These Reincarnators Are Sus! Sleuthing in Another World

The first thing Ailn noticed about Ciel was how sleepy she looked—half-lidded eyes, a faint, persistent frown, and a slight lag in her reactions. But as she made her way down the stairs, he realized her movements weren't sluggish. They were considered. And her seemingly bleary gaze was watching him closely.

"Duke eum-Creid's brother?" Ciel asked, softly clasping her hands in front of her. She'd shifted seamlessly to calling Sigurd by his formal title. "Excuse my prior rudeness…"

She politely drew her gaze to a spot near Ailn's feet.

"Well, Duke eum-Creid himself now, actually," Ailn said, a bit awkwardly. "I guess you haven't heard." He heard the slightest hitch of her breath, and noticed she'd stopped blinking. "Sorry. Sigurd's alive and healthy. I should have been clearer."

"...I see," Ciel finally breathed out. She closed her eyes, and her lips briefly trembled, even as she let out another soft and relieved sigh. Her normal sleepy-looking gaze slowly returned. "Would it be remiss of me to ask, sire, how… the title came to change hands…?"

"I defeated Sigurd in a headship duel," Ailn said, keeping his tone tactful. He paused a moment, noting her still deferentially lowered gaze. "Ciel, I presume?"

"That is correct, sire," Ciel said.

"Sire, huh?" Ailn blinked. "If that's what you're comfortable calling me, then sure. That said, I'm not too worried about etiquette. Just so you know."

But Ciel kept her gaze on the ground, her expression turning faintly troubled. Things would've been easier if people did handshakes in this world—then they could naturally ease into something resembling rapport.

It didn't seem like she'd relax any time soon, so Ailn decided to stop beating around the bush. Retrieving from his trenchcoat the folded, twined, and sealed parchment Sigurd had given him, Ailn gently held it in front of her clasped hands. Her polite gaze slowly came to rest on the parchment.

"This is for you," Ailn said.

Ciel accepted the parchment quietly, though she hardly looked eager. A sealed document from high nobility wasn't necessarily a welcome thing for a commoner.

"It's from Sigurd," Ailn added.

…It was a little surprising how quickly she started trying to open the parchment—attempting to slip a fingernail under the wax seal, fumbling impatiently with the knot of twine. She was moving at a different pace from before, and it was like she momentarily forgot to be self-conscious.

Her letter-opening paused.

"Is this… something you'd prefer I open in your presence, sire?" Ciel asked cautiously.

Actually, Ailn didn't know. He'd intended to hand it over and head out, but depending on what Sigurd actually wrote, it was possible he was waiting for a response.

On the other hand, it could be so personal that Ailn had no business being there.

Sigurd really should've given Ailn more instruction on what he wanted, exactly. Despite all the pomp inherent in sending a letter and signet with the official eum-Creid seal, somehow this was starting to feel a little half-baked—as if Sigurd hadn't really thought things through.

"I'll just stick around for a second, in case you need to answer him back," Ailn said, noticing her thumb tracing around the signet inside.

"Let me retrieve a knife," Ciel said hastily, stepping over to the apothecary's counter. Ailn could hear the rattle of an opening drawer. Soon enough, she was cutting through the twine, elbows on her work counter, carefully loosening the seal to remove it intact.

She unfolded the parchment, delicately extracting the signet from within.

"His signet…?" She blinked a few times. Slowly. Keeping the signet clutched gently in her left palm, she opened Sigurd's letter with both hands.

Her lips pursed.

…Her nose scrunched, slightly.

For the first time since they started speaking, Ciel did not look sleepy.

"Is this…" Ciel's eyes flickered to Ailn, then back to the folds of the parchment. She ran one of her thumbs along its edges, as if she might be able to pull it apart into a second page. She flipped it over. And back again. "Is this it?"

"Uh, mind if I look?" Ailn asked, after a moment. He took the letter from her lightly clenching hands.

'Ciel,

I have entrusted my personal signet to my brother Ailn, that it may be delivered to you, such that there may be no question of Béatrice's parentage or rightful lineage.

Regards,

Sigurd eum-Creid'

"...Huh." Ailn stared at the letter blankly for a moment, before the secondhand embarrassment hit. He had no idea what to say. "Uh… Sorry."

While Ciel and Ailn were reading Sigurd's letter—and learning that brevity is not, in fact, always the soul of wit—upstairs, Bea was beginning to stir.

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"Nitty?" Bea frowned at the stuffed donkey she was hugging. "Did you trade places with Mister Smith…?"

Bea rubbed her eyes softly, and slowly climbed out of the bed she slept in with her mother before pattering over to her chest of toys. Getting ready to converse with them, she pulled out some of her favorites.

Russew the cat. Mister Smith the snake—or lizard. Cant the dog. She already had Nitty. And of course… Aristurtle.

Hoisting them all up in her arms, she set them down one by one in an arc across from her toy chest, before sitting back against it criss-cross applesauce. "All of us gathered here today should talk… about the future," Bea said, slowly turning her head to address her audience.

Her audience did not respond.

"You better be careful Mister Smith," Bea said crossly, turning to the toy snake. "You're in trouble 'cause of yesterday." Nitty the donkey fell over, so Bea pouted as if he were being disorderly, but nonetheless reached forward to set him upright. "You can't sleep, Nitty."

Bea turned her gaze on Aristurtle, as if the turtle doll had said something.

"Nitty's cause? I don't think Nitty has a cause." Her face scrunched up thoughtfully. "Form… former cause? He can't change his shape, Aristurtle… Why are you being so mean?"

Sighing, she gave Russew a sidelong glance. "Society didn't make Nitty into a donkey, Russew… He just was."

Her attention slowly drifted back to Nitty. The donkey apparently had something to say. "I don't know if you have very much willpower, Nitty… You just seem sad all the time." Bea tilted her head in confusion. "Will-to-power? Are you saying it right?"

Then her head turned sharply back to Aristurtle—at least as sharply as a child can turn their head. "Nitty says he's got will-to-power, so be nice!"

But Nitty the donkey fell over again.

"Nitty!" Bea smacked her palm against her own forehead, turning to Cant the dog with a look that said 'what are we gonna do about him?' "If everyone sleeps during meetings, no one would get meetings done."

Just as Bea once again chastised the lethargic Nitty, she caught the faint sounds of conversation downstairs.

Her mother was a soft-spoken woman, and from here Bea couldn't quite make out what she was saying. But, to Bea's surprise, she heard a man's voice.

"... Honestly this is pretty bad, even for Sigurd."

Sigurd.

Bea had heard that name before.

Her cheeks puffed up in umbrage, as she shot Cant a tiny glare. "I know that! If everyone sneaks around and listens to each other then…" Bea tilted her head. "But lots of people sneak around and listen here… and society still works."

She squinted at the moralizing stuffed dog. "Sometimes you make up rules just to be bossy, Cant!" Then she pushed herself off the ground, and slowly got to her feet. "It's not fair if I'm the only one not sneaking and listening…"

Giving her think tank of history's finest minds a conspiratorial shush, Bea tiptoed downstairs to peek around the corner—and caught sight of her uncle for the very first time.

Ciel looked irked.

With one elbow propped up on the counter, hand holding up her head, she tapped her index finger rhythmically against her cheek as if a revelation might come to her, or a few moments more of idling might magically change something about Sigurd's letter.

It was quite the shift from her earlier guarded attitude—and in a certain sense more relaxed. A minute ago she wouldn't so much as look Ailn in the eye.

Now, she seemed content to let him stand by for her quiet stewing.

Still, it was infinitely preferable to the signature eum-Creid meltdowns that Ailn was getting way too used to.

"All things considered, you seem to be taking this pretty well," Ailn said. He shrugged. "If there was anything you wanted me to pass on to Sigurd, now's the time to let me know."

In response, Ciel spent a long time thinking—long enough that Ailn was starting to wonder if she would actually say anything.

"...Bea has never asked about her father," Ciel finally said. "It's odd, is it not?"

"Depends how old she is."

"She's four," Ciel said softly. "That girl is curious about everything, and yet not once has she asked why she's the only child in the village without a papa."

Quietly, her resentment gave way to guilt, the look on her face distraught yet searching, as if she's considered this question many times. "After some time, I finally understood. Bea… is being considerate for my sake."

Closing her eyes, Ciel hung her head in shame. "Four years old, and yet she bites her tongue to spare her mama's feelings."

Her eyes slowly opened again.

"Bea wants to know her father…" Ciel murmured.

She remained with her head bowed for a long moment—which didn't exactly give Ailn clear direction.

Furrowing his brow, Ailn kept his tone tactful. "Then what exactly do you want me to tell Sigurd?" He caught some tiny eyes peeking from around the stair's threshold, but said nothing.

"Let Sigurd know I'll be certain to pass on his signet to Bea when she's an adult," Ciel said, her voice flat. "I'll travel to Calum myself and ensure it's kept in a secure vault so that no matter what happens to me, she shall receive what is properly hers."

Then her cadence slowed to a hesitant crawl. There was tenderness in her tone she couldn't quite keep out. "And… let him know I hope that we can be a family."

It was astonishingly direct, especially when compared to Sigurd's letter.

Ailn stifled a wince, wary of setting her up for disappointment. "Are you sure he's gonna respond well to that?"

"By no means," Ciel muttered, her mouth momentarily twitching with annoyance. "That man has been content to haunt the periphery of Bea's life as if he were a spirit."

She straightened her posture, yet her gaze fell. "He's afraid he'll die as your grandfather Duke Aaron eum-Creid did. Rendered powerless by fear," Ciel said bluntly. "I would be shocked if Sigurd found the bravery to face Bea properly."

Ailn fiddled with his wrist.

"Then…" he prodded her to go on.

"Sigurd… believes actions speak with greatest clarity," Ciel said. She gave a bitter sigh. "That's why I believe he wants to try. Even if he has yet to realize it himself."

Her words were understanding, even though her tone was laced with raw hurt. "I'm sure I sound naive, putting so much faith in a man who… didn't even ask how we were faring."

"It's optimistic, to say the least," Ailn said, trying to manage her expectations without dashing her hopes. He certainly didn't know what was going through Sigurd's head. "But who knows? Sounds like you know him better than I do at least."

"Well…" Ciel made a complicated expression. "We have quite the history together."

As she peered around the corner, Bea's eyes softly drifted out of focus, and another scene came into view.

It was fuzzy. She couldn't see very much, because this was the first time she'd ever seen her uncle. The thread was thin, so she had to grasp it gently with both of her tiny hands.

Wherever she was… it felt really cold. But her uncle was there, smiling at her and patting her head, telling her the words she always wanted to hear.

'We're going to see your papa, alright?'