"ALL RISE!" The sun had barely begun to rise, bleeding a purplish orange into the sky as the village chief spoke in a low and pronounced voice that was much different than his usual amiable self. The glint in his eyes as he glared at the man chained to the black pole in the center of the crowd made his animosity clear to everyone present in the square. Casting my gaze toward the now standing men and women of the village around me, I saw there were many confused expressions as they looked down upon the man who sat, hands tied, in the mud. Of course, I was in the same boat as I stared in puzzlement at the plump-stomached Galvin whose eyes darted cautiously between the sea of people surrounding him.
"I knew it." I heard my mother gossip in a hushed tone with another woman behind me. "I told you didn't I Gerdel? That man is nothing but bad news. I wouldn't believe it if you told me he didn't have a few skeletons in his closet I said, remember?"
"Yeah, I remember, it's the same thing you said about every other man you talk about when you're drunk. You do have a knack for knowing these things. I'd be surprised frankly if there were any future crimes that I didn't hear about from you first." Gerda responded in a tone oozing with sarcasm as she picked her nose absent-mindedly.
"Of course! You can feel happy knowing you'll always be safe in my hands." My mother responded, only hearing in her mind what she wanted to, as usual.
"What's going on?" I turned to ask my mother as there was never such a time before when everyone in the village had been called together so suddenly without a clear reason.
"It's a trial, dear." My mother immediately turned away from Gerda and began to lecture me with an educational tone as if a completely different person. "When a man commits a crime-" "-Or Woman." Gerda interrupted her from behind, still picking her nose as she did so. The woman did it so often I wondered whether there was a lurkworm hiding in there sometimes.
"Oh hush Gerda, god knows no woman would ever commit a crime so heinous to warrant a trial like this." My mother rebuked in a matter-of-fact tone before turning back to me once again. "Like I was saying, when a man commits a crime so terrible to a degree where the village chief cannot afford to schedule a trial for a later time, the whole village must come to a stop and a spontaneous trial like must be held to immediately determine his punishment." My mother finished. I looked back towards the bound man once more as he sat upright with his back against the black pole.
"But usually, the trial is held at night, so the farm work doesn't get affected. Who knows what he did to make the village chief want to get him convicted so quick."
"We gather here today to hold trial in hearing of Galvin Bricklayer." As the Village Chief spoke the man's occupational name the expressions of the other brickmen in the crowd grew visibly tighter, evident of their shame in having one of their own put himself in such a situation. "...who has been accused, convicted, and condemned of the crime of unjustified assault and attempted rape." The Chief spoke out in a monotonous tone and the crowd, some who, earlier, even tried to speak out against the treatment of the man, froze up at his announcement. My eyes trailed towards the white-haired Elvi that stood timidly completely unlike her usual self, her head facing the ground, a few feet away from the village chief as Usra held her, whispering words I couldn't quite make out. My blood started to boil.
"I call now Elvi Healthmender, the victim of the crime, to come forward and speak on the matter." The crowd quickly broke into an orchestra of gasps and exclamations at the village chief revealed the victim of the crime to be the very same woman who saved the man's infant son. All eyes now watched the skittish white-haired girl as Usra lifted her hand off her shoulder and she walked up next to the village chief before raising her head to speak.
"..." Complete silence enveloped the village square that was filled with countless murmurs just moments before. And my face stiffened up, too, as I saw the large bruise that had spread across Elvi's face, swollen enough to cover a third of her eye and branded with the red imprint of knuckles.
"L-Latht night..." Elvi started, her missing tooth causing a sublte lisp in her speech. She rushed through her words as she scrambled to give a full account of what happened after I'd left her on her own last night. 'I was right there...' The thought sprung up in my mind. 'I was right there but I couldn't do anything.' The thought of her being taken advantage of as I lay down idle in my bed less than a hundred feet away spread like a weed through my head as she recounted the night in front of the entire village.
"Do you have anything to say in your defense?" The Village Chief asked the idle-sitting Galvin whose eyes remained set on Elvi.
"V-Village Chief sir I'm sure she's just misremembering things." He started in a slobbery voice, saliva dripping appallingly from his mouth as he spoke. "I was waiting in her room to surprise her when she got startled and hit her head at the door. After that, I immediately put her back in bed when my wife found me leaning over her and misunderstood the situation." The man scrambled together a story of fish flying through the sky as he looked sympathetically at the Village Chief glaring down at him.
"You... After that story she told you expect anyone to believe you? You were waiting in her room to surprise her!? You rarely leave your room other than to eat food or bring me to bed where... where you beat me!" Usra shouted from behind the village chief in a vindictive tone.
"Shut up about that already bitch! I get drunk sometimes and can't control myself we already talked about that with the village chief!" The man shouted back in an obviously worried tone as he looked set his eyes straight back to the girl victim herself. "I didn't mean to do anything wrong... you know that right? I was just a little drunk is all. You don't blame me for this... do you?" Elvi looked down and away at his gaze, grabbing her arm with her hand in another unusually fearful manner as her mouth quivered but she didn't speak a single word. I clenched my fists and ground my teeth together as the rage gripped me harder than ever before.
"Heh..." I felt my mind go blank and my ears start to ring as I heard Galvin's ill-contained chuckle from the center of the square. Before I knew it, I was halfway across the dirt field throwing a kick directly at the man's face. The first barely felt satisfying enough as it barely skimmed the side of his cheek before flying through open air. Remembering her gashed face, I lifted my foot once more to plant it directly on the bridge of his nose sending his head backwards onto the black pole behind him. Moving my boot away, I saw a small crack of red on his face start to spread and pour down his face.
'Not enough.' I sent down a fist to follow where my boot had met skin and felt the fracture of bones on my knuckles. I remembered her smiling face as she left back to her open window last night and grabbed his head to deliver a knee to his temple before sending yet another kick, this time to his gut. The man curled up in pain, coughing out blood... but I wasn't done with him yet. I raised my fist once more when I felt two arms wrap around my shoulder to stop me.
"TETSU!" The low whistle of wind returned to my ears as the ringing faded away and I was pulled back into reality by the shouts of my mother who had ran up to stop me.
"Tetsu, stop, please..." I felt the ache of my knuckles and trembling of my hand as the adrenaline slowly began to leave my body. The groans of the man finally reached my ears as I felt the warm blood and saliva drip down my fists onto the ground below. I turned to see the distraught face of my mother who looked intently at my quivering hands. The villagers surrounding us wore their own troubled expressions that were almost all directed at me.
"Please, back away from the accused." The Village Chief was the only man who seemed undisturbed as he continued to speak in his collected and monotonous tone. As my mother pulled me away, back towards the crowd. I looked back only to see the changed expression of Elvi which I couldn't quite make out as being shocked, or fearful.
"Anything else you'd like to say in your defense? Galvin Bricklayer." The Village Chief asked once again. Galvin didn't even lift his head up to look back at him, instead continuing to cough and whimper as it was now him who looked down at the ground below him.
"Good. As Village Chief, I declare Galvin Bricklayer undoubtably guilty of his charges. And as a result, sentence him to execution by beheading." The Village Chief spoke authoritatively before gesturing towards two men who brought forward a guillotine from the outskirts of the circle, placing it in the center of the village square before forcing the now begging Galvin into it's restrictions.
"WAIT! YOU CAN'TH DHO THIS, ALLH I DHID WHAS GET A LHITTLE RHOWDY WHITH SOME VILLAGE GHIRL THATH ALL! WHO CHARES ANYWHAYS? AREN'T I SUPPHOSED TO BE ENTITLED TO THE WOMEN UNDERNEATH MHY ROOF!? MHY ROOF." Galvin cried out, all manner of snot and saliva dripping from his mouth and nose as he did so. The villagers around him simply watched in acceptance as he succumbed to the fate he had put upon himself.
"I trust you have no problem with this?" The village chief asked Elvi in a more hushed tone as she remained unresponsive, her eyes staring directly at the man being put to death in front of her.
The men had finished securing the man into the guillotine and looked back towards the village chief who simply nodded towards them, sealing the fate of the animal who had once been Galvin Bricklayer. As most of the women looked away from the scene, herding their children away or simply covering their eyes in anticipation. Elvi stared blankly; her blue eyes glossed over as she remained looking until the man's begging ceased and his head rolled lifelessly, eyes wide and red, and the village square returned to silence.
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"So, how the hell did you end up like this again?" I asked the large red-haired man who winced in pain effeminately as I plucked the last of the thorns nestled in his arm, placing them carefully into a cylindric jar filled with countless others before shuffling it into the back of a shelf beside me.
"Haha, well, you know." The man held his neck in embarrassment with his free hand as I widened my still tired eyes, dying the world green, and slid my hand across his arm, releasing the mana inside to patch up the multitude of tiny indents in his skin. As I pulled away my now stiff and cool arm he continued. "The boys an' I were just having a bit of fun. I got a lil' careless is all."
"Well try to keep in mind what you're busy being careless around, ay? The next time you fall over into some random bush in these woods there might not be anything left of you for your 'boys' to pull back out." The man nodded but I could tell that my advice hadn't quite gotten through to his head.
- Crrrk- The familiar creak of the back garden door sounded from beside me as a white-haired girl made her way into the cabin. On my other side, the man's body visibly stiffened, and he froze in place, his eyes still staring directly at the girl with apparent fear.
"Llana... the whisper mints are still as yellow as they were last week. I already covered them in enough ciriquine for a week yesterday. So... if I don't get uproot them now, I can't be sure the whole patch won't go up in flames like it did last time. I need the spade..." Elvi spoke in the same lifeless voice as she'd had since a week from yesterday.
"Of course, go ahead and grab it from the closet dear." I spoke in the kindest tone I could summon as the girl walked directly up to the antsy lumberjack who's face contorted even more drastically in fear as she drew closer.
"Excuse me..." She stared up at the man with hollow eyes.
"Y-yes!?" he struggled to speak clearly as she stood in front of him.
"Could you...uh... move...?" She asked in the same careless tone. The man looked behind himself, discovering the closet door and immediately moving aside as he did, leaving me laughing inwardly in amusement as I saw him struggle to retain his bearings. Elvi entered and left the closet within a few moments, shovel in hand as she walked directly back towards the garden door before stopping halfway through.
"Did you... need something?" She asked, tilting her head at the red-faced man who had continued to look at her intently since she entered the cabin.
"N-no! I j-just want you to know that I we are working very hard to finish your c-cabin as fast as possible! We are sure it'll be the m-most grandest cabin in the entire woods!" The man sprayed out his desperate promises in quick succession. "A-and I am so very sorry for injuring myself so idiotically instead of focusing on work. I will be sure to make up for it as soon as possible!" The man quickly added on before turning around and crashing through the newly hinged front cabin door that tilted slightly as it swayed from his quick escape. 'If I have to get this damn door fixed one more time I swear..." I mumbled.
"Ah... uh, yeah..." Elvi nodded blankly as she watched the fleeting back of the terrified villager before, she too, made her exit to the garden.
'God knows what happened at that trial' I thought as I cursed the village chief for having placed my cabin so far removed from the village center. I'd heard of the rough details from the boys, but to think that pig got off with something as easy as a beheading. What Arton and the boys had told me from Elvi's story at the trial was enough to get dye my green sight white just thinking about. I would have tortured him enough to restore the memories of his past ten lives if he hadn't already been dead by the time I first heard.
The worst part, however, was having those two kids see what they did. No child should have to see something like that so early on in their lives, if I hadn't already been fully aware of the village chief's absolute deficiency of moral values, I would have begun to question them right there and then. And Tetsu, that poor boy... Having someone you'd assaulted regardless of the reason, killed in front of your eyes right afterward with no consequences... I couldn't imagine the effect it'd have on him.
'But to think that he would go as far as to set up an instantaneous trial before executing him on the spot...' The village chief I knew of was no man of such impassioned judicial values. When even I had come to him with the news of Usra's constant beatings that left her visiting me no less than thrice a week, he would not take any action beyond a simple lecture to the man. So, what makes the girl so important in his eyes that he's willing to put on such a show for her? I returned to look through the windowsill as I contemplated in silence.
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I swung my pole in perfect rhythm, not losing my grip nor my balance as I surveyed the white-haired girl that kneeled over a square of bright yellow plants in soil which she recurringly dug up, pulling on the heads of the yellow vegetation as she did so. She worked incessantly, not taking a break even to pat off her soil-sodden clothes as she continued to dig. "Still the same, huh?" Arton spoke from beside me taking the words straight out of my head as he, too, stared at the lone girl in the garden.
"Unn." I nodded before turning and watching Arton swing his pole, more fluid and focused than I'd ever seen him practice before. "You're really looking forward to that tournament, huh?" I joked as I adjusted my pace in an attempt to match his speed.
"Nah, huu. Just trying not to piss off Mr. Executioner over there." Arton responded in a breathy voice as he continued to swing his pole, in sync with his breathing.
"Really? You saw what that rapist was saying to her man, cut him some slack. I'm sure there were dozens of other people there who wanted to do the same thing, but just didn't have the guts to walk forward." I said, clicking my tongue at my lack of courage in the memory of the situation.
"Speak for yourself. That kind of beating isn't something you just do in the spur of the moment." Arton responded, turning his neck to watch the person in question as he leaned over my brother who looked a lot sloppier than usual today.
"No, right hand below, left on top Rafal. You understand? On top." Tetsu spoke in the same gentle voice that still seemed a bit off as he tried to help correct the form of my incompetent little brother.
"Y-y-yes, s-sorry about that T-tetsu." The numbskull stumbled through his words, clearly still teething with fear at the slight frustration in Tetsu's voice. 'We should at least be trying to treat him normally like we usually do...' The words stayed inside of me as I watched the usually unstoppable Tetsu hold his head in surrender for the first time in my entire life.
"You know what? It's fine, really... You might just not be cut out for this, Rafal." The giant spoke words of resignation I never would have thought I'd hear from him ever. My shock wasn't unique, it seemed, as I almost immediately also felt the gusts of air coming from Arton's swings from beside me come to a halt. "We've tried this, for what, almost four years now? And you've barely even progress from the first form, we're 6 months into our training for the tournament and you still can't even get your grip right. I think you should just go ahead and quit Rafal, I'm sure there're a hundred things else you'd be better at than this." Tetsu was relentless in his words, not stopping even to look at the tears that quietly welled up in my little brother's eyes as he gave him his unmasked 'advice'.
"Y-yeah... you're probably right..." Rafal choked out as he held his head down, reigning in tears. It wasn't long after that he dropped his training pole on the ground before running away despondently back towards the path that lead to the village, passing by the brickmen working on Elvi's cabin as they stared at Tetsu with observing eyes. "What are you looking at?" Tetsu growled at the gawking workers who quickly turned away to return to their tasks. I watched in shock as the inspirational Tetsu I once knew who would always preach the value of a strong mindset over all obstacles lash out in such bitterness.
"Hey-" I started to walk towards him before an arm reached out over my chest, stopping me. Arton stared directly into my eyes as he shook his head in protest of what I was about to do. I grabbed his hand and pushed it away before continuing on to talk to Tetsu myself.
"Hey, listen, I don't know what's been going on in with you since what happened last week, but you can't take it out on Rafal like that." I spoke with more conviction than I knew I had as he turned over to look at me. "Last week? I don't know what you're talking about." He responded in a sober tone that told me he had every intention of playing dumb regardless of what I said.
I started to get a little bit angry. "Whatever, point is you can't just be shouting at Rafal like that. He looks up to you, you know? You better go apologize to him or else-"
"Or else what? What are you going to do about it?" The usually calm Tetsu brough his face down to mine as he glared fiercely into my eyes. I recoiled at his aggression as I felt my previous rage wither away instead replaced my fear of the giant in front of me.
"You can't make me do anything. Nobody can make me do anything, you get that?" Tetsu let out a few last words before grabbing Rafal's pole from the snow beside us. "You two get back to training, we're going to need a lot more practice to make up for one missing member." He spoke as he walked past us back towards Llana's cabin.
"And what about you? Where are you going!?" I shouted across the field, my confidence returning now that the asshole was a couple dozen feet away from me.
"I'm taking the day off. I train enough for all three of us anyways so you shouldn't have anything to complain about!" He shouted back poisonously across the field, and I winced at the truth behind his statement. I had no business discussing his commitment to the sword. Arton and I watched in silence as he walked into the cabin, slamming the door shut behind himself.
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"You ready?" I asked calmly to the white-haired girl who sat tying together her bootstraps on the cabin stairs.
"Yeah... just give me a second..." She said, before standing up and running back into the cabin where I saw her exchange a few words with the still seated Llana, her tiny head buried in a notebook as usual, before walking back outside.
"Let's go..." She answered in the same fragile voice she'd been using since last week. We both walked through the muddy forest path before veering off to the left onto the beaten trail that led toward the village. It had been almost 4 days since Elvi began to stay with me and my mother. And although we'd been closer to each other in these last few days than ever, there was barely a word spoken between us since. The walks home were filled with silence and the morning's over were hardly any different.
The silence left a good deal of room for my thoughts to surface as I spotted the small sized footprints of Rafal's boots on the muddy path ahead of us. I remembered the terrible words that I had shouted at him earlier and cursed myself for being so obtuse. The memory of Rafal's and Reltin's fearful and mournful faces haunted my mind as we continued to walk in silence through the damp, wooden village gate.
"Tetsu..."
The very similar image of my mother's shocked face during the trial popped up in my mind and I was dragged back into the memory of that day. The hot blood dripping down my fists, and the sight of the curled-up Galvin that whimpered in pain as he lay down in the mud, his hands bruised by the chain that kept him anchored there.
"Tetsu."
The final image of his lifeless eyes as his head rolled forward onto the same muddy ground, I had beaten him into. His blood spilling over it, gushing out like boiled fruit into the surrounding grass. And, for what? All for some girl that I'd only just met? Some outside that couldn't even tell us her own mother's first name? It was all her fault, if only she hadn't come there would be no reason for any of it to have happened. She'd caused it all.
"Tetsu."
"What!?" I shouted in response to Elvi's calls.
"T-thanks... I never got to thank you for what happened..." She said, her blue eyes looking up at me as she attempted to force a smile. "So... thank you, for everything."
At her words the previous rage and regret inside me all faded away, her tiny smile tugged at my mind as I remembered all the cruel and appalling things actions that the man- the man that I helped kill had done to deserve it. The last remnants of guilt in my heart faded away as Elvi's final words that night rang in my mind. I was put to ease as I promised myself to apologize to Rafal and Reltin as soon as I finished taking her home.
Elvi walked cautiously down the glassy wood stairs leading to the front door of my family's cabin. "Be careful." I reminded her.
"I'm fine…" She responded.
"I can get a shovel to clear it out first, if you can just wait a bit."
"Really... it's fi-" Elvi responded as she tiptoed carefully down the sheets of ice before slipping unceremoniously, falling backwards as she did. I lunged forward quickly, grabbing her arm to stop her fall as I held myself in place with the circular pillar holding up our porch shade.
"Phew" I sighed before speaking, "You should have wai-" I felt her shoulder pull away fiercely as she yelped in fear at my touch, flying backwards and pinning herself against the cabin wall as she glared back towards me guardedly. I looked towards her in shock as she slowly released the tension in her face and held her right arm with her left hand as she now often did.
"S-sorry..." She apologized in shame as her gaze fell down to the porch below us.
"I-It's fine... maybe I grabbed you a bit harder than I thought." I responded in my best attempt to not sound bothered by her sudden outburst.
"I... just don't touch me... please." She responded dejectedly before she walked ahead of me into the house. I felt a strange ache in my heart at her words, my gaze lingered on the door she'd closed behind her before shifting down to the ice on the stairs below me. 'Let's get rid of this.' I decided, setting aside my complicated thoughts for now.
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-Slrrsh- The slimy bowl of stew moved in circles as I swirled it absent-mindedly with the crude wooden fork in my hand. The stew itself looked to be a mix of different vegetables and even meat, ingredients of a kind that I'd never seen, but it hardly mattered to me. Even living with Usra she'd hardly ever put meat into the meals she'd cook for us, it was evident that the woman sitting across the table from me was doing her best to be 'accommodating' of my situation. I hated that.
"And she told me, right to my face, 'this chicken kinda looks like my husband did'. And that was why she couldn't bring herself to kill it! Can you believe it? Getting us in trouble with the Village Chief's men just because of her dead chicken-faced husband! Just remembering her telling me while she kept picking her nose, I almost wanted to slaughter it in front of her myself!" I continued to twirl my fork absent-mindedly as Tetsu's mother rambled on to her seemingly unaffected son.
"So, what about you guys? Anything interesting happen today?" She smiled as she put her hands together under her chin, waiting for a response. Silence permeated in the room as both me and Tetsu seemed to be more interested in waiting to see whether the food in our bowls would come to life than talk about the day we had with this woman.
"Tetsu?" I peeked up slightly as she spoke in a voice containing a thinly veiled threat and Tetsu's face immediately contorted before he put his fork down, swallowing the spoonful of stew he had just shoved in his mouth. This morning I'd heard yelling from across the field before Rafal had run off swiftly away from the rest of the boys who weren't swinging around their sticks as usual. I was a small bit interested in this.
"N- *Ach*. Nothing..." Tetsu responded after choking on his food for a second.
"Nothing?" Tetsu's mom's eyes narrowed into slits as she looked him nefariously in the eye. "Surely something interesting happened today, no?"
"..." Tetsu stared in silence at his mother in an unofficial battle before she finally opened her mouth to speak. "Rafal's mother came in to see me today." She spoke, and Tetsu's face immediately contracted at her words.
"I... I'll go after I eat..." The giant spoke in shame as his mother continued to eye him. "After you eat...?" She asked as she continued to glare at him unhappily. Tetsu's own eyes looked submissively between his mother's and the bowl of stew below him in a way that said, 'Please don't make me do this.' However, his mother did not move an inch as he sighed in silence before pushing out his chair and standing up. "I'll be going a bit." He said while I stared in confusion as he grabbed his fur jacket from a shelf near the front door before solemnly leaving through the front door of the house.
"He's a good boy." His mother started as soon as the door had closed behind him. "But still a boy. Please, forgive him for anything insensitive he might do to you..." I turned back towards her to see her staring in sympathy towards me. My blood boiled as I was once again reminded of that night. "Stop..." I spoke without thinking as she looked at me in confusion at my words. "Sorry... it's nothing. I'm... I'll head to bed now... Thanks for the food... " I stood up and pushed my chair back before walking out of the dining room and up to my bedroom door.
"M-my room is always open!" I heard her shout from behind me as I stopped to listen.
"You don't have to sleep alone, is alI I mean. I know it'll be a little strange for you, but th-there's really no shame in it dear. Especially after..." Her trailed off as I slammed the bedroom door behind me, unwilling to hear any more. Staring down at the unmade fur bed in front of me, I collapsed down onto it, shutting out all my thoughts as I stared up blankly at the empty ceiling above.
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