Chapter 43: Something Like a Family
The small voice made Freya start, and though she already knew who stood there and waited for the little laugh that always followed a moment like this, this time nothing came.
She turned toward Laïa, understanding from that silence that something was wrong, and saw a small face far less cheerful than usual.
"...Can’t sleep, Laïa?"
"No..."
The answer was short, murmured under her breath, and it was enough to confirm to Freya that something wasn’t right, which came as no surprise after everything the little one had been through these past few days.
Freya sat down right on the floor and patted the stone beside her to invite her over.
Laïa came to sit against her, and Freya slipped an arm behind her back to draw her against her side.
They stayed like that a while, one against the other, in a silence Freya didn’t try to break, giving the little one time to find her words, until she finally let out what was weighing on her heart.
"Madam... does it hurt, to die?"
The question caught her off guard, but she quickly grasped what lay behind it, because the girl knew she’d faced death head-on a few hours earlier thanks to her skill, and a question like that in her mouth was bound to hide something else.
She could have lied, softened the edges, said what people usually say to children to lull them to sleep. She didn’t.
"Yes. It hurts, a great deal, even."
"Hmm..."
Laïa added nothing, her eyes lowered to her knees, her small fingers having started tugging at the hem of her sleeve without her noticing.
Freya let her come to it, and after a moment, the real question finally slipped out, barely audible.
"...Am I going to die one day too?"
There it was. So that was it.
"One day, yes." Freya didn’t look away. "Everyone dies one day, Laïa. Me included. I’m not going to tell you otherwise."
She felt the girl stiffen against her, and gently tightened her arm around her shoulders.
"But not today. Not tomorrow either. And not for a very, very long time, if I have any say in it."
"...That’s what Mom used to say too."
It came out all at once, very low, and Freya understood in that precise instant where the fear truly came from.
Ah... there it is.
The mother, gone not long ago. The village, all of it, wiped off the map. And this girl who had learned far too early what death was, and who had inevitably kept a fear of it deep inside.
Freya sat a moment without saying anything, because too quick an answer would only ring hollow.
She’s already heard "everything will be fine" a hundred times over. Treating her like a child to be soothed wouldn’t do any good either. So I might as well speak to her plainly.
Then, without quite knowing why, it was Aria’s words that came back to her. Those from that night, when it was her who wasn’t doing well, her who couldn’t breathe under the weight of everything she’d left behind. Aria hadn’t denied her pain, hadn’t pretended it didn’t exist. She’d simply shown her what lay beside it, everything that was still worth it.
So Freya decided to do the same, in her own way.
"You’re right," she said simply. "Your mom couldn’t promise you that, and neither can I. It would be lying to you, and I told you I wouldn’t do that. No one can promise that to anyone."
She felt the girl curl up a little against her, and pressed on before it could sink her further.
"But do you want me to tell you the thing everyone forgets to mention, when they talk about this?"
Laïa looked up despite herself.
"It’s that nobody knows when. Not you, not me, not Naïa, nobody. And put like that, it sounds terrifying, except it also means something else." She paused. "It means you’ve still got all that time ahead of you. Days, months, years, more things than you could even imagine. And if I were you, instead of spending it afraid of the end, I’d spend it living the rest."
Thank you, Aria. That’s exactly what you taught me.
"Take a look around you a second."
Laïa turned her head, not quite understanding.
"The meal earlier, with fried food everywhere and the Mycofox who singed his nose. Naïa smacking you on the head every five minutes because that’s her way of worrying about you. Mei going all red the moment anyone speaks to her. All of that exists too, and it’s even the only part that’s really worth it. The fear will always be there somewhere, I won’t tell you it goes away. But it only takes up all the room if you let it, and I don’t intend to let you let it."
Laïa didn’t answer right away, her eyes back on her knees, but her fingers had let go of the hem of her sleeve.
"...And what if it’s still too hard anyway?" she finally asked. "Even looking at all that?"
"Then you come find me, or you go find Naïa, and you have a good cry." Freya shrugged as though it were the most obvious thing in the world. "There’s no shame in it. You’re not obligated to smile when things are bad, you’ve got every right to feel awful. You know, I feel awful pretty often myself these days."
"Oh, that I’d noticed!" Laïa let out, a little laugh escaping her despite her still-shining eyes.
"...Say that again, I dare you." Freya grabbed both her cheeks and started pinching them.
"Aaaargh... stop... mercy..." the little one groaned, struggling against the far-too-solid grip of her mistress’s new body, but she was laughing openly now, and that was exactly what Freya had been after.
Freya finally let go of her cheeks, and Laïa immediately rubbed her face, half sulking, though the laughter hadn’t left her eyes.
"You can come here too, you know," Freya said without even turning around, patting the stone on her other side.
There was a silence, then a small resigned sigh from the back of the room.
"...How long have you known?"
Naïa stepped out of the shadow where she’d stood the whole time, arms crossed, a little stiff at having been found out.
She came to watch over her sister. That’s sweet...
"Since the beginning," Freya replied, a smile in her voice. "You watch over that little one like a mother hen, it’s not exactly subtle."
"I’m not watching over anyone," Naïa said, coming to sit down all the same, back straight, against her other side.
"Liar," Laïa giggled.
"You should be asleep, you."
Freya kept them both against her, an arm around each, and the silence settled back, lighter than before. Laïa ended up resting her head against her, her eyelids fighting to stay open, and even Naïa gradually relaxed, her shoulder leaning against hers.
They stayed like that a long while, saying nothing, just warm against one another in the middle of the smashed-up room.
It was good, that kind of silence. Far more than any words she could have found.
"...Madam?" murmured Laïa, her voice already thick with sleep.
"Hmm?"
"What did you pull today?"
Freya went still.
...Ah.
My draw.
"...I forgot," she breathed, almost to herself.
Naïa tilted her head slightly toward her.
"You forgot what?"
"My draw for the day. I didn’t do it."
"...Forgot?"
"Yes... it can happen, you know."
A very brief silence, then Naïa visibly held back a smile, with little success.
"You, madam, forgetting your draw?"
"Don’t say a word."
Does she take me for some gambling addict?
And despite that thought, Freya was already raising her hand to launch the Gacha, unable to sit still any longer at the thought of finding out what she’d missed, which was enough to make Laïa straighten up against her side, her tiredness forgotten in an instant at the prospect of finally seeing a draw with her own eyes.
"Do it, do it!" the little one perked up. "I want to see!"
[ Launching the Gacha! ]
The instant the wheel materialized in the air, every gaze locked onto it. Laïa held her breath, leaning forward, and even Naïa followed the whirl of letters and symbols with her eyes as it spun faster and faster before beginning to slow.
Then the wheel stopped.
[ Congratulations! You have obtained: Chopsticks, Rank G ]
Two perfectly plain thin sticks of wood appeared in her palm.
"..."
"What’s that?" Laïa asked, tilting her head, clearly let down that the great long-awaited draw had produced two bits of wood.
"This," Freya replied, rolling them between her fingers with a small smile, "is what we use to eat, where I come from."
"To eat?" Laïa frowned. "But there’s no point, nothing to stab with?"
"That’s just it, you don’t stab with them. Watch."
She settled the two chopsticks in one hand, worked them against each other to pinch an imaginary speck of dust, and the two girls stared as though she were performing a magic trick.
"Several countries eat like this, every single day. Noodles, rice, meat, you pick everything up with them. It takes a bit of practice at first, but after that, it becomes second nature."
"That looks super hard..." Laïa breathed, already miming the motion with her own fingers.
"And above all," Freya went on, her gaze drifting off a little, "back there, there’s a whole cuisine that goes with it. Dishes like you’ve never seen."
"Like what?" Laïa asked, already hooked.
And Freya began to tell them.
She told them about curry first, that thick, fragrant sauce poured over steaming rice, mild or spicy as the mood took you. Then, carried by her own words, she went on without even realizing it, as if it were all coming back to her at once.
Ramen, those bowls of steaming noodles plunged into a broth left to simmer for hours, with the soft-yolked egg set on top. Sushi, those little morsels of rice and raw fish that she described to Laïa’s horrified grimaces, before the girl admitted that "okay, fine, put like that, it does sound good." The grilled skewers sold on street corners, the pan-fried dumplings, the soft rice cakes, the fried noodles you eat standing up amid the noise and the steam.
The two girls hung on her every word, eyes shining, and even Naïa had given up pretending she wasn’t listening, her head tilted slightly toward her.
"There were whole districts where it smelled wonderful on every corner," Freya said, her voice softer now. "You could eat ten different dishes at ten different stalls and never once have the same meal twice."
She let the sentence fall away, and a small silence settled in.
...I actually miss it.
The thought surprised even her. Not the people, not really her old life, which she didn’t only have good memories of. But that, yes. Those smells, those tastes, those little nothings of everyday life she’d never thought to cherish while they were there, and that came back to her now with an almost painful sharpness in the depths of this stone dungeon.
She lowered her eyes to the two wooden chopsticks resting in her palm.
Funny. Even a Rank G item still manages to give me a good moment and good feelings. The Gacha really is the best.
"One day, I’ll let you taste all of it," she finally said, softly. "Not just the curry. All of it. Once we’ve got everything we need at the dungeon, I’ll cook you a proper meal from back there, with the chopsticks and the rest."
"Promise?" murmured Laïa, her voice already heavy with sleep.
"Promise."
The little one settled back against her side, smiling this time, and the silence came back down gently over the smashed-up room, warmer than the cold of the stone should have allowed.
Little by little, Laïa’s breathing grew slow and steady, and her head slid right against Freya, carried off for good by sleep. On the other side, Naïa had ended up giving in too, her shoulder leaning against her arm, her eyelids closed.
Freya stayed there without moving, a girl asleep against each side, gazing at the two little chopsticks in the hollow of her hand.
And while the two of them were surely already dreaming of all those dishes she’d just described, she gently closed her hand around them, her gaze lost on the streaming screens, and above all on the one posted before the entrance to Nymeria.
Come back soon, Aria. There’s a curry waiting for you too.