These Reincarnators Are Sus! Sleuthing in Another World

"...Why, Noué?" Ailn mumbled. Was this really a truth worth capturing?

Was this her final piece?

The charcoal portrait of Cora marked the start of the second story of the vault—of Noué's life and work. And… unless it was metaphorical, it depicted the end of Cora's.

The word that came to mind was Thanatos. The drive toward death. Ailn wasn't the type to lean on psychoanalysis, but sometimes it just fit like a glove. Noué felt closest to truth when she was closest to death.

It was then that Ailn noticed a faint strand of sunlight off in the distance—he'd been too focused on his immediate surroundings, and his lantern light had obscured it.

What he assumed was a closed-off chamber actually continued further into the cave system. The vault's furthest wall wasn't a wall at all; it was a sheer cliff. He lingered a little longer on the portrait of Cora, reaching out so painfully, before moving on with heavy steps.

Ailn stopped.

There was a long slab of stone, its surface flat enough to make a perfect bench, a rotting hardwood easel resting at its far end. At this distance to the cliff, the angle was just right to keep the sunlight in view.

This was Noué's painting spot. And this entire second floor had likely served as her atelier. Why here, specifically…? There were an abundance of picturesque light shafts on their journey down.

Approaching the cliff, Ailn realized there was a bit of water seeping through a small crawl space near his feet. He kneeled down, raising his lantern to look through. The opening two feet wide was less than a foot tall, but it looked like the ceiling raised a little as far as his light went. A chill slowly went down his spine.

If someone had been locked up in this cavern, and tried to escape…

Right now, with the water only forming a small puddle, Ailn guessed the river was halfway between low and high tide.

As ill-advised as it would be, someone small enough could crawl through that space. Even with the water flowing an inch high, it would be uncomfortable but manageable—maybe even a little easier, because the added slickness could help them traverse particularly rough ground.

At low tide, it would be completely dry. They'd have six hours to try and get through the crawlway, and hopefully emerge into a new chamber.

The sunlight visible past the top of the cliff could give them hope that they were near the surface—that a few hundred meters ahead, they could climb their way out of the cave system and find help.

The crawlway would be too small for pursuers. The problem was, there were no guarantees of an outlet. If it didn't widen out, the crawl would be physically exhausting. And if they went on to find a dead end, then… all they could do was wait in the darkness for the slow rise of the tide. Even if it took hours.

There was a bitter taste in Ailn's mouth, as he recalled the charcoal portrait.

"Was that really Noué's final piece?" Ailn muttered. His fingers felt cold, and his heart sluggish.

As Noué got older, something must have changed. Maybe it was just maturity. Or maybe her divine eyes got sharper. Was it simple compulsion that drove her to transform the numinous into the chthonic? What did she feel when she realized her muse was just a human?

The radiant goddess would've slowly descended. She would've decayed, the closer Noué got to the truth, until finally all that was left was a young woman alone and afraid in a tunnel, hopelessly trying to keep her face out of the water.

Did Cora… want that to be seen?

Ailn thought back to Cora waiting at the top of the antechamber. Uncomfortable. She said that Noué made her uncomfortable. Was she afraid of Noué? Did that make any sense when Cora could've so easily drowned her?

His gaze travelled rightward.

Tucked into the corner of the cliff and the adjacent cavern wall was a particularly deep recess. When Ailn stepped inside, he realized it widened into a full-fledged storage chamber, with layers of shelving carved in—it seemed this was where Noué kept her art supplies.

Lining its shelves were rows of cloudy jars, some cracked with seeping pigments. Disintegrating leather pouches held brushes. Wrapped in cloth were charcoal sticks that had fared better than the cloth which held them.

Hanging on the far wall were canvases. None of them were framed. Some of them looked like they'd been slashed.

They'd all been roughly handled—some even stabbed directly onto the hook which held them.

Once again, they were portraits of Cora. The bizarre thing was, she was radiant again—Noué had once again depicted her as Lumitheia. And she'd thrown all of her skills into these portraits.

Luminescent, vibrant, and detailed… always in a beautiful environment. Cora knelt in meadows, and ran through streams, gazed up with her arms outstretched as she faced the dawn.

Ornate, and filled with whimsy—soft pinks for the sky, and minty greens for flora, creamy skin tones, gliding whites for clouds and gold all throughout. Rustling trees and swaying grass, with a sparkling river; swishing gowns with gentle, folding contours; always in sun.

They invited the viewer to stay a little while, to let their gaze meander through every lush brushstroke, never quite settling on any single, lovely detail.

And they all felt fake.

Her postures were so elegant they felt like examples from textbooks. The settings were cliched, the colorscapes saccharine. And Cora's eyes never felt quite real. The earlier portraits, even in Noué's most amateur pieces, always conveyed the subtle sense that the subject was gazing at the viewer.

Her smile had lost its dimples.

These weren't authentic. They couldn't be called true portraits—because they were drawn from the imagination.

And slowly, all the pieces started to click. It was Noué who'd destroyed these paintings. They were an insult to everything she stood for.

But why had she painted them in the first place?

It was a simple story, in a sense. The specifics were complex and heavy. But the throughline was achingly universal.

A young girl—a talented and budding artist—met a strange new friend. The girl liked to draw, and her friend liked to be drawn.

The girl found inspiration in her friend, because she saw something in her she'd never seen in anyone else.

The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

But slowly, that girl grew into a better artist than she did a friend.

She continued to find inspiration. And she got better and better at her craft. Her friend, who still loved her art, kept posing for her.

Until the artist drew something her friend really didn't like. Something painful, which she never wanted anyone to see.

And so her friend stopped coming.

The artist tried to say she was sorry, in the only way she knew how. By drawing something beautiful. By drawing her friend the way she used to.

Except her friend wasn't there anymore. Not nearby at least. And the artist never saw her friend again, except from very far away. Too far away to properly portrait.

So she drew from imagination. From a fading memory of her friend who she'd lost, because she'd been too obsessed with the truth.

But they weren't portraits of her friend. They were portraits of her regret.

The artist couldn't stand the lies she made, so she slashed them. She couldn't bear to throw them, so she kept those lies in her closet.

She couldn't let go of her pursuit of the truth. Yet she never fully let go of her friend, either. So the artist kept hoping. She thought that her friend might come back one day—and that she'd get the chance to paint her one more time… and apologize.

"Then… what was her final piece?" Ailn wondered.

That's when Ailn noticed it—a leather portfolio, left hanging inconspicuously in the corner as if it were waiting for him.

And beneath it was a shelf with a single book.

They'd let Ailn enter the chamber alone. Only 'the one who understood Noué' was meant to be privy to her final piece. None of them knew what was in the vault, so they decided to trust him to respect her wishes, and then inform them of what was inside.

Renea didn't feel great about it.

He was someone who could take care of himself, though. But… she'd thought that about the original Ailn too.

"I've yet to hear any sound of collapse," Kylian muttered, as his gaze wandered the untaken corridors. "So, it would appear he truly did choose the right portrait."

Noué had been happy, apparently.

It wasn't as if Renea fooled herself into thinking she understood the artist. Still, she'd been caught off-guard by the revelation—by the depth of just how much she didn't 'get' Noué.

She was still staring at the sorrowful portrait. It must have said more about her that she felt so drawn to it. Ailn's one sentence summary from earlier came to mind.

"...My life was empty," Renea said softly.

The young girl was promptly pulled out of her introspection by Safi's excited gasp. Turning curiously to look, she nearly had a heart attack.

Their company had increased by one.

Or… rather, one of their companions had become human—or something close to it. Standing there in front of Safi, halfway transparent and softly glowing was—

"Cora! You're out of the water!" Safi exclaimed, clapping her hands in delight.

Ailn held the copy of The Codex of Hidden Paths in his hand. He'd just read the passage she'd bookmarked in the middle, where she'd underlined a specific verse, and doodled a specific symbol.

If the dragon thirsts

Would you let it drink

Then, next to the verse were three interlocking ovals which were formed from one continuous line.

It was just like the dragon sculpture at the villa. And that was when Ailn realized what the symbol was meant to represent—a Gordian knot.

She left a post-script too: 'The ending's worth it. Promise.'

Promise, huh? Ailn thought back to another Promise which he'd been hoping to find in this vault. Now, he had the feeling that it was waiting for him in the villa.

"You know Noué…" Ailn clicked his tongue. "It really pisses me off how there's always one more damn step."

Maybe this treasure hunt wouldn't be so fruitless after all.

Besides that, he'd gotten what Elenira wanted—and a little more.

Inside the portfolio were two wool-lined pockets, each cradling a wood and glass frame. Noué had left two pieces for him. Not just one. As for which was her 'last' piece, Ailn figured that out pretty quickly. It was a charcoal sketch.

And the other… well, it was a watercolor. And he had a pretty good idea of what to do with it. Unsure of whether there might be more to this specific copy of The Codex of Hidden Paths, he tucked it under his arm as well.

It was time to head home.

Retracing his way out of the chamber, and passing all the portraits Noué had created on her path to greatness, Ailn idly wondered how much value they had. Far from masterpieces, they were really just historical artifacts. They documented the fledgling Noué's growth, and that would hold cultural significance for the people of Sussuro.

They showed the genius was a human too.

…And they showed that maybe in Noué's pursuit of greatness, she'd given up a little of her humanity.

Near the vault's exit, he felt compelled to look back. Stuck in his mind were verses from the final page of The Codex of Hidden Paths.

Noué hadn't marked the page deliberately; instead, it was naturally dog-eared—worn down, as if she'd read it over and over again. It must have inspired her. Or maybe it kept her steady, when even she—for all her defiance, pride, and intransigence—had her doubts.

The last book of the codex was the incongruously named Book of Hope, after all.

If I traverse the hidden path, what shall I find?

The path is narrow

Shall I go it alone?

What waits should be, as in dark as in light

For at the end, there must be a beautiful truth

Was Noué truly happy? Now, more than ever, he questioned whether she would've been able to tell.

She'd declared it so. That was the truth. But he didn't personally believe that self-assertion alone was enough.

It had bugged Ailn.

Noué's lack of self care. Driven as she was, he didn't think it was simply self-indulgence—a need to play the suffering artist. And while she seemed obsessive enough to pursue craft at the expense of health, the end of her life created a fundamental contradiction.

She must have understood that unless she changed her ways, she would die before finishing her greatest work.

There was only one way to justify it. Her divine eyes must have relied on it. She could hide away in this world of suffering, place herself in the midst of the old haunt of her former muse—a literal drowned spirit—and find all these ways to surround herself with the macabre.

But if her magnum opus needed more, then she'd be the type to play chicken with her own life. On the verge of death, without ever quite reaching it… until she did.

She knew it was coming, too. Because her last portrait had a subject she'd ignored for a long time. Astonishingly, it might have been the only one she ever made.

It was a self-portrait.

Drawn with shaking hands. Almost every line was fragile, and unsteady, while some were so heavy she'd clearly forced a clean stroke through.

There were streaks and smudges where she'd accidentally brushed the paper. She'd left fingerprints.

The whole thing was skewed. It didn't seem like an artistic choice. It seemed like she'd been struggling to see straight.

The shading… was flat. Just like her paintings from when she was a child. She likely lacked the strength to finesse the tones into a subtle gradient.

But, at least on the page, she was happy. Noué was beaming like the sun, and her eyes had scrunched into gentle crescents with hints of cheekiness. She still had that irreverent twinkle in her eye. And Ailn couldn't help but notice it didn't look mean.

Maybe it was a kind of atonement. Or maybe it was just the truth—she really was happy, and it was as simple as that. Whatever the case, Ailn wanted to believe that if she'd ever gotten the chance…

That's how Noué would have drawn Cora, one last time.

"For at the end," Ailn murmured, "there must be a beautiful truth." He drew a deep breath, and let it out in a soft sigh, his eyes tracing the gallery she'd created, the portraits which revealed the path she'd chosen.

He reached up with the same hand that held the lantern and took off his deerstalker, giving the deceased artist one last tip of his cap.

"...Hope you find it, Noué," Ailn said.

Then he turned, and walked out of her vault at his own pace, leaving the shadows behind him.