These Reincarnators Are Sus! Sleuthing in Another World

It was over a decade ago when Ciel first met Puck.

Dawn in the forest behind the palace always felt cleansing; the damp air like linen steeped in honey, dripping softly over her wounds. Some days, that was only a figure of speech. But not that day.

Of course, Ciel didn't have anything as lavish as honey or linen. She had old rags and yarrow—and she was currently chewing away at it, trying not to gag as her teeth ground the hairy leaves into a bitter paste.

She spat the paste onto the rag, then a few times onto the ground for good measure. Some of the bitter taste still clung to her teeth. Nonetheless, she wiped the cuts carved all over her hands, gritting her teeth through the pain, the bitterness running to the back of her tongue.

'Picking weeds again, you dumb little mooncalf? Trying to say you don't need me, is that it?'

Words from the night prior slipped into her thoughts, and her hands froze. Just for a moment. Then they kept moving.

"I'm not… dumb," Ciel muttered.

She stared down at her hands—wet with spit and smeared with a green-yellow paste. Shame swept over her, prickling under her collar and creeping up through her face.

What other choice did she have? When her mother had caught her using the dregs of Hildebert's wine to clean her wounds… that night Marcella had washed them herself.

Shifting her weight, Ciel felt a twinge at her ribs and winced. She didn't want to move around too much today. Even as a dull hunger gnawed at her, she couldn't quite trust herself to tell the edible berries from poisonous ones.

She wasn't going to return home until she had to.

Her fingers were sticky, her belly faintly hollow, and the sun was warm on her back. Ciel let herself settle into the stillness. Alone was peaceful. All she needed to do was sit and enjoy the blue sky.

"Were those flowers tasty?" A voice asked from right behind her. "Must not have been since you spit it back out."

Ciel gasped, swerving around and holding her hands up in front of herself defensively. "Who…?!"

A young boy stood there. How hadn't she noticed? She wasn't an easy person to sneak up on. He must have been exceptionally quiet. No, more than that…

She stared at the ground in front of him, where the sun lit the grass. A tremor fluttered in her chest.

"You can call me Puck," the boy said cheerily.

But Ciel didn't look up.

"You… you cast no shadow," Ciel breathed out in disbelief.

"I think I might be sick with something," Puck laughed. "Know any good plants for pasting my shadow back on?"

Shaking her head, and rubbing her hands on her skirt, Ciel rose and ignored the stinging sensation. Slowly she lifted her gaze—scanning the boy's eyes without meeting them.

"Boo?" Puck tilted his head and raised his arms.

Ciel ran.

Back toward a house where she knew she'd be hurt, but probably wouldn't die—to a dark room with no bed and a single blanket, which reeked of lavender, lye, and something metallic. She hid in her room all day, where thankfully none came to find her. But she slept terribly that night, because she didn't even have a chance to put a poultice on her ribs.

The next time Ciel met Puck in the woods, the boy who had scared her to death offered her something she couldn't refuse. Food.

She likely shouldn't have trusted fruit from a stranger, but she was starving that day, and he came with an armful—even taking a bite of one first.

"They're thyrels," Puck explained, wincing as she tore through fruit after fruit. "Most folks won't eat them because they're too sour."

Covering her mouth and taking a moment to swallow, Ciel gave her own opinion on the fruit. "Citrons are sour. Eaten alone, they feel like they'll burn your stomach open." Her lips pursed a moment, and her eyes wrinkled with aimless envy. "These are… fine."

"I've got too many of them," Puck said. His voice warmed. "Come here whenever you don't have anything to eat."

"...Thank you," Ciel said. "I… will."

Then, after a beat. "How do I even find this glade again?"

"Second star to the right and straight on 'till morning," Puck replied.

"I'm sorry?" Ciel tilted her head.

"...Nevermind," Puck said, chuckling wistfully. "Just follow the thinning trees. You'll never get lost in my forest. I'll make sure of it."

"Then, I'll be sure to be back," Ciel said quietly.

She meant it. And she did.

Her vigilance stood little chance against the only consistent kindness she knew. Ciel began to visit the strange boy in the forest more and more—at first for fruit, and later for friendship. It took time. Not because she didn't like him. But because it took time to gather what little trust she had left in her heart.

A season passed, and a warmth had started to bud in Ciel's chest whenever she visited the boy. They'd sit side-by-side on a hollow log in a cozy little glade where the trees always leaned sunward to cast a comfortable shade. Most days, Puck stayed beside her in silence, content to listen to the way her voice carried through the forest.

"What about your father?" Puck asked one day.

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"My father is a charlatan," Ciel said. "His coin purse was supposed to save this family from ruin. But all he ever brought were failed ventures and more debt. That's why my mother treats me like this."

She bit gingerly into a thyrel, gripping it in both hands as if she were afraid someone might take it away. "When I was younger I thought he might take me away from here, once he succeeded. Now I know, he never will. And if he ever did… he'd stop showing up altogether."

There were times Puck looked at a loss, listening to Ciel. But she never held it against him. Just having someone to listen meant the world to her. It gave her something to hold onto whenever she had to return to the mansion and endure her mother's onslaughts.

For once she had a place just for her. She couldn't always be there. But she could always come back. Deep in her heart, Ciel wondered if this little glade in the forest might be a truer home than home.

One day, though, Puck showed her a strange trick.

'Blegh! It tastes like a mean pear!'

Ciel couldn't help but jump at the sound of a new boy's voice, and she glanced around looking for him.

But there was no one.

She laughed. The boy could move earth and roots like a mage. And he had no shadow. It wasn't so odd that he could conjure voices then, was it?

"And who was that supposed to be?" Ciel asked.

"Guess," Puck said.

"Someone I know?" Ciel tilted her head. "But the only boys my age I know are you and my cousins… Perhaps one of the servant's children…?"

"Here. I'll give you a hint," Puck offered.

'A Blanc scorns not providence, however modest. Victory must come, at times, from the most bitter of fruit.'

What an absurd thing to hear from the boy who just spit out a mouthful of 'mean pear.' Ciel was flummoxed. Somehow it sounded so very familiar.

"Alaric?" Ciel gasped, recognizing the stateliness and pride. She let out a breath that turned into a soft, disbelieving laugh. "That man who puts on war medals before his morning walk? Whose night robes bear the family crest?"

She couldn't help but imagine a little boy with all his shiny accolades pinned to his pajamas, and a real laugh slipped out—one that was deeper, freer than before.

Then, after a moment's thought, she froze.

"Was that something… he really said, then?" Ciel asked. Her hands settled into her lap, still grasping the fruit as she worked up the courage to ask what she really meant. "...Do you not age?"

"Not for as long as I can remember," Puck smiled.

"And how long is that?" Ciel asked.

"I can't remember," Puck said with an exaggerated shrug. "Long enough that all those adults in the mansion you live in were kids once to me. And their parents were kids. And so on and…"

He paused. "Let's just say I remember the very first Blancs."

Ciel shivered. The thyrel she'd just eaten suddenly felt so very cold in her stomach. Despite her instinctive fear, though, she knew that Puck had shown her nothing but kindness.

So, she chose not to dwell on it.

"The first Blancs…" Ciel said softly.

She fought her instincts, scooching closer to her friend on the hollow log, letting her mind wander where Puck was trying to take her.

She was searching for connection. To Puck, who was sharing something important. To Alaric, the proud war hero who haunted the mansion's halls, silent and unreadable.

"They all came here, then?" Ciel asked. "Into this forest. Became friends with you."

"Most children have a time in their lives when they decide to go play in the forest," Puck said with a fond smile. "When a Blanc wanders and gets lost… I come and find them."

'You must get hungry out here. Do you like chicken? I can bring you chicken.'

'No, no, no. You listen to me. I'm afraid those are the rules because I'm the older one.'

'I would love to live in the forest. You must love every day, sleeping under the starry sky.'

A chorus of voices emerged from the past, so many that Ciel couldn't keep track. All of them still children, many of them saying things Puck must have found awfully amusing.

For a moment, it felt like her heart might catch—like she was standing at the cusp of something vast and warm. She could almost feel the hands of her ancestors, reaching out through time to take her own. Just for that moment… Ciel wanted to feel like she belonged to the Blancs.

Then she thought of her cousins who wouldn't so much as come near her. She thought of the way the adults' eyes skimmed over her, like she was something shameful.

She thought of her family and she just felt cold.

"Even Alaric sounded like a spoiled little boy once, hm?" Ciel muttered.

"Oh yeah," Puck nodded. "He was a scared brat before he was ever a soldier. Funny how that turned out."

"...If you ask me, he never grew out of it," Ciel said bitterly. "Or else why would he avert his eyes when he sees me being… being hurt by my mother?" She bit her trembling lip. "Fearless of swords but can't grab a woman's dainty wrist?"

She turned her face away and wiped her eyes. Ciel detested crying in front of others.

"Does no one ever try to protect you in that house?" Puck asked gently. "Hildebert? Edmund?"

"Hildebert's only devotion is to his goblet," Ciel said. "Edmund… is domineering toward anything weaker than him."

Then she added softly. "...And my mother isn't weaker. Not even as she is now."

Ciel kept her eyes on her thyrel for a few moments, thinking of the children her uncles must have been—coming to this glade, perhaps sitting on this very log. A complicated feeling stirred in her, and she let her gaze drift back to the boy next to her, suddenly noticing.

He looked so sad.

"Do they remember you, Puck?" Ciel asked. "Any of them?"

"...No," Puck said. "Because when they get old enough, I take away their memories." He smiled sadly. "I watch over the Blancs, Ciel. I help them while they're still small. I'm their friend."

It wasn't easy for Ciel to do what she did next. Her arms were shaking as she did so, and she worried he'd take offense. Sitting on that hollowed log, in that tucked away glade, she gave Puck a hug. She squeezed tight, because she wanted him to know that she cared.

"That sounds… terribly lonely," Ciel said. "I don't know why you… have to do it. But if we ever have to part ways…" She found herself unexpectedly choking on the word 'part.' "I know I'll remember you in my heart."

The strange boy stiffened in her arms. And in that moment, Ciel understood: in his own quiet way, Puck—who always seemed at ease, who never asked for anything—carried his own kind of pain.

But then he said something she truly didn't know how to respond to.

"...Marcella said that too, once," Puck said.

"Is that so…?" Ciel asked.

"She had… such a bright voice as a child. She always sounded excited," Puck said numbly. "Now her voice is slow and quiet."

Ciel drew back from her hug in a soft and careful motion. But as she pulled away, she ventured what she so rarely did: a gaze into someone else's eyes. And the emptiness in Puck's as he stared off into the trees convinced her.

"I… should go home for today, Puck," Ciel said, clutching her shoulder.

"Mhm," Puck hummed. He was hardly listening.

So, Ciel left him in that glade. And if she were being truthful, part of her felt betrayed. The thought of her mother, loud and excited and childish was… painful. And Marcella had already caused her enough pain.

That hollow log, where Ciel could sit without worry—with a full stomach, where she didn't have to listen to her mother's insults… of all places, that should be left untouched.

"Of course she speaks in a fog…" Ciel murmured. "That's what poppy tears do to you…"

Though she wasn't fully conscious of it, something subtler lingered beneath her feelings of betrayal. A seed of doubt, planted in a mind that had always been churned by fear. It was a small thing. But like a vine in the forest, their friendship caught on it—and never quite walked the same way again.

"Is he always listening to us…?" Ciel whispered.