Dreamers of the Day - Book One - Part Two - The Archer III
"Outlanders eh? That explains it." Fostier stroked the gray stubble of his chin while seeming to appraise his guests in a new light.
They were seated at the round table of a rustic farm kitchen. Warm morning light spilled through a faint haze of steam and cooking smoke. The smell of tea and fresh bread filled the air and challenged Kyouko's resolve.
"Here you go, love." A woman with white curly hair, offered a plate of rolls and a clay mug. This was Ellaine, Fostier's wife, and in every way she seemed an exact and kindly counterpart to her stout husband. The sort of characters that might exist in a children's storybook.
"O-Oh thank you?" Kyouko replied, not quite sure how to respond to a person who wasn't really a person. Manners never hurt, she supposed. She examined one of the rolls with fresh skepticism before taking a careful bite.
Thin flaky crust yielded immediately to a soft and warm interior, still steamy from the oven, the smell of butter filled her nose as Kyouko took another bite and closed her eyes, chewing thoughtfully. She must have been hungrier than she'd imagined, it wasn't possible for something made in such crude surroundings to be this good.
There was ample to eat, a whole basket of warm rolls, butter, jam, tea, and an iron skillet's worth of fresh eggs. It was a farmer's breakfast, simple foods, and plenty, to fuel the body for a long day's labor. Leafa wasted no time helping herself to the eggs, giving thanks for the food, and dipping a roll into still runny yoke.
"About what you told us when we first met." Leafa asked Fostier, "You said Fairies aren't common in this land."
"That's right," the Farmer nodded, "Most of yer kindred dwell high up in the castle, in the abode of Mighty King Oberon and Wise Queen Titania. Least that's how I always heard it. Course gettin there was a journey even when I was just a boy."
"When I was a girl, you'd occasionally spy a Fairy from time to time." Ellaine added, as she bustled about with morning chores, tending to the cooking fire, sweeping the red tiled floor. "On some business or other for their Court. But it's been ages."
"I see." Leafa nodded as if finding all of this terribly interesting. Kyouko couldn't imagine why, it was all made up nonsense after all. The blonde girl spread jam on her roll and ate thoughtfully. "Before I forget, did you mention you had a job for us?"
The farmer squinted, and then nodded, "Aye, if yer interested. Had a bit of a windstorm last night, sure you noticed." Kyouko nodded to herself, how could she forget? It had been fortunate they'd stumbled upon this farm or who was to say where they would have had to hunker down for the night.
"The weather blew open some of our paddocks," Fostier explained, "Usually the herd's good about stickin' together, but in the storm some've gone and gotten separated."
"Herd?" Kyouko repeated around her next bite. She couldn't help it, the jam was strawberry, she washed it down with some of the tea, inhaling the floral aroma.
"Aye, we raise goats here in Champar." Fostier said, "Even in times like these, the herd keeps us afloat."
"So you want us to help bring your lost goats home?" Leafa concluded, then brightened, "Sure, we can do that!" Kyouko's chewing slowed to halt as she stared, completely oblivious to . . . something . . . brushing against her le- . . . her tail . . . causing it to reflexively curl.
"It'd be a great help, Miss Fairy." Fostier said, holding cap in hand, "We've not much to offer but room and board . . ."
"Room and board is exactly what we're looking for." Leafa smiled, "You just need to tell us where to look and we'll get right on it!"
"Findn'm ought to be easy enough,' Fostier explained, "Owing to . . . "
The goatherd's explanation was lost as a shriek pierced the air and a chair clattered sideways. It had all happened in the blink of an eye as something warm, and sinuous, and slimy, had licked itself against Kyouko's hand, trying to get at her half eaten roll.
A heartbeat later, Kyouko was standing, hunched forward, tail erect and fully fluffed as she glared murder at the impudent creature that had dared to lay its tongue on her person. Panting happily, a pair of mismatched brown and gray eyes regarded her over the tip of glistening wet black nose all belonging to a shaggy black and white mongrel.
"Darter!" Ellaine reprimanded, immediately seizing the dog's attention, it hunched its head, whimpering as it licked jam from its lips.
"Doggy!" Leafa leaned over the table to get a better view. A very bad doggy, Kyouko thought. But not unexpected on a farm with animals.
The Goatherd's wife scowled, "Yer not to eat scraps from the table. Git now, git!"
"Come on boy, best get out of doors and let her cool off." Fostier got up and took the dog by the scruff. "Darter here will help us find the goats. Normally him and me'd be ample for the task, but I reckon two Fairy Folk can half the time." The goatherd gave Kyouko a skeptical look, "I'd heard the Pictish Folk were good with beasts," Kyouko simply huffed, leaving Leafa to smile nervously and assure Fostier that they were up to the task.
"Do you know anything at all about animals?" Kyouko whispered into a long elfish ear as soon as they left the Kitchen, following Fostier as 'Darter' trotted along happily at his side.
"Do you?"
"Well, my grandfather bred shikoku inu . . ." And not a single one of them had ever demonstrated their breed's supposed temperament. Why was she even telling her this?! Her family had raised crops, not livestock. She did know, though, that handling animals wasn't something that you just learned in an afternoon.
Leafa smiled, "Well, it'll probably be okay, since it's just a basic task, right? Fostier-san has faith in us."
"Fostier is a computer program." Kyouko reminded, receiving a strange look from Leafa in turn.
The Fairy girl mumbled an affirmative, turning her attention to some inward thoughts. "But if we don't want to go back to town right away, this seems like the best way to stay here for a while, right?" Kyouko sighed, she couldn't really argue with that. "I mean, really, how hard can it be?"
By mid afternoon, Leafa looked perfectly willing to eat her words, Kyouko wouldn't have minded helping her. Champar Dans Les Collines, Champar in the Hills, was an entirely accurate name for the place they'd found themselves, nestled comfortably in a shallow valley between rocky slopes, they'd done as much climbing as walking, following Darter and his master.
It became quickly apparent why the stout old goatherd might want a pair of helpers. In terrain like this, the goats were at a distinct advantage. They'd found the first kid ambling along a ridge, bleating for its mother like a child lost in a department store. The second was one of the nannies, heavily pregnant, and stuck in a narrow ravine, requiring Leafa to climb down and tie a rope to help hall the unhappy creature out. They'd found their third goat high up in the branches of a tree . . . It had only gotten stranger from there, climbing, chasing, flushing out. Only a lack of alternatives, and a bull headed refusal to leave a job undone, had prevented Kyouko from stocking back to the barn, burrowing into the hay, and trying to escape this nightmare by going back to sleep.
Until finally, the two Fairies standing dirty and disheveled craned their necks as they surveyed the near vertical cliff face where a trio of troublesome juveniles contentedly licked at the bare rock and browsed the tenacious weeds taking root in the cracks and fissures.
"You must be joking," Kyouko said planelly.
"Aye, that's a bit of a trick." Fostier agreed, "If it were just one of'm, our little herd here might coax him down." The goatherd patted the head of the pregnant nanny, who bleated agreeably. "But they got each other to keep them company and seems they've found some colonies of salary beetles up in the rocks."
"Salary beetles?" Leafa asked.
"Salt shell beetles." Fostier nodded, as if that explained everything. "Gotta shelter against rainy weather, and creatures like our goats, looking for their salt. I reckon those kids won't wanna come down before sunset."
"Wait!" Leafa spoke up, when Kyouko turned about, the Fairy girl was wearing a look of intense inward concentration.
"What are you . . ." Kyouko's voice died in her throat as Leafa's blouse rippled and something ephemeral and faint as gossamer precipitated into being, gaining substance and rigidity, four sharply raked shapes sprouting from between her shoulder blades.
That was right, she recalled, Fairies of Leafa's type had wings, like that Sakuya woman during the tournament, or a few of the players she'd seen showing off in the streets before everything had gone mad.
"Do you even know how to use those?" Kyouko asked with fresh skepticism.
"It's not too different from ALfheim." Leafa answered as she glanced over her shoulder, the wings flexed experimentally, as if they were perfectly natural extensions of the girl's body. "I'm a flying ace in that game! What's the matter?"
"Nothing." Kyouko at first lied, she wanted to say that in Leafa's 'other game' they weren't subject to the whims of a delusional lunatic, but at that moment what was really on her mind was, "So if you have wings, what do I get for being a . . . 'Pictish'?"
"I guess Pictish are like cat people, right?" Kyouko nodded, that was obvious enough, "So you can probably do anything a cat can do."
Kyouko looked at her hands, and at her tail, she looked back at Leafa. "So you can fly, and I'm a cat?" Leafa nodded, Kyouko's nose, and ears, twitched as she thought. "And how is that fair?"
"Well, uhm . . ."
Kyouko pinched the bridge of her nose, "Never mind. Let's just try and get this done."
"Right! Stick close to the cliff, maybe I can coax them to go down lower where you can reach."
"Fine," Kyouko waved, watching Leafa take a few experimental hops, testing her control over her wings before spreading them wide. Like the day before, the wings didn't so much beat as begin to vibrate, blurring in place, a noise like musical chords filling the air as a gust conjured around Leafa and lifted her skyward.
"Well I'll be." Fostier scratched at his pate. It was something, Kyouko reluctantly agreed, if not for their circumstances it might almost have looked fun.
She recalled something about flight powers being limited as well, some sort of weight or time limit, maybe both. Leafa's short flight described a delicate arc, wings fading as she lighted on the cliff face, finding purchase and hanging easily while she creeped up on one of the kids so as not to startle them. The goat gave an indignant bleat and began ambling downwards. "I'll get it." Kyouko said, the sooner they finished, the sooner she could find a place to wash off all this filth. The goat had its own ideas, stubbornly standing just out of reach and bleating at her, dark button eyes watching passively, like a wooly stuffed animal brought to life.
"Come here!" Kyouko commanded impatiently, but that only served to send the Kid hopping back up the cliff.
"Don't scare him, Lady Fairy!" Fostier called.
"There'd be nothing to be scared of if he just came down", Kyouko grumbled, this was ridiculous. She judged the distance, only three meters, and started looking for handholds. The preternatural athleticism of her avatar made quick work of the task, bringing her within arms reach of the kid, which bleated and ambled up another meter.
"Why you!" She followed him up, and then again, hopping sideways, he scrambled his way out of reach once more.
"Atalanta?" She heard Leafa call.
"I'm busy!" Kyouko called, distracted. 'And my name isn't Atalanta!' She added internally. Alright, she spied another handhold, just out of reach, but maybe, she calculated the arc in her head . . . Her hips wiggled as her legs coiled up, spine arched, then all at once the tension was let loose like a spring and she clawed her way straight up another two vertical meters.
The Kid didn't like that, climbing higher, Kyouko following him in starts and stops until at last he'd become pinned against a portion of the cliff too sheer even for a goat's sure hooves.
"Gotcha!" Kyouko declared. Now just to hop down and . . . Kyouko looked over her shoulder, then planted her brow firmly against the sun warmed stones. Her breathing quickened, and her pulse pounded in her ears. Her tail curled up.
"That's high." Too high! How had she'd gotten so high?! She had to be twenty, no, thirty meters up, at least! She could see all of Champar from here, all the way down the hills to the start of the flat farmland.
"Atalanta!" Leafa called from below. "Great work, just climb down and . . ."
"I-I can't!" Kyouko stammered.
"Huh?"
"I'm stuck!" Not stuck exactly, she could always fall . . . Her tail bristled and her grip tightened, her shoulders trembled as her body tried to claw its way into the rock. The Kid bleated, inciting fresh outrage. "This is why I hate animals!" She closed her eyes and whimpered . . .
"Atalanta!"
That infuriating fake name again. Kyouko bit her lip as music chords trembled faintly in the air. "Ata-chan." Closer and more gently, a conversational tone right beside her, "Look, Ata-chan, I'm right here." She cracked open an eye and met the brave smile of Leafa. The girl was hanging on to the rocks right next to her.
"It's easy for you," Kyouko muttered, "You've got wings!"
Leafa looked embarrassed, nodding, "That's right, it's not so scary when I can't really fall."
"Carry me!" Kyouko snapped, she didn't care if it sounded childish, at that moment she just wanted to be done with it.
"Ah, you're probably a bit too big for that." Leafa was probably right. "If you can't climb down, the only way to go is up."
"You want me to go higher?" Was she insane?!
"Do you have a better idea?"
Kyouko didn't.
It wasn't like going higher could make things any worse. Truth be told, she was more than halfway there already. Leafa gave her a reassuring look, promising not to abandon her. With that in mind, Kyouko hesitantly selected her next handhold, and then her next foothold. The kid ambled up ahead of her, happily stopping to lick at patches of rock or browse the odd stubborn weed, oblivious to any danger.
If a goat could do it, then so could she.
Panting and sweaty from fear and exertion, Kyouko at last rolled onto her back and shivered, the ground comfortingly solid and flat beneath her as she took a moment to catch her breath and stare up at the strangely flat sky. Her respite only lasted a brief moment before the curious kid began investigating the possibilities of her hair as a snack.
"Get away, scoot!" Kyouko snapped, sitting up and crawling back, protecting her hair from further predation.
"Aah, he's just a little baby." Leafa chidded, the kid bleated in agreement.
"If he touches me again, he'll be capretto." Kyouko retorted, pausing as her ears tugged for her attention.
"Ata?"
What was that noise?
So low and deep it almost wasn't a noise, but pervasive and overpowering now that they were standing atop the cliff. A muted roar, like a waterfall. It resonated with her bones. Kyouko stood up and followed the noise away from the cliff edge, the soil and stone turned to smooth flat metal, a deep metallic gray, and then plunged away to reveal . . .
"The Cloud Sea." Leafa murmured as she caught up beside her.
"The what?" Kyouko asked, but she couldn't tear her eyes away.
Clouds as far as the eye could see, so far that looking at the horizon made her nauseous. So far she wasn't even sure there was a horizon. Or if the endless clouds simply faded into a haze of pale blue, until it was impossible to tell the difference. She couldn't even see the ground, lost beneath swirling layers of white.
At her back was a human world, something comprehensible to the five senses. Everything beyond the edge was too much, too vast, it ceased to have meaning. She started to feel dizzy, groping for something to orient herself, Leafa caught her by the shoulders, the effect had obviously gotten to the Fairy girl as well, but she'd studiously looked away before it had become too much. "What is this place?"
"Huh?" Leafa seemed surprised, "You mean you really don't know?"
"I told you, I don't usually play games." Kyouko grumbled as Leafa guided her away.
"Let's go back first, and then we can talk about it." Kyouko just nodded, allowing Leafa to lead her by the hand in a sedate reflection of the day before.
They'd returned to Fostier's home in time for late tea, leftover rolls from breakfast, served with goat butter, and barley water served by Ellain while Fostier mended the paddocks and tested the gates. Leafa had been all too eager to help move the herd, treating it like a child might a petting zoo, while Kyouko had stood watching from the kitchen door, a clay mug cupped in her hands.
"Your friend's, a lively one, Love." Ellaine bustled about with her house chores. On a farm the work was never done.
"We're not friends, exactly." Kyouko said without thinking.
"Oh?" Ellaine paused for a moment, "What are you then, mind me askin'?"
"Traveling companions," Kyouko decided reluctantly, "Of circumstance."
"Ah well aren't we all just companions of circumstance, to start?"
"No."
Some people believed in chance encounters, but Kyouko had never put much stock in them. Chance encounters hadn't gotten her out of Miyagi, or through University, or landed her a job, or found her a husband. She had built her life out of intentionality, out of knowing what she wanted, learning how to get it, and then charting a course to obtain it.
Ellaine had gone silent for a while, her programming probably didn't know how to respond to that. Good, Kyouko didn't much like the idea of confiding in strangers. Even strangers that were just computer software. "Still, the two of you have been a big help to these old bones."
"Hmm . . ." Kyouko's eyes narrowed.
"What is it, Love?"
"It's just, wouldn't your husband ask neighbors before strangers to help him?" She supposed it was one of these 'quest' tasks that the players were supposed to accomplish, but then, Kyouko certainly hadn't seen the fun in it.
Another long silence while Ellaine busied herself. "He most certainly would, if our neighbors weren't hard put as well. That's the way of things these days. Orignia used to be a prosperous Kingdom, you know. Not so much in recent years . . . But we all pitch in, and we all get by . . . And noone turns down a helping hand they find sleepin' in the barn, young lady."
'Young Lady!?' Kyouko bristled, moments before her train of thought derailed.
"Well then, gettin' on towards evenin' now, as the guests, what say you about having the first bath?" Ellaine turned and tilted her head quizzically, "Love?"
"E-Excuse me," Kyouko shook her head, she probed tenderly at the soft interior of her feline ears to be sure she'd heard right, "Did you say bath?" There were baths here?!
"Is there a problem . . . Oh." Kyouko took Ellain by the hands and looked her gravely in the eyes.
"Show me!"
Given the primitive surroundings, Kyouko hadn't held out much hope, but tucked into the shade of the house, within the privacy of a small garden, was something at once quaint, and given the circumstances, a gift from the heavens.
A goemonburo.
Although when she'd breathed the word, Ellaine had simply given her a blank look. To tell the truth, it wasn't exactly a cauldron bath as she would have known it, the tub was situated in a brick pedestal, rather like an outdoor oven, instead of the stainless steel in concrete she'd been familiar with as a girl, but the principle was the same.
"Bath should be just about warmed up by now, Love." The Goatherd's wife explained. "Guests wash up first, give yourself a scrub and rinse before you soak."
"Un!" Kyouko had nodded eagerly, beginning to undress as soon as Ellaine gave her privacy. It took some doing. She'd never put this dress on, so half the chore of taking it off was uncovering all the ties and fasteners and figuring out how they were undone.
It was an odd arrangement, not what she was used to. No elastic or zippers, things were laced, or tied, or held up with garters. Undoing the dress was more like a gradual loosening until she could finally get it to slither to the ground like a shed snake skin. At which time Kyouko was left to stare . . .
'Young lady' indeed! She looked down at herself with a growing blush.
Kyouko had been conscious, of course, of the difference, intellectually, but it was very different having it all in front of her eyes. She gave her flat belly, and her pert bosom, an experimental poke. "Hmmph, this girl has certainly never born a child." Kyouko had kept herself in fine trim for her age, but no matter how fit, there were things a woman inevitably lost with her youth, and inevitably gained after two pregnancies.
She stroked her bangs fretfully before shirking her underwear as well and sitting down to go to work with a bar of soap and a pot of hot water. She sponged herself down, scrubbed herself raw, and then rinsed herself clean, making a point to keep her eyes averted the entire time. One of the bottles Ellaine had left out seemed to be a sort of hair product, so she'd used a few drops of that too, lathering, and rinsing through. It took forever, long hair was so troublesome.
Finally, she climbed up to the lip of the bath, inhaling the steamy air before testing with the tips of pale toes. Once she was satisfied it wasn't going to boil her alive, she'd sunk right in with a groan of delight, eyes closed, body bordering on euphoria as her weight disappeared and a gentle all embracing warmth swaddled her up. A moment later she sank beneath the surface and stayed there until her breath gave out, surfacing with a gasp and a sigh.
"Lady Fairy!" Ellain called from beyond the garden wall. "Lady Fairy, are you alright, Love?"
"Fine!" Kyouko called, in fact, she almost laughed for how a good hot bath had improved her mood. "The water's perfect, thank you!"
"Good to hear it. Now if you don't mind, bundle up your clothes and I'll give'm a quick wash and hang'm to dry the night by the hearth. I've got a nightshirt here for you when you finish."
Kyouko didn't know how long she must have soaked there. The water, mirky with herbal infusions, and filled with fragrant flower blossoms from the garden, sunk down to her nose; she must have resembled some sort of amphibious life form. But she didn't care. She could have closed her eyes and forgotten all of her present worries.
How could virtual reality make something feel like this? It was unexpected comfort, and unexpected nostalgia, and also . . . unexpected melancholy. She climbed out of the bath when she'd started to grow light headed, drying herself and putting on the linen shirt Ellaine had left for her. A simple thing, decorated in geometric stitchwork around the hem and collar, it covered her down to the knees.
That was how Leafa found her, sitting outside the kitchen door after her own bath, watching the evening settle over Champar. Faint lights flickered in distant windows, and white smoke curled from chimneys. She was shewing Darter away as the Fairy girl scrubbed her hair dry. The mongrel had been snooping around for scraps and was sent running by a hiss and a feinted kick.
"It's pretty." Leafa observed, sitting down beside her.
"This place is dying." Kyouko said matter of factly.
Leafa's eyes went wide, turning to her, "Huh? Dying?!"
"Un." The Pictish pulled her legs up, resting her back against the wall of the house. "It was obvious when we helped Fostier. This village raises livestock, but there are vegetable fields as well. Most of them are fallow." The fields would have to be rested, especially without modern fertilizer, but not that many at once. "Some of the other farmsteads also looked abandoned, and . . ."
"Yeah?"
"The fact Fostier asked us for help. Farmers are hospitable people, families help each other." Whole villages helped each other. "But because they're hospitable people, they don't like to burden others who can't afford it. They make do when they can." And even when they couldn't.
"You're saying everyone is shorthanded." Leafa reasoned.
"This village is emptying out." She shook her head, "There's no future here." She hadn't paid it much mind until Ellain's comment had prompted her to put the pieces together, but it was obvious now that she knew to look. It was a story happening all over Japan. A story that had been happening for years . . .
Leafa's smile faded, "That's . . . really sad."
"It's not like it matters," Kyouko replied. This place was upsetting her, but only like a sappy movie, a fake thing reminding her of something else.
"Y-Yeah . . . But . . . "
Kyouko pressed her lips thin. "You don't really believe this is real, do you?"
"I don't know." The fairy girl hugged herself. "It can't be real, but it's not like ALfHeim."
Her previous game? "It certainly doesn't seem like much fun," Kyouko agreed, "And I could do without the aches and pains Akihiko has burdened us with." She flexed her sore feet, watching small pale toes wiggle
"That's just it, none of this is arranged like a game," Leafa frowned.
"In what way?" Kyouko didn't really believe anything the girl was saying, but she was a teacher enough to entertain a student's hypothesis, for the sake of argument.
"Well, helping Fostier with his goatherd. You might do something like that, in ALfheim, in the tutorial." Leafa explained, "But it wouldn't take so long, and it wouldn't be so tedious. Helping Fostier was interesting, and kinda fun, but it wasn't the kind of fun you play games for."
Kyouko meditated on this for a moment. "Akihiko . . . he said something about this being 'his world'." He'd called himself the architect and master of this place. "The man is, or so I have heard, a perfectionist. Who's to say he didn't make the game world more authentic, now that he has a captive audience." Was that what Akihiko was doing, forcing them all to live out his delusion?
"Maybe," Leafa agreed, "But even then, Full Dive can only get so real, can't it?" Kyouko gingerly touched her tender temple. "My . . . brother . . . is a big Dive Head, ever since the Nerve Gear launched, he's always talking about it . . . But he always said he was a little disappointed by the fidelity."
"Disappointed?" Kyouko recalled the strawberry cake the day before and wanted to laugh. "I don't normally play games, but even I was impressed when I logged into this place."
"Yeah, me too." Leafa looked thoughtful, "It's how I felt playing ALfheim the first time as well. And I still like that game, but my brother was right, the more you get used to it, the more you notice things. Things that aren't quite real. Graphical imperfections, and the way everything is gamified so the console can do renders and simulations. There's a limit to what Full Dive can do, even if you wanted to be as realistic as possible. And you don't always want that because it might not be as much fun."
Kyouko felt an uneasy knot growing in her stomach, a stomach that she was now fairly certain she shouldn't be able to feel. "So what could that mean?"
"I . . . don't know." Leafa chewed her lip, "Sorry, it's just all very strange."
"It is." Kyouko agreed, sitting quietly for a while together as they watched the light fade further, as the smell of the hearth fire wafted from inside. It would be time for supper soon, farmers roused early and went to bed early.
"We'll stay here for a while." Kyouko decided, she was sure Kouichirou would come looking eventually, once he could. "Just until we can get our bearings. I'm sure someone from town will wonder this way eventually."
"Un." Leafa nodded, "I kind of want to head back but . . . "
Of course, she probably had friends she'd been playing with. That was a relief, Kyouko realized, once she could put Leafa back in her place, and find Kouichirou, maybe things would start to make more sense. Kouichirou wasn't an engineer, but he worked shoulder to shoulder with the people who had developed full dive technology, and Nishida knew even more than that. If anyone could explain what was going on, it would be members of the R-A development team.
But for now . . . It was just the two of them. She eye'd Leafa pensively, "Listen, whatever Akihiko has done, I'm sure the authorities are tracking him down as we speak. And once they find him, he'll be forced to let us all go." And then be locked away until the end of time!
"You think so?"
Truthfully Kyouko didn't know what to think, but she'd nodded anyway, before they'd been called in for supper.
It was a quiet meal, eaten at the kitchen table, a hearty vegetable stew full up with milk. After eating, and washing their mouths for the night, the Goatherd's wife had produced a small silver comb, possibly the finest thing in the house, and offered to brush Kyouko's hair straight as they sat by the fire. Fostier was seated in the corner, drawing on a peasants cob pipe as he showed Leafa some sort of board game, not quite chess and not quite shogi. He seemed pleased to have someone to teach and play against.
"I don't think . . ." Kyouko started.
"Nonsense, Love, that mane needs a good comb, hair is a girl's pride, after all."
Kyouko petted her bangs thoughtfully. There'd been no use in arguing, so she'd sat herself down on stool and she'd closed her eyes, and she'd endured the fussing, and the melancholy nostalgia that it conjured inside of her, until the tugging of the comb eased into a steady silken rhythm. She'd almost fallen asleep sitting up before Ellaine declared, "All done, love. Now you next, Leafa dear. Then Fostier can show you up to the loft."
In a tiny room, barely big enough for two narrow beds and a chest of drawers, Kyouko had lain flat on her back, unable to fall asleep. It wasn't just the lumpy bedding beneath her, making her long for her chiropractic mattress, or the coarseness of the quilt, making her yearn for egyptian cotton.
It was her damned ears. Her damned senses. They were too sensitive. Ears that heard everything, the country noises she'd thought she'd left behind. Eyes that could count the ceiling planks, even in the dark. The tail that was curling around her leg . . .
She just had to wait it out, get back to Kouichirou and then . . . then . . . She didn't know what then. Kyouko heard something else too, much closer, and trying to be silent. The tight shaking breathcoming from beneath the quilt of the other bed. "Lea-" She started and then stopped. Kyouko never did anything without first ensuring success. She turned over, covered her ears, and tried to sleep.
Kyouko's morning began before dawn. When she opened her menu, the clock blinked 6:17 AM within the spectral glass. Her circadian rhythm was all off, something else had woken her, something thoroughly familiar, banal, and totally unexpected until that moment. Her face went red as she realized what it was. Creeping out from under the cultivated warmth of the quilt, Kyouko shivered as she padded down creaking floorboards onto icy tiles that almost burned the balls of her feet.
She found Ellaine already awake, as if she'd never fallen asleep, stoking the fire in the hearth as a farmer's wife would in these sorts of surroundings. "Ah, awake already, are you? I was about to come get you, love, your dress is all clean and dry."
"Oh yes, uhm thank you." Kyouko answered awkwardly. For as uncomfortable as this all was, it would have been even more miserable without the two NPCs. "Uhm I should get changed but, I . . . I have a question." She half raid her hand, like a young student at her desk.
"Oh well sure, love." Ellaine tilted her head, showing concern that bordered on mothering. "What's the matter now, dear?"
She bit her lip, cheeks burning as she clutched at the hem of her night shirt. This was asinine, she told herself, just ask the question!
"Toilet."