“Looks like she fell asleep.” Terry glanced back at Harlequin with an amused expression.
It was near dawn. Their surroundings were hushed but for the sound of the waterfall.
Diane, who had been singing and clapping her hands to the rhythm of Terry’s flute just a short while ago, lay with a giant boulder for a pillow. She breathed gently with an air of utter satisfaction.
“Why don’t you get some sleep, too? When the sun comes up, I’ll escort you out of the forest.” Harlequin tossed a small stick onto the fire, and Terry nodded.
“Thank you. It’s too bad I didn’t get to see the Rainbow Waterfall, but it was nice to meet you guys.”
Copying Harlequin, Terry tossed a small stick onto the fire.
“So you and Diane have been here for a long time, just the two of you?”
“Yeah.”
“How nice. I’ve heard that fairies and giants have really long lifespans. And you can use magic, so even if some beast or evil human came by, you could handle it.”
At those words, Harlequin felt a prick in the depths of his heart. But he couldn’t identify what it was.
“You’re such a weak human, why would you come to a dangerous place like this?” Though Harlequin usually wasn’t interested in humans, this point was bothering him.
Terry hung his head and gazed at the fire. “I sincerely regret that I was such a lazy oaf. I never thought that Marius and I would part so suddenly. I thought that tomorrow would continue just the same as today, so if I slacked off a bit, I’d be able to make it up later.”
“…”
“Ultimately, I never got to ask Marius why he titled that song The Promised Rainbow. But as he was dying, I promised him I would learn to play it.”
“So, you still plan on finding your waterfall?”
“Yes.” Terry nodded. “Ah…It’s already dawn.”
The two of them looked up. Through the openings in the grove above them, the bits of sky they could see were already purplish bright, and the stars were gone.
“I’ll get a little sleep before I head out. Thank you, Harlequin.” Saying so, Terry lay down, using his arm for a pillow.
About to throw a small stick onto the fire, Harlequin halted his hand and let out a small sigh. “A promised song, huh…”
Something pricked at his heart again.
“When that time comes, you have to stop me! You, my true friend!”
Helbram…
The boy, always smiling in my dreams, who called me a true friend.
I feel as though I made a promise to him. Did I keep it?
I don’t know. I can’t remember. It always fades away.
This uneasiness just keeps growing.
It’s like a dark stain welling up in my chest.
I just don’t understand.
“I guess I’ll sleep for a bit, too.” Shaking his head, Harlequin lay down where he was.
Diane’s deep breaths and Terry’s shallow ones formed a strange rhythm.
As soon as Harlequin closed his eyes, he began to doze.
Suddenly, it seemed to grow bright in front of his eyes, and he woke up.
Bands of light shone through the grove. The morning sun had risen.
“…?”
The golden bands stretched out towards the waterfall.
“Ah!” Harlequin jumped to his feet.
A rainbow. There was a rainbow.
The waterfall, which until yesterday had been shielded by the thick grove, now had sunlight hitting it directly—and wasn’t that a rainbow, arcing directly over the water’s spray!
“I got it! Yesterday Diane smashed those trees!”
She’d forced her way through to hear Terry’s flute and created a path for the sunlight to flow.
“Terry!” cried Harlequin. “Get up! There’s a rainbow. A rainbow!”
“Huh?” Shaken awake by the fairy, Terry jumped up too. “Ah, it’s true! Ah…”
But the rainbow soon started to disappear.
The sun had moved, and light no longer filtered through the cracks in the trees.
“Aaaahh, look, it’s gone.”
“Hold on.” Harlequin lightly flew up into the air around the branches to come out on top of the waterfall and looked down at the basin from above.
“Terry. Was that guy, Marius, kind of old?”
“Huh? Yes, he was. I think he was already near ninety when he died.”
“I see. It’s as I thought.” Harlequin had finally figured it out.
“Terry, this waterfall here is what that man called the Rainbow Waterfall after all.”
“What?”
“That’s right. I remember it now, too. A long time ago, when we started to live around here, it wasn’t so dense with trees. The grove was thinner, and it was bright and sunlit.”
“Oh, I see! Since the trees grew so much, the grove became darker and rainbows stopped forming?”
“What’s going on?” mumbled Diane, getting up and rubbing her eyes.
Terry rushed over to her in a fever pitch of excitement and cried, “Diane! Help me out! Tear down all the trees around here.”
“What?!”
“Wait, wait! Not all of them!” Harlequin butted in. “This area has definitely grown a bit too thick, so I think that thinning it out a little would be good for the forest. But cutting all the trees down would be too much. Terry, you just want to see a rainbow, right? If that’s the case, I’ll…” ask the forest properly, he nearly said but stopped, stunned.
“I’m going to ask…the forest?”
He slowly scanned his surroundings.
…