These Reincarnators Are Sus! Sleuthing in Another World

Ennieux's eyes swam. By this point in the night, she'd completely sobered up. But the flush in her cheeks and the dizzy blur of her gaze could easily have been mistaken for someone still muddled with drink.

"Love? Are… are these words of pity? Or—did I misunderstand?—I don't understand—" Ennieux stammered. "Me? You love me?"

"...That's right," Horace said. "From the bottom of my heart."

"Pray—hold a moment—" Ennieux pleaded, the goldenvows she held slowly lifting as a clumsy veil. She fell silent, as if faced with a riddle too great to solve, her eyes wavering and trying to find their focus. "Since when…?"

"I've loved you since the moment we met," Horace said softly.

"S-surely you don't expect me to believe that, Horace," Ennieux said, her voice taking on a brittle note. Her body tensed and drew in, almost flinching as if braced for a cruel joke. "I… I won't have you trifle with my feelings, not even for our children—"

Her voice cracked at the end of her words.

"I wouldn't, Ennieux," Horace said, unsettled by the weight of her doubt. "Is it so unthinkable to you?"

"It—it simply makes no sense—" Ennieux started. Then she trailed off, and as the silence stretched on Horace felt his heart start to sink. There'd never been any guarantees she would reciprocate his feelings.

She was so close to him, that Horace could feel how her trembling had slowly stilled. Her shoulders sagged. As the bouquet sank into her lap, Horace felt certain he knew what was coming.

Rejection. Perhaps a gentle one, softened by their years of marriage, but a refusal all the same.

Feeling his heart in his throat, and ready to swallow it back into stillness just as he always had, Horace started to call his early surrender. "I… won't burden you any further, Ennieux. I just…"

But he was interrupted by a firework—the boom of a particularly large one. Its emerald bloom sprouted through the sky and caught Ennieux in its light.

"Then…" Ennieux whispered, "Why were your first words so cruel…?"

Bea was brushing up against the limits of her articulation.

"'Cause we think the shadows are the real stuff, but the real stuff is actually outside… That's why Platopus says there's a big fire outside everyone's house."

"I don't… Whose… What house?" Sophie asked, exasperated, with Platopus still perched absurdly on her head. Her fingers twitched with the faintest desire to pitch Platopus clear of her own 'house.' "Was his cave truly his house or a metaphor?"

The little girl's eyes started to brim with impatient tears. "Platopus just… mixes stuff up sometimes. It's real and also a meta-four…"

Sophie hadn't been trying to upset Bea. She was simply confused and frustrated. Were sincere questions not a form of engagement with a child's imaginative world? But no matter how she stole glances at Sigurd and Ciel—who kept watchful eyes on their daughter from across the way—they made no move to collect her.

Their child looked like she was about to cry. Why were they not fetching her? Perhaps they were bad parents. Sophie wanted to go back to her room and sleep.

Bea tugged at her sleeve, having apparently blinked her tears away.

"How come you watch the fireworks when they make you sad, Aunt Sophie…?" Bea asked, with a look of concern which truly did not fit a four-year-old.

Sad? Sophie's fingertips grazed her own cheek as if searching for assurance. Yet, in the course of using her tactile sense to check her own emotions, she nearly dropped Platopus.

Bea frantically caught the semi-aquatic recluse.

Why had she come? For years, she'd only ever attended to remain at Renea's side. But now the pretense was over, and Sophie stood as the Saintess herself. There was no practical reason left.

Yet today, more than ever…

"I used to… find more joy in them when I was young, is all," Sophie finally said. Her brow furrowed as she questioned the wisdom of speaking so honestly to such a young child. "I thought, somehow, they might look that pretty again."

"So you're sad 'cause they don't look that pretty, anymore?" Bea asked quietly.

"I did not say I was sad."

"Platopus told me—" Bea started.

But she trailed off, nose wrinkling as if she realized Platopus's philosophical authority had little draw in Sophie's world.

Bea fell into quiet thought again. And that was when a murmur passed through the ramparts: the grand finale was about to begin. Each year the night was crowned with a single firework, better than the rest, always striving to outdo the one from the year before.

A whistle cut through the air, rising faster, its arc reaching higher—until it broke the sky's ceiling and unfurled with a dazzling silver shimmer.

The sight made Sophie's breath catch. For a second her heart swelled. And then it ached. Because what she saw drew to mind a likeness which she wished she'd never noticed.

It reminded her of the divine blessing. Except there were few whose holy aura could rival the burst of light and clamor above. And two of its most renowned wielders were always at the end of Sophie's straying thoughts.

Her parents.

His first words…? Horace felt a pit in his stomach.

"I beg your pardon," Ennieux swallowed, forcing steady words through the lump in her throat. "I know you are not the same man as when you were clouded by drink."

"When I was still clouded… with drink…" Horace repeated slowly.

A cold realization washed over Horace. Years of distance were cast in a new light—aches born of a wound he might have uncovered, had he only dared to reach beyond himself. And for a moment, he couldn't speak.

He finally noticed the drunkard's ghost, staring at him from the shadows of their marriage.

"It—it's just that sometimes, I c-cannot help but—" Ennieux's voice started to break, "picture contempt so vividly, it becomes more real than… what's in front of me…"

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

A shaky whisper turned into a quiet sob. "I-it never… goes away…"

The night's final firework continued to burst in stages, a crescendo of jewel–bright colors blooming one after the other until they intersected into something opalescent. It was like a glittering pearl, spreading through the sky, its continuous roar smothering any chance to speak.

And there beneath it all was Ennieux, cast in the restless light. Her lips trembling. Her face starting to crumple. Small shudders passing through her shoulders with every hitching breath. At last, Horace saw her as she truly was.

Someone like him. With loneliness she'd been hiding and hurts she'd been pushing down. Someone who'd listened quietly when they heard they weren't worth loving… and accepted it.

With aching clarity, Horace saw everything they'd let their phantoms take, and realized he was unwilling to surrender more. No time to listen to gossips in a break room. No reason to be spoken over by a drunk who wasted away on a hill. No excuse left to keep acting as the ghost of a man who'd tossed his heart out with a bouquet.

None of them were here. None of them were real. But Ennieux was right there.

Almost without realizing, Horace's hand brushed her cheek, and her eyes turned his way. Her chestnut irises trembled when their gazes met, looking for a moment as if they might skitter away. But her eyes closed. Her lips softly parted. And she lifted her face toward his as he leaned in to kiss her.

By the time they drew apart, still near enough to feel each others' breath, the fireworks had begun to slow, and the din had died down enough to speak.

"I've always loved you, Ennieux," Horace said softly, as he took one of her hands in his. "From the moment you saved me, through all these years. I didn't think I deserved you, so I loved you quietly and from far away."

"H-Horace, your hand is—" Ennieux stammered with sudden realization. "Just where did you pluck those goldenvows—?"

"Somewhere in the forest approaching the castle," Horace murmured. "I'll be alright, Ennieux. I just wished for you to know the truth. My silence has never been out of scorn. The man who hurt you then isn't the man before you right now."

He brushed a hand through her hair, gently. "All I can ask… is that you'll believe me."

For a moment, it was all Ennieux could do to gaze back. Her eyes glistened, and she gave a quiet nod.

"...I do."

As bright as Saintess Celine's blessing, whose divinity came as radiant pillars piercing the dark. Louder than Sir Aldous's aura, which cracked and boomed as it burst forth like a dragon. At its peak, the spectacle had been as wrathful as it was majestic.

Yet it waned all the same. The roar died down. The colors lost their brilliance, slowly washing out. The sparks dwindled into nothing, until the sky faded to black. And in the sudden dark, Sophie was struck by an emptiness she could not understand.

"Is that… it?" Sophie mumbled.

She felt Bea's tug on her sleeve again.

"I think I gotta go back to mama and papa, now…" Bea said. "Our sleep time's already late..."

"...So be it. Then sleep well," Sophie said.

Seeing Bea patter off again, Sophie gave a sigh of what she thought would be relief. But once the four-year-old had left, and all that was left was an empty sky—

She felt an inexplicable sense of grief, though for what she could not name. And Sophie found herself so unsettled by it, that when her sleeve was tugged by a child she didn't hear return, she flinched. Just barely.

"Is it not sleep-time?" Sophie asked, a bit impatiently.

"I heard mama tell papa she wanted to stay outside for just a few minutes… And mama doesn't ask for stuff a lot," Bea explained. "I think she had a lot of fun at the festival and doesn't want it to end…" She tilted her head. "What are you looking at?"

"Nothing," Sophie said. "Just… the sky."

They didn't say much more after that. Bea just stood near Sophie, occasionally turning her toy around as if it were saying something.

It seemed Bea had given up on trying to get her to 'listen' to Platopus's lectures.

"...How would you know if you've found the light?" Sophie asked, despite herself. "How can you tell it from the shadows?"

Sophie wasn't sure what sort of answer she was hoping for.

She didn't particularly enjoy being out here. Nor did she care much about the Festival of Light. Yet the thought of returning to the northern wall tomorrow, and resuming her endless duty of defeating the shadows seemed especially miserable.

Bea peered up at Sophie thoughtfully.

"He says… the shadows will hurt to look at 'cause we still remember how stuff is supposed to be."

"That does not seem helpful," Sophie said.

"Platopus is usually not very helpful…" Bea agreed regretfully. "He says… the light is all the good stuff. It's everything that's pretty. And it's all the right answers too. And… we get triangles from it…?" Bea squinted at Platopus. "Sometimes you say good stuff and make it too complicated at the end, Platopus…"

Sophie sighed. Somehow, she felt like she'd just used the last reserve of energy she had left. "I will head to bed myself, Bea. Good night."

Just as she turned toward the stairwell, however, Bea tugged one last time on her sleeve.

"Aunt Sophie…? If you feel sad or scared and don't tell anyone, no one's ever gonna know," Bea said quietly. "That's how you get stuck in the dark…"

The memory of the fading light flickered through Sophie's mind. But she dismissed it, conjuring the softest ribbon to poke Bea's nose. "If anyone in this empire has no cause to fear the dark, it is me. Good ni—"

Sophie was stopped by the profoundly sad look on Bea's face. One she didn't think a child that young was capable of.

"Big lights make big shadows, Aunt Sophie…" Bea said. "You—you gotta keep looking for the big light, even when you think it's not real… 'Cause you might just be in a really big shadow."

Lips parting wordlessly, Sophie just stared at the child. Then, after a moment, she asked Bea a sincere, painful question.

"...And what if the light's faded?" Sophie asked. "What recourse is left then…?"

"I don't think it ever goes all the way out…" Bea said.

Through the extramural space walked two sibling pairs, cousins to each other. The fireworks had long ended, and the stretch outside the walls lay empty.

Their voices echoed across the way.

"You forced her to leave the walls?!" Camille fumed. "Next, will you make my father dance?!"

"No one—no one forced anything, Camille!" Renea flustered. "S-she's having a wonderful time with your father right now! I'm sure of it!"

"I'm not even sure what you're accusing me of," Ailn said, baffled. "Using my ducal authority? Pulling a sword on her?"

Unlike the last time these sibling pairs walked together, they were quite lively. Since that time, a great deal of politeness had been used up and forgotten somewhere.

"Camille is just anxious…" Nicolas said. "As am I. I've never known my mother to leave the city's walls…"

Not only that, but it had been nearly two hours since the fireworks. All of them were bewildered that the two had yet to return.

"Mother, if you ask of me my hair—no, she would hate that… Mother by the honor of the Azure Knights, this idea was not mi… Mother, I—the only thing I cannot renounce is my knighthood—" Camille's eyes shook as she practiced her apology.

"One of those apologies sounded like you were throwing us under the carriage…" Renea muttered.

At last they reached Beacon Hill, where a sight greeted them that from Ailn drew a long, relieved sigh. "You were all so anxious, I almost started to believe someone had been kidnapped. This is just about the happiest ending, right?"

But neither Camille nor Nicolas responded. They could only stare, unable to believe their eyes. At the top of Beacon Hill, their parents stood embraced beneath the moonlight, slow-dancing to the night's natural music.

They were in their own little world, such that neither even noticed all the meddling children.

"I should have realized it sooner, Ennieux," Horace whispered against her ear. "The world led me to you. Carrying me away from one that had lost all of its color. I was… always meant to meet you."

"That—" Ennieux's chestnut eyes shimmered, and slowly tugging at her lips was a wavering smile. "T-the poetics seem a touch tangled, Horace…"

Her gaze drifted back to Horace's hand, scratched from when he'd gathered the bouquet, and her expression faltered.

"It's nothing, Ennieux," Horace assured her, keeping his voice warm and light.

"It's not nothing…" Ennieux mumbled.

The pairs of cousins had already left them to their own devices, afraid of ruining what seemed like the rarest of moments. Thus, no one saw or heard but the two of them. The shimmer of light gathered around their hands. The faint tremble in the air.

For a delicate moment, it was as if the wind held its breath. Yet it found its courage, and a sound like a flute's gentle voice drifted through the night. The quivering light bloomed into a lovely glow, its luminous heart tracing tenderly along Horace's hand.

"Now it's nothing," Ennieux whispered, resting her head against his chest and closing her eyes.