Chapter 4

  A New Home

  Ellyn was unable to fall asleep.

  After Marco left, boredom had taken over in such a way; she had no option but to fall asleep. She thought about going out to her favored bench, but after staying still for over an hour, the weariness had sunk too deeply that the idea felt like a hassle. This had become usual for her during the last two months. To be bored out of one’s mind as there was little she could do while she was recovering was too common of an occurrence. She didn’t have that much interest in any book that Marco casually offered, opting to watch the scenery on her bench was a nice change of pace that allowed her to breathe fresh air... But she could hardly call it entertainment.

  Most of her time was occupied sleeping. Her wounds were still in a state where she needed to move carefully for every task, so she would often sleep more than usual to try and move as little as possible. And finally, Rigel, whom she talked with about trivial subjects and even those conversations didn’t hold that much beyond surface level exchanges. She could hardly call Rigel anything more than an acquaintance she talked to.

  At least she could see Star Magic in practice, which always gave a pretty light show.

  “Now that I think about it...”

  She never made any attempt to speak with anyone. Almost all the conversations she had with both Marco and Rigel were started by them out of concern or surface-level curiosity, like when she first spoke with Rigel or learned about Marco’s job as a doctor.

  She never asked about anything beyond that.

  She didn’t really want to, either.

  Her eyes wandered from the ceiling to the room’s furniture, the tables and closet were empty, only the books that Marco had left beside her gave the room a bit more color than the yellowish-brown of the wood. There wasn’t anything noteworthy in the room. It felt foreign, as if its only essence was the ever-lasting feeling of other people who might have been here for merely a night before leaving forever. The place of an outsider, an unexpected person that surely caused lots of issues for the villagers due to that horrible incident. After all, the bartender was among the victims. She had taken one of their own. It was a miracle that they even had let her recover inside their walls.

  Thinking about it made her insides twist & turn. Everything about it felt wrong. It felt wrong ever since she first woke up. She shouldn’t be here. She shouldn’t keep sucking off the kindness of these people, after what she did...

  ... She should-

  “Gh...! Nhg...” She grunted.

  She tried to shake off those thoughts and hurried to pick one book to keep her mind busy, selecting one at random without checking it—any book will do. A second later, she noticed it was the love story about a maid and her master. She didn’t dislike the existence of those novels, but she certainly didn’t care at all either.

  “Ah, whatever...” Resigning herself, she did her best to read.

  His face was slightly red as his lips contorted, “Mnh...”

  Sliding open the doors always felt odd to him. It was the only house like this in The Village, making it stand out in an almost jarring way. This home and the local clinic were relatively large, having practically a courtyard and a backyard, positioned comfortably at the back of The Village on a slight terrain elevation, making it easy to locate for any of the residents. It had several rooms dedicated solely to holding patients. He knew that this home didn’t exactly belong to Marco, at least not originally. It used to belong to a woman who was not from Vigram, or so he was told by Marco and his mother. It was her who suggested the foreign design for her home. Rigel didn’t dislike the design, in fact, he thought of it as interesting, but even with frequent visits, it was still a process of reminding himself how to move around the architecture. The current state of his mind didn’t help in the slightest.

  After he went on his way at Marco’s request, he realized how he might have looked for agreeing so quickly to see Ellyn, when the only thing he was thinking at the moment was to get away from the endless rambling of his mother. He probably looked like he was eager for an excuse to leave everyone and see the girl who was about three years older than him. After all, he did go out of his way to speak with her almost daily for the past two months. Any bystander might make the guess that...

  But thinking about it only furthered his embarrassment, and besides, he already had agreed to go.

  “Agh! It’s fine! It’ll be fine!”

  However, while it was true that he wanted to see her, it was was because of an unsettling feeling ever present to him in all of their conversations for the past two months. As if he never made any progress in getting a grasp of her ever since she woke up. At first, he felt pity for her, having gone through such a traumatic event. At the same time, there was constant unrest regarding how she felt regarding the fact that she killed all those bandits, the owner, and her traveling companion, which Marco told him was her uncle.

  “...”

  That last part made his stomach swirl. Sure, he heard from Marco that she broke down right shortly after waking up. But he wasn’t completely convinced. Ellyn still presented the danger that what happened might just happen again, so he needed to hear for himself, see for himself that the girl he had spoken to wasn’t an illusion, and that thing wasn’t her true self.

  It is the reason why for the past two months he had been trying to close the gap between them. Learn her thoughts on the event and find out... Why his heart ached so much when he thought about her?

  And so, he walked towards Ellyn’s room.

  “Ah,” He smiled, “you are here.”

  “...” But she didn’t reply.

  Rigel took a breath of relief after seeing Ellyn on her bed reading a book. The girl in question took only a glance before returning to bury herself in the book.

  “I’ve come here to look after you since Marco.”

  “...” No reply.

  “Are you feeling alright?” The boy said, raising an eyebrow in annoyance.

  “...”

  “I get that you are reading but at least repl-”

  “Shhh,” She gestured, “you’re distracting me.”

  Ellyn hypnotically read through the pages with seemingly increasing speed. Rigel on the other hand only felt impatience taking over his mood and good intentions.

  “Is the book that good?” He complained.

  Ellyn for a change let out a small chuckle in amusement by the question. Her lips parted into a light smile as she turned to face the boy, “Oh, no it’s awful. I can’t stop reading because it only gets worse and worse.”

  “... What?”

  “Marco really has some strange taste in books if this is the stuff that he reads.” At the same time, the girl looked at the book from all angles as if looking for something, “Though, maybe I just don’t get it.”

  Rigel felt curious to see for himself how bad it could be. In a second, he found himself sitting right next to her, and took a look at the pages. After a brief rundown of the plot so far, it didn’t take more than a minute before he started asking questions.

  “Wait, who are these people? Where did the secret organization come from?”

  “I don’t know.” She explained, “Two chapters ago she was part of the nobility, but the book forgot about it.”

  Their faces showed both confusion and amazement at the weirdness of the book... mostly confusion. Many elements just seemed out of left field and completely unrelated to the story, even getting into dubiously unintended moral lessons, Rigel even noticed things that were ripped off from other novels he read. Where those Marco's taste in a book or was this one just a strange outlier? Or maybe they didn't get it? Both found themselves in awe at how hilariously bad the strange book was, a completely surreal experience and yet they didn't know if that was the intention.

  “Rigel did you catch why he can fly…?”

  “No, I’m more focused on the fact that we are almost done, and a new villain was introduced...”

  “Pfft...!”

  Her hands bent the sides of the book as she struggled to contain herself. Her head leaned down as if trying to hide her cackling laughter. Rigel was taken aback by the sudden turn in the story. However, the sound of Ellyn’s muffled laughter stole his attention. After all, he had never heard her laugh like this, or at all. In his experience, Ellyn had been a deadpan girl who will act disinterested about anything, only replying in a slightly livelier tone to somewhat tease him out of boredom. Other than that, she reacted little to other things. To him, it was understandable; the experience she lived through must have had a lasting shock on her.

  “Pfft... Agh! My... stomach...!”

  To see her struggling to contain her laughter from reading a bad book, laughter mixed with cute squeals as her movements caused her body to cramp in pain due to her wounds.

  “...”

  A part of him felt like an idiot. Before he entered the room, he was thinking about the danger she presented, the kind of person she really was. Now, he was staring directly at the fruit of his early judgment: A normal girl, laughing all the same as any other. Of course, he didn’t forget about the event or that she was responsible for the deaths, but now he was simply at a loss of what to do.

  “Aah- This sucks.” He admitted.

  He didn’t know what to think of her. Seeing her laughing face, seeing what kind of terrible things she was capable of. What was he supposed to make of it? He couldn’t even begin to describe why laying his eyes upon this outsider who came from so far away made his heart feel so uncomfortable.

  “Haa... Rigel? Are you spacing out?” The girl called out, “Look, it just got dumber.”

  Seeing her smiling face like there wasn’t a care in the world... It made him feel guilty that he harbored such unpleasant thoughts while being right next to her. He wasn’t ready to decide what to make of her. His only option was to measure the weight of that memory.

  First, the memory of a violent monster that cut short the lives of those it encountered.

  “Rigel? Come here; take a look at this part. They are flying for no reason!” She happily said while pointed at the book.

  “... Alright, let me see.”

  And the memory of an ordinary injured, sleeping girl, not much older than him… with little left in this world.

  After two hours, they somehow managed to reach the end of the book.

  They both were mesmerized by how crazy it was, how much more confusing it got the deeper they went, yet by the end, they still enjoyed themselves in some sort of bizarre fascination of the works of a madman. At the very least, she was glad that they both read it together. Maybe that’s all it took. At first, she just kept scratching her head at the contents until she began finding the glaring problems funny. Then she could hardly control herself. It definitely awakened a new kind of pleasure in her.

  Ellyn herself thought of reading another one someday in the future with Rigel, a brand-new weird book to read through. She didn’t know a lot about making books, nor did she really expect to find another book like it. But even still, she wanted to do it again someday.

  The reason was simple, really. She couldn’t find a reason to justify other than she had fun reading it with him.

  It caught her off guard. All she only wanted to get away from her frequent thoughts about her situation. In return, she received a happy, brief moment to fondly remember, her very first joyful moment ever since she woke up. A part of her felt ashamed for looking forward to doing that again. Having no right to ask for anything, yet she couldn’t help herself.

  The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

  For once, the room she was in didn’t feel suffocating; she didn’t have to think about anything. It truly was exciting.

  “This much is fine... Right?” She wondered.

  The time as their patient would eventually come to an end. And just like an injured criminal in custody, once she is fully healed, she will have to face what she did. But at the very least, this small moment in time made it all less heavy. If only for a little bit.

  “Uncle, I’m sorry...”

  Silence had once again claimed control over the room. Ellyn tried to focus on something, but nothing really called her attention. Rigel was next to her but completely absorbed in another book and she felt bad about the idea of interrupting him just to amuse her.

  Looking for something to do, she playfully tugged the sleeve of her robes. The dress had an incredibly soft texture to the skin. It made for a perfect piece to wear at all times as she recovered. It apparently belonged to the original owner of this place. She didn’t have any complaints about it, but she couldn’t help but wonder how tall that person was compared to her, as Ellyn was constantly readjusting it.

  That moment, a loud sound came from outside, loud enough to reach both Ellyn and Rigel, who were inside in a closed room. Before they could ask themselves what it was, a voice loudly revealed itself to them.

  “We are home!! Where are you guys?!” Maya’s voiced was so loud it reached Ellyn’s room with ease.

  “Oh, here she comes.”

  Rigel’s mother, Maya, had arrived. Rigel let out a loud sigh as soon as she was done and seemed to mentally prepare himself for her.

  Ellyn didn’t feel any particular way about her. She had heard Maya’s voice before, but never really talked to her directly. However, upon noticing Rigel’s face of increasing discomfort... Maybe she could have a little more fun with him.

  “Over here, at the last room!” Ellyn yelled.

  Rigel snapped, “Is it really necessary to bring her over?”

  His voice raised its pitch in surprise, his hand extended towards her before stopping in midair, grasping nothing but air as he restrained his desperate need to shut her mouth. Ellyn however did not flinched at his attempted intimidation, mainly because his slightly smaller frame, soft facial features attempting to look angry, combined with the current pitch in his voice made him look cute more than anything else—The kind of cute one sometimes just wants to squeeze and annoy.

  She tilted her head, “Do you really want to continue being alone with me?”

  “No, it’s not that, I came here because I didn’t want to hear her parroting over silly things for just a moment. If you bring her here, it’s just going to be an endless rant that will destroy your ears.” He explained.

  She gave him an incredulous stare. Having heard her a few times in the past, she knew that Maya was a loud woman, but Rigel’s words bordered on being just plain rude.

  “It’ll be fine-”

  Just a moment later, a woman with light brown hair and gleaming amethyst eyes burst into the room so fast she fell face-first with a loud thud! Dropping the bag she had with her as well. It left Ellyn at a loss for words. Rigel on the other hand looked as if he was used to seeing his mother like this, only sighing once before walking towards her.

  “Mom, are you okay-”

  He said in a low, monotone voice. Maya lifted her head with a lip-tight smile; her eyes open wide to an almost uncanny degree, showing off its gem-like color.

  “I am O K! Please go pick that bag for me, son.” The woman beamed with overwhelming energy.

  Rigel nodded with a “Hm” noise and did as he was told. Maya stood up whilst keeping her open wide, lip-tight grin fixated on Ellyn. To the girl, it came across as creepy to be looked at like that with such intensity.

  Maya stared at Ellyn with a huge grin on her face, after some seconds she spoke.

  “Ellyn.”

  “Hi...?” She replied

  “Nice to meet you!! AAAH! I’m so glad we finally have an opportunity to talk directly that dull headed Marco never allowed me to see you because he kept saying ‘You are gonna make her uncomfortable’ but now he is preparing the fish and I came to see! You are so cute in person-” The woman spewed her words so quickly that Ellyn couldn’t make sense of them. The excitement that Maya oozed out of her body was equally matched by the speed she talked. It was honestly even impressive she could talk so much without running out of breath nor mispronouncing any word.

  Ellyn thought that Maya must probably be very good at holding her breath.

  “Mom, stop it. You are scaring her.” Rigel casually intervened, picking up the heavy bag her mother had dropped.

  “So much that we could one day- Ah. Sure, I’ll talk slowly.”

  After clearing her throat, Maya prepared herself to speak again.

  “Hi Ellyn, I’m Rigel’s mother, Maya. I’m so happy Marco allowed me to finally meet you!”

  “... Thanks. N-nice to meet you, too.” Ellyn’s voice came out lower than usual, as if she was intimidated by Maya’s overwhelming straightforwardness.

  “Hm~! Hm~!” Maya nodded in satisfaction without uttering any other word.

  “...” Ellyn looked uncomfortable as she refused to utter another word.

  Rigel also went silent.

  Maya remained still, smiling from ear to ear. Both Rigel and Ellyn started to feel uncomfortable from the sudden silence. The abrupt end of the conversation was something they didn’t expect from her, especially not after just greeting Ellyn.

  Not being able to deal with the awkward silence, Ellyn spoke first:

  “Uh... Is there...?” Ellyn hesitantly asked.

  “Mom, why are you so quiet?”

  Maya blinked a few times before suddenly relaxing her body.

  “Oh, sorry, I got carried away! Ahahahaha!”

  By this point, Ellyn had thoroughly regretted telling Rigel that it would be fine. It wasn’t fine, it wasn’t fine at all! She was a weirdo of the highest order. With each passing moment, her behavior just kept becoming all the more unpredictable. But even then, she couldn’t say that directly to her and not come across as rude. So, she had to bear with it for a little while.... but she really wanted to bolt out the room in a full spring and never come back. Damn be her wounds that prevented her from doing much of anything—They locked her with this woman!

  “So... Where is Marco? Did he come with you or...?” Ellyn asked.

  “Ah! Yeah, he is here. I sent him to the kitchen to prepare my fish, which reminds me-”

  In a quick motion, Maya took the bag that her son had picked off the ground and gestured him to leave them alone.

  “Rigel, Mommy will be busy here, go help Marco and have fun!” Immediately, she gestured him to leave.

  The boy tilted his head, “Huh? What are you planning to do-”

  “Rigel, you might be getting to that age, but you can’t just see a girl undress like that.”

  Maya’s voice was clear and direct. With her brilliant eyes piercing directly at her son, Rigel’s face went blank. He didn’t fully understand why she wanted to be alone with Ellyn, but he didn’t have it in him to ask. Besides, if it was something Ellyn’s current caretaker, Marco, had allowed her to do... then she probably nagged him until he gave in but he wasn't about to say that. Either way, Ellyn was on her own now.

  “Eh?! What are you talking about? Who’s gonna undress who?!”

  He simply nodded, turned back, and walked away while ignoring Ellyn’s protests. Not forgetting to close the door behind him.

  Now that she was alone with her, Ellyn unconsciously hugged herself. Maya slowly approached, untying the bag with each step. The girl was at the mercy of whatever she was planning to do with the contents inside.

  Maya dropped the contents of the bag on top of the bed. Ellyn looked at the contents in confusion before being directed to Maya’s happy voice.

  “Ta-da~! I brought you these!” She said, with a rather low voice than before.

  Ellyn glanced over at the pile of clothing that Maya had dropped on the bed, an almost dizzying number of pieces of all types. Varying on cut, design, color, and some even fabric, all put together into a big pile of multicolored pieces. A deeper look made her notice that there might even be at least one piece for every part of the body. How did she fit all of that in such a small bag?

  “... What is this?”

  “These are old clothes that I owned that are still in good condition.”

  Ellyn’s voice was hesitant, “But why?”

  “Eh...? ‘Why?’ you mean...”

  Maya was slightly taken aback by the question. Not being sure how to respond, she stumbled in her reply, “I-I... thought it would be nice. Since we are meeting for the first time since you came two months ago, I thought it would be nice to give you a present!”

  Ellyn looked at her with distrust, having formally known her for less than an hour. But Maya already left a strong impression on Ellyn as the type of person who would be too... ‘thick-headed’, to think that much about a first meeting. The fact that Maya eyes were darting around didn’t help her case.

  “...” Ellyn stared at her in silence with a cold expression, lost in thought. Maya seemed to quickly crumble under her own weight by the second.

  “Ngh... Marco asked me!”

  That didn’t take too long.

  “Aah, I see. But why did he do that?”

  Maya looked distressed, as if betraying the trust of her friend was the worst thing she could do.

  She made a praying gesture, “I’m sorry~~! He asked me for anything that could cheer you up.”

  Huh? What did she mean by that? Ellyn’s eyes narrowed in confusion.

  “I-I’m perfectly fine.”

  “He said you have been looking a bit depressed for a while now, combined with the fact that you’ll be here for months before your wounds heal. We were worried about you.” She explained.

  The girl thought for a moment. She really couldn’t understand why Marco would go out of his way for her like this. Nor why would he involve someone like Maya into it to help him out. For starters, clothing seemed like an odd choice for her. She didn’t think she needed anything more than what she wore. It wasn’t like she would use something else. Was her displeasure of being here for several more months all that noticeable that he tried to make it a bit more bearable?

  Seeing Ellyn’s expression darken, Maya hurriedly tried to speak.

  “Please don’t take it the wrong way; we are just trying to see you are okay.” Maya said apologetically.

  “I don’t think you should have bothered.” Ellyn awkwardly looked away, “B-besides, I don’t really go out anyway…”

  Maya stopped for a second, tilting her head slightly. Then, after a short pause, she spoke:

  “They’re for when you recover.”

  “Eh?”

  She didn’t quite understand what she meant by that. “When she recovers”? When she recovers, she will certainly be put to-

  “We cannot show you our village while having you wear that, right?”

  ...What’s that supposed to mean?

  “I... don’t quite follow.”

  The mother’s voice had shifted, now warm and tender, “We wanted to give you these because we thought you’d look nice on them when we show you around here. What about it?”

  “... Why?”

  Maya also seemed to not understand why Ellyn got lost in her answers. With a tired sigh, she put both her hands in her lap, “I’m repeating what he told me, but...”

  A genuine, warm smile plastered into her lips. Her bright amethyst sight look directly into her café-colored eyes that darted everywhere in search for something that made sense to her. Something not so scary.

  “You seemed so sad. We had to do something, so you wouldn’t look like that. It's not so difficult to put together, I think.”

  Ellyn’s eyes widened in surprise; that was her reason? She still couldn’t understand why. Marco took watching over her as his duties until she healed. Then, when the grace period is over, they would look into what happened. Most likely they already knew about the owner, her uncle and the bandits. To her, they were merely being delayed out of the kindness of his heart, but when that’s over she would had to be put to trial and then jailed or maybe…

  So why-

  “Now, come on!” Suddenly, Maya returned to her usual tone, “Let us take off that dress and put you into something cute!”

  “Eh?! Wait-!” Ellyn protested.

  Maya ignored her and grabbed several top pieces and presented them to her.

  “Pick one that you like!”

  “No... Maya, I don’t want-”

  It was getting unbearably frustrating how stubborn she was. Maya was being a nuisance that was treating a criminal like her like a dress-up doll. Ellyn looked up to say what she wanted to say to that woman, but when they met, she encountered a pair of gentle eyes gazing at her like her own child. They were nothing like the ones she had a few moments ago. Those sharp, overly oppressive eyes were replaced with a docile and soft gaze, patiently waiting for her. Maya’s entire body language could only be described as warm.

  Parting her lips, the woman spoke:

  “Ellyn. Don’t worry. I am not going to hurt you. There’s no way I could put a finger on someone as cute as you.”

  Ellyn was taken aback by her statement, but before she could make sense of the situation, Maya continued:

  “I can see why you are feeling like that... It must have been rough, right?”

  Her eyes widened, “...”

  “Unfortunately, I can’t do much to help you not feel like this nor do I think you’ll be fine for a long time... But at the very least-”

  Her smile deepened in its affection.

  “I am here to help you, and so are those two as well.”

  Ellyn looked silently at Maya, whose entire demeanor had switched so drastically. Her smile never lessened; her loving gaze never faltered.

  She couldn't find the words to reply. Ellyn can only hold her arms around her body, hiding it from others, even herself. Not knowing what to do with the maelstrom of emotions forming inside her, neither knowing where to direct them to, she can only curl up and take it until it goes away. As Maya said, she doesn’t feel any different about herself. Nothing can change what she did. She succumbed to a beast and took lives in a rage that could return in the future, and Ellyn still only saw herself as that.

  However...

  “It’s alright.” She said with resignation, “we’ll pick one when-”

  “That one.”

  “Huh?”

  “That one’s... fine.”

  Her voice was faint, so faint it could barely be heard. Her right hand pointed to a lovely white and green blouse on the ground of short sleeves. Colorful & lovely, and a bit baggy, made with soft materials that gently caress the skin. As well, simple dark brown pants that complimented in a nice earthly look.

  Maya nodded, leaving her choices behind and carefully picking up Ellyn’s, after handing them to her. She turned around to let her know she won’t look at her when she changes.

  Ellyn still felt the same way about herself. That much won’t change.

  Although, just like when she read the book with Rigel...

  She could maybe allow herself a slight breather from the suffocating feeling that drowned her soul.