When they shook hands agreeing to do this deal, her hand had been shaking.
No one was perfect. In this world, everyone had a weakness.
“Ha, please, forget all this. Sometimes I just feel like I want to talk about it, that’s all. I suppose it means I’ve a ways to go yet,” said Eve, draining her wine cup and burping quietly. “No, that’s not it.”
She lifted the edge of her cowl up. Lawrence wondered as to her aim.
“I was jealous of you two,” said Eve. Her blue eyes narrowed and were bright.
Lawrence wondered how to answer and finally escaped into his wine cup.
Holo would make fun of him for it, no doubt.
Eve chuckled. “How absurd. What we should be worrying about is profit. Am I wrong?”
Lawrence looked at his reflection in the wine.
Just like Eve’s, it was not the face of a merchant.
“Right you are,” he said, tossing back his wine. He dreaded hearing what Holo would have to say about this later, but as Eve raised her voice in a short, dry laugh, both of them stood and resumed their proper merchant expressions.
“We’ll make for the deal as soon as the council announces its decision. Keep Arold informed as to your location.”
“I shall.”
Eve was every inch the rugged merchant as she extended her hand to him. “This deal will go well,” she said.
“Of course,” said Lawrence, taking her hand.
Lawrence remembered Holo’s reply, back upon entering Lenos, when he had told her not to become angry should they happen to find wolf fur.
He wasn’t worried about himself, but he could not be at peace with someone he knew was being hunted.
That seemed to apply to business, too.
Buying a child to adopt into a family or buying a slave to use for labor… this was a necessary trade and not something anyone questioned.
But to even briefly consider the thought of actually selling Holo put Lawrence’s heart into disarray. He felt as though he understood for the first time the Church’s fussy denouncement of the slave trade.
Once they returned to the inn, Eve remained on the first floor, saying she was going to drink with Arold.
Holo was the only one involved in this affair to collapse onto the bed, a worn-out expression on her face.
“That was certainly an aggravating way to spend time,” she declared.
Lawrence smiled wearily as he lit the tallow lamp. “You were as meek as a kitten.”
“Well, this ‘kitten’ is what you’re borrowing money on. I had no choice.”
Lawrence had decided he could trust Eve’s story, and in return, Eve had helped the deal proceed smoothly. As long as nothing unexpected happened, it wasn’t blind optimism to believe that their fur deal would be successful and that their coin purses would soon swell with money.
No one would laugh at him for prematurely feeling that fuzzy warmth in his stomach of which the beggar had spoken.
It had been a very long time since he had felt that sensation.
After all, his long-held desire of being a town merchant was finally beginning to materialize.
“You were a great help” said Lawrence, stroking his chin lightly. “Thank you.”
Holo looked at him in a none-too-friendly manner. She flicked her ears as if to brush the dust from them, sighed resignedly, then rolled over from lying on her back to her front and opened a book.
Yet in truth, she seemed a bit bashful.
“Was there anything that worried you?” asked Lawrence.
Holo wriggled out of her robe as she looked at the book, a task Lawrence good-naturedly helped her with. She was not being difficult, so his guess that she was felt bashful about his thanks was probably not far from the mark.
“There were many things that bothered me. There is a saying that there’s a demon who sings an ill-omened song buried at the crossroads.”
“I’ve heard that one.”
“Oh?” Her hair spilled out like oil over water after having taken her cloak off. She gathered it up.
“There are traveling musicians who carry instruments and wander from town to town, and sometimes they’re accused of being servants of a demon and blamed for bringing bad luck or sickness with them. And the place where they hang such musicians is always the crossroads outside of town.”
“Oh ho.” Holo’s sash, undone, had slipped off onto her tail; Lawrence took it off as she tried to brush it free. She nuzzled her tail as if in thanks.
When he playfully made as if to touch it himself, she dodged quickly away.
“Then, once the demon musician is dead, they wish for its spirit to go haunt some other place. That’s why crossroads near towns are kept so carefully free of stones with holes in the road quickly filled. If someone were to stumble there, it’s said the buried demon could come back to life.”
“Hrnph. Humans believe all sorts of things,” muttered Holo, seeming genuinely impressed, then turned her attention back to her book.
“Do wolves have no superstitions?”
“…”
Holo was suddenly serious, making Lawrence wonder if he had accidentally stepped on her tail, but she seemed to be simply thinking. After a time, she looked over at him.
“Now that you mention it, I’ve realized – we don’t.”
“Well, it’s nice you’ve nothing that stops children from being able to pee at night.”
Holo looked stunned for a moment, then laughed.
“Just so you know, I’m not talking about me,” Lawrence added.
“Heh.” Holo smiled, her tail wagging.
Lawrence patted her head ever so lightly, and she ducked away as though it tickled.
He then casually placed his hand on her head.
He was sure his hand would be swatted away, but Holo let it stay there, her ears moving slightly. Through his hand, Lawrence could feel the warmth of her body, just a fraction taller than a child’s.
The room was so quiet as to be sad. This time was precious.
Then, as if she was finally prepared, Holo abruptly spoke.
“You never asked me if her words were true.”
She had to be talking about Eve.
Lawrence removed his hand from Holo, his only reply a nod.
Holo did not so much as look at him. His gesture was all she needed.
“As though if you had, I would’ve teased you, looked down on you, made fun of you. Then I would’ve told you, and you’d owe me.”
“It was a close shave, indeed,” said Lawrence.
Holo smiled happily.
She let her head drop to the bed, then looked over at him.
“I understand why it is that you’re trying to determine everything for yourself. Selling me is making you feel a strange sense of responsibility, isn’t it? But I also know that people aren’t that strong. If they have a way of knowing for certain what the truth is, they’ll want to use it. And yet you don’t – why?”
Lawrence wanted to know what Holo’s intention was in asking this, but as clumsy attempts to get this out of her would only end badly, he answered honestly.
“If I forget the distinction there, you’ll be the one that gets angry.”
“… You’re so honest. Why don’t you try relying on me a bit more?”
Once he started wholly relying on her, the threshold for doing so would certainly drop.
People could become accustomed to anything. It took the self-awareness of a saint not to forget that.
“I’m not so clever,” said Lawrence.
“You can get used to anything with practice.” The hair that Lawrence had put in order swished quietly as it spilled out again. “Would you like to practice?”
“Practice relying on you?” Lawrence retorted playfully. Holo’s gently waving tail gradually stopped moving.
She closed her eyes, then opened them slowly. Her smile was gentle, as though she would forgive any mistake.
Her face said that she would ac
cept any way Lawrence could think of to rely on her.
If she was doing this to tease him, then it was a cruel joke indeed.
Who would fault him for being caught by something like this?
Thus Lawrence’s mind became still colder.
He went so far as to consider if this actually showed how irritated she was and if this was all a trap to try and get him to smile.
It seemed Holo’s main goal was to enjoy watching him like this.
Eventually he grinned, a touch maliciously.
“Are you telling me not to set such a nasty trap? I’m not angry,” said Holo.
“If you are, you are.”
“Well then, this time ’tis no trap. Practice relying on me as much as you like.”
“… That’s just what you’d say, isn’t it?”
Lawrence shrugged as Holo snickered, then lay her head down on her arms once she was done laughing.
“Being read by you – I’m a disgrace as a wisewolf.”
“Even I learn eventually.”
Holo neither laughed nor looked frustrated, but there was the barest hint of a smile on her face as she pointed to the corner of the bed.
“Sit,” she seemed to say. “Ah, but you’re just as softhearted as you ever were.”
Lawrence sat on the corner of the bed as Holo sat up and continued.
“Even if I lure you into a trap and laugh my fill, and you become angry, you’ll still not exhaust your patience with me.”
Lawrence smiled. “Well, I don’t know about that.” So you’d best mind yourself in the future, he was going to add but thought better of it, because when he expected Holo to smile her invincible smile and come back with her usual wit, she instead seemed sad.
“No, you will not. I know it,” she murmured, before doing something completely unexpected.
She sat up and inched over to Lawrence’s side, then sat herself sideways on his lap. Having accomplished that, she wrapped her arms around him without any hesitation.
Her face pressed against his left shoulder.
He couldn’t see her expression.
Despite this frank display, Lawrence didn’t think she was planning anything untoward.
“’Tis a truth that people change over time. Even a little while ago, you’d be frozen in fright if I were to do this kind of thing.”
No matter what Holo was trying to feign, her ears and tail never lied.
Between the sound of her tail and the way it felt as it brushed against his left hand, Lawrence could tell that it was waving uncertainly.
He grabbed hold of it lightly.
That instant, Holo flinched and stiffened. He let go immediately.
Before he could apologize, her head roughly bumped into the side of his. “No careless touching!”
From time to time, Holo would claim that she would let him touch her tail as some sort of reward, but this seemed to be a weak point of hers.
Ascertaining that had not been Lawrence’s goal nor was he motivated by simple mischief.
He didn’t know the cause, but inasmuch as Holo did not seem to be completely dispirited, he felt slightly relieved.
“Fool,” she added, sighing.
Silence descended.
The intermittent sound of Holo’s swishing tail mingled with the quiet crackling sound of the tallow lamp’s wick.
Just as Lawrence was wondering if he should say something, Holo spoke.
“I truly am a failure as a wisewolf, having you fret over me so.”
She must have sensed that he was about to speak.
Her words seemed to Lawrence like simple bravado, but perhaps that was just his imagination.
“Honestly, me relying on you is another story entirely. We were speaking of you relying upon me!”
She lifted her head from his shoulder and straightened, her eyes now slightly higher than Lawrence’s.
Those red-brown eyes looked down at him, and her lip twisted in irritation. “When will you get flustered for me?”
“I might if you would tell me what you’re truly thinking about.”
Immediately Holo drew away, her face contorted as though she had tasted something bitter.
Yet when Lawrence failed to seem concerned, she soon seemed sad. “Come, now–” she said quietly.
“What?”
“I want you flustered.”
“Fine then,” answered Lawrence, and Holo once again leaned against his chest, completely still.
“Can we not end our travels here?” she murmured.
If Lawrence had wanted to explain to someone else the surprise he felt at that moment, they would have to have seen him.
He was so surprised; that was the only thing that occurred to him.
But then what he felt was anger.
This was the one joke he never wanted to hear.
“Do you think I jest?”
“I do,” replied Lawrence instantly but not because he was composed.
It was quite the opposite. He grabbed Holo’s shoulders and held her at arm’s length, facing her.
She smiled but not in a way that Lawrence could be angry at.
“You really are quite charming.”
Lawrence muttered under his breath that she could only say such things if she tickled his chin and smiled her devilish smile as she did so.
“I am quite serious. If I were to say such a thing in jest, you would become truly angry.” Lawrence still held her shoulders; she covered his hands with hers and continued. “But you’ll forgive me, because you’re kind.”
Holo’s fingers were slender, and her nails, while not properly sharp, were a lovely shape.
And when they bore down on the back of his hands, they hurt.
But even scratched so, Lawrence did not remove his hands from her shoulders. “My contract with you… it was to escort you to your homeland.”
“We are nearly there.”
“So why here, now–”
“People change. Situations change. And my mood also changes.”
After Holo spoke, she smiled a regretful smile, and Lawrence knew she was ruing her own pitiful visage.
For just a moment, he felt terror.
Was this something she would decide simply on a whim?
Holo giggled. “It seems there are fields yet untilled. But this is no place to be treading with one’s boots on.”
It was too late for her to be teasing Lawrence and enjoying his visibly flustered mien, but as he grew more and more resistant to her joking, her methods became more extreme in order to compensate.
But just as Holo had said, this was one place he didn’t want her to play.
“Why this, all of a sudden?” he asked.
“’Tis just as that fox said.”
“… Eve?”
Holo nodded and removed her fingernails from the backs of Lawrence’s hands.
A tiny bit of blood welled up; Holo apologized with her eyes and continued. “Money can buy companionship, but…”
“… But not its quality?”
“Aye, and so she said to treasure your encounters. That mere human girl, thinking herself so great…” Holo put Lawrence’s hand to her cheek. “I want our meeting to be something good. And so I think it is best that we part here.”
Lawrence did not understand what she was saying.
Back in Tereo, Holo had avoided the question of what she would do upon reaching her homeland.
Lawrence had felt this was because worry hung between them that once they arrived there, their journey together would end.
That much was only natural given the nature of their promise, and when he’d first met Holo, Lawrence had assumed that was what would happen. Surely Holo had felt similarly.
But the journey had been a joy, and he wanted to extend it, if only by a day.
He was driven unavoidably by that childish wish.
And was Holo not the same? At the very least, Lawrence felt he could look back on their travels and be certain of that much.
> So how did ending their journey here follow from the idea that relationships needed to be treasured?
When Lawrence looked at her with obvious bewilderment, Holo smiled sadly, still holding his hand to her cheek.
“You fool. Do you still not understand?”
She was neither teasing nor angry. Holo looked at him as she would look at a particularly difficult child, her frustration tinged with affection.
He took his hand from her cheek as she looked up, slowly embracing her once again.
“This journey has been truly wonderful. I’ve laughed, cried… This cunning old wolf has even screamed in anger from our fights. I had been alone for so long, so these days have been very bright indeed. I’ve even wished that they would go on forever.”
“So just–” Lawrence began to say, but the words stopped in his throat.
It was a conversation he could not have.
After all, Holo was not human. Their life spans were too different.
“You’re very clever, but you lack so much experience. Since you’re a merchant who toils for profit, I thought you would soon understand, but… I’m not saying this because I don’t want to watch you die. I’ve… already become used to that idea,” said Holo smoothly like a winter wind blowing across a brown, withered field.
“If I’d had a bit more self-restraint, I might just have endured until my homeland. I had been confident of that when we put the last village behind us, but… you’re simply too soft hearted. You accept everything that I do and give me anything I wish for. It’s terrible to endure it… just terrible.”
Lawrence was not the least bit happy to hear these words from Holo, which sounded like something one would find on the last page of some chivalrous tale.
He still did not understand what Holo was saying, but there was something he did understand.
He knew that at the end of all her words would come these: “So let us part here.”
“It is just… too frightening,” she said.
Her tail was puffed up to match her rising uncertainty.
She had said the same thing after eating the roast pig – that she was scared.
At the time he had not understood, but given all this, there was only one thing that could frighten her so much.
But Lawrence did not understand why it scared her so.
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