Interlude 1: It's Too Late For Regrets

Emilia gazed down warmly on Subaru's tear-stained face, having finally cried himself to sleep and collapsed onto her lap. Seeking to ease his restless sleep, she gently stroked his hair. A wan smile gently carved it's way across her statuesque visage as his face loosened ever so slightly. Being the heavy sleeper that she had always been, Emilia had never truly had the chance to observe just how defenseless Subaru appeared when asleep. A bewildering whirl of haphazard, confused thoughts and relief writhed about in the pit of her stomach.

Subaru had always seemed like a force of nature to her, fearlessly facing everything with a grin twisting his face. A part of her that she oh-so-vehemently detested had envied that strength, and now that loathsome part of herself was relieved to see a weak side to Subaru. The frosty chill of self-hatred nipped at her heart, as the blaze of an unfamiliar wrath was kindled in her gut. If those awful men hadn't attacked her or the village, Subaru wouldn't be hurting. If Pandora hadn't sought the seal, Mother Fortuna would still be with her. The world kept taking or harming what was Emilia's, and she was sick of it; she was enraged by it.

Emilia hadn't wanted to kill the village's assailants, but as it was now, she found it hard to care too much about their fate. Their wickedness had led them to the grave, and her Subaru had been hurt as a result. She didn't wish harm on anyone, but if they were to lay a hand on Subaru, she would unflinchingly slaughter them. Mother Fortuna had called her a crybaby as she bled out-it was time to grow up. If the world was insisting on turning her kindness into violent ends, then it was time to stop bawling her eyes out as she watched it happen.

Subaru was a kind boy; she didn't want to see him tainted as she had been. Only she needed to hold this rage. Only she needed to dirty her hands. So long as he was by her side, filling her days with warmth, she would be fine. Of that alone, she had no doubt.

"Thank you sooo much for everything, Subaru," Emilia whispered as she gently wiped the remaining tears from his eyes. "I promise that I won't let something like this happen again."

As Subaru rested peacefully in her lap, she resisted the urge to gently pinch his cheek. Now that he had calmed down, she couldn't help but find his defenseless figure adorable. She couldn't find it in her heart to move him, so she let him nap on her lap. It wasn't but thirty minutes into her silent vigil that she too dozed off, sitting straight up on the bed with Subaru still slumbering on her lap.

It would be an hour later that a frantic cat found his way to the two slumbering children. While he was relieved to see them fine, the pair's red, puffy eyelids gave away the fact that they'd been crying. The nagging feeling that something was off ate at him as he furrowed his furry eyebrows. Suddenly it struck him: he'd gotten them a baby-sitter-a baby-sitter that was nowhere to be found.

Setting aside his concerns about the missing baby-sitter, Puck gave the children a quick inspection. Satisfied that they were at least uninjured, Puck decided to leave them slumber as he investigated what had happened while he had been gone. Puck's face twisted in discontent; the thought of leaving Subaru to enjoy a lap pillow from his precious Lia made his stomach twitch with a violent nausea-he'd thought that he'd had a few more years before he had to worry about boys. Puck had thought that mortals didn't get interested in those kinds of things until about thirteen or fourteen years old, but he had been a spirit for a long time-perhaps his perception was distorted. It wasn't that Puck had anything particularly against Subaru, but Lia was a few hundred years too young for any fraternization-she was a pure maiden, and he intended to keep it that way.

The sight as a whole was beyond infuriating to Puck. Puck had viewed allowing Subaru to stay as giving Lia a toy or pet-something to make her smile. Smiling, cheerful, and pure: that was how his Lia should be. Instead, Subaru had changed his precious daughter; Subaru had slowly been taking her away. Right before Puck's eyes was evidence that Subaru had made her cry. Even more annoying, the smiles she gave Subaru were so much more vibrant than he had ever seen from her.

Puck could hardly recognize Emilia as she was now. She was headstrong, optimistic, and many days almost carefree. His Lia had been, and always should have remained: demure, fastidious, and diligent. Like a drop of poison, a poison ever so gentle, Subaru had tainted her and in doing so stripped Puck of the girl that he had yearned for for four-hundred years.

Puck had devoted his very being for this girl, and now this brat in nary a few weeks had usurped his spot as her most precious person. Puck may have been around her for longer, but measured in time spent together Subaru had long since surpassed Puck. Puck could bring a light chuckle or faint smile to her face if he joked around, but Subaru could light her face up in an overjoyed beam almost effortlessly. She practically fawned over the boy, and every day it ate at him more and more.

The chilling sensation of his magic rushed through Puck's body, a reminder of how easily the blight before him could be removed. But, Puck could not do it. If something happened to Subaru, Lia would break. Puck had let Subaru into Lia's life, and in doing so he would lose her. It was too late for regrets.

Puck shook off the icy rage threatening to overtake his senses. He had someone with deeper sins to go after, Subaru at least always tried to do his job. Letting out a deep sigh, Puck set out to investigate what had happened and to retrieve his errant baby-sitter.

Fading away towards the village, Puck popped back into his corporeal form about 500 paces outside of the village. Echoing footsteps, crunching as someone tread upon the snow, reached Puck's ears as they flicked up. Making her way towards him, waddling desperately whilst gasping for air, was a familiar cat-eared girl, burdened by a backpack bulging at its seams. As Clarissa's gaze caught Puck, she stopped and took a sigh of relief.

"Have you seen Subaru or Emilia?" Clarissa's breathless question bespoke her haste to find the pair in question.

Taking in her pitiable state, Puck's stern expression lightened ever so slightly, "They're back home, asleep but fine."

Puck left an oppressive silence dangling as Clarissa drew in a relieved sigh, "That's good to hear," she murmured. "I'd heard that Subaru was throwing up after the fight-I was worried that he might have aggravated his injury."

"About that," Puck's eyes narrowed threateningly as he pressed, "what fight did they get in exactly?"

Her ears fell flat to her head as the hairs on her tail stood on end. Mustering all of her courage, tempering the urge to hiss and flee, she shakily answered, "They ran off a bandit raid. The stories say they disabled over a hundred men."

Puck's face slowly lost its tension as the icy aura around him let up slightly. As he prepared to further his interrogation, an oddity stood out to him.

"They?"

"Umm...yes. I was told that Subaru took out a couple dozen men himself." Clarissa managed to stutter out her answer. If Puck heard her mutter, "I'm not sure if I believe it," he didn't give any indication.

Eyes widened ever so slightly, Puck gave off the impression that he was at best mildly surprised. Something about his demeanor unsettled Clarissa.

"You don't seem all that surprised," she gently probed.

"I knew he was capable, but I was pretty sure he was too spineless to do it. Normal soldiers are no threat to them if they harden themselves, but they're both soft idiots. Perfectly fine and normal for a wonderful girl like my Lia, but it's what makes Subaru pitiful. The role of the man is to be the strong one, and he can't fill that role."

"But...then...why…" Clarissa was dazed at Puck's sudden dismissal of Subaru.

"Don't misunderstand, I don't dislike Subaru-he makes Lia happy. But if I leave Lia to him she'll be sullied and dirtied. Tears, strife, anger...none of that should be her role. Subaru keeps letting her cry-as happy as he makes her, letting them be together was a mistake. So I had hoped that you could keep them out of trouble when I'm away." Puck's diatribe was neither warm nor cold, but the tone of a frustrated father.

"You talk about her as if she were a doll," there was a biting edge in her whisper, so faint it was almost lost in the rustle of the drifting snow.

"She's my treasure. I'll protect her. I'll keep her safe. I'll keep her untainted." A chilling anger prickled underneath Puck's conviction.

Clarissa gazed upon Puck as if seeing him for the first time. What she saw wasn't love-it wasn't protectiveness-but the colors of obsession and possessiveness. Perhaps Puck had loved Emilia, but now the idea of loving Emilia, the ideal that Emilia represented, had become his everything. Puck's colors, which had been muddled to her divine protection, were now clear to her. Ever since her conversation with Rim, her sight had grown more vivid than ever before.

"Not once did you say you'd keep her happy," uncharacteristic boldness overran her fear as her softly uttered rebuttal resounded heavily.

"If I keep her safe, if I keep her untainted, then one day she'll be happy," Puck growled, but the hesitation on his face suggested that not even he was convinced by his assertion.

"So you'll use a boy who looks up to you as nothing but a tool to keep that Emilia safe."

"Exactly! Emilia is my everything. I won't accept a world without her. I won't accept a world where Emilia is no longer my Emilia. That boy is a poison to her: he's brought her tears, he's taught her sadness, he's taught her anger. Because of him, because of his uselessness, she's losing her innocence." Calm anger bubbled forth from within Puck.

"So what, you'll eliminate Subaru to keep your Emilia as she was?" Clarissa practically hissed, her fangs poking out.

"It's too late for that now-it's too late for regrets. If anything happens to Subaru, Lia will break. That's why I thought to use you to keep them out of trouble, and now I want to know: where were you today?" All pretense was gone as Puck's eyes aggressively narrowed in on the girl before him.

"I was fast asleep after looking after Subaru all night; by the time I was up and moving they'd already gone off to play hero. I spent most of today frantically trying to find where they went." Clarissa's hiss intensified the longer the conversation stretched.

Normally she would have cowered in the face of the spirit's rage; she'd spent her whole life cowering. The last week, however, had made it clear to her that there were fates worse than death. If she was going to die, she was going to at least choose how she died. Clarissa refused to die a coward; she'd already resolved to kill herself rather than endure her captivity-dying while standing up for the only two people to have shown her unconditional kindness in her life seemed glamorous in comparison. The feeling was liberating-it was here, facing down certain death, that she felt alive for the first time in her life. She had the distinct feeling that if she could look into her own soul at this very moment, she might just like what she saw now.

"Everyone is useless!" Puck raged in a frozen fury.

"Then why weren't you there? If you care so much about her safety, why don't you protect her?" The slits in her eyes bore into Puck.

"I can't! If I could, I would!" Puck roared.

"How convenient for you! You get to run away from all the responsibility and pin all the blame on everyone else!" Her voice was a shrill rasp at the end.

"Really? So, finding one of the few healers in the world I can trust with Lia and cultivating the talent of perhaps the only one her age who would be her friend is running from my responsibility? Make no mistake: I'd sooner end the world than let her be taken away. Perhaps a child like you won't be able to understand yet, or perhaps you never will. As you are now, I can tell that death wouldn't even be a punishment."

"So, why tell me all this?" Her whisper carried strongly on the wind.

"I need to get the only disposable tool available to me, in hand. Losing you wouldn't break Lia. You will keep those two idiots out of trouble." Puck bluntly laid out his intentions.

"And if I were to think of you as the biggest danger to them?"

"Then, I'd say I look forward to working with you," Puck retorted with a fanged grin.

Puck floated off angrily, unwilling to speak anymore. In a short month Puck had watched three people transform in what were, to him, nigh incomprehensible ways. To Puck who had spent four-hundred years unchanging, fixated on a single goal, a month was a blink of an eye. Surely people couldn't change in a blink. But they had, and he found it incredibly difficult to accept. At some level the true source of Puck's anger wasn't just the loss, but that Subaru and Clarissa's criticisms had hit home. His four-hundred years of idle fixation felt practically slothful now, and he still couldn't change. Perhaps on that alone, it might not be too late for regrets yet.

Afterword: The first interlude, and admittedly a short one is done. A couple more in between chapters and we can move on to the next bit of the story. There are some distinct parallels drawn between Puck and another character, I think Puck and that other character would be quite insulted to be considered similar. A lot of readers have wondered about Puck's thoughts on various things, and here they end up laid bare in a surprisingly child-like tantrum (although Puck does seem prone to those when things go wrong). The next bit will contain a scene I've been intending to write since the start, I think everyone will find it quite amusing.