[8] Chapter 2. The Desired Form (1)
A small paradise for fairies and their lovers was created on earth. The king occasionally looked into that paradise. The children of fairies and lovers reached out their arms without fear upon seeing him, and the king only gazed at it. The fairy smiled at the king while embracing her child.
“I think they are lovely.”
The king looked at the fairy as if seeing something strange. The fairy closed her eyes and smiled while stroking the child in her arms with her hand. It was an expression just like a human’s.
“I can do anything for my child.”
“I am the same. Just as I created this place for you.”
“Even my life.”
At those words, the king looked at the fairy with an uncomprehending expression. The fairy smiled brightly. The king’s life could not be exchanged for anything. The fairy handed the child in her arms to him again with an understanding face. The king grasped the young child in his hand as if picking up an object.
“How did you come to have such a heart?”
“Because I loved.”
From the memoir of a fairy.
*
“Get some sleep.”
“I can’t sleep because I feel sick…”
“I can’t take this anymore, really… At least give me your hand.”
Fernciana sighed and held out her hand. Ilyas, who had been leaning his back against the wagon wall with all his might, held out a hand that had turned pale down to the nails.
The merchant group’s carriage was heading towards the imperial capital Pomilas along a smoothly arranged road.
Up until the previous village, they had been roughly riding on a road that was still unfinished, but from now on, paved roads would gradually appear, so they thought there would be improvement in Ilyas’s motion sickness, but it seemed he had grown accustomed to the unpaved road in the meantime, so he was getting motion sickness again because the road was smooth.
“How did you come down to Ronen like this?”
“I told you I rode a horse.”
“You don’t get motion sickness on a horse?”
“That’s because I’m directly riding it…”
“Should you directly drive the carriage too?”
“I’d like to, ugh, but I can’t.”
“Do you think they’ll entrust it to me if they knew who I was,” Ilyas joked in a faint voice. Fernciana let out a sigh in a rebuking tone and firmly pressed the hollow part between Ilyas’s thumb and index finger.
“Ah, it hurts!”
“They say it’s good to massage here when you have motion sickness.”
“Fi-first time hearing, ouch! Ouch! It hurts too much, is this really, really true?”
“If it hurts, it means you have motion sickness.”
“With this much pressure, is there anyone in the world who wouldn’t get motion sickness?”
“Don’t exaggerate.”
Ilyas strongly objected to Fernciana’s words, but Fernciana paid no attention. Ilyas, who had been overworked by Fernciana’s hand for a long time, gave up feeling the pain sensitively and spoke in a deflated voice.
“Does this really have any effect other than distracting the mind because it hurts so much?”
“Actually, it didn’t work for me…”
Ilyas’s expression contorted at Fernciana’s honest answer. Fernciana smiled coyly and let go of his hand.
“But I thought it might work for Ilyas, that’s why!”
“The little one is so strong… I thought I was going to die from the pain.”
Ilyas grumbled like that and leaned his body against the wagon wall again. Although she had played around for a bit, the pale energy on his face had not dissipated. Fernciana looked at Ilyas with a worried face and sighed.
“Are you really the person who knows the most in the capital…?”
“I told you I am.”
“Do you want to get scolded by your brother,” Ilyas managed to retort, and it was at that moment.
“Huh?”
From the head of the merchant group, there was a loud sound of stopping carriages and horses. The clear sound of metal brushing was a bonus. Fernciana and Ilyas’s eyes met.
“What’s going on?”
“Something in front… Aaah.”
Ilyas’s pale face, which had been looking outside the supply wagon, turned even whiter, and he suddenly grabbed Fernciana’s shoulders.
“The time has come.”
“Huh? Time?”
When Fernciana only blinked her eyelids, Ilyas nodded his head with a flashing gaze. Fernciana stuck her head out of the supply wagon like Ilyas had done, then swiftly turned to look at Ilyas.
“Th-this…!”
Ilyas’s blue, sickly face was probably due to the motion sickness he had been experiencing rather than seeing the group of black-masked people currently standing in front of the merchant group, but Fernciana clicked her tongue once and reached for the wooden sword she had put in the corner of the cargo compartment.
“Bandits? Are they really bandits?”
“Does this look like an invitation to a noble tea party then?”
“Usually in this case, don’t you pay something like a toll and pass through? No?”
“But it seems the bandit lords don’t handle tolls.”
Ilyas muttered as he stuck his head out of the supply wagon. Fernciana stuck her head out next to Ilyas. The people dressed in black from head to toe were looking down at the merchant group from atop horses. The purse of gold coins that the caravan leader seemed to have offered while bowing was thrown on the ground, scattered and glittering with a brilliant light.
“Then what do they handle…?”
“Who knows, only the merchant, ugh, lords would know that.”
Ilyas covered his mouth as he jumbled his sentence, perhaps because nausea had risen again, turning pale once more. In the meantime, the confrontation between the people in black and the merchant group was becoming more and more acute.
“Were they smuggling something?!”
“What would they smuggle in this rural backwater…?”
“Then Sehiraden?”
“If they were carrying something like Sehir, they wouldn’t have let us ride. …Although it’s a possibility.”
Ilyas said that while lightly dusting off the end of his sleeve cuff. A heavy metallic object slipped smoothly into his hand. It was a foldable dagger. Ilyas gripped the tip of the blade and flicked it, and the dagger set its blade. Ilyas then plunged it into the sack they were sitting on in the cargo compartment.
“Il-Ilyas!”
“If things seem to be going awry, we need to know what they’re looking for and what this side has in order to respond. …Huh?”
Something poured out from where the blade had cut. It was a pile of shiny seeds mixed with purple and silver.
“Huh? This is…”
“Do you, ugh, know what this is?”
This time, Ilyas looked at Fernciana with a slightly surprised face. Fernciana pondered for a moment, then nodded.
It was the seeds of a flower cluster that grew deep in the place where one had to go quite far from the hut where Fernciana had stayed with her family in Ronen, or more precisely, from that hut. It was a long time ago, much earlier than now when she was very young, so it was hazy, but she remembered it because she had never seen it anywhere else.
“Isn’t that some kind of flower… flower seeds?”
“Interesting? How do you know this?”
Because Ilyas made a truly surprised expression, Fernciana looked at Ilyas with a frown. Ilyas quickly waved his hand, then retched and swallowed, perhaps because his motion sickness had worsened.
“I’ve never, ugh, seen anyone who knows this.”
“Never seen? The people of this merchant group also know what this is, so they’re carrying it in sacks like this, aren’t they?”
“That’s, urgh, true…”
After saying that, Ilyas reached out his arm and gripped a water bottle in his hand. Then he scooped up a handful of seeds and dumped them into his mouth. Fernciana’s eyes widened.
“Wh-what are you doing?”
“First of all, this is a special medicine for motion sickness. Ugh… It subsides quickly when you eat it.”
“Oh, really? Then you’ve been vomiting the whole time with motion sickness medicine loaded behind your back?”
“…”
However, the two’s quarrel couldn’t continue for long. Instead, the people of the merchant group and the group of bandits showed signs of starting a physical fight. Fernciana stuck her head out and eavesdropped on the conversation.
‘It seems they’re telling them to hand over something called Erasil?’
Ilyas pointed to the sack with his chin.
‘The name of those seeds is Erasil. It means the seeds of the Eracirusus flower.’
‘But they say they can’t hand it over?’
‘What if they don’t give it? No way?’
And it seemed to be that “no way.” Loud metallic sounds started ringing out here and there. It was the sound of drawing swords, and they were all from the merchant group side.
‘These gentlemen really seem to be willing to resort to swordsmanship now?’
‘-Are you okay with the motion sickness?’
Fernciana bit her lip hard and adjusted her grip on the wooden sword. Ilyas blinked his eyes and looked at Fernciana, who suddenly brought up an irrelevant topic.
Seeing his reaction, Fernciana immediately grabbed a thick, rough cloth placed in the corner of the supply wagon and threw it over Ilyas, as if she had read his mind.
‘Then stay inside.’
‘Huh?’
‘Hurry!’
Before Ilyas could answer anything, Fernciana grabbed Ilyas’s collar and the cloth together and pushed him under the supply wagon. When Ilyas grabbed his aching head after bumping into various places, all he could see in front of his eyes were the spokes of the wagon wheel.