“You need to take a more active role!” Izuna declared. “At least tell him you want to spend the night together!” She spoke with the confidence of an older student. Izuna had no talent for making appropriate facial expressions, but she had pulled the corners of her lips up into a smile, seemingly proud of her superior experience.
“I mean...” said Aisha. “That isn’t really what I’m trying to say...”
“Hm?” Izuna cocked her head. “What do you mean by that?” But Aisha suddenly went silent.
“Nothing...” she said.
Izuna didn’t understand. She watched, puzzled, as Aisha sighed loudly. Though she didn’t know exactly what Aisha’s circumstances were, she had urged her time and time again to try to get closer to her reunited father.
The truth was that Aisha had done as Izuna had asked on the day they’d met and wished from the bottom of her heart to meet her father again. Minutes had passed, maybe half an hour, as she’d sat alone on that swing. Then, she’d heard her father’s voice. “Hi there, Aisha! It’s time for dinner! You were out playing for quite a while! Or did you fall asleep? You’d best be careful. Sleeping in a place like this is a surefire way to catch a cold!” Her father had come all the way through the winding alleys to this small, hard-to-find space to get her.
It was just like another time, when Aisha had fallen asleep listening to the voices of the spirits on the bank of a river. Her father now was acting exactly like how he had acted then, when he’d come alone to find her after night had fallen.
Aisha’s stomach had rumbled with hunger.
“What’s that?” her father had asked. “Are you hungry? Well, I could do with a meal myself! I spent all day gathering fruit in the forest, after all!” He’d then begun making preparations for food.
Izuna had said that if she wished and believed then it would come true. Aisha found that if she ever thought of something she wanted her father to do, her father would do exactly that. She’d spent a pleasant time reliving the past, her father moving as she willed. Now, Izuna said that if she let her father spoil her more, she would find happiness. She told her she should take baths with her father, and sleep in the same bed as him too. It was a baffling thing to say, but Aisha understood that Izuna was a kind girl, acting out of consideration for her well-being. Izuna had been in this city for longer than she had as well, and thus had fallen much deeper into its illusion.
“Are you getting along with your parents, Izuna?” Aisha asked.
“Of course!” Izuna replied cheerfully, smiling. “We slept in the same bed until morning today like always. My mama and papa are so kind...”
“I see,” said Aisha, a hint of loneliness in her voice.
“Do you not want to get closer to your father?” Izuna asked.
Aisha thought about how to respond. What did she want? What should she do? “I want to get closer...” she said. But before Izuna could cut in, she continued. “I want to get closer to you, Izuna. And to my Mistress.” That was the conclusion Aisha had reached upon meeting Izuna—that she needed to move on. “I can’t stay with my father. I want to get closer to you and her instead.” Aisha jumped down from the swing.
“What?!” Izuna said. “Aisha, do you hate your father?!” She jumped after Aisha and chased her down, her face contorted in a display of sadness in an attempt to stop her friend from leaving.
“I loved him!” Aisha shot back. “I loved my father so, so much, Izuna!”
“Then why?!”
“But that’s what makes this wrong! Please, Izuna, don’t you understand? I’ve only been here a little while and it’s so obvious to me! I don’t believe you don’t know! So why are you pretending you don’t know what’s going on?!”
Aisha’s father had come to get her, but Aisha wasn’t asleep at all. He’d prepared food, but he hadn’t gone to any kind of forest.
“No!” Izuna screamed. “Mama and papa are—”
Aisha shook her head. “I’m not wrong! I know it hurts! I know it’s hard! I know you want to cling to the past! But we can’t stay here forever! I’m my mistress’s servant!”
Knowing was not the same as understanding. Simply knowing wasn’t enough to make the pain stop and remove the weight from her chest. Even if her head understood, some corner of her heart was determinedly resisting the truth. That must have been why Nacht had given her this time.
“Thank you, Izuna,” Aisha said. “You helped me make up my mind by being my friend and playing with me and listening to my problems. You helped me live in the present.”
“Aisha...” Izuna looked like she was on the verge of tears. Aisha extended her hand toward Izuna, but even after all the time they’d spent together, the girl still recoiled at the thought of touch.
“Let’s meet again tomorrow,” Aisha said, holding out her pinkie finger.
Izuna didn’t respond. She turned and ran away on tottering legs, crying miserably.
Aisha sat back down on the swing and asked herself what she should have said, but no answers came. It was lonely under the tree all by herself. Without Izuna there, the space looked different somehow.
“Where are you, Mistress?” she said as she kicked off the ground. “I miss you...”
~ ‡ ~
“Roy, get the bread!”
“Try this, Miel! It’s amazing!”
“Hey! Cruz took my meat!”
“Now, now. No fighting,” Tina said, remonstrating the children. The scene looked less like lively dinner conversation and more like a large-scale conflict. More than twenty children were gathered around the table in the Holy Church of the Ancient Dragons, crammed in elbow to elbow as they pillaged the dinner Nacht had prepared like the spoils of war. It had been like this every day since Nacht had started staying at the church.
“I’m sorry, Nacht.” Tina bowed courteously. “You’re meant to be the guest, but you’ve been cooking for us day after day.” So she said, but she was still holding a poultry leg in her hand and had a generous helping of meat on her own plate. Her face was smeared with sauce and grease.