Memories and Shadows [Rune Factory 4]

Honor

Love is such a tricky thing. So intense at first, it cuts right through you like... like a well-crafted sword. And just as every person is unique, so is every love. I wanted him all to myself, but he wasn't made that way. He loved me—but not only me. He loved as he would, and left it to those he loved to accept him on his terms... or not. He didn't force anyone, he didn't hide anything, and had anyone refused him, he would not have resented them or loved them less. But no one could refuse him, so great was his appeal.

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"You... you can't be serious," I exclaimed, my cheeks flaming.

"But I am," he said softly, looking at me with his heart in his eyes, and I could not doubt him.

"But... then I must be dreaming," I said, still refusing to accept this new development. I was the Dragon Knight of Selphia, after all—the honor guard for a god! I couldn't be in love... could I?

He smiled, and shook his head. "No, you're not dreaming."

"But what about... aren't you and Xiao Pai...?" I didn't know what more to say. Even if I could love someone, I couldn't... I wouldn't steal away my friend's lover. That would be so... dishonorable. And some days, I felt as though my honor was all I had.

He sighed. "Yes, we are. And I love her. But I love you, too, Forte. I can't explain it, that's just how I feel, deep down in my heart. I've told her about it. I love her for who she is, just exactly as she is. But I love you for who you are, too. I feel as though I couldn't live without you—or her. That's just the way it is. I'm sorry. I can't offer you anything more than that, not at this time anyway. Who knows what the future holds?"

He turned and looked out across the valley towards the rising sun. "When I fell from that airship and landed here in town... well, landed on Venti, to be accurate! When I realized that I had no memories at all of my past other than my name... I felt as though I had died, and then at the very last moment, I'd been given a second chance—a fresh start in a new life. So I decided that whatever my past held, however I had lived before, from that moment on, I was going to live my life with no regrets. I don't mean that I want to be callous and hurt others, or to be inconsiderate of others, or anything like that. Hurting those I love would be something I'd regret very much. But... I will be honest and not try to hide things away because they're uncomfortable or different. That's why I'm here, telling you that I love you, even though I love Little Xiao, too. And if you can't accept that, it's all right. I'll understand. But at least now you know there is a choice to make, that I love you and want you to be more than just a friend, if you want to be."

"I... I see," I said faintly, overwhelmed. "I need some time to think it over, to decide how I feel about... about all this."

He nodded. "I understand."

We agreed to meet tomorrow, and that if possible, I'd give him my answer at that time. Then he left, and I stood there, still in shock. Finally, I straightened my shoulders and set out to do what I needed to do.

I knocked on the door—unusual for me, as typically I'd just walk on in, as close friends do. "Xiao? Are you there? I... I need to talk with you," I called.

Just as I was deciding that she wasn't in her room after all, I heard slow footsteps. The door opened, and she stepped aside to let me in, closing the door behind me.

"You... know why I'm here, don't you?" I asked, nervously playing with my helm. She nodded and waved me to a chair, then sat down on the edge of her bed.

"And...?"

She looked at me then, looked me in the eyes for the first time since opening the door, and I saw traces of tears there. But she only shrugged.

"What is there to say?" she said, matter-of-factly. "He loves me, this I know. But he loves you, too, and I know this as well. I am not his wife, or even his affianced. He is free to do as he wishes, and I will stay with him because I love him."

"But..." I didn't know how to go on, what to say.

She looked me over, and she smiled, though the tears sprang again into her eyes. "Forte, you are my good friend, yes? We have been friends almost since you first arrived here, many years ago. You are very dear to me. If... if I must share the man I love with others, I am glad at least it will be with someone that I care about and who also cares about me, yes? It makes it a little easier to bear...."

Then she hugged me tightly as she began to weep, and I thought about her words as I returned her embrace and her tears. If Piers loved Xiao and also loved me, then I knew he could love others as well, beyond just the two of us. We might have to share him again and again—who could say? And I wasn't sure if I could live with that.

The next morning, he was waiting there for me in the courtyard of the castle of the Dragon God, just outside the grand entrance to her reception chamber. His face was turned away from me, and I thought he looked a little wistful. I followed his gaze to the open gates—he was looking plaintively out the gates to the Selphia Plains, and who knows what else that lay beyond them. And I smiled a little to myself, because I thought I knew how he felt—that longing for action and adventure and to just get out and do things. He was a man of action, was Piers, and I liked that about him. It was something we had in common.

Then I started to think about all the other things we had in common, and was surprised that there were so many, really. He did like to tease me, which I had found embarrassing at first... but I realized I'd actually grown to miss it when he didn't. And then I realized that it wasn't just that—I missed him, if he was too pressed for time to be able to stop by and say hi. He took so much on his shoulders, bearing the burden of everyone's hopes and needs and wants.

Yet he never said no, and I knew for a fact that at times, he all but skipped sleep. More than once when I'd been on night duty, I'd seen him straggle in through the gate just before the dawn, stumbling with exhaustion, then see the lights on in his apartment in the castle for some time afterwards as he tended to his duties as Acting Prince or worked to fill the villagers' requests. Then, no matter how late at night he had worked, he'd be up bright and early again, tending to his fields—his own little rune factories, he once called them. Under his care, the once neglected castle fields throve, and the monsters he'd tamed positively glowed with health and contentment.

Thinking these things, I felt a curious tightness in my chest, and I realized... this was his life that I was thinking about—his new life here in Selphia—and I wanted more than anything to be part of it, even if that meant sharing him with others. And I realized that of all the people I knew, he had the biggest heart of any of them. If there was a man anywhere in the world who could love two, or even more, women, without diminishing either's share in his heart and his life, it was him. He had enough love for all of us, and I loved him with all my heart.

So I stepped forward, touched him softly on his cheek, and told him so.