Whisperings from Daniela
"Hahh…"
Spirits join the night wind as they playfully fly around me. It is just the perfect degree of coolness for my heated body, and I cannot help but smile. The spirits laugh too. They fly around and eventually rise into the sky where they disappear.
"Asagi looked so happy today…"
I recalled our little dinner party. That scene, where we reunited with Gardo and Ness, old acquaintances from Fhiraldo. Asagi had laughed and enjoyed himself so much as we ate. Sometimes he would act serious when Ness teased him, but he always smiled, and then he would look slightly embarra.s.sed when Gardo commended him. Those smiles felt so genuine.
These two, who were now dozing off in front of me, do not know that Asagi has killed people.
I had to deal with that bandit"s head. It was on the first day of our arrival.
After Asagi finished playing with fire in the bathing room, I invited him to come in with me. And we bathed together. I gave his body a good scrubbing and then some. And he ended up quite exhausted and fell asleep right after. Just as I had intended. I do feel guilty about that, but I had my reasons.
It was midnight. Asagi had sunk into our bed. I slipped out alone and poked his cheek, but he did not respond. His eyebrows were somewhat tense, perhaps he was still feeling the aftermath, but he looked cute when asleep. I attempted to unknit those eyebrows of his, and he rolled onto his other side in annoyance. I chuckled.
And so I took the root of Asagi"s recent problems with me and left the room. The head of the bandit that was wrapped in many layers of cloth. It was now stuffed in a bag so that no one could see it. And like that, I went out into Replant"s night. My destination was, of course, the guardhouse. There were diners on the way that were still open even at midnight, but I did not feel like stopping. In a way, I had forced this action upon him, and that had resulted in a deep, deep wound. With the root of that in my vision, I could hardly work up an appet.i.te.
I saw a guard on patrol on the street, and so I asked for the location of the guardhouse. I had acted before actually finding out where I needed to go. Of course, I might have dealt with this at the gate that we first entered from, but these sort of things were best taken to the central guardhouse. As ultimately, some of the work required you to contact the central guardhouse.
The patrolling guard had initially mistaken me for a lady of the night and given me a contemptuous look, but a murderous glare caused him to jump back in surprise and point his spear at me. Hmm. Shoddy, but at least somewhat disciplined. This one might just barely be reliable.
"Excuse me, but there is something I need to ask you."
"Fi-first, you will stop looking at me like that…!"
"Ah, forgive me. Someone was looking at me with foul eyes, and I could not help it."
"Fffo-for that I will apologize…! But…"
He looked like he was ready to faint. And so I fixed him with a gentler stare and asked him where I might find the central guardhouse. When he was able to breathe easy again, he said that he would take me to it. But he backed off when I flatly refused and said that I would have no problem finding it if I knew where to go. It helped that he understood what I was capable of.
With the hefty bag in my hand, I opened the door to the guardhouse. There was a clerk there who looked at me through sleepy eyes, but he jumped up after hearing what my business was and ran to the back to call his superior officer.
"I am in charge of Replant"s central guard house at night. You can call me a.s.sam. I heard that you have some important business here. What is it?"
"I am Daniela. We suppressed a certain bandit ambush the other day. And I have here brought the head of their leader. I would like for it to be inspected."
"Hmm…it is in that bag then? Leave it here. You must wait in the back room until we are finished."
"I understand."
I handed over the bag, and the captain…a.s.sam, led me to a room in the back. Hmm. It reminded me of that room in Fhiraldo that I had to share with Asagi. One table. Two chairs. One bed. Bars over the window. A plain room. I sat down in the chair and stared up at the ceiling. I thought of Asagi.
Hardly any time had pa.s.sed since the incident with the bandits, and there was a shadow behind his smiles. Sometimes I would see a sadness in his eyes as he sighed. He seemed to have found heart again after that night we spent with Marie Elle, but the wound was still there. And it would take some time for it to heal. I could have made him feel good, and then we could have had slowly talked about it, but I wanted to be rid of this head, the cause of it all, first.
That was what I thought… But it seems that Asagi was able to relax a lot because of those two. I had seen it as a role that I had to fill. But for his sake, I am fine with the outcome. Well, I had been making my own plans while at the guardhouse, thinking of ways to cheer him up. But I was rather hopeless, as my thoughts quickly turned to more carnal ideas. I still had a lot to learn.