flickered in his empty brain. The clashes of metal and steel, a public park's greenery, the slashing of flesh, the wind stopping altogether-

A blur it was to him; nothing could be done about his poor memory. Although, in his defense, he might not have poor memory whatsoever, maybe he just… forgot. It was like it never happened, and yet it did. How strange this feeling was.

"Hey, hey! Let's go outside and look at all the people!" The voice of his sister-who, now that he thought about it, never referred to him by name at all-rang out loud and clear. Yu's ghostly figure faded into the view of her little brother-although, was she older or younger? Too many years had gone by since they last felt the winds of the kingdom outside.

"No," Rei replied, and despite how painfully quiet he was it didn't make a lick of difference. He instantly knew what she meant by "looking at all the people" and sighed. "Not everyone wants to-"

"That's why we convince them!" his sister countered, twirling around and making hand motions of throwing flowers in the air. "Listen, I have a master game plan! We tell them a few jokes, ask them to come join us here, and both sides get a new friend! Everyone's happy!"

Rei mumbled something to himself and shook his head dejectedly. Alas, this was always Yu's plan, even if she called it a "master game plan": go up to random passersby, tell jokes, and ask them to join them in death. To his knowledge, it hasn't quite worked out yet.

"I'm so boooored!" Yu exclaimed with a cheery smile, the one that never left her face even when she was sad or angry. "And yet, I'm so happy! It's so nice to be dead! We need to tell others about the wonders of the afterlife! But, well…" Her voice trailed off, the smile had not left her face and her eyes had not dimmed in the slightest, but something about her was off. Emptier than usual, he supposed?

"How did we die, anyway?"

Flashes of that time, with the scent of burnt flesh, weaved into neatly-cut grass…

A girl named Feli in House Salwin, the other major noble house in Eria, had told them her visions had failed. If she couldn't do it-apparently someone so esteemed in terms of divination-then no one could.

His ghostly figure shook, eyes frozen on the movement of the people below. His intangible spirit refused to move, not even to turn and face his sister with his long bangs, and he wondered why exactly it was like that.

Why was he so scared of looking at the living from the keep?

Why was he so scared of thinking about life and death?

Rei focused back to beyond the windows, where he saw all sorts of people: the poorer lived here and there, middle-class people hanging around the shopping district, a play over in the theater district, and the rich frequenting dainty shops in the higher floors of the kingdom itself. People like him- rather, people like he used to be, apparently.

"I… I don't know."

Ringo flinched upon seeing them.

"Yahoo, Ringo!" Ecolo called out with a kind smile and bright eyes. "Selling your family's produce today, too? You work really hard for a teenager!" They skipped sprightly to her side, where she was carrying crates of apples from the store to restock at front.

"Ahaha… I guess it's the work ethic, but I don't think you're any different," she replied nonchalantly—or, was it nervousness? "Why are you here?"

"Just taking a stroll," the strangely carefree enough waiter replied, hands behind their head, and they then jumped up. "You know, yesterday, I could've sworn I saw your doppelgänger at the cafe I work at! She looked just like you except dressed in fine clothes… I thought it might be you, but you don't have access to those getups, so it must be someone like you… Right?" They grinned cheerily, which sent shivers down the redhead's spine. It was slightly unsettling; it would be best if she tried as best she can to dodge this bullet—for Arle and Amitie's sake, of course.

Ringo swallowed a gulp and gripped the box of apples in her hands tighter. She wouldn't normally, but after that really strange nightmare… Ah, forget it. It was only a nightmare! Dreams and the subconscious had no power over the real world.

"I- uhm, ssssssure," she slowly and nervously replied, shaking in her plain brown boots. "I do wish I could dress pretty sometimes, but I think it's much more…efficient? to wear something natural every day." She set down the wooden crate of apples, adjusted the small uneven ribbon on her blouse, and turned to face away from the constantly drooling valet.

Ecolo perked up and nodded happily. "Exactly! It's so much easier to work when you're comfortable," they agreed. "That's why I cut off the sleeves of my suit. Lemres didn't mind—although, I needed the help of Hime Cut to patch it up—in the end, it worked!"

They showed off the surprisingly put-together short sleeves of a white cotton dress shirt, where the edges were soft but still neat, and the sewing itself not half bad. "Oooooh, that looks pretty good," Ringo mumbled to herself, staring in awe for a moment. She had no clue why this piqued her interest but it was cool that they had gotten help to cut off sleeves just for the sake of being comfortable in their daily life. That was something Ringo couldn't do, not yet.

"I know, right!?" Ecolo cheered, striking an impromptu pose. "Anything someone can do, I can do better! Maybe! Actually, that's a lie, but I try my best every day, Ringo!" They giggled innocently, like a child proud of their schoolwork—despite the few bits of drool that got on Ringo's face, which she had to wipe off with her sleeve—and she nodded in approval. She had no response to that statement—none that she could think of at the moment-

Something clicked in Ringo's mind, but it was probably best she didn't inquire.

"Wait, hold on. How do you know my name?"

Try-not-to-inquire challenge failed.

"Beeeecause you popped by the cafe yesterday?" Ecolo replied, their expression morphing from a smile to something akin to annoyance, and then to confusion. "Was that you? I wasn't aware you had fancy clothes I couldn't even afford stashed away somewhere. Or you borrowed it from someone for a day, OR I'm losing my mind-"

Ringo tuned out the rest of their long-winded one-man talk show and breathed out a heavy sigh. "You were right the second time," she said to answer their question. "I borrowed them from a friend of mine. We did a little 'swap roles for a day' thing. I didn't realize how…tight fancy noble clothes are."

That was a lie—actually, not really. Ringo and Amitie had wanted to do a roleswap for a day; they just never got around to doing it because of their… current idea going on and keeping them occupied.

"Yeah, they can be really annoying. I see no issues with any wardrobe changes in my end though, because I wear the same outfit 24/7, 365 days a year!" Ecolo admitted with a nervous chuckle. The grocer girl raised an eyebrow—how and why would someone wear the same clothes every single day, unless they had multiple copies of the same clothes? "I guess you can't modify your clothes, because they uh, don't belong to you! That's kinda sad, in a weird way." They chuckled nervously, as if they had almost regret saying that statement—that, or they were aware they had no clue what they were talking about—and half-forced a smile.

"Actually, they do belong to me," Ringo corrected them. "Or they will soon. I'm currently making a carbon copy of what I'm wearing now with Amitie's help. It's near completion, and it'll be congruent in every single detail! Hehe." She flashed a smug grin, proud of something that did not yet exist, and sighed. "I like thinking about upcoming projects I have planned and projects I'm working on- Am I boring you? I go off on tangents sometimes. I really should get back to working, ahaha."

Ecolo raised their hands in disagreement. "No, no, you're not boring me at all! Talking to you is real interesting, Ringo! It makes me feel like we're actually friends." They grabbed hold of Ringo's hand and leaned in closer with a drooly, affectionate smile—for better or for worse—and the shine in their eyes seemed to brighten with the afternoon sun. "You're probably really busy right now, but later; let's find a time to hang out, okay? I love talking to you, you're so interesting! How about… tomorrow, after I get off work?"

Ringo paused for a moment, a drop of sweat dripping down her left cheek. Despite that dream amplifying it to an extreme extent, it was somewhat accurate; Ecolo was clingy, if not extremely energetic, comparable to Amitie in some regard. If she thought of the situation as "making friends with another Amitie", it wasn't too far off from reality, but something didn't quite seem right.

"Alright then," Ringo replied a bit more confidently than her expression betrayed. "I'm glad I'm not boring you! I'd be more than happy to find a time and place where we can talk— tomorrow when you get off work? When is that?"

"When the clock tower's rung sixteen times in the day," the server replied, thinking a little as to how to tell when they get off work. "You'll know it. All the crows hanging on the rooftops fly away when the clock strikes sixteen." They said that very calmly as if they knew exactly when the clock tower struck sixteen—it made absolutely no sense, because Ringo herself was unsure of the passing of time and when the clock tower started counting the hours.

"Alright! I'll see you then, Ecolo!" Ringo cheered, saying her goodbyes to the servant with unusually sea-green hair. What a unique little valet they were; friendly, perhaps a bit tactless, but charming nonetheless. She, admittedly, was excited about their little trip tomorrow. "Excited, I'm so excited! That's what I am! E-X-C-I-T-E-D! " She picked up the crate of apples she had set aside earlier and got back to working, but was strangely never fully able to let the anticipation of the next day out of her head. Just as strangely, making friends with a stranger was simple! Ecolo was much kinder than the one her subconscious had made up.

So excited was the little redheaded, ordinary girl, that the thought of Ecolo being present in all her dreams as of late has completely slipped her mind.

"What's the next step?"

Arle slammed her hands on the wooden, creaking table, papers upon papers of planning laid out before her. "I don't know, ordering from a bakery as great as Lemres' was already a problem," Ringo cut in. "I had to talk like Raffina all that time, we have to factor that in too. Except for Amitie, of course."

"That's not true! You could've just spoken normally!" Amitie cried, and placed her hand to her chin. "I mean, the nobles 'round Raffina's castle look at me funny because I talk weird, but I don't think it matters!" She giggled, and her laugh faded out and she realized the weight of her own words. Arle could not help but feel a little bad for her–whenever the three of them went on little trips together, people would make note of Amitie's very casual speech for someone associated with nobility–but in her defense, Amitie was a maid and everyone knew her name, so it was not as strange as it was when it first happened.

"Your definition of normal and mine are very, very different," Ringo replied with a chuckle. "the people in my neighbourhood believe I'm far too polite and uptight around them- You could call it a case of polar opposites! I don't really think I'm THAT polite, as to incur a comment about it…" She scratched her head and raised her face as if she remembered something. "Oh! Right, I got some ideas for your poem, Amitie. Here you are!"

The blonde moved towards Ringo faster than she could actually pull the piece of paper up, grabbed it excitedly–quickly skimming through every line and every annotation–and shrieked in such a way it was impossible to tell whether she was delighted or devastated. "Eeeeeee! Thanks a lot, Ringo!" she squealed, twirling around and clutching the lined piece of paper close to her chest before jumping at her friend in an impromptu hug. "You're so smart and so creative with stuff! I wish I was like you!"

"Eep! Uh- um, likewise, in some regar-"

She didn't know what came next. The mage's ears had shifted out of focus from their conversation.

Arle sighed, her eyes dotting between Amitie's sunny yet anxious grin and Ringo's naturally matter-of-fact disposition. This was not uncommon between the three of them; sometimes, it was a bit surprising how different the three were despite this cheerful, casual camaraderie. Two easily distracted, easily excited people put in a makeshift warehouse on the poorer side of town talking about secret plans, and the traveler-mage at its head… If there was a niceness scale, out of the three of them, Arle would be the least nice, because she was ninety percent sure the other two did not hear a word she said.

Arle coughed violently to grab their attention and placed her hands on her hips in a stiff, almost serious stance. "As I was saying," she shouted, interrupting the light banter shared between the other two, "We execute this plot tomorrow evening. Right as the sunset is halfway across the horizon, you'll see the lanterns in the street light up, that's when we gather to the marked spot, okay? Bring the cakes, in case we need to bribe the guards."

Ringo shivered nervously and shifted to the side, averting her gaze from everything that wasn't the wooden wall of the abandoned storehouse, and took a deep breath. "Umm… what time is that?"

…?

"You'll know, it's real late in the day. We need all the time we possibly can to break into there and not get caught," Arle responded, poorly drawing out a diagram of the approximate location of the sun at that time. "We have the cakes, we have samples of how to act… Amitie, you got all the costumes, right?"

"Get real, of course I did! You have zero idea how hard it was for me to get those!" Amitie shouted, rummaging through an unbelievably clean wooden crate and pulling up multiple garments of fine silk at once. "Raffina–if she didn't already–thought I was a total weirdo when I said I wanted to play dress-up with all these things! Not gonna lie though, I kinda do. I never get to wear the stuff Raffina wears. Can't help but want to try!"

The apprentice mage slowly moved over to the hyperactive girl and pet her head, taking all the clothes into her other hand setting them back down into the box. "Well, let's try not to damage them," she pointed out, before lowering her tone to a whisper. "Remember, I want Ringo to have a great time… It's all for her, remember?"

The errand girl perked up and chuckled in the same nervous way she had previously. "Ah, aha, ahahaa, you're right," she admitted and cleaned any dust on the underside of the crate's cover before closing it. "Maaaan, I really wish Ally was here to join us in this adventure. It would've been real cool!"

"Yeah, it's unfortunate," Ringo piped up after her long silence, leading all eyes on her. "I wonder what happened… She was supposed to arrive in Eria yesterday, right? I hope nothing bad happened to her. Like-"

Amitie dashed forward to cover Ringo's mouth. "Stop, stoooop!" she pleaded, shivering in place with palm shoved firmly over the redhead's lips. "Don't jinx it! I want Ally to come back all happy and good, so you say something happens, it's gonna happen!"

Arle, once again, separated the two from engaging in a potentially more aggressive conversation. "Calm down, calm down, both of you. I don't think either of those will have happened," she commented and met eyes with Amitie's trembling. "You seem more on edge today, Amitie. Did something happen?"

Amitie shook her head quickly, ruffling her feathered blonde hair and nearly kicking her own red velvet hat to the ground. "I'm all good! I'm fine, I might be a little tired, hehe…" Her bright olive-green eyes drooped as she yawned, and kept a half-open stance as she managed to keep herself standing.

"Get some rest, Amitie. I can tell you've had quite the day- You may rest here, if you'd like," Ringo suggested, looking around as her cheerfulness faded into disappointment. "N-Not that, uh, there's any place you CAN rest here. For a secret base, we should probably make some kind of bed when Amitie overexerts herself." Ringo turned back to the sleepy Amitie and yelped, catching the smaller girl as she fell forward, three-quarters-asleep. "Well, I'm landed myself in an awkward situation."

"One second, I've got this," Arle replied, moving to the sides of the room to grab a large, filthy sheet, and hastily cleaning it of muck with her hands. It was incredibly difficult to get the innermost stains out–reminiscent of beer and wine, a scent she could recognize instantly–but there wasn't anything that could be done. "By the way, Ringo, you didn't talk a lot today. Did something happen to you today, too?"

"Actually, I arranged to meet someone tomorrow," she replied, slowly attempting to explain her predicament while leading a sleepy Amitie by the hand to a still somewhat dusty, but mostly clean bed made up of planks and a used bedsheet. "I don't know when… Apparently when all the crows fly away, when the clock tower in town square has rung sixteen times?"

"Oh, so at sixteen. That makes sense, I'm planning for our meet-up to be at nineteen. You will be there, right? No snitching on us? I don't want to land in trouble with Rulue of all people. She's pretty terrifying when angry." Arle and Ringo watched Amitie lie down on the newly-made bed, curling into a fetal position and snoring very quietly, before sitting down on the ground themselves. "So the game plan is we'll meet at the spot marked on my map. Once Amitie wakes up, we'll go through a dress rehearsal. Sound good? Everything's all settled?"

Ringo nodded cheerily and looked up to the ceiling with a soft smile. "I'm so excited about this! We've been planning for weeks," she mumbled rather loudly for a mumble, and let out a girly giggle. "Hehe! I'm going to a party I'd never have seen in my entire life up until this opportunity! Think of all the things I'd see, all the tales I'd be able to tell! A party, a party! P-A-R-T-Y! A wonderful opportunity for Arle, Amitie, and meeee! "

"I uh, wow, never seen someone so excited for a party. You do you, I guess," Arle replied half-nonchalantly, half just as excited. "I will admit though, this is a rare opportunity. I'm pretty excited too!" Arle sighed happily, letting her eyesight blur and her mind wander around for a bit.

It was a shame Ally couldn't be there with them; she had expressed interest in joining their party-crashing–for the sake of love and finding love–but got held up at a nearby town without much explanation. That was unfortunate, but it was okay. Maybe they'd do it again sometime, but for now, it would be just Arle, Amitie, and Ringo.

Once Ringo was done with her thing at sixteen tomorrow, in three hours' time, they'd all finally attend Princess Rulue's party. For Amitie, it was a usual occurrence. But for Arle and Ringo, it was a place they'd never dreamed of being; Arle herself wished for Ringo to have a great time, considering her…weird memory clone situation. If there was any place to start making new memories, this was the place.

A sudden thought hit her. The way she described when events happened, with abstract words unlike her very direct approach to life…

How was Ringo unable to tell time?

Beyond the Bloom

Written by Amitie (with help from Ringo)

The rain disappears with every step, fades away, and dances along the stone sidewalk.

Stand here, invisible to everyone but yourself, under the light of the stars.

Lights flash overhead, flickering in the middle of the night, my shadow peeks out to say hello.

It disappears just as fast to say good-night.

Maybe, when my shadow stops hiding from the shine of the world around,

the chrysalis will bloom into a butterfly, carrying a happier tomorrow.

Always parted, always together, slumber under dawn, dream forever of time.

Turn the nameless, blank page, and write a new song from nothing.

A new beginning, like a first snow, and compose a new melody.