I took the two raw stones from the griffon-bird's nest. When I held them up between my fingers for Onesco below, she had already sunk to the ground.
"N-no... This can't be possible. Finding three gems in one day is absolutely impossible..."
She seemed to be telling herself that. My "You think so?" did not reach her.
"Y-yes. This is a dream. A dream. It has to be a dream. I'll say it as many times as it takes until I wake up. This is absolutely a dream...!"
"It's not a dream. It means your wish to become a holy knight is the real thing."
I said it and sat down on the branch. Tom arrived just then and sat neatly beside me.
Onesco stayed in her side-sit and looked up at us with the hazy eyes of someone still in a dream.
"Wh-what does that mean...?"
"If you have a dream you want granted, wish for it hard and work to make it happen, and the things you need get pulled to you. That's why you found a raw stone stuck in a rock in this place. That's what they call fate."
"This is fate...? Meeting you, too...?"
"At least, that's how I see it. And this was my dream too."
"Your dream...?"
"Yeah. I wanted to support a dream like this. Maybe that's why we pulled each other in."
I grinned down from the tree, and Onesco jerked as if lightning had hit her. Then, for some reason, she fell apart.
"P-pulled each other in!?"
"Yeah. I didn't used to have power like Monsoon's, and I couldn't use magic like Calulu. I was bad at fighting. So when I entered this academy, I decided I'd support everyone's dreams with crafting. ...All right, done."
From the tree I let the two gems go. "Here, catch." The cut red and yellow stones mixed their light in the air and fell, scattering orange.
Fire Sapphire
Quantity: 1
Quality Level: 24 (Material Level 20 + Dexterity Bonus 4)
A gem holding the power of a fire spirit. Worked into equipment or used as decoration, it grants the power of fire.
Light Rin
Quantity: 1
Quality Level: 24 (Material Level 20 + Dexterity Bonus 4)
A gem holding the power of a light spirit. Worked into equipment or used as decoration, it grants the power of light.
Onesco caught them in both hands, the usual way, and her eyes went blank.
"...All three gems, together. Yes. This is a dream after all. Or rather, I'm being shown a hallucination with drugs. There's no way I could clear a holy knight's first trial this fast. Even Elrond, the legendary holy knight, took three years."
She nodded to herself.
"And the biggest proof is that I would never feel this way about a boy. I decided I would not come to like boys, and that I would offer this body only to Lady Monaka. That was close. The drugs almost made me give a knight's thanks to a boy."
Onesco was muttering something. Then she looked up. In that instant the heat in her face went pale.
It was the moment I bent the branch and leapt, like jumping from a diving board.
She cried out.
I had meant to aim for a spot away from Onesco, turn in the air, and land. For some reason she came running, arms spread, face desperate, to catch me.
"I don't want you to die! Leopin!"
"Whoa, it's dangerous, stop!"
Just before I landed she hit me in a hug like a body check, and I was blown off my feet. Unluckily, a low cliff was beyond that. Onesco and I rolled down it locked together.
The shock of the fall spun the boy's head, and made surw to protect Onesco. A fall like this did not deter him and he held on to her whilst tumbling down. Beyond the spinning view was a girl.
She was leaning over him, staring. Her long hair lay across his face.
He realized the position. She was on top of him. He asked if she was hurt. There was no answer. so he asked again.
"You all right? Does something hurt? If you can't move..."
He tried to sit up. She laced her fingers through his at once. A lover's clasp, and she pushed him back down.
"Wh-what, Onesco..."
The words broke off. Her eyes were wet now, like a gem sunk at the bottom of a deep sea.
"I... I can't anymore...!"
"Can't what?"
A first passion was turning inside her.
This is a hallucination, this is the drugs, she kept trying to tell herself. She could not. She could not anymore.
She could not hold it down. This feeling. The feeling that this person was actually amazing.
He had found three gems for a knight's trial, and he had cut them. Not in a year. Not even in a day. In a few hours.
Amazing. Too amazing.
And he did not use that achievement to demand something indecent of her. He gave the credit to his pet.
Different. Too different. From the men she knew.
She had never met a man like this.
Now she understood Lady Monaka. Why Lady Monaka was always talking about him.
And why, whenever she talked about him, her face was full of happiness. Her own heart had already been taken.
She had decided.
If it was this person, she could give it. Her first, and her last.
Then the girl moved. Toward the boy she had pinned.
Cherry-pink lips finally spun out the forbidden words.
"...L-Leopin-kun... thank... you..."
She took those lips herself, and set them on his.