Memories and Shadows [Rune Factory 4]

Encouragement

Fear settled over the town like the first snowfall of winter, chilling everyone through to their very souls. The only one that seemed to manage to go on, unaffected by fears and doubts, was him. And I was helpless to comfort anyone, even the one I loved, for I had my own bogeymen to face.

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"I'm afraid," I whispered, hiding my face in the shadows of the evening so that he would not see my shame or my tears.

He stopped, and when I would walk away, he held me fast. "Of what?" he asked, and I felt some little pride at the genuine surprise in his voice. At least he didn't think me a coward, it seemed.

I took a deep breath. "I am afraid that you won't come back, yes? Every time you go, it seems you face something more dreadful, more terrifying, than ever before. You have already been forced into battle with a native dragon, yes?"

"A clone of a native dragon," he corrected me, "not Terrable himself."

I shrugged. What difference was there? "A clone maybe, but still with the power of the real thing, yes? And who knows what will be next! They already nearly killed you when they blew up that bridge. It seems it was a miracle you survived. And..." I hesitated, unsure if I should continue.

"And?" he asked, putting his arm around my shoulders.

I sighed and leaned against him. He was so strong, and he had courage enough for all of us—courage, yes, and something we needed even more: hope. Yet....

"I... I don't know what you have already faced, or what you will find waiting for you in the mountains, on the cold and lonesome Maya Road. But...." I paused, and took a deep breath. "But sometimes late at night, I can hear Leon in his room, having terrible nightmares... and it seems he is deeply disturbed by something that has happened or that he fears will happen. And... it frightens me. Because Leon is not a coward."

"No, he isn't," Piers replied slowly. "But no matter what lies ahead, it is still the path I must take. For Venti, for Selphia, and not least of all, for you. We have a dark cloud hanging over our town now, don't we? And I can see that it's affecting even you, though you try so hard to hide it and smile for me as you always do. But it's there, reflected in your eyes when you gaze at some distant, unknowable future, lost in your thoughts and your fears. I want to drive the cloud away, Little Xiao, from the town but most of all from you. I want you to smile again, untroubled by these nameless terrors. I want your future, whatever it may be, to be full of joy. So I must go."

A sob choked my throat then, a faint whimper escaping as I looked to the ground. It was so like him, to put others first, and to put the six of us he loved most at the forefront of his thoughts and concerns. Yet I wished for a moment that he wasn't like that, that he had enough cowardice in him to run and hide away someplace safe.

Then I remembered him somberly relating to us the words of the enemy soldier that had invaded the town and exposed Doug's misguided betrayal, that he had been ordered to hunt down and murder every last Earthmate... and I knew that there was no place safe enough to escape the long reach of the mad Emperor of Sechs.

I knew very little of the Maya Road, despite having lived in these mountains for many years. It seemed no one did—hardly anyone traveled it, because it only led to one destination: the Sechs Empire. But there were rumors... whispers... stories told in hushed voices late at night when the wind howled through the trees, stories that sent shivers down the spines of the listeners. Stories of caverns... deep, dark caverns lit by some ghastly, infernal luminescence, and populated with monsters the like of which could not be found anywhere the sun showed its face.

I felt the tears leaking from my eyes, and I looked up at him, trying my hardest to smile for him, as he wanted me to do. And I said, "Then it cannot be helped, yes? So you must go, and we must do what we can to help you, even if there is not much we can do. I know Clorica already cooks for you and Leon and Dylas, and Amber takes care of your fields, and Meg looks after your creatures. Forte has doubled her efforts in guarding the town, and then doubled them yet again, yes? And Dolce tends to your injuries. So... what is there for me to do? It seems there is nothing left."

He lifted my chin and smiled, then he kissed me, oh so gently.

"You can smile and laugh for me when things seem darkest," he said.

"Yes," I said, taking a deep breath and straightening up. "That I can do, though... it seems so little compared with all you do for me," I added sadly.

"There may yet be a time when that is everything to me," he said softly. I put my arms around him, and we held each other tightly, watching the last rays of the sunset vanish into darkness.