Chapter 7
The northern parts of Otonokizaka, while still livable, weren’t nearly as hospitable as the southern parts. Infrastructure projects ran slowly on its mountains, and when times were hard, bandits frequented the north’s caves and jagged paths for their quick escapes.
All of this Eli knew in theory. It was another thing entirely to travel it with only one other person and a grumpy pony for company.
Said grumpy pony leaned his weight against Eli heavily. “Stop it,” Eli said with a grunt, headbutting his shoulder. Her hands were busy trying to pick yet another loose rock out of his front hoof.
“Wouldn’t it be kinder to leave him behind?” Kotori fretted and flitted about them, unable to approach for fear of startling Spica.
“We can - reshoe him at the next village - with something better for these mountains.” Eli let out a satisfied huff as she finally dislodged the rock. It clattered away merrily down the side of the mountain path. “We can’t carry everything by ourselves, even if it’s the last leg.”
Kotori hadn’t sensed anything the rest of the way up the western coast, which left them struggling across the north to reach the last corner of the country before heading home. It left a gnawing feeling in Eli’s stomach, so close to the end of their pilgrimage and yet to find anything.
Some nights, Kotori seemed to share her unease, huddling closer to the fire and watching the embers hiss without a word. Other nights, she seemed indifferent to the unsuccessful search, only concerned with making the most of their time together.
Once, Eli brought up the idea of Kotori searching on her own over the mountains, leaving Eli to wind her way alone. Kotori shot it down with one stubborn shake of her head. “I’m staying with you,” she said, and that was it.
Eli strapped down the last piece of baggage on Spica’s back and sighed. “That should be it,” she said. “Ready to push on again?”
Kotori nodded, staring off into the distance. But when Eli started walking, Kotori stayed still.
“Kotori?” Eli said, looking at her with concern.
“I think there’s somebody following us,” Kotori said quietly.
Every one of Eli’s senses pricked to attention. She looked in the direction Kotori was looking. “Where?” she asked, tense.
“At the top of that mountain - they pointed at us, look, now they’re coming down.”
Eli squinted. The sun-glare off the snow that lingered on the peaks dazzled, but after a few seconds, she could see what Kotori saw - a band of humans treading down a winding trail off the main road, gaining ground with alarming speed.
They were too far to count the heads, but it was obvious: this couldn’t be a fair fight. “Let’s go,” Eli said tersely. She caught Kotori’s hand and broke into a jog.
“Are they bandits?” Kotori asked, running alongside, one and a half step to each of Eli’s. Luckily, she was much fitter than she had been when they’d started their journey.
“Most likely. Save your breath, we need to -”
“Eli, they’re close!”
Eli’s head whipped around. The bandits had closed the distance at an incredible speed. Eli spat a curse as she saw another emerge out of a well-disguised hideaway in the rocks. The chances were high that they were running straight into a trap.
“Listen,” she said urgently. “If they get close, I want you to go. Run - or fly if you have to. I’ll hold them off.”
“What are you saying?” Kotori bit out, short of breath. Her eyes snapped with a rare anger.
A horn blared out of nowhere. Eli cursed in surprise and Kotori yelped; but scaring them wasn’t the main purpose of the sound.
Spica reared in terror and jerked his lead free of Eli’s hand, wheeling and plunging back along the road.
“Eli!” Kotori shouted, taking two steps after him. Eli caught her arm and winced at the sear of the rope burn left on her palm.
“Leave him - we need to get out first!”
But it was a moment’s hesitation too long. The bandits were upon them, pouring out of their rocky passages like ants boiling forth.
Eli counted in growing despair. She could take two; she could take four on a good day. With the incentive of keeping Kotori safe, if she didn’t hope to leave the battlefield herself, she could even stretch to six. But even the best fighter in the country couldn’t defeat a dozen bandits on their own.
“That’s a pretty cloak you’ve got there, lady,” said the foremost and bulkiest of them. He bared a grin sharp as his axe. “Noble, are you? Got any jewels to go with the set?”
Eli’s sword hissed free of her leather sheath. “Ooh, scary,” sniggered another bandit.
“Kotori, go,” Eli said under her breath. “Get away. Find Nico, or the Seer’s Mountain.”
“No.” Eli glanced at her; Kotori’s face was white, but she held a long staff of pale wood in her hands, summoned from nothing, and her stance was that of one who knew how to use it. “I’m not leaving you ever.”
“Kotori - “
A loud, ululating yell cut the air, and an orange blur dropped into the fray.
It landed on a bandit. The man’s scream was quickly choked as his throat opened under the thing’s claws, easy as breathing. His companions stepped back in horror.
Mountain cat, thought Eli, and used the distraction to kick a bandit off the path. His scream trailed behind him as he tumbled down the mountainside, cutting off suddenly with a muted crunch. Then Eli took a closer look. No - human.
The newcomer straightened and bared her teeth in a feral grin, clutching two wickedly curved daggers in her hands. She flashed that raw smile at Eli and Kotori before she launched forwards.
“Stay behind me!” Eli yelled to Kotori, and prayed she would listen. Then she followed the stranger’s example and charged at the closest bandit.
The burly leader bellowed his own challenge and hefted his axe. Eli sidestepped the first swing down, neat as a dancer, and stabbed him between the ribs. Blood ran over her hands.
Tragic stories always said that you were supposed to feel something the first time you killed somebody - regret, or a loss of humanity, something that changed you forever. Eli felt none of that. She had no time to.
All Eli had was a grim determination to see both her and Kotori out the other side safe and alive.
A bandit came at her from the left. As she turned, white flashed down in an arc, and Kotori’s staff struck the bandit in the head with a meaty crack. He went down like a puppet with its strings cut loose. Kotori’s teeth were bared in terrified concentration as she spun the staff back into a ready stance, guarding Eli’s back and flank.
Eli cut down a bandit who was inching around her and turned to look for the stranger. The orange blur darted through the throng, dodging with ease, bouncing off the cliff beside them to launch attacks on the bandits’ blind sides.
That meant Eli had no one to protect but herself. She breathed in, and rushed forward with a yell.
The common bandit’s skill paled before that of a knight of the realm’s. Eli fought through the throng, her sword flashing like lightning. One wild swing of a spear caught her left bicep; the pain blossomed sharp and fast, trickling down her arm in warm red streaks. Eli gritted her teeth and switched to a two-handed style.
The numbers thinned faster than she realised, and when she whirled on a skinny youth, barely out of his childhood, he was the last one left. He swung his sword at her with a hoarse yell; his voice cracked.
Eli parried, and disarmed him with a chop down his blade to the hilt, wrenching the sword out of his hands. He yelped and stepped back.
He looked younger than Eli.
“Get out of here,” she said to him, and watched him scramble down the slope to where some of his fallen companions stirred at the mountain’s base. Eli sighed and wiped her sword off on a body’s shirt.
She was tired.
“Are you alright?” Kotori was at her side when she straightened, touching her right shoulder gingerly. The staff had vanished.
“I’ll live,” Eli said. She cut cloth off carefully with her sword and, with Kotori’s help, managed to tie the wound until it stopped bleeding. She’d need to apply salves later, too - but Spica was gone, along with most of their supplies.
The stranger staggered over to them, and Eli bit back the urge to reach out in help, in case she was hostile. But then the stranger smiled and sheathed her daggers, sticking her hand out. “I’m Rin,” she said cheerfully. Her words slurred a little. There was a bruise the exact diameter of a sword pommel on her forehead.
Eli shook the offered hand. “Eli, and that’s Kotori,” she said, looking Rin over carefully. Small and wiry, she looked like your typical villager, if it weren’t for her fighting prowess and the yellow fur cloak she wore over her worn clothes. “Thank you for helping us. You seem a little unsteady, are you alright?”
Rin blew stray hair out of her face, unperturbed. “Eh, just a little bit. Rin’ll be fine. You’re bleeding, do you need help? I saw your horse run away.”
Eli made an involuntary face, thinking of their lost map. “Yes… would you happen to know where the nearest village is? I have coin, if you’ll guide us there.”
“Naw, Rin’ll do it for free! You helped out with the bandits, after all. This way!” Rin trotted ahead, and looked back at them expectantly.
Despite Eli’s misgivings - Rin swayed a little as she walked, which wasn’t the most promising - they had few other choices. Eli exhaled quietly through her nose and started to follow.
Rin obviously knew the mountains well. Without the horse to slow them down, the three ducked through narrow passageways, threaded through sparse copses and climbed a small outcropping to cross a stream at a narrower part. Rin padded through the world with as much familiarity as Eli would her castle.
For all her comfortableness in her settings, though, Rin said little. She darted glances at Kotori and Eli, but but seemed unwilling to start a conversation.
It fell to Kotori to break the ice. “You’re a really good fighter,” she said, watching Rin jump nimbly over the stream. “Where did you learn?”
Rin brightened at the praise. As if given implicit permission, the words poured out. “I taught myself here! I’ve lived here all my life, and there’s not a lot of people to give lessons, but there’s lots of bandits and someone had to do something. What about you? Are you magical? Where did your weapon go?” The last part was addressed to Kotori with wide eyes.
“Ahaha, um…”
“She’s a sort of seer… and trainee monk, travelling to the Seer’s Mountain,” Eli broke in. The lie changed a little every time it was told. Eli hoped Rin really didn’t travel far. “I’m her bodyguard for the journey.”
Rin looked at Eli and nodded gravely. “You fight really well too,” she told Eli. “Better than anyone I’ve ever seen.”
“Don’t royal knights and soldiers come up here to chase bandits out?”
Rin’s face fell. “They do,” she admitted, “but they’re not very good. Which is why Rin’s here.”
Eli filed away a mental note: find out what was happening in the northern regions, and why patrols weren’t coming as regularly as they should. “I’m sorry to hear that,” was all she could say.
Rin shrugged with all the resignation of one who had been through the same conversation many times. “It’s okay. You can’t do anything about it, anyway.”
No, Eli couldn’t personally rid the mountains of bandits. But she definitely had the power to organise men, to arrange better guard patrols and protect her country’s people…
“We’re nearly there,” Rin said, pulling Eli back out of her thoughts. She bounced over a small pile of rocks in the middle of the path; Eli added road construction to the list of things to be done. “My village is just round the corner. Lots of people come through for the seers, so I’m sure you can find some help. If not, come with me to Kayo-chin’s!”
“Kayo-chin,” Eli repeated.
Rin swung back to them, beaming, all trace of the former pensiveness gone. “My best friend. She runs our inn and she cooks really well and she’s the nicest person ever - you can come stay with us if you want!”
Without waiting for a response, Rin turned the corner of a rock wall. Eli and Kotori followed, their steps slowing as the village emerged from the gathering dusk.
It was a small thing, circled by a head-high stone wall that looked as if it had been through better days. Smoke curled out of the few chimneys visible. Behind the village, further up the slopes, Eli could see terraced farmland creeping up the mountainsides, green and yellow and blue.
Rin was standing at the gate to the small community, waving at Kotori and Eli. Eager to enter civilisation, they picked up their pace.
“This is the cobbler’s! He made Rin these shoes just for the mountains.” Rin proudly stuck one foot right up into the air to exhibit said shoes.
“Ooh,” Kotori said, tapping a spike gingerly. Rin’s catlike battle maneuvers suddenly made a lot more sense.
“This is the barracks! The soldiers usually stay here, but they went home for the coronation.” Eli felt a pang of guilt. “This is the baker’s - you should have some of her bread, it’s really good! And - ah, Kayo-chin!”
Eli squinted. The mysterious Kayo-chin… appeared to be a four-legged, white-furred animal with a long neck, pacing delicately down the village’s main path. “Uh,” she said.
Kotori lit up as if she’d just discovered a world wonder. “What is it?!”
Rin snorted. “Oh, no, that’s not Kayo-chin. Kayo-chiiin!”
The animal turned, and the human on its other side came into view. A short, brown-haired girl with one hand tangled in the animal’s cloud-like fur waved back to Rin. Leaving her companions behind, Rin bounced forwards.
Kotori and Eli caught up in time to hear the end of Rin’s rambling explanation. “ - and they lost their horse so I brought them here to stay the night. That’s okay, right?”
“Huh? Uhm, y-yes…” Kayo-chin looked a little like a prey animal caught in the open. She bobbed her head shyly to Kotori and Eli. “N-nice to meet you. I’m the innkeeper, Hanayo Koizumi.”
“Likewise. I’m Eli, and this is Kotori. Thank you for letting us stay at your inn.” Eli nodded back, painfully aware of her stiff manner. It had sufficed the whole trip whenever they dealt with innkeepers and merchants - but to Hanayo, it felt cold.
Luckily, Kotori was there to soften Eli’s stiff introduction. “I’m Kotori! Excuse me, but what is this?” She pointed excitedly at the animal.
A little of the tension seemed to leave Hanayo’s limbs. “An alpaca,” she said, scratching affectionately at the long neck. “They only live in the mountains, so you’ve probably never seen one before?”
“No, I’ve never - ah! She’s licking me!” Kotori giggled, fingers already sinking into the alpaca’s fur. “That tickles, stop, hahaha -”
Eli grimaced as she watched the alpaca rub its head against Kotori, leaving strands of white hair all over its new favourite human. She stepped forward, extending a hand to gently push the alpaca’s nose away. “Hey, now…”
The alpaca looked up, gave an irate bleat, and spat full in Eli’s face.
Kotori and Hanayo gasped in horrified unison. Rin made a surprised honking noise. The alpaca preened.
Eli calmly wiped the spit from her face with her sleeve, and said, “I’d like to be taken to the inn now, please.”
“I smell like alpaca,” Eli complained, screwing her face up as she scribbled.
“Don’t worry, don’t worry! The alpaca didn’t mean it,” Kotori soothed. Her hands flew round and round Eli’s arm, redoing the bandage. Rin hadn’t come into the inn, running to the resident herbalist’s for Eli’s salve. Hanayo was taking the alpaca back to whatever monster cave it had spawned from.
“It was a deliberate attack. Aimed precisely for maximum embarrassment.”
Kotori giggled as she inspected her handiwork. “You’re such a baby sometimes, Eli.”
“Excuse me,” Eli said, drawing herself up. Kotori glared.
“Sit back down, I’m not done,” she said, pointing at the chair. Eli sat and tried not to sulk. Pacified, Kotori returned to her work. “What are you writing?”
“Things to do when I get back,” Eli muttered. “Or… for the ruler to do when we get back, I suppose.”
Kotori leaned over Eli’s head to read a few lines out loud: “Reassess remote area patrols. Evaluate financial v-viability of… renovating provincial… ehhhh…”
“Fixing the roads,” supplied Eli.
Kotori scrunched her face at Eli’s notebook and went back to playing with her hair. “I’ll leave the country-running to you… but if I may advise you, you should tell Hanayo you’re not mad at her, by the way.”
“Mad?”
“About the alpacas,” Kotori said with the patience of a saint.
Eli frowned. “Did I seem that way? I’m upset, but not at her.”
Content with her work, Kotori left the bandages alone and moved onto Eli’s hair, pulling it out of the loose ponytail. Eli’s eyelids fell involuntarily as Kotori combed steadily through the tangles. It was a little scary, how quickly Eli’s guard could drop around Kotori.
“You did look a little scary,” Kotori said, dragging her fingers against Eli’s scalp. Eli sighed a little and couldn’t even bring herself to be embarrassed about it. “Hmm… stern? You’ll get worry lines.”
Eli pulled a face despite Kotori being unable to see it. Somehow, Kotori knew anyway, and tapped her head in reprimand. “Bad Eli,” she scolded.
They subsided into comfortable silence as Kotori finished whatever she was doing to Eli’s hair. Left to her own thoughts, Eli wrote, barely seeing the words as her mind turned this dilemma over and over.
How to apologise? Her etiquette tutor had never covered ‘how to assure a provincial innkeeper their spitting animal has not mortally offended you’. Eli hadn’t even known their country was home to such a creature.
“All done!” Kotori said, hands leaving Eli’s hair. Eli felt along her head. It seemed like a single braid, the hair twisted into thick plaits.
Kotori winked at her. “Now you’re cute. I mean, cuter than usual - you’re always cute.”
Eli went red to the roots of her hair. “S-Same for you,” she managed.
“And now Hanayo won’t be scared of you,” Kotori added, looking immensely pleased with herself.
“I-I’m not sure it’s that simple…”
Or maybe it was. When they appeared downstairs, Kotori’s arm in Eli’s, Hanayo brightened at their appearance and hurried out of the open kitchen, dusting her hands on her apron.
“H-hello again,” she said, cheeks pink from the heat of the fire. “I’m glad you came down, I was just about to go ask - what would you like to have for dinner?”
“No communal meal?” Eli said, eyebrows raised. She looked around the inn. They were the only patrons, it seemed.
“No, guests don’t come often, and they’re all on their way to the Seer’s Mountain, s-so they don’t stay long…”
“I’m not really sure then,” Eli said - then inspiration struck her. She smiled at Hanayo. “I’ve been told you’re an excellent cook. What would the chef recommend?”
That was the right thing to say. Hanayo seemed to grow two inches taller. She assessed them with an expert eye. “Soup,” she guessed, pointing at Eli. “Vegetables or meat?”
At the thought of thick, savoury soup, Eli’s mouth almost started to water. Maybe Hanayo was a telepath. “Vegetables,” Eli chose.
“And… hmm.” Hanayo stared intently at Kotori, who fidgeted a little. “A pie, maybe?”
“Pie sounds lovely!” Kotori grinned. “You’re good at this.”
Hanayo went pinker at the compliments. “No, it’s only practice…”
“Will you eat with us?” Kotori asked, giving Hanayo her patented pleading eyes. “I’d love to hear more about the alpacas.”
“O-oh, sure! Rin too?”
“Of course!”
“Where is she?” Eli wondered. And with perfect timing, in came Rin, covered in alpaca fur.
“It’s cold,” she said piteously. “Kayo-chin, what’s for dinner?”
Forgetting her guests entirely, Hanayo hurried across the floor to help strip fur off Rin. “You should go take a bath, you’re covered in - what is this?”
For a second, Eli thought her grandmother had just discovered her trying to sneak back into the castle after a day of running free, and she winced instinctively. But it was just Hanayo - for certain meanings of ‘just’. All traces of shyness disappeared as she cupped Rin’s cheeks and tilted her head this way and that, inspecting the bruise on her head.
“Ish jush a bump - ow!”
“You told me you didn’t get hurt!” Hanayo said, voice climbing to shrill.
“It’s not really hurt…”
“Sit down, Rin-chan, I’m getting you cream. Don’t move!” And Hanayo was gone.
“Reminds me of a certain someone,” Eli whispered to Kotori.
“Whatever could you mean?” Kotori whispered back. At the sight of that smile, Eli wisely kept any more comments to herself.
Rin was swinging her feet, fidgety. As soon as she saw Eli’s gaze track towards her, she perked up at the chance to engage with some other activity. “Where did you come from?” she asked. “How far away is it? When do you have to leave?”
“We came from the capital,” Eli answered. Rin’s eyes went round as a moon. “We’ve been all around the country, though. We can’t stay long, I’m afraid.”
“Is that where you learnt to fight?”
“Ye-es,” Eli hedged. It was technically true, after all, even if Eli hadn’t been trained by any of the battle-schools or barracks in the city. The castle counted as part of the capital, right?
In a confidential tone, Rin told them, “When the village is safe, I’m gonna go to the capital with Kayo-chin, so we can try all the food and watch the performers. A performer came here once! Kayo-chin loved watching her, but she never came again. There’s so little to do here.”
“We saw performers on our way here too!” Kotori broke in. “They’re so pretty, aren’t they? And they sing so well. I’d love to sing like that!”
From the hallway, Hanayo gasped, “You saw performers? Was - was it Honoka and Umi? The girl in the baker’s apron?”
Kotori nodded enthusiastically. Before she could say another word, Hanayo flew across the room to grab Kotori’s hands, peppering her with a dozen questions about the performance.
Trust Honoka to have fans all the way up here. Eli watched them chatter excitedly in between attending to Rin, and felt the soft tug of the connections she’d made, stretched invisible and thin over the miles. She wondered where they ended now. She wondered if those friends could feel them too.
Hanayo produced a veritable feast out of the mountain village’s limited stocks. They ate without abandon, practically licking their plates clean, as Kotori asked more questions about alpacas than Eli thought was strictly necessary.
Afterwards, Kotori and Eli insisted on helping with the dishes. “If you won’t take the extra coin, then this is the least we can do,” Eli had said, and channeled her best Stern Persona until Hanayo caved.
“I’m sorry, but we don’t have a lot of travelling supplies,” Hanayo said apologetically. “If you wanted a horse, you’d have to ask the Seer’s Mountain. Sometimes they’ll have one, sometimes they won’t.” She brightened. “I can give you an alpaca for the road up there though! If you’ll just deliver some fresh food to the seers, they’ll trade you their dried things for it.”
“That’s, uh, very kind of you,” Eli started, “but -”
“We’d love to!” Kotori exclaimed, clasping Hanayo’s hands.
“No, we wouldn’t - I mean, don’t you need to keep your livestock?”
“We have two new babies this spring, so we were going to have to think about selling one to make space. Now we can keep the babies!” Hanayo fairly glowed with parental pride.
And that was how Spica the Second joined their travelling party.
“Rin and Hanayo are nice people, aren’t they?” Kotori mumbled later that night as they preened her feathers together.
Eli hummed in agreement. As ever, she was entranced by the soft fall of down between her fingers, only half-paying attention. “They seem very close. Like Honoka and Umi, or maybe me and Nozomi when we were younger.”
Kotori’s wings twitched. “What’s Nozomi like?”
“Sweet,” Eli said. “The best hugger. Always knew what was going on in the castle. Would go on any adventure with you, no matter how big or small.” Her lips quirked subconsciously. “Never complained.”
“You love her a lot.”
“I do,” Eli agreed, revelling in the soft rush of warmth the admission gave. “Even now, after so long apart, I think I’d consider her my best friend.”
“Why did she leave?” Kotori asked.
“The Seer’s Mountain has been collecting strong seers from all over the country for a few centuries now. Word is they have some arcane project, but no one knows what it is.”
“Not even the Seneschal?” Finished with the preening, Kotori turned to lean comfortably against Eli, side to her front. Her wings came down around them like a great white cocoon.
“Not even the Seneschal,” Eli confirmed.
Kotori sat quietly for a few moments, her breath coming soft and warm against Eli’s neck. Eventually, she said, “It must be important if she left you for it.”
Eli trusted Nozomi. Whatever it was that they were doing, if Nozomi was helping - if Nozomi gave up their quiet but happy life at the castle for it, it must be a worthy cause.
Eli just wished she knew what it was, too.