It wasn’t a long time that she spent in the capital, but it was a comfortable one.
Of course, there wasn’t much excitement about life in a sickroom.
But it was a large hospital run by a noble, so she got a brilliant view of the capital from her window. She wasn’t unfamiliar with life in a hospital from her childhood. Claiomh adjusted the collar of her pajamas and set her feet down on the floor to get out of bed...then remembered that there was nothing for her to do, so she pulled her legs back up.
She’d spent the past week gazing dreamily up at the ceiling of this room. Their transport to the capital had been hasty and after arriving, everyone she knew had been busy. A doctor had informed her of the weakened state of her mind and body and she’d been hospitalized here, but she thought it was equally likely that they’d just left her here to keep her out of the way.
Society was all abuzz and nothing had changed—in this capital, at least, she was sure that nothing was different at all than it had been a week ago. People had marveled at the “rainless storm” that had occurred for a few days, but they’d still gone to work and school the same as they always did.
Oh. Claiomh realized she was about to cry and stopped thinking about that. She’d been doing this for days now, so she’d gotten pretty good at it. She wiped away the tears that hadn’t yet fallen and any trace that she might have been crying was gone.
Then she just needed to take a few deep breaths to calm herself. At some point, her wounds would heal...
When a knock broke her concentration, Claiomh felt more surprise than anger—she didn’t have many visitors, and it wasn’t yet time for the doctor to come check if she was still alive. She hurriedly pulled the covers up to her chest and answered the door even as she worried about her bedhead that was worsening by the day. Maybe she knew who was coming.
She got that feeling as the door opened.
Orphen stood there. The sorcerer with the sarcastic-looking expression on his face that never seemed to bother her. He’d returned to his usual outfit, discarding the combat gear he’d been wearing over the last few days. He set a stuffed, misshapen backpack on the floor and raised a hand in greeting. Claiomh nodded her head wordlessly in response.
He looked around silently for a moment before his gaze settled on the window. “The sand is done falling,” Orphen said. “It was pretty hectic there for a minute, but now that the goddess is gone—”
“That window doesn’t open,” Claiomh told Orphen when he put his hand on the window frame. He blinked and looked over at her and she continued, “It’s not glass, that window... You know, ’cause...I was pretty confused at first.”
“Oh... I see,” Orphen said awkwardly, as if he’d just remembered what sort of room this was. It wasn’t the completely isolated rooms they had on the first floor, but the dreary hospital room was meant to provoke the patients in it as little as possible.
Claiomh hung her head and murmured, “The goddess is gone... The Deep Dragons...jumped at her to teleport her somewhere far away and they all died.” She wasn’t blaming him, but as she peeked out from under her bangs at him, she saw the exact dark shadow on his face she expected.
Orphen sighed. “Yeah... The Deep Dragons didn’t miss their opportunity. They took the initiative the destruction of the barrier gave them and used it to teleport the goddess. I don’t know where she ended up... She may never return here, or she could be back tomorrow.”
“Is that okay?”
“I dunno. But I think it’s like worrying about a meteorite falling on us. I don’t think the gods will worry about this puny little continent now that the Ayrmankar barrier’s gone. At the very least, we’ve avoided certain doom.”
The explanation came fluidly from him, since he’d given it to countless people over the last few days. She was sure many people had asked him about it before her.
Claiomh gripped her blanket hard enough to tear it and muttered, “I think you did what you needed to do, Orphen... But I—”
“I don’t think there was anything we could have done about Leki. Lottecia and the lord died too. And Irgitte. Even Ryan died. And plenty of other people.”
As he spoke, he went over to the backpack he’d left on the floor—Claiomh hadn’t noticed, but he must have had something hidden inside it. Opening it up to take something out of it, he suddenly changed the subject.
“Leki said he left his pack and became his own individual will, right?”
“But that’s...”
“But that’s what Leki said,” Orphen interrupted her when Claiomh protested.
He stood, holding a little black lump in his hand and said, “I found this outside.”
What he was holding really was little more than a lump of black. But it was alive—shivering, like it might be cold. It was a tiny black dog, only as big as Orphen’s palm. Its eyes and ears were still closed.
Claiomh stopped breathing, feeling like her breath had been lodged somewhere around her heart. Even she wasn’t sure what she’d say next, but as Orphen approached the bed and she looked down at the living creature on his hand, one word escaped her lips. “Outside...?”
“Just outside. Outside the door.” He pointed to the door he’d just walked through.
Claiomh reached out and took the dog from him, expelling the air she was holding in her chest. “It was right there. If I’d opened the door and went outside, it would have been right there...”
She looked down at the dog trembling in her hand. Was it sleeping or weakened? She couldn’t tell. But it was definitely alive. She couldn’t even pull it to her chest because she was afraid of crushing it, but it was there.
“...Leki? Is it Leki?” she asked.
“I dunno,” Orphen said. “But that whole race left just this one individual behind. It hasn’t even opened its eyes yet and there’s nobody out there who knows how to raise a Deep Dragon. Who knows if it’ll make it to adulthood, but...” He’d already turned around and picked up the bag he’d left on the floor.
“That’s for you to decide. If you don’t want to feel the same way again, then there’s nothing I can do about that.”
Don’t cry, Claiomh commanded herself, holding the tears inside. This wasn’t a miracle. If she thought of it that way, she was sure this tiny, weak life wouldn’t make it. She had to help it.
For the time being, the still-blind Deep Dragon seemed cold. The temperature in the room wasn’t that low, but the creature must have just been too small. She placed it on top of her blanket, warming it with her hands, and looked to Orphen.
“You look like...you’re going somewhere with that bag.”
“Yeah.” He nodded. “This was just a wayward journey. I thought I’d go back to being on my own for a bit. I asked Tish to look after you, so you can get her to take you back to Totokanta, all right?”
“I’ll miss you.” She said exactly what she was feeling. The words spilled from her, though there weren’t that many of them in the end. “I’ll really miss you. Won’t you, Orphen?”
These were parting words, whether she wanted them to be or not. She knew that somewhere as she said them.
Orphen was smiling. There was still a tinge of his usual sarcasm to it, but she thought it was just about the biggest smile he was capable of.
“Of course I will. That’s why we’ll see each other again sometime. But for now...” He put his arms through the straps of the backpack and waved, facing away from her. “I still have to say goodbye.”
He took a few steps and walked right out of the hospital room. And just as soon as he opened the door and disappeared through it, there was another knock.
She answered, thinking he had come back, but this time it wasn’t Orphen who came in but Majic. Just like all the other times he’d come to visit her, he was carrying some food that wasn’t a very thoughtful gift—if he brought it because hospital food wasn’t good, then why was he just buying things from the hospital café, Claiomh thought every time he came.
In any case, as Majic cheerfully entered the room, Claiomh asked him, “Did you see Orphen just now?”
“Hmm? Yeah.”
“You should have talked to him, then. Orphen said he’s leaving,” she said, pointing at the door.
Majic looked back at it a little guiltily, but he remained steadfast in his mission. “Nah, I talked to him a little earlier.”
“Still...”
Majic left his offering on the side of the bed and started cleaning up the remnants of what he’d brought the day before.
“You shouldn’t make too big a deal of it. Of anything, really.”
✦ ✦ ✦
Five years ago, he’d visited the capital in high spirits and was practically turned back at the gates, but now that he got a chance to really walk through it, it was magnificent. Maybe it was strange to feel nostalgic about it, Orphen thought while stifling a wry smile, but he did. Now that he thought about it, he felt like his journey had started here.
For exactly whom did the plaques by the roadside list the names of the nearby trees? He didn’t know, but if you didn’t feel like reading them, then that had nothing to do with you. Orphen walked down the streets of the capital, on a journey where he felt no particular need to hurry.
Where would this journey lead him?
To the rest of his life, he could say if he wanted to be witty, but he didn’t think it would go that far.
The sky in the capital was clear.
He looked up at it and spread his arms, but even if he stretched as far as he could, he didn’t bump into any other passersby. The streets were that wide.
“Let’s see... For now, I think...” he muttered to himself. “I’ll just head for the farthest place I can from here. I don’t care where.”
He pointed up at the sun shining in the sky.
✦ ✦ ✦
