Wolf & Parchment: New Theory Spice & Wolf, Vol. 8, page 22
When it came to sentimental matters, she was, after all, just like any other girl her age.
“Well?” Col asked again, and Myuri stared up blankly at him. “Would you listen to what I say if I told you to go home? Is there any sort of reason that would convince you go home?”
“………”
Myuri sniffed, then shook her head.
Apples did not fall into the sky. The sun did not rise in the west.
And much in the same way, this wild girl would never go home even if he told her to.
“…Er… I… W-wait…”
Myuri’s wolf ears flicked back and forth, hesitant, and her tail drooped listlessly.
Soon her expression followed, and her head drooped awkwardly.
“You so foolishly get ahead of yourself.”
Col knocked lightly on her head, and like a stake being driven into the ground, her head fell and her back hunched over.
“But I suppose you sympathized too closely with Lutia’s plight.”
Myuri, whose fingers were folded so tightly together, unable to control herself, suddenly looked up when he said that, as though recalling something important.,
“Oh! B-Brother!”
“What is it?”
“Wh-what should we do…about Lutia…?”
She seemed ready to burst into tears yet again, and a jolt of tension ran through Col.
“What was it that the two of you were plotting in the end?”
Col was always suffering stomachaches in Nyohhira because the mischievous Myuri was more cunning than any adult.
And on top of that, she and Lutia were connected by a darker motivation this time.
“Well… It looked like you and everyone else were going to solve all the problems so easily, so I told her…she should probably work more closely…with the southern eagles…”
Perhaps the conclusion they came to was that in order to oppose the Twilight Cardinal, an extraordinary bookseller, and a prodigy boy who worked in the heart of the Church, that was their only choice.
The southern eagles, too, had plenty of reasons to talk to Lutia.
“Have those talks happened yet?”
When Col asked if there was still time, Myuri’s eyes quickly darted around the alley, panicked, before settling on Col once again.
“I—I don’t think so…”
The southern students who came to attack the chapel had sounded like they were doubting Myuri and Lutia.
As Col concluded that must mean nothing definitive had happened yet, Myuri spoke up again.
“L-Lutia said she was gonna purposefully make the rescue mission a total, tragic failure to earn the other students’ trust… She said it would be their present…”
Lutia had already decided to hide her fangs and claws. And now she was attempting to sell out her conscience.
She believed this was much preferable to waking from the dream.
Col sighed deeply, and Myuri flinched, drawing up her shoulders.
“We cannot allow Miss Lutia to brand her heart in this manner.”
She was not a lost sheep. She was a lost wolf.
The water ran deep and dragged the weak into the dark depths.
Myuri had left her knight’s sword and sash behind. She attempted to stand, apparently no longer able to bear her own carelessness, but Col stopped her.
“You will not be taking part in this.”
“B-but—!”
“No buts. You two colluded to perform wicked deeds. If you changed your mind, then who is Miss Lutia going to believe?”
“Oh… Um…”
Myuri’s ears drooped. In order to untangle this complicated mess of hair, they would have to work out a plan for freeing each strand without breaking any.
“Listen to me. I saw through your plot. And then your brother, the Twilight Cardinal, rebuked you, grabbed you by the scruff of your neck, yelled at you, and made you confess to everything as you cried. Do you understand me?”
“Huh? But…that’s…”
Myuri shrunk as though her head was being pushed down, but her lips still moved as though searching for something to say.
“And that is why I will be the one to put Miss Lutia back on the proper path.”
This way, Myuri would not be labeled as a traitor who would so easily divulge secrets, and Lutia would not have to experience being betrayed by the first and only fellow wolf she had met in her entire lifetime.
The reason Myuri eventually confessed was because for wolves, hierarchy was absolute—when her elder brother grabbed her by the scruff of the neck, she had no choice but to cry.
“In the meanwhile, you should… Yes. You should meet with Mister Le Roi and the others and stay put with them.”
It was unlikely Lutia would believe Col if her accomplice was with him. And there was yet another reason why he was sending her away.
“Go…to the others?”
The hairs on Myuri’s tail stood on end out of discomfort, perhaps because she had pictured going back to them.
Her eyes turned up desperately toward Col, pleading with him to allow her to stay here.
“Your knight sword and sash are there. You need to go back and understand the meaning behind your knight’s vows.”
Myuri looked like she was going to burst into tears again, and she eventually hung her head.
“Good grief.”
Col ruffled Myuri’s hair because he understood she did not scheme with Lutia out of greed and self-interest. She had sympathized with the girl’s loneliness, and she genuinely could not bear to ignore the plight of a wolf who had no home to return to. Though she constantly derided her brother for being too softhearted, Myuri was exactly the same.
But what set them apart was that while she was softhearted, she was also keen.
She had realized that she would allow her own dream to continue into eternity all while helping Lutia, and so she decided to work with her.
“I will not be overlooking your latest trick like your usual antics. I will be punishing you for this.”
Myuri, recalling how often she had been scolded back in Nyohhira, lifted her head and gaped like a fish.
“Do not make that face at me. Put your ears and tail away and go back to Mister Le Roi.”
Col clapped his hands, and Myuri, who had been sitting huddled in her despair, slowly got to her feet.
She then turned to look at him again, eyes begging for his pity, but he found it rather easy to stare back at her with indifference. That was because he had a little feeling about what she might do.
And just as he thought, after the scared girl’s eyes darted around his face, she stuck her tongue out at him and then scampered away. Col had no idea if she was a child, or an adult.
Then she came to a stop at the entrance to the alley a short distance away, and turned to look back at him.
“Please save her, Brother.”
That was all she said before vanishing into the dark of the alley.
He almost wished she would never grow up, and that she would always stay this way.
“Now then.”
There was one lost wolf left.
He planted his feet firmly on the ground to set off, but he was not sure of the roads in the dark.
He naturally thought about getting Myuri to lead him to the Green Gourd, but that only caused him to smile wryly to himself—he also relied on her a little too much.
Though Col got a little lost along the way, he managed to find his way to the Green Gourd somehow. As he looked up at their usual hotel, it did not immediately seem much different, but he looked closer to see candlelight flickering beyond the cracks in the shutters, and to see the silhouettes of people busily coming and going.
It seemed he had made it before the plan to save the kids had been set in motion.
Lutia was attempting to earn the southern eagles’ trust by purposefully causing the plan to fail, all so that she could work even more closely with them.
If it went well, then her boys would never find out about her secret arrangement, and they could continue fighting the southern eagles as they always had. But Lutia knew the truth, and it would only corrode her pride like it had been exposed to sulfur.
The reason she had made such a dark decision was most certainly not out of emotional weakness. If anything, it was due to Col’s own naïveté—his innocent belief that all her problems could be solved, and therefore, they should be. He had never even stopped to consider that someone might need those problems to exist.
That was exactly the same as the knightly orders and children of nobles who lost their way once all the wars stopped, even though a world without war was strictly a better one.
Therefore, it was clearly wrong to one-sidedly rebuke Lutia for being a liar.
But this was not a matter of whether what Lutia was doing was right or not. It could not be healthy for her to continue dreaming in this city, which sat somewhere between heaven and earth, still imprisoned by the memories she had of her hair—or fur—being combed by the fire. It was even less healthy for her to work with the southern students so she could remain in this stasis, getting the poorer students entangled in it all in the meanwhile.
Though Lutia might scoff at him, saying this was none of his business, he knew that if he did not reach out to her here, as someone who aspired to be a man of the cloth, then he would have to hide his copy of the scripture beneath the carpet, just like Myuri did.
If someone was hurt and in pain, then he had to take their hand and pull them out of the darkness.
And unlike Myuri, who could only think of licking one another’s wounds, Col had another way of resolving this.
“Is Miss Lutia in?”
When Col threw open the door to the Green Gourd, the tavern was filled with quiet bustle and the murmur of voices.
Some people present were wrapping leather straps to the handles of shiny pots and pans and strapping them over their chins like helmets. Some were doing practice swings with rolling pins, and some were checking to see if their leather riding whips were in good shape.
Every single one of them were younger boys, and in the candlelight, it seemed like a scene from a child-friendly tale of adventure, the sort Myuri might think up.
The innkeeper, among the very few adults present, responded, overwhelmed.
“Lutia’s…upstairs…”
“Thank you.”
Shaking off the stares of the boys readying for battle, Col headed upstairs.
The boys on the second floor were also busy with their preparations, and the floor was in total disorder. Col could not see Lutia at a glance, so he climbed to the third floor to find it surprisingly empty. When he turned his gaze upward, he was also asking God for luck in the impending clash.
Col had a secret plan to persuade Lutia. But he could not completely rid himself of the feeling that it was none of his business.
He would need decisiveness to close the gap.
And that was why he needed God’s guidance, more than ever.
When he came to the fourth floor, the door to the armory of knowledge was open, and light spilled out from the inside.
“Miss Lutia.”
He stood in the doorway and said her name. It was likely she already knew he was coming even before he had stepped in the building. With an exasperated look on her face, she closed the book in her hands. Judging by the thickness of it, it was a copy of the scripture, written in the script of the Church.
“So the Twilight Cardinal has come in the silver wolf’s place. This can only be bad news.”
“It is good news, actually.”
Lutia turned to look at him.
“Because I’ve come here to pull you out of this nightmare.”
The wolf had hidden her pain and her true self; only one corner of her mouth turned upward in a smile. Perhaps this would be seen as a smile on the face of a human, but it was also the look of a bloodied wolf who had finally been backed into a corner after a hunter had tracked its bloody trail.
“This is none of your business.”
“I thought you might say that.”
Col took a big step into the room, and he thought for a moment she was going to throw the scripture at him.
But Lutia remained still, and instead revealed to him her wolf ears and tail.
It was as though she was telling him she was going to bare her teeth and claws next if he took another step closer.
“You shouldn’t do this.”
But Col continued to casually close the distance between them, unafraid. Lutia’s eyes widened, and she faltered.
“Miss Lutia, I thought you were a proud wolf. You must stop this at once.”
Flames burst behind Lutia’s eyes, furious that he spoke like he knew what he was talking about. Perhaps that was the fire of the hearth she had come to know in her past, or perhaps the fire of the candles she used to mourn her former lords.
“If you continue to steep in this fake conflict, then who are you bringing happiness to?”
The poor students desperately held on to the hope that they might be conferred a degree one day, and Lutia continued to wish that time would stop for her. In an ambitious city such as this, no one would think it odd to entertain such idle hope.
“I apologize for foolishly trying to resolve your problems without fully understanding your circumstances.”
The Twilight Cardinal had power even beyond Col’s imagining. This was the first time he truly understood that such vague notions as renown and connections could be wielded with such terrifying power.
Because the problems Lutia had comfortably deemed unsolvable were quickly shoved aside in the face of his power.
“Now that I know, I still believe the problems must be uprooted.”
“Shut up!” Lutia bellowed, peeled back her lips to bare her fangs, and leaped at him.
When a wolf of the forest loomed over a person, ferocious growl accompanied by bared teeth, most would desperately try to pull back and run away. But the difference in power between a wolf that lived in a forest and a person who lived within the confines of a city’s walls was vastly different. Such a thoughtless reaction rarely helped in any situation. But there was a trick. One did not need to use power in order to confront such ferocious power.
What he needed to do was the opposite.
“Miss Lutia.”
“—?!”
For a moment, it seemed as though Lutia did not understand what had happened. All she knew was that she had been pulled into an embrace, and her fangs had caught nothing but air.
If this were Myuri, she may have anticipated this and put distance between the two of them, and she knew how to get out of Col’s hold by wriggling like a lamprey if need be. That was because Myuri was so full of others’ love that Col was surprised she never burped from it; she had been given hugs her whole life.
But Lutia was not like that at all.
She had once shyly confessed that the days she spent letting people comb her hair before the fire and calling her Lutia had nearly numbed her mind. So it made sense that half of her life story didn’t teach her how to deal with someone coming in straight for a hug.
“I am not your enemy.”
“Grrrgh!”
She growled, twisted, but Col’s right arm wrapped beneath Lutia’s left arm, and his left arm pressed down on the top half of her right arm, pinning it in place even as he wrapped around her. While keeping their mirrored postures in place, he grasped his left wrist with his right hand to maintain his position; not even a thrashing Myuri could easily escape from this.
It seemed Lutia did not know how to give herself strength the way she wanted, so all she did was fruitlessly struggle. She could not bite at Col either, of course, so it almost seemed like she was drowning.
“Miss Lutia, I am not your enemy.”
If this were Myuri thrashing in his arms, he would prepare himself for a head-butt, but Lutia did not seem to think that far. Or perhaps her anger and thrashing was just for show—all she did was awkwardly twist and growl.
Col considered it was because of these things that she did not return to her wolf form, so he let go without warning.
Lutia staggered back, putting space between them. But all she did was stare at Col nervously, as though bewildered that she had been let go.
“You should return to the correct path.”
And she was perfectly capable of doing so.
But his words clearly warped something in her mind.
It was only for a few moments that she seemed furious he was overstepping her boundaries, but Col soon understood this was the look was of a girl who could no longer withstand the pain.
“…No.”
Because what she so childishly whispered were essentially the first pebbles in a landslide.
“No… No, no! No!”
Lutia shook her hair loose, screamed, and dug her fingers into her hair in a furious scrub.
“What do you know?! I’m alone! No one answers my howls! The ones who took me out of the forest died! Left me by myself! Abandoned this city!” she shouted, eyes still set firmly on him. But what she was really looking at were the memories of the lord and lady she loved so much.
The days she thought would continue forever came to an end without fanfare, and in her eyes, as a spirit who would live for a very long time, it was a betrayal. And because she knew thinking of it in that way was wrong, she did not know how to relieve her pain. Perhaps she needed a dream like this so she could forever keep this long-running nausea at bay.
Legend had it there was a family in the desert nations who once served the king, yet engaged in assassination; they needed the smoke of special herbs in order to keep the fear at bay. Much in the same way, she had inhaled lungful after lungful of the decadent air of this dreamlike academic city.
Half a smile sat on Lutia’s face while tears spilled from her eyes.
A wolf of the forest would never weep.
Only those who knew the warm hearths of the human world could cry.
“What…do you…?”
And the foolish sheep, who had no confidence in anything, said to her, “I do know. I understand.” Perhaps the exhaustion that had seeped into his tone made his words sound more authentic. “Because the wolf at my side was frightened by the same shadows not long ago.”
