These Reincarnators Are Sus! Sleuthing in Another World

"Was she… happy, Ailn?" Elenira asked.

He hesitated, spending a long time considering what to say—and whether he should say it. He reached for a watch that wasn't there… but his expression didn't change.

Finally, he decided to just tell the truth.

"I don't know," Ailn said. "She thought she was."

"...You don't know?" Elenira asked softly. The look on her face was hard to bear.

Ailn sighed, idly walking over to the windowsill. He picked up the jar of coral pink mussel shells he'd messed with the day before. He couldn't leave it at this, because he'd just thrown Elenira into an even worse hell of ambiguity.

And the real issue was that he didn't have the power to pull her out himself.

He simply didn't know. He'd felt more kinship with the artist than he planned to—empathizing, when he didn't want to, the worst parts of her speaking to the darkest parts of him which were literally locked away by divinity. Ailn couldn't confront them right now, even if he wanted to.

But more than that…

"Elenira, do you really think I understood her better than you?" Ailn asked, not bothering to hide his exasperation.

"You… opened her vault," Elenira said, her tone withdrawing and skittish. Almost betrayed. "Of course you—"

"Do you think someone's psychiatrist gets them better than their wife?" Ailn asked.

"Of course they can!" Elenira snapped. Then, clearly regretting her outburst, she apologized. "...Sorry."

She looked hurt. Like she'd hoped for more, and just had the crushing realization that more was a stupid thing to hope for.

"They can," Ailn admitted. "When things get really bad. Or even if one of them's just not the most sensitive knife in the drawer."

He turned around to face her, putting his hands in his trench coat's pockets. It felt good to be able to do that again. "To tell you the truth Elenira, I came in here with a whole speech prepared. About how being a detective doesn't mean I emotionally bond with criminals."

"...Detective?" Elenira squinted, more than a little annoyed. "You're comparing Noué to criminals?"

"Frankly, criminals are usually more personable," Ailn muttered. Then he gave Elenira a soft shrug and looked her in the eye. Casually, but directly. "I won't mince words. I probably understand one part of Noué better than you do."

He paused.

"...Her demons."

"Her demons…?" Elenira mumbled. There was apprehension in her eyes. And when she looked up from the table, breaking her fixation on the turned over frame, she looked into Ailn's.

He let her in for a moment.

Whatever the teen god had done to Ailn was still at work, still clipping his emotions. It was still forcing him to forget.

But sometimes the most broken fragments still surfaced, like shards of glass in gruel. He'd been burying them, because he realized there was something waiting for him—something he truly didn't want to remember.

Elenira read something in Ailn's eyes… and instinctively shuddered.

He closed them for a second. Then he was back to his seemingly easygoing, if tired, self.

"I'm still stuck figuring out if she ever beat them, Elenira. That's all," Ailn said. Approaching the table deliberately yet gently, he let his hand hover meaningfully over the portrait. "I've got a feeling you'll know better than me."

The elf slowly looked down. With one shaking hand she grasped the edge of the frame, and halted.

Ailn mirrored her motion, letting his fingers rest lightly on the opposite edge, patiently waiting for her.

Weakly, limply, yet still surely so—the frame turned over.

Noué's self-portrait gazed at Elenira. Every fragile line was helplessly honest, expressing fully the frailty with which she faced her final days. Even so, her smile stayed sunny through the charcoal.

Elenira offered Noué a weak smile back, tears blurring her eyes.

"I'm sorry I snuck a look, Noué…" she whispered.

Ailn let her have her moment, going back to those shelves he'd been messing with earlier. Nonchalantly, he examined a jar full of starfish.

He stole a furtive glance at Elenira, who had closed her eyes.

"You'll laugh at this, Ailn," Elenira said, after a long time, when a little bit of the pain had left her smile. "But Noué… her birthday's in the fifth month. Mine's in the ninth."

It took Ailn a while to parse what she was getting at. His brows knit. He was usually quicker on the uptake than this. An elf's birthday…

Then it hit him.

"Noué was older than you," Ailn said, marveling a bit. "...Even elves were ten once."

"She was like an older sister to me," Elenira said sadly. "We both… grew up together in Sussuro."

"...How did an elf find herself growing up in Sussuro?" Ailn's brow furrowed.

"I was born here, Ailn," Elenira said, managing to look up at him. Her voice was soft. "At some point, my parents had stolen away from Alfheimr. They never wanted to talk about it, though."

"They still around?" Ailn asked.

"They passed away about a century and a half ago," Elenira's lips pressed a bit. "They… never really understood why I could never get over Noué." A complicated expression entered her eyes. "I wasn't the most filial daughter…"

"Elves say that too, huh?"

"Well, I'm not like the other elves," Elenira said.

"...Elves say that too, huh?" Ailn repeated, much to Elenira's displeasure.

Her scowl softened into something uncertain, the curve of her mouth not sure what it wanted to become in the end. "Time moves a little bit differently for me. That's all," Elenira said. "Guess what one hundred seventeen is?"

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Ailn thought for a moment. It had been around three centuries since Noué died, so it wasn't years… "You're kidding me," he said, his breath catching before he laughed. "Is that how much older she was? You still remember it in days?"

"Yeah," Elenira's ears drooped a bit. "It felt like a lot more back then."

Her gaze had once again settled on Noué's charcoal self-portrait. It was a distant look, yet her brows drew together as if she were thinking something through.

And while she was focused on that, Ailn quietly slipped the second frame out of the leather portfolio. He set it on the windowsill, propping it up with a jar to keep it from falling. He wasn't exactly gifted in interior design, but it would look pretty good when the sun came out, right?

He glanced back at Elenira. She looked as though she might finally be able to move on—and yet she also looked utterly spent.

Peace didn't necessarily come with happiness or hope.

"You know Elenira," Ailn began, rubbing the back of his neck a bit awkwardly, "I bet… back when Noué passed, she felt you were a little too young to understand."

Elenira blinked. "Come again?" She scoffed. "Ailn, I was older than you when she died."

"Well, I'm guessing it was like twelve in elf years," Ailn shrugged. He tapped the portrait he'd just put up on the windowsill. "It came as a pair, Elenira. Her last portrait… and her first portrait."

"...What?" Elenira stood up shakily to approach.

"It looks nice here, don't you think? I think she really captured your… well, you'll figure it out." Ailn took a step back out of the way, as she drew close. Then he gave her a small pat on the shoulder, to let her know he was heading out.

She nodded dumbly, and Ailn walked past her to the door. "Seeya, Elenira. Make sure to see us before we leave town."

The moment he'd left, Elenira picked up the watercolor portrait.

Her hands trembled, and her tears dripped down onto the glass frame. Elenira let out a small whimper, before she held the portrait against her chest and started sobbing in a way she hadn't left herself in centuries.

The portrait was a little soupy where Noué had used too much water. And the colors blended together pretty badly in places. Amateur mistakes for anyone working with watercolors, really.

But still. It was a charming portrait of her young elf friend's smile—right after Elenira had lost a baby tooth.

Ailn sighed as he left the house. Aakdrift wasn't an incredibly fun place to be alone at night. He'd sent the others on ahead, but he was getting pretty sick of navigating dark and desolate places with only a lantern's light.

Thankfully, he just needed to follow the channel until it took him back to the main river. A few minutes into his walk home, he heard something. No, it was a someone. A naiad was calling out to him.

'Hey mister! From yesterday! Remember us?'

Mister? Ailn frowned.

"Aurelie, right?" Ailn swung his lantern in the direction of the channel, from which two naiads peered up at him. "And Lulu, too. Isn't it past your bedtime?"

'What about yours?' Lulu frothed back.

'Lulu!' Aurelie's admonishment came like a sharp, punctuated splash. 'Quit it! That's not what we're here for!'

Lulu simmered with a sulk, before quietly addressing Ailn.

'Um… earlier today… we saw that girl's show while she played with the water, and…' Lulu's bubbling speech reduced to the softest patter. 'It was really beautiful…'

'Say it already, Lulu!' Aurelie splashed.

'We just wanted you to tell her, for us… since most humans can't understand…' Lulu sunk deeper and deeper into the water until only her eyes peered up. 'Can you tell her we're sorry? We saw… what happened. To her friend…'

'We didn't know, okay?' Aurelie echoed. 'Everytime we saw her…'

'Quit making excuses, Aurelie! Why am I always the one taking responsibility?'

"Huh." Ailn kneeled down near the channel. "Didn't think you guys had it in you."

'How shallow do you think we are?!' Lulu splashed.

"It's big of you," Ailn ignored her, dodging the water aimed for his face. "But I'd really like you guys to apologize yourself."

'She can't even understand us. How would we?' Aurelie drizzled.

"Aren't you guys great at singing?" Ailn asked.

'The best!' Aurelie fizzed. 'What do you want us to sing? We know sylphsong you know.'

'Why are you calling it sylphsong?' Lulu elbowed her friend, her elbow seeming to merge into Aurelie's side. 'Naiads made it. The only reason everyone thinks the sylphs did is because they're flying everywhere.'

'Lulu, there's no way sylphsong was invented in Sussuro—'

'I didn't SAY it was invented in Sussuro, I said naiads made it!'

'How would you know?!'

'Because there's no way those stupid airhead syl—"

"We're getting off-topic, guys," Ailn interrupted. Then a thought hit him. "Say, I've got a song you guys can sing. An old one. About being able to see a friend off with a cheerful goodbye."

'How old? Like a thousand years?'

"...Not quite," Ailn shrugged. "Here, I'll teach you the melody and lyrics."

'Lyrics… but we told you she can't understand us.'

"Well, you just gotta make sure the emotion gets through, right?"

Ailn hated to do it, but it couldn't really wait. After giving her just a day to process her grief, he asked Safi about the obsidian jar.

It was the biggest reason they'd come to Sussuro, after all. The other mages, including Count Fleuve, hadn't been able to handle it. Safi—likely the strongest mage in the duchy, with the deepest understanding of magic—was their last chance.

Meeting with Safi and Conrad in the private counsel chamber where he'd first been received, Ailn handed Safi the obsidian jar while her father watched with trepidation.

Her eyes were dull and tired as she uncorked the jar. And they didn't seem to react, even when she pulled out a piece of the miasmatic substance which had terrified and overwhelmed everyone else.

Except for Ailn, that is. He still had no idea why.

Was Safi like him somehow? She still wasn't making much of an expression.

"It does remind me a bit of Cora," Safi said with a flat voice. "This is different, though. It's kinda… evil feeling, I guess. It stinks."

"You're not feeling any sort of pain?" Ailn asked.

"It does hurt," Safi said. "It feels like it's trying to eat me."

That was probably the most worrying thing she could've said, and Conrad admonished her to put it down in a fluster, barely stopping himself from snatching it out of her wrist.

"Safi, why…" Conrad paled, looking miserable. "Why would you keep holding it if it was hurting you?"

His daughter didn't really respond. Her disinterested gaze made it seem like she might just brush him off, but then it drifted to the chamber's small indoor fountain. Her lip started to quiver, as she listened to it trickle. "S–sorry…"

"I need time with it," Safi said. She sniffled a bit, and dabbed at her eye. "But you're leaving soon aren't you…?"

Folding his arms and tapping on his elbow, Ailn gave the issue some thought. Momentarily, a pretty good idea came to him.

"Why not come to Varant for a while, Safi?" Ailn asked. "You could stay there, examine it, talk to the knights about holy aura…"

"Wha—" Conrad spun on Ailn as if he'd just been sucker punched.

"Can I… come watch when you and Sir Kylian go on walks?"

"We don't do that, Safi," Ailn said. "Just so you know." He turned to Conrad. "Don't you think it would be good for her to get a change in scenery?"

"Well, yes I… If she truly wants to…" Conrad sputtered a bit. "I simply mean to say, perhaps we should take our time discussing it, and at a later da—"

"What do you say, Safi?" Ailn asked her. "To spending some time with your friends."

Somehow, all it took was the word 'friends' for the atmosphere in the chamber to change completely.

A little bit of the light Safi had lost returned to her eyes. And Conrad, who'd seemed loath to see his daughter go, softened considerably.

"My… friends…?" Safi repeated, her eyes starting to glisten. Then, nodding rapidly, she assented. "I wanna go!"

She bolted out the door, presumably rushing to her bedroom. "I-I'm gonna go pack!" her voice called back.

"It's not like we're leaving right away," Ailn said, chuckling.

After all, there was still one last thing he needed to check out.