Chapter 34: 32 : Lost and Found; a Wolf in Sheep Cloth

As the fabricated world crumbled, not even leaving a trace of the strange market with unusual ware or the endless corridor, the nightly wind, cold and howling, calmed Tsuki’s young heart. The damaged half-moon in the sky, hiding its wound in a shawl of darkness, was all the more nostalgic as it reminded the girl of her precarious situation. The blood-covered grass tainted by the cats’ bodies would never taste the freedom of the celestial sky; an ant crawling low on the ground can only think the sky begins just above the grass blades or the trees’ crown. Now Tsuki knew she had to find a way to swim in the greatest of the sea just to be able to hear Alice’s voice once more. How long will it take her and would she still be able to enjoy the sight of blooming flowers after reaching such height…

The insignificance of the luster of a ladybug’s wings, when compared to all that life has to offer, is nothing. The saltiness of tears, the cracking of burning wood, the blinding light reflected by wet surfaces…so many insignificant things that change nothing to a life course but that are so precious. She couldn’t help thinking about all the insignificant things in her life until now and was shocked at how many she forgot.

“We must move,” said the wounded catactive who had tied the two cats to Tsuki’s glaive shaft with a grim face. It concluded that it was best for Tsuki to use those two little cats as sustenance. She was weak and thin…As much as he hated to see its family eaten…for his revenge…

“Hn. Let’s go Vergeltung the third!” responded Tsuki who was holding her glaive over her shoulder while hugging the large alligator plush the best way her short arms allowed her.

“WHAT! I’m – “Vergeltung the third, yes.” NO!”

“And that’s Vergeltung the second,” said Tsuki after pointing at the one-eye cat plush poking out of her backpack.

“NO! Not that name!”

“Hmmm? K. Vergeltung the second is now Cyclogo. Better?”

“…”

“?”

“…whatever. Let’s go now before something finds us,” finally said Vergeltung the third, who didn’t want an even worse name.

They left in the direction Tsuki thought felt right, which was just the position of a star cluster the girl called: ‘Thieving Crane’. Not surprisingly, they got lost but that was until a frozen sensation stroked Tsuki’s back and gave her chills.

❀

 

Sweet little snakes of lightning crawled far and wide in the search of a lost girl. Even if Hoomaikai, back in the carriage, cried and screamed after Tsuki didn’t come back, no one went out to look for her. It was better like that after all, one mouth less to feed. As such, she summoned small snakes that could replace her broken leg and searched without pause for the little girl with heterochromatic eyes.

The search began when morning came and even when the next moon was up in the sky, no trace of the girl could be found. The one thing that did scare Hoomaikai was that her snakes managed to find a trace of Tsuki’s smell but that lone trace they followed led to an empty field with no sight of the lost girl. It was as if she simply disappeared out of nowhere, not even spilled blood or dirt being dug. There was simply nothing that could explain the end of the trace.

“Maybe a big bird took her,” thought the disabled girl. It was the only explanation she could come up with. After all, finding the truth was impossible: Tsuki simply entered a market with neon lights in this very place…

As such, she divided her snakes into three groups. One would look in the trees to find a nest big enough, another would go far to scout the area, and the last group, with only a handful of snakes, remained where Tsuki’s smell stopped.

The sun rose up once more and still no sight of the lost girl. The carriage was moving slowly as food was becoming a worry. People collected as much as they could while moving along and even this wasn’t enough. There was no way that a few berries could feed hundreds of people. It was also discovered that the flour and other foodstuffs of Ea-Nasir were of excessively bad quality such that many became sick…Most bags of flour were filled with sawdust and other additives that the merchant planned to mix with bags of greater quality once in the village. But, Scylla attacked and all that he was left with could barely be called food…All for a little profit, a necessary profit to continue trading with the fishing village that was removed from the world. Guard, provision, carts, horses…Ea-Nasir spent a lot to help feed the remote village and if he wanted to help them during the harsh winter months, he would need capital.

The first people who noticed the lack of food were the wounded like Hoomaikai. They were for all intents and purposes, useless as they couldn’t gather nor help other people. Some treated them badly while others who still had goodwill shared the little food they had with them. But the biggest issue was that a rift was already opening up in the survivor after only two days. At most, they would need to survive for two weeks; people were bound to die of starvation if things continued.

For Hoomaikai, this girl of noble birth, the poor survivors, which amounted to most of them, didn’t like her much and her treatment was particularly bad. Nonetheless, she could use her small snakes to gather small nuts or berries. The only issue with her snakes was that they were too small and thus couldn’t collect food for anyone else. As such, the survivors simply stopped giving food to this girl they deemed egotistical. She had to fend for herself and the stress the missing Tsuki brought her didn’t help…But, when the moon went back up in the sky, her snakes found her.

Tsuki was walking calmly in the forest of twisting branches that created monstrous abominations under the moonlight shade. By her side was a small cat with burned fur that was walking on its hind legs. But more curious was the alligator plush flying in the air as someone, the snake couldn’t see well, was riding it.

“Fi! Are we going in the right direction?” Asked Tsuki who threw a glance at the small girl riding the alligator.

Instantly after saying this, the plushy teleported a hundred meters in the air before coming back the same way. Then, a small, gloved hand appeared from above the plushy and pointed in the direction of the carriage. 

Hoomaikai was shocked at seeing this through her small snake. That girl she was so worried about was calmly moving into the forest the guards of the caravans were so scared of. She didn’t look hungry, but she was badly wounded. Her right shoulder was caked in the blood that seeped into her burned cloth. Hoomaikai was unable to identify the cause of the wound as it was simply too dark, but she swore she saw something moving.

“Vergeltung! Snake!” Ordered Tsuki who saw the small snake made of lighting.

The catactive turned feral and lunged at the snake it had yet to see himself while wielding the burning rod that had killed his daughter. Flames rose from this strange weapon, the animal already burned badly from it was now strangely embracing this pain as if it didn’t affect him much, and he swung it at a small thicket. Hoomaikai snakes didn’t have animal instinct, as such it burned and dissipated.

“I can’t find it,” said the cat who was trying to find the snake. Food was important and it was odd it couldn’t find it. Maybe Tsuki saw wrongly but the cat’s predatory instinct had guided his strike toward what he considered small, like a real snake.

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Tsuki dejectedly kicked a rock that rolled in front of another small lightning snake. “…” Tsuki’s brain froze a little bit thinking she had completely mistaken where the first snake was, confusing this new one with the one that the cat should have burned. “Vergeltung! You missed it!—”

“—Wait!” screamed Hoomaikai with the snake’s small body. “It’s me! Maikai! I’ve been searching for you!”

“Not food?”

“NO! Don’t you have eyes? Did you go insane while you were gone?”

“Got you a cat,” said Tsuki who showed the snake the two cats hanging by the shaft of her weapon. “I can take the burned one, the other one is young, so it should…Maikai…Do you have a stomach?” Tsuki thought her new friend was changed, for some reason, in this strange snake. Maybe the one the cat burned was another survivor. She was creating scenarios that would have led to them changing into such strange animals. Maybe an evil wizard lived nearby and punished the trespasser… “I’ll ask Fi if she knows a way to return you to normal…”

“I’M FINE! That’s one of my summons! You’ve been gone for two whole days! The carriage is so far away already!”

Tsuki was a bit confused as she blankly looked at the snake crawling toward her. “Fi?” asked the girl who looked toward the flying alligator. Riding it was the spirit Yuu lent her. She appeared when Tsuki was lost and pointed her in the right direction.

Before this short name could escape her lips, a small wave of heat that lasted only an instant brushed past Tsuki as the odd spirit was by her side. Long curly blue hair cascaded along a delicate gothic dress with many frills and ribbons. She wore gloves to cover her small hands while she floated in the air with no legs in sight. The only skin that showed was her face which was simply too white to be natural; not the whiteness of someone who never sees the sun, but an icy and frozen white similar to pure snow. Her eyes shone brightly, too brightly even, the moon’s soft light as they were frozen solid like two balls of ice placed in her cranium. The heat that came from her entrance instantly disappeared as a winter night iciness started to rob the surrounding warmth.

“Hey Fi,” asked Tsuki, troubled by the fact she was basically abandoned in the forest. The few people she fought together looked to be good people at first, but now she was doubting it. How could they abandon a kid like her for that long, knowing fully how dangerous it was… “Is…The caravans, is it really far?” If it was really far, such that she, with her weak body, would never be able to catch up, she would be forced to fend for herself in a forest that almost just caused her to die. The supermarket she went to had to be real as she still had one of the random objects with no real use in her pocket…Something else was bound to happen if she was away from everyone.

“??” Fi tilted her head to the side, not understanding something in the question. She knew exactly where the survivors were but didn’t know if the distance between their position and Tsuki’s should be called far.

“How long will it take to reach them,” reformulated Tsuki in the hope it was simpler for this small spirit.

“??” She had just woken up from a long sleep and even if she understood that ‘how long’ referred to time, she didn’t know how Tsuki interpreted time. How long does it take to boil water? Some might say a number in minutes while others upon hearing that number, respond by saying that water can boil faster if the heat is increased and such ad infinitum. For Fi, time was used to describe the number of steps needed to reach a result. For water boiling, each molecular movement could be considered a step. As such, just the act of walking, even if for just a second, was extremely long for this spirit. Even if the caravan was just a few meters away, Fi would only be able to respond by saying: “Long. Wasted time,” which was what she responded to Tsuki with a voice as soft as an angel’s feather.

Hoomaikai studied this strange cast while those two were trying to understand one another. A cat that was more like a fiery avenger, a floating spirit that exuded frost with her every breath, and Tsuki. Hoomaikai somewhat found it strange, as if Tsuki was the most different, as if she was another creature trying to act like a human. This strange feeling only lasted a moment and was gone when Tsuki turned to the snake with a smile hiding her worry. “Maikai, I’ll do my best to reach you in time; before you can go hungry! Maybe, if I manage to hunt something big – something too big for me to carry - someone might want to come to get me, right?”

“Are you asking me to spread the word?” Hoomaikai, quick on the uptake, understood that Tsuki was asking her to incite people. Food was precious and it had almost fully run out. Those who wanted to survive, even the most despicable were sure to be interested in a free meal: a young and powerless girl who stumbled upon a large amount of food would never be able to protect it from hungry wolves…What would happen if those wolves who smelled blood found that there was nothing for them to eat…Hoomaikai was worried about Tsuki’s propositions as she didn’t believe she was able to hunt something too big. She had two cats, but that wasn’t something hard to beat, compared with a bear who could actually fight.

“Yes, it’s something only you can do! Please, I need your help.”

“Harg FINE! But you better be careful. I’ll follow you with my snakes until then.”

“Hn! Thank you!” said Tsuki with a large smile on her face; a smile that made the catactive worried. “Then you’ll act as my grand marshal until then! Grand marshal Maikai, this is my adjutant, Vergeltung the third, and this is my admiral, Fi! Also, this is Cyclogo! He’s my wing commander!”

Hoomaikai didn’t know what to say to this and only whispered under her breath with her real body in the carriage such that Tsuki didn’t hear her. “I-it’s not how those ranks work…What was in your book, silly girl…hihihi– “Susapa ho Tatala, bermidon a bowl. My bala balada, bermidon a bowl for my bala!”—Dear god…why must you wake him up…”

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In a land stuck in eternal fall, with red leaves pilling like snow in front of rustic wooden houses, Folkvang was finishing the preparations for a large banquet to which anyone who could breathe was invited. He had scoured tome after tome with the help of his servants to find any information on what kind of plane Tsuki pulled power from to protect her soul. It was something that anyone and anything had to do to survive. It was less of a protection and more of a communication with some primordial laws to explain who they were. Without this, a being would be crushed by the inquisitive rules and limitations everyone had to follow even if they did nothing wrong. The thing that was worrisome was that he couldn’t even detect what Tsuki might be using. It wasn’t that Tsuki wasn’t using anything, but that Folkvang wasn’t adapted to it. Like how some animals can see infrared or UV while others can’t.

The banquet had the goal of finding people who might be in a similar situation as Tsuki but more experienced than her in how to use this unknown resource.

Knock Knock Knock

It was then that someone knocked at his chamber door. He went and opened it prudently; it was late at night, and no one should know he was in this specific room. There was no one outside other than the whisper of dry leaves dragged by the wind. But suddenly, an androgynous whisper tickled his ear “What sort of feast are you having, my friend.” Folkvang kneeled to the ground with his body losing strength. He looked weakly behind him and noticed the silhouette of the being he equally feared and respected. “Take me to the monster you came in contact with. Its smell entices me~”

“I-I-I’ll follow your order, my lord, Luk Brotsjor,” responded Folkvang with fear in his voice, and his body couldn’t stop shaking when this stranger entered his shadow. This being’s long orange hair that seemingly floats in the air always managed to make Folkvang dislike the dead leaves of the same color…Still, if it was this known trickster, he should know more than anyone Folkvang would have found in his banquet.

“Don’t worry, dear friend. I prepared a present this beast is bound to like; my brother won’t be able to wear his 'favorite' dress anymore~”