Allen was keeping an ear out for his shrieking little brothers, but spoke to Wayne. “U-Um, hey.”
“Hm? What is it?”
“Big bro...actually, big brother...that’s not it either. Mr. Bro...yeah, no. H-Hero!”
“Wh-What?”
“I dunno what either, really. I just really don’t know what I should do!” Allen spontaneously exclaimed, leaves crunching under his feet.
“Hey, come on,” Wayne turned around, confused. “Do about what?”
“Well, I mean, it’s just that...you’re the famous hero,” Allen blurted out with his face turned away, eyebrows furrowed.
“Yeah, true,” Wayne said understandingly and bent down to look at him. It was a completely casual gesture from Wayne, but Allen blushed red and bit down hard on his lip, his fists trembling.
Noticing this, Wayne hurriedly rubbed the boy’s back, trying to hide how he was acting from the others. “Sorry, that was my bad.”
“Y-You look just like the portraits... Your voice is still the same as the big bro I know, but you look totally different. I just don’t know what I should do.”
“That’s fair. I should’ve known you’d be at a loss.”
“I know that if we had found out about you, there’d have been a big ruckus. But even though I more or less figured out that big sis was the Dawn Witch, I had no clue about you. ’Cause your face was different.”
“Yeah, I didn’t think about that. I can see that.”
“And you’re so good-looking that it pisses me off!”
“Not gonna comment on that.”
Wayne repeatedly patted Allen’s back. Allen pushed him away and stepped back. He fiercely wiped his tears with his sleeve and glared up at Wayne.
“So what am I supposed to call you, big bro?! Do I still just say ‘big bro’?!”
Overhead, birds tweeted as they flitted through the air.
Wayne blinked, then laughed a little when he saw how red Allen’s nose had gotten. “Yeah, of course you can stick with that.”
∗ ∗ ∗
Lacey turned around to see Allen shouting “Stop it!” at Wayne, who was pulling him and forcibly putting an arm over his shoulder. He was laughing louder than usual. I wonder if something nice happened, she wondered, tilting her head.
The twins rushed over to their brother and Wayne picked them both up simultaneously, spinning them around. They were all getting covered with leaves.
Ellie, who had already filled her pouch full of acorns, got angry at them. “Sheesh!”
Next to her, Lacey began to feel like it was time for lunch and gazed off into the sky, lost in thought.
“This is the problem with boys. I wish they’d follow Mr. Cedric’s example.” Ellie paused, noticing her companion’s expression. “Lacey? What’s up?”
“I was just thinking that it’s going to start raining soon.”
Lacey was still looking up. Ellie emulated her and followed her gaze. Thin brown branches stretched up toward the blue sky. Fluffy white clouds floated past.
“I doubt it. The weather’s fine.”
“No, it’ll rain.” Lacey shook her head and spoke assuredly. “I can tell. I think Wayne’s noticed too.”
Glancing over, the cavorting boys had suddenly stopped and were now looking at the sky.
∗ ∗ ∗
They put the acorn gathering on hold for the moment, and everyone started to snack on the lunches they’d brought along.
There were, of course, insulated thermal bags inside each child’s backpack. As they filled their tummies with steaming hot bread and soup, rain started to sprinkle down onto the ground. They took cover in the hollow of a giant tree and listened to the sound of the rain gently falling.
“Ew, we’re going to get drenched going home.”
“It’s okay. I think it’ll let up soon.”
“Really?” Ellie looked up at her with worry. Lacey nodded in response.
As the sound of the rain gradually grew more intense, fewer words were exchanged. But then one of the twins piped up. “Ah! The scales of the pine cone I picked up are closed again.”
Reeve had quietly murmured this to himself all of a sudden, but the sound carried well in the rain.
“Maybe because it got wet? It’ll open back up when it’s dry,” said Yorma.
“Oh,” Reeve responded, staring at the pine cone in his palm.
Lacey recalled reading in a book once that pine cones closed on rainy days so that their seeds wouldn’t get dispersed. She twirled her index finger.
“Wah!”
In the blink of an eye, the moisture was sucked away from the pine cone lying in Reeve’s palm, making it dry out and open back up. The children trembled as they looked at the pine cone, completely shocked. Seeing their reactions, Lacey was struck by an impulse to play tricks.
She stole a glance at Wayne and recalled what had happened a year ago. When she had been crying, for reasons unknown, he had wiped her tears with magic. The tear droplets had floated and swirled in the air, as if telling her it was okay to live freely. He’d taught her that magic had more potential than just as a tool for fighting.
Just as he’d done then, Lacey waved her finger a little and made globules of water. Instead of tears, she used droplets of the rain that was coming down from above. The many drops grew larger each time they trickled down tree branches or plopped off leaves. They floated into the air and reflected the rainy landscape within them.
“Maybe the rain’s not so bad after all,” Ellie said softly. Lacey was happy to hear this.
Soon after that, the pouring rain cleared up, without a cloud remaining in the sky. As the group stepped out over wet leaves, they saw a huge rainbow stretching across the sky.
“It’s so pretty,” she mused out loud.
Wayne heard this and grinned. “All right. I can’t make anything as impressive as you can, but...” He stretched out to one of the globules Lacey had made and clapped his hands over it. Then, when he slowly opened his hands up, the children let out shouts of excitement.
“Wow!”
The rainbow in the sky was reflected in the wobbling droplet. The children gathered around, clamoring at how amazing it was. Wayne crouched down to match their height. Even Allen was fidgeting and glancing over at him.
Lacey let out a sigh of admiration. “I really can’t beat the original inventor.”
“Hm?” Wayne glanced up at her from where he was sitting.
“Never mind,” she shook her head and smiled.
∗ ∗ ∗
Each child had their backpack stuffed full with more than enough acorns. Thinking that this was probably a lot to carry, Lacey offered to ease the burden with magic. But Ellie refused with a look of pride. “The weight’s good.”
Winter days were short. In no time at all, the sunset was melting between the mountains in the distance. On their way back, there was a dense, lingering smell of rain, and everywhere was bathed in orange light. They had taken the same road on their way out, but it felt like they were walking through a completely different place. The grass that stretched as far as they could see glistened and swayed in the wind. It was like they were in a field of golden rice.
“Every time I see this place, I think about how pretty it is,” Yorma commented. The twilight sky above was a chaotic blend of nighttime blue and sunset red.
The other twin was worn out from playing and was currently sleeping on Wayne’s back. Allen had been carrying him earlier.
“But I bet that Lacey and Wayne got to see even prettier places when they were on their quest.”
“Hey, Yorma. Call them big sis and big bro.”
“I don’t mind, Allen,” Lacey assured.
“I do,” Allen countered.
It wouldn’t be long before they reached the village. The roof of Lacey’s mansion was about the size of a thumb in the distance.
“Let me think,” Wayne replied, adjusting Reeve on his back. At some point, Ellie had started walking alongside Wayne, grabbing onto the hem of his clothes.
Twilight continued to get darker. Tiny, ephemeral stars twinkled.
Wayne softly narrowed his eyes as he looked up at the sky. “They were all just as pretty as this.”
∗ ∗ ∗
By the time they’d dropped the children off at their homes, it was time to eat again. Wayne had apparently done advance prep for dinner before they’d left. He was so competent, it was almost frightening. Lacey made food for the monsters, and Wayne prepared their own meal.
While she was getting plates out from the cupboard, she called out to him over her shoulder. “Say, Wayne?”
“Yeah?” he answered, keeping his eyes on what he was doing. There was the sound of clattering tableware.
“We spent a year on the quest together. It wasn’t all good times, but we went lots of places and experienced a lot of things. You said to Yorma that they were all the same. Do you really think so?”
They’d been through deep forests where no one else had tread, volcanoes with boiling hot lava, freezing tundras where the snow never ceased, and they’d even mounted dragons and traveled through the vast skies. The memories of her journey with her companions still vividly remained in Lacey’s heart.
“Well...” He sounded like he was going to take a while to think, but his response was swift. “There was so much, I can’t really rank them. Gathering acorns was a lot of fun too.”
Even though she’d been the one asking, Lacey was happier than anything to hear him say this. After all, she felt the same way.
“But if I really had to say...”
That was why his next words gave her a jolt. She automatically turned around to look at Wayne.
Now she could see that he’d been looking in her direction for a while now. Wearing his occasional mischievous expression, his lips pointed into a smile. “The best part of it all was meeting you and our friends.”
Lacey’s breath stopped for a moment. Then she gave a wry smile and shrugged. “I agree.”
“Right? Okay, let’s get to eating. Heeey!”
“Kwee!”
“Grr-oink!”
Tee and Noi came running in when they were called. They were so energetic that Wayne had to lift the plates he was holding away from them. “Whoa, careful!” This was a normal scene, but at times, Lacey found it to be irresistibly dear.
Lacey quietly rubbed the accessory she’d gotten from Wayne. She should’ve been nervous without her hat, but in time, those feelings slipped away and vanished.
Little by little, Lacey would continue to change. Still, there were things that would remain the same. She would feel happy at some times and scared at others, but she was still excited for what was to come.
Nonetheless, everything would be okay.
Lacey’s Starseeking was just beginning.