Side Colors Read online

  “How do you feel?”

  “I cannot sit up.”

  This was not a lie, but she still tried to say it as casually as possible.

  To double bluff, one told the truth.

  While his mouth said she was lying, his face betrayed worry.

  She looked at the leather bag he was carrying, then back at him with the same pathetic face.

  If he was going to be this charming, her position was not a good one.

  “Indeed…your color’s like a sheltered princess.”

  Evidently she looked poorly enough to joke about it, but since she hadn’t eaten, that was to be expected.

  “Still, I’m hungry.”

  “Ha-ha. That’s a relief.” Her companion smiled. “Well, then,” he continued, “shall I have some porridge made?”

  “I’m thirsty. Is that water there?” she asked, looking at the leather bag her companion carried. It was not overlarge and did not smell particularly of grapes.

  “Ah, no—you had a fever yesterday, so I brought some apple wine.”

  She couldn’t very well stay in bed at the mention of apples.

  When she tried to sit up, though, she remembered the heaviness of the blankets.

  “Ah, are you all right?”

  “Mmph…” Once she’d been able to easily move a giant tree felled by lightning to free a comrade trapped beneath it, and now she’d been reduced to seeking rescue from underneath a blanket.

  While worried, her companion happily lent her his hand.

  “I am sorry,” she said. With help she was finally able to pull free of the blankets and sit up.

  He also helped her sit on a pillow so that her tail wouldn’t be in the way.

  The human form was so weak.

  But that was precisely why it had worth.

  “If you were only half this agreeable normally,” said her companion wickedly. Beside the bed there was a shelf with a candle stand. Instead of a candle, he placed a cup there and filled it with apple wine.

  “Ah, but when I sleep agreeably in the wagon bed, you turn angry.”

  “Well, isn’t it unfair that I should be the only one awake?” He handed her the small cup, which she accepted with both hands.

  “Also, if I were too agreeable, you’d eat most of the food at mealtimes.”

  “Obviously—I’m bigger.”

  At these words, she grinned. “I’ll just have to grow my demeanor to match.”

  Her companion’s face strained in displeasure, but he seemed not to hit upon a good comeback. He scratched his head, irritated.

  It was nothing so ceremonious as respect or admiration—all the more so because he was meeting her gaze at her eye level, with a face that said he was determined to win next time.

  It was awfully comfortable.

  Not just that—the fact that he was truly trying to best her made her unbearably happy.

  Hurry and pin me! If she was to say this, she had no doubt that he’d turn bright red and get flustered.

  She smiled to think of it, putting the cup to her lips to hide this from him.

  However, it wasn’t the hiding of it that erased her smile.

  “Guh, huh?”

  She removed the cup from her mouth and regarded its contents suspiciously.

  Within it was a pale amber liquid.

  “What’s wrong?” her companion asked her.

  “Ugh…the flavor, it’s…,” she said, rubbing her nose and wondering if it had stopped working.

  She sniffed it again and detected very little apple scent and not much alcohol.

  She was suddenly uncertain.

  Her ears and nose were even more important to her than her eyes.

  “Oh, I thinned it,” said her companion quickly. While this came as a relief, in a twinkling that relief was replaced with a rising irritation.

  “Aye, and too much. I thought my nose had gone stupid!”

  “You had a fever, didn’t you? Hence, thinned apple wine.”

  He said it as though it was the most obvious thing in the world, but she did not understand.

  “Oh, right. Don’t you know about that?”

  “I’m a wisewolf—I know enough about the world to know there are things I don’t know.”

  “There’s a field called ‘medicine’ that’s been built up from people-accumulated knowledge over the years. When you collapsed, I went to the trade house and thankfully was able to look through a translation of a book on the subject.”

  The word medicine was not familiar to her.

  When the people in her old village were sick, they would boil grasses in water and drink it, and when injured, they would apply the grass to their wounds, but other than that, all they could do was pray to invented gods to aid them.

  But she was interested in the unfamiliar.

  She sniffed the cup again. “And what’s this about?” she asked.

  “Well, there are four humors in the body and four temperaments.”

  “Oh?”

  “The four humors are blood, yellow bile, black bile, and phlegm,” he explained proudly, counting them off on his fingers, but she believed not a word of it.

  Still, she kept quiet and listened.

  “Sickness happens when these humors fall out of balance—when you’re fatigued or breathe bad air or sometimes when the movements of the stars influence them.”

  “Hmm. Aye, I understand that.” She smiled faintly. “When the full moon comes out and my body tingles and throbs, say.” She drew her chin in and looked up at her companion, who she could easily tell was suddenly flustered.

  Goodness, but he was so naive for a male.

  “A-ah, yes, well, there is that, too. Just like the tides. So then, when the humors become unbalanced, you need to rebalance them by bleeding and the like.”

  “…Humans have the strangest notions.”

  “If you have a blister or boil, you lance it, do you not?”

  “Wha—!” She looked up at her companion, shocked.

  He grinned, at which she cursed her lapse.

  “Humans do, which heals them. Sounds nice, eh?”

  She turned away from him, ignoring his discussion of these savage methods.

  “That’s one way of restoring balance, but it must be performed by a doctor. But if they saw your ears and tail, who knows what mad disease they’d think you have, and what a fuss that would cause. So we can’t see a doctor. We’ll just have to cure you another way—by using the four temperaments.”

  She flicked her ears up and glanced at him with one eye. “And by that you mean delight, rage, sorrow, pleasure—all the emotions, right?”

  “Close, but not quite. The human body has four temperaments: hot, cold, dry, and wet.”

  Taking a drink of the mostly flavorless apple wine, she examined the palm of her hand.

  What he was saying was so obvious, she couldn’t help but wonder if she was being made sport of.

  “Also, you can affect those states with what you eat—because there are hot foods, cold foods, dry foods, and wet foods. Since you were hot, something cold—like an apple—is just right.”

  Or one could just say that humans were very good at ascribing meanings to things.

  That was one thing she could assert to, having watched so many human lives over the ages.

  If anything, she had to admit she was impressed at how they could imagine all sorts of interesting things, hopping from one to the next.

  “Well, if that’s the case, I would’ve preferred a simple raw apple.”

  “No, that’s no good. Apples are cold, but medicinally speaking they’re also dry. People who’re feeling poorly are already overdry, so you have to reverse that. And for that, you need a drink.”

  So that was why she’d been served this unpleasant colored water.

  Whether her companion had just learned this or had relied on it for a long time, he was explaining it so proudly that trying to tell him it was all meaningless would itself be meaningless. While huma
ns were all of a species, different nations had entirely different ways of doing things—that much she knew.

  So she had to admit it was not surprising that when it came to humans and wolves, the things they believed would be so different—and so she gave in.

  “And so do you plan on making me eat anything else?”

  “Yes, because you collapsed from exhaustion. Since you had a fever from the accumulated fatigue, first we had to cool you. Next, your body is too dry, so we need to replenish its moisture. When you run, you get thirsty, right? But moistening the body also cools it, and if you become too cool, you’ll turn melancholy, so we must then warm you. Then…”

  As he blithely continued, she sighed at having once shallowly looked forward to playing the patient.

  But listening to her companion go on, she realized that sigh, too, might be hasty.

  “So then, yes. We’ll take some porridge made with grain and sheep’s milk, add some sliced apples, and top it with cheese. Now with this, first the apples—”

  “Aye, that will do. I’d like to eat that. Nay, I fear I’ll faint again if I don’t. Do you want to see? See how pale I look. Hurry, you—go and bring it!”

  She could hardly stop her stomach from growling at the prospect of such delicious-sounding porridge.

  Even now, a drop of drool threatened to spill from the corner of her mouth.

  “…You’re perfectly well again, aren’t you?”

  “Ooh, I’m so dizzy…”

  Dizziness would never come at so convenient a time, but her companion was too softhearted not to reach out and steady her when she swayed and threatened to drop the cup.

  She snuggled into his arm, then looked up coquettishly. “Hurry and fetch it, will you?”

  Perhaps her face was a bit too close; her companion turned instantly red.

  It was hard to tell who was truly the ill one.

  However, she was starting to wonder if the queer human way of letting blood out of the body wasn’t rather wise after all.

  “Honestly…well, are you done with the apple wine?”

  “Mm, yes, well, I think I’ve had enough,” she said, taking the cup again and having a sip.

  Her companion had gone to the trouble of preparing it for her, after all.

  She would’ve felt bad if she’d refused the drink simply because it tasted bad.

  “And make it a big serving of porridge, too,” she said, to which her companion seemed to have nothing to say in reply.

  She honestly didn’t know how long she waited.

  In any case, he didn’t return immediately, and once she snuggled back under the blankets, she fell right asleep. She awoke only because her nose was tickled by a scent tempting enough to rouse her.

  However, she did not feel well—not because of her physical condition, but rather because she’d had a bad dream.

  It was of her homelands. And of the wheat fields.

  The dream brought homesickness, yes, but also terrible disgust.

  It was about a time when, as a being who stood above many others, she had to assume responsibility for them.

  The world was the forest, and if the soil was not strong, trees would not grow. So the Wisewolf of Yoitsu had to be its foundation, strong and true. If she abandoned that duty, the forest would quickly wither.

  It was not a favor asked of her; it was simply a responsibility that someone had to shoulder.

  Then she realized that around her neck was a heavy, heavy shackle.

  She wasn’t sure since when it had been there—perhaps since her birth.

  She was different from her surroundings.

  Even if she assumed human form, they would always know she was different—grotesque.

  She was relied on for her strength, feared for her size, prized for her usefulness.

  She and her kind thought it natural to serve in this capacity, and so they did.

  They were all of one mind that there was merit for them in doing so.

  But the worshippers required majesty of their gods, in addition to favor. If the objects of their worship were meager, after all, how could they expect those gods to be able to bestow blessings?

  Though she had never asked to be worshipped, she was unable to abandon these worshippers and was thus trapped.

  Without anyone to worship, they would fade with the seasons, lost to fear, madness, and cruelty.

  She knew it was foolish, but no matter how she suffered, she couldn’t abandon them.

  She’d never asked for this and never been asked, and yet—centuries passed.

  Something smelled delicious; she was accustomed to smelling tasty foods.

  But while her nose twitched at such things, she knew she would never be shown a welcoming smile.

  Not even from someone cheeky who didn’t know his place.

  “Can you sit up?”

  Her body had been gradually recovering, and now she had little difficulty in crawling out from under the blankets.

  Nonetheless, she shook her head, her eyes still heavy with drowsiness.

  The prison was long in the past.

  She’d been able to make her long-held dream into reality.

  To dance and play like a cub. To be selfish, to be powerless.

  And to be protected by someone.

  “Honestly—if I ever fall ill, I expect you to return the favor.”

  Having just woken and being still mostly exhausted, she must’ve looked like a cat dragged from its favorite sleeping spot.

  It was embarrassing, but having done it once, she couldn’t stop.

  “Aye, so long as you don’t mind treatment in the style of the wolves of Yoitsu.” She grinned to hide her self-reproach.

  In any case, her companion’s face twitched, but she was quite sure that if he asked about that treatment, he would be very happy with the answer.

  It involved a lot of licking and snuggling.

  However, she was not so kind as to tell him without being asked.

  “Ah, ’tis well. My nose is very keen—I’ll know long before you turn this poorly and do something about it.”

  After saying this, she thought about adding something about not chatting happily away with some other female while not noticing him until he collapsed but decided against it.

  Happily—yes, he had looked very happy, but her companion knew what his job was.

  And in that moment, chatting nicely with the girl had been his job.

  So he said, and she believed him.

  “Still, I’m sorry I didn’t notice. But I wish you’d have said something. In any case, yes—I’m rather thick,” said her companion, shrugging.

  “You surely are. I might have a much more serious sickness, and you’d doubtless still fail to notice.”

  “Huh?” He looked at her questioningly, but she would not explain.

  He was too thick to make the connections.

  She was lovesick.

  But she knew it would be a long time before he noticed it.

  “’Tis nothing. Never mind. Now food!” she said, which her companion childishly frowned at.

  Humans judged things based on their appearances.

  Being bested by someone who appeared to be a young human girl was frustrating.

  It was a complicated emotion but not uncomfortable.

  Even in the book of scriptures that circulated around the world, there was the satirical story of God dressing in rags and walking the roads, thereby losing all sense of formality and ceremony.

  “You’re quite the princess this morning,” he grumbled, but nonetheless he removed the lid from the pot of porridge and picked up a dish.

  No knight would ever speak so rudely to a princess.

  She grinned. “Would you kindly spoon-feed me?” she asked by way of presuming on him.

  Her companion froze, stricken—a face too pathetic by far to ever be suitable for a knight.

  “’Twould have been better with more apples.”

  “Likely. Cold apples increas
e one’s melancholy.”

  “Are you…mph…are you saying I’m too cheerful?” she said as he brought the last bite to her mouth.

  She’d had two full bowls’ worth.

  The first few, probably thanks to his embarrassment, had been a bit wobbly and sloppy, but either he turned serious or got used to it, and she’d been able to enjoy the last half of the meal very comfortably.

  Being able to eat just by opening her mouth and waiting made her feel like a baby chick.

  It would be nice to be able to have her grooming done this way, too, but her tail was too precious to entrust to anyone else.

  She burped quietly, which her companion furrowed his brows at a bit.

  “Also, recall how many apples I ate earlier in town.”

  “Ah, yes! You couldn’t even finish them, so that’s why you turned so melancholy.”

  “Mm.”

  It occurred to her that he was quite right, but not because of the apple’s flavor or essence or any such nonsense, but simply because she’d bought too many.

  “I don’t want to eat any more apples for a while,” said her companion.

  She’d claimed she would be able to eat them all, but in the end he’d had to help.

  However, she’d learned that eating with company was much more pleasant than eating alone—not that she would ever say so.

  “Still, if you can eat this much, you’re on the mend. Tomorrow or the next day you should be well again,” said her companion as he gathered up the dish and pot. “Not that there’s any need to rush. We’ll be on the wagon again for quite some time once we leave. Might as well rest up.”

  He was too softhearted to recognize a lie as a lie.

  No—it was more that he was so trusting that he would never suspect her of lying.

  Feelings of guilt welled up in her chest, but when she looked up and met his eyes, her breath caught.

  Those worried eyes of his.

  This was not good at all.

  “…I’m sorry to have…delayed our travel,” she said when she realized this.

  She couldn’t let this opportunity escape.

  “I gave up on hurrying when I picked you up. And they say hard times make for stronger foundations, don’t they? I regained my good credit in this town, and it’s probably better than it ever was. When I think about that profit, what’s two or three more days?”