Idiot

The people who saved me at the river brought me home late in the evening in their wondrous black car (the one with the house inside of it).

Big sister Miu fed me all sorts of things, and Uncle Takeshi made sure I had plenty to drink. Miu let me keep the clothes she had given me. They are good people. Again I am surprised by how many good people there are in this world.

I cannot recall anything like this happening when I was Mathilda. I have trudged back into villages after slaying whatever beast they asked me to slay, exhausted and covered in its blood. Only to have them refuse to open the gates and let me in at all.

Were the people of Impalia really so callous? If I search my memories (Mathilda's memories) I cannot recall any act of gratitude at all. Is there something wrong with my memory? The people of Impalia were a good people worth protecting, so I suppose if they were cold to me, then I must have done something to deserve it.

How peculiar these people of the river are, that they offered me so much. I wish upon them the blessings of Kannovard.

I have slept through the night, and now most of the day, and as I write these words it is already dark. This body is not used to so much exertion. I am reminded of the vast gulf between training and fighting. Training is a joy, a gift. You can stop at any time and have a rest. A real fight moves on its own time. If you pause to catch your breath, you will die. Anything other than continuing to fight will cause you to die.

Yesterday I killed a good number of wraiths. Today, that uneasy feeling that has been haunting me seemed greatly diminished, but not gone entirely. Is there something else still out there?

I know I should keep looking, even now, but I have still not bathed, and the smell of the river bothers me now more than it did before. My hair feels grimy and tangled.

I have work tomorrow morning, and I want to take a bath.

---

Aiko put her pen down and leaned back against the wall of her little apartment, legs spread out in front of her under the little table she had found outside during one of her night walks. It was much lower than she was used to, but then again she didn't have any chairs, so it suited her fine. She knew it was called a kotatsu, and that the machine bolted to its underside would heat up if you plugged it into a wall, but somebody had cut the cord before she found it, and Aiko's residual memories told her it probably wasn't reparable. That suited her fine too. When it was this hot, who would want to make it even hotter?

She had the window open, and the night air was drifting in, not very cool, but better than nothing. It was getting hotter every day. If the seasons of this world were in sync with those of Impalia, there would be a good number of weeks before the first days of Stellvard, and it would get hotter before it got cooler.

She was procrastinating. She wanted to go to the bath house, but she also knew what was going to be waiting there for her.

Without a doubt, she had seen that blond haired girl at the rooftop before the demon carried her away. Aiko leaned her forehead on the kotatsu and puffed out her cheeks.

"Wanna bath," she muttered.

"Why don't you go back to the river?" the sword said, lying against the wall where she'd left it.

"Idiot. I already smell like river."

"Demons don't track by smell. It doesn't matter."

"Shut up. I promised Lady Nomura."

"You are an imperial knight and a princess. You don't need to keep your word to anybody other than the King Himself."

"He doesn't exist here. Idiot."

"He exists everywhere, Mathilda. This is also his domain. Even if he is not here."

"Shut up. Stupid. Go away."

She held her hand out and let the sword dissolve into smoke, seeping back around her fingers and into storage. Aiko had gotten into the habit of keeping it out because it let her know when there were monsters nearby. Before she hadn't been able to sleep without the sword there keeping watch, but lately she wondered if it didn't matter as much any more.

Aiko stood up and stretched her arms up over her head. Her joints cracked and popped. She was still stiff from yesterday, and still tired. Her rapid healing could knit together anything short of her head being cut off, but not even it was able to save her from fatigue.

Blast it all. Even if that blond haired girl was there she was going to have a bath. She needed to soak. After that she would buy a steamed bun as a reward for killing those demons. Nobody could stop her. She gathered a change of clothes and the big fluffy towel Nomura had given her, and put them in a plastic bowl together with a few coins. She slipped into the flip flops Miu had gifted her, and, being careful to lock the door behind her, headed out into the night.

It was late enough to be dark, but as always there were plenty of people out. As she walked towards the end of the shopping street, she wondered about how carefree everybody seemed. Just yesterday their city had been besieged by a murder of dragons, and these people were carrying on about their daily life as though nothing had happened at all. Come to think of it, Miu and Takeshi and the others hadn't seemed all that fazed by it either. Were the people of this world really so resilient? Or were they just particularly stupid?

Well, she was out here with them, so that probably made Aiko just as stupid.

She paused for a moment, trying to pick up on any lingering killing intent from the demons. There was nothing. She kept on walking.

The bath house was just at the end of the road, and as expected, as soon as she walked through the doors there was a clattering commotion as the receptionist fairly bounded over the counter.

"Aiiiikooo!" Koharu wailed, grabbing Aiko's shoulders. "You're aliiiiiiiive!"

"Don't touch." Aiko brushed Koharu's hands away and walked towards the currently unmanned counter, leaving the other girl at the entrance.

"That bird! Whatever it was! I saw it pick you up and fly away! I kept listening to news to see if it had dropped you anywhere, you know? I was totally freaking out!" Koharu rattled, her eyebrows pinched together, wringing her hands. "I mean, did it drop you somewhere?"

"Yes. River," Aiko nodded. She put her money on the counter. "One please."

"The river!? From how high up? Are you OK? You look OK, I mean, but... Are you alright? Did you survive?"

Aiko narrowed her eyes. This girl. This blond girl called Koharu. Just how stupid was she? Honestly, what had she even been doing there? How many jobs did this idiot have?

"Yes," Aiko said patiently. "Survived. One please." She tapped the counter near her money again.

"And you ran up that ferris wheel! I've never seen anything like that!"

Aiko huffed, and held her hand up to stop Koharu's unrelenting summary.

"Smell like river. I want a bath. Now."

Without waiting for Koharu, Aiko plucked one of the wrist bands from the basket behind the counter and stormed into the changing room.

What a bother! What a nuisance! Why did this girl keep peppering her with questions? What was it to her anyway? Why couldn't she just mind her own business? Aiko knew that somehow this person was somebody from her past. From this body's past. But it didn't sound like they'd been close. It didn't sound like they'd been anything at all. So why was this dummy Koharu so intent on getting between Aiko and the bath?

"Dummy," Aiko muttered to herself.

She took off her clothes, and washed herself using the faucets by the side of the baths. After she'd gotten rid of every last trace of river smell, she tied her hair up into bun and got into the hot water. She sunk down until it was just under her nose, and blew frustrated bubbles into the water.