One day, at dusk, Diane said to him, “Hey, hey, Harlequin, I just saw a human over there.”
“A human? It wasn’t that old hunter?” Harlequin had been cleaning the interior of their den. He turned his head as Diane entered.
The old hunter was a male human living in a cabin on the outskirts of the forest.
Diane had become acquainted with him when she assisted him with hunting once, and when she was struck with fever after coming down with a bad cold, he had taught them how to make medicine.
“Not him. It was a boy.”
“A boy? In a place like this?” Harlequin frowned.
It’s probably someone from that hunter’s family. I remember him saying he had a daughter—
“A boy, you said…About how old?”
“Hmm…I’m not sure. But from what I saw, he was a little bigger than you.”
“Where was he, and what was he doing?”
“Let’s see,” Diane answered happily. “I was taking a nap on Lone Cedar Hill and saw a boy walking by himself in the meadow across the river. He had a brown cloth wrapped around him and was wearing a hat that looked like this.” Diane gestured around her head and traced the shape of a wide-brimmed hat.
“A traveler, perhaps.”
That’s rare, thought Harlequin. We’ve lived here for a long time, but besides that hunter, we haven’t seen any other people.
“Diane, I tell you this all the time, but—”
“You can’t trust humans, right?” Diane laughed.
“Th-That’s right. That hunter is a good person, but there are very bad people among humans, too. So unless you know what kind of person they are, don’t do anything reckless.”
“Yeah, I know.” Diane nodded, smiling.
I’m still a little worried. But if it’s a traveler, he’s probably just passing through on his way somewhere else, thought Harlequin.
He won’t stay in a place like this with nothing at all for very long. However.
The next day, when Harlequin was heading into the forest to look for food—
“Waaaaggghhhh!”
He heard a loud cry, and when he looked back, over the hill across from him, a cloud of dust was running towards him.
“D-Dusk bison!” Harlequin gasped.
It was a wild bull with huge horns.
Why was that bull, which was, as its name implied, mostly active at dusk, charging at full speed in the middle of the day?
“S-Save me!”
“That’s…”
A human boy was being chased by the bison.
“A brown cape. He must be that guy Diane saw.”
The boy didn’t have on a wide-brimmed hat, but he might’ve dropped it while he was running.
“Guess I have to do something…” Harlequin said to himself.
He didn’t really care whether a human lived or died, but if Diane came across his corpse, she’d be rather shocked.
Harlequin floated into the air, and then flew after the boy, who looked like he’d be caught in the dusk bison’s horns any second now.
With just a hair’s breadth of time to spare, Harlequin grabbed the edge of the boy’s cape and pulled him up into the air.
“…!!”
The dusk bison, whose target had disappeared right before its eyes, kept running down the hill at full speed, unable to change course or come to an abrupt stop.
Crash!
The bull smashed into a large boulder, making an enormous noise, and was immobilized. Harlequin spoke to the boy he was carrying.
“Isn’t it great, you’re safe now.”
“…”
“Hey, shouldn’t you be saying something?”
“Gaahhhk, gaahhhk…”
“Oh!”
The cape was constricting the boy’s throat, and he was about to pass out. Harlequin hurriedly flew down to the ground.
The fairy dropped the boy and waited as he held his throat and panted for air. When the boy finally regained his breath, he rose slowly.
“Th-Thank you…” He looked up at Harlequin and gave a feeble smile.
“You’re welcome.”
“Excuse me, are you a fairy? Amazing. I’ve never seen one before.”
Harlequin was silent.
“Oh, that’s right!” Remembering something, the boy felt around his waist on his right side. There was an item that looked like a stick wrapped in a red leather bag inserted into his belt. Reassuring himself it was still there, he sighed in relief.
“Thank goodness…I still have it…”
“…?” Harlequin didn’t know what it was, but it didn’t look like a sword.
The boy turned to Harlequin once more and quickly bowed his head.
“Really, thank you for saving me,” he said. “I leaned on what I thought was a boulder, but actually I was disturbing that bull’s nap time.”
“I don’t know what you’re doing in a place like this, but there are also bears and wolves around. You should leave soon. If you’re lost, there’s a family of hunters of living just beyond here, so you could ask them for directions.”
“Well, I have gotten myself lost, but…” The boy stood up and looked around, his hands on his waist. “Hey, you seem like you know a lot about this area. Would you perhaps happen to know about the Rainbow Waterfall?”
“The Rainbow Waterfall?” Harlequin tilted his head to the side. “There is a waterfall if you travel upstream along the river flowing by that—this hill. But I don’t know what its name is.”
“Oh, so it is that river. Does it end inside the forest?” The boy stood on tiptoe and cupped a hand over his brow.
“That’s right. It’s rather far back.”
“Hmm, is that so…I heard that a rainbow always sprouts from the top of the waterfall during the day.”
“Nah, that’s not true.” Harlequin recalled the waterfall’s appearance. “It’s deep within the forest, and there’s hardly any sunlight, so I’ve never seen a rainbow there.”
“I see…” The boy hung his head. “Is that the only waterfall around these parts?”
“As far as I know.”
The boy contemplated some more, but before long he straightened his cape and checked the stick at his waist once again.
“Thank you. I’m going to go see it myself after all.”
“You’re really going? It’s pretty far. On human legs.”
“Yes…But finding a forest with fairies in it has given me hope. Thank you very much.” The boy smiled. Then he turned his back to Harlequin and walked off.
Harlequin watched the boy’s back until it passed out of sight.
Is it okay to let him go? Or should I have removed him…
…Remove?
He surprised himself with that word.
Come to think of it, though, in his dream, wasn’t he always arguing with his younger sister Elaine about something like protecting the forest, or this and that about handling intruders?
But try as he might, he couldn’t remember anything specific.
The boy was still climbing the grass-covered hill, wandering here and there.
Well, I guess it’s okay…He doesn’t look like such a bad human.
He didn’t seem to have any magical power or to be carrying a weapon. It’s not like a boy can do much on his own.
For now, I’ll just tell Diane not to go near the waterfall for a bit.
Harlequin nodded to himself, then flew off to look for food once again.