Ella left her discount dad's house in a daze. She should never have let herself hope, she thought. She had already had a clear answer out of him twice, and she had still gone and imagined he might see the state of her and find his conscience. Far too naive.
In a novel, what did they call this? The protagonist has her illusions broken, and then the arc where she pulls herself together begins?
Ella could not manage to feel glad about it. All she felt was an emptiness at the bottom of her, and an ache she had no words for.
This was not her home. Her home really was only the one she had before she transmigrated fifteen years ago.
"Big Brother Ella!"
She was in the middle of that thought when Sephone came running out after her.
She needed her glasses at the best of times, and the night was deep, so she could not see the road and walked straight past Ella.
Ella paused, then caught her hand.
"What is it, Sephone?"
"I..."
Sephone's mouth opened, as though something were dammed up behind it.
"Let's run away together!"
She forced the words out.
"...?"
Ella went still.
"Uncle doesn't want you, so I'm not staying here either. That duke's daughter bullies you anyway, and you don't like her. Let's go together? Somewhere nobody knows me, and live a life with just the two of us."
The girl held Ella's arm and shouted it with everything she had, and those few sentences seemed to use up all the strength she possessed.
***
Sephone was a commoner's daughter. Her family was very poor, and her mother often sent her out to beg. Being beaten was an ordinary part of daily life.
Nobody spares any pity for a beggar. Sometimes she was beaten for spoiling the look of the street. Sometimes she was beaten because while begging she had brushed against somebody's trouser leg, and they trod on her palm and ground it under their heel. Sometimes it was only that whoever it was happened to be in a bad mood, and so they set about her with fists and feet.
There was no light in Sephone's world. She did not know when she would die, and she did not dare be curious about what being loved might feel like.
Nine years ago, in front of a grain shop, several children her own age from noble houses surrounded her and would not let her get away.
Sephone knew she was about to be knocked about again for no reason anybody could name. Utterly without hope, small and thin, she curled herself into a ball, and she thought that dying right there would be fine, dying under the malice of children her own age. Then she would never again be pierced by the way people looked at her as though she were refuse, never again be driven out to beg by her mother, never again be kicked back and forth like a filthy rag.
But Sephone's light appeared. It was Ella.
Even though she herself was nothing but a filthy, stinking beggar, even though she had no value whatsoever and could offer nothing in return, Ella charged in without a moment's hesitation.
After that the two of them were beaten badly together. As they lay pressed side by side, catching their breath, Sephone was crying and laughing at once.
In that moment Sephone acquired a god of her own, and afterward Ella begged her own father to take her in, and by that she came to live the life of an ordinary person.
That house had love in it. Sephone did not understand. She did not understand why Auntie had suddenly fallen so gravely ill, and she did not understand why Uncle had to sell his own son. She did not understand why a man so generous to commoners would hurt his own family for the sake of appearances.
Sephone's small world seemed to have come down around her.
***
"Big Brother Ella! Come with me, please. I like you. I love you."
The memory ended, and Sephone held on to Ella tightly.
"...Ah..."
Ella was at a loss, and smiled bitterly.
The rescued girl and the boy protagonist? Wasn't that the classic development of a shounen manga?
"But... I'm a girl now."
"It doesn't matter, it doesn't matter at all. Big Brother Ella is Big Brother Ella. A woman is fine, a man is fine. I'll love you, I'll always love you. Ngh... come away, come away with me. Don't go back. Don't go on being bullied. You shouldn't be. You should never have been treated like this!"
Ella was a good person. A slightly stupid good person.
Sephone did not know why Ella was forever calling herself the protagonist, and she did not know where all those strange words in her mouth came from. Ella was a good person, and she was Sephone's only god. Knowing that much was enough.
"...Sephone."
Ella closed her eyes. Her heart gave a beat.
She had been intending to run anyway. Taking Sephone along did not seem to change much.
"Take me to Mother's grave. And when it's light, we'll go. All right?"
Ella agreed, and her heart quickened.
What would happen if Elos caught her? She had no room to think that far.
"Mm... all right."
Sephone very badly wanted to leave, but in the pitch dark two fifteen-year-old girls were not going to get far.
"Big Brother Ella, I'll carry you."
"Eh? No, there's no need for that."
Ella refused, stammering. She was blushing.
In the dark Sephone could not see Ella's face, but she could still feel her awkwardness.
"Pff..."
Crying turned into laughing, and Sephone pushed her glasses up.
"Big Brother Ella hurt her leg, didn't she? And you've got all these other injuries. Let me do it, please? I want to do something for you."
"...All right, then."
Ella agreed after some hesitation. She was about the same height as Sephone now, and after so long undernourished she probably wasn't very heavy.
Hesitating, Ella leaned onto the girl's back.
With her arms around Sephone's neck, Ella was still thoroughly embarrassed. Being carried by the girl she had once saved. It was mortifying.
"I'll light the way."
Ella stretched her arm out, and a small flame came up at her fingertip.
The light reached only two or three paces, but it was enough. The village was not like the country outside, after all. It was the place they had lived for years.
Stumbling as she went, Sephone carried Ella to the outside of the cemetery, and the two of them climbed the wall to get in.
The gravekeeper's hut was shut, with a weak light showing through the crack of the door.
"...Mother..."
Following Sephone to the front of her mother's grave, Ella looked at the small mound of earth and at the rough wooden cross.
She crouched down and ran a hand gently over the surface of the cross.
Fifteen years of memory came up. Carrying the memories of a past life, Ella had been very resistant to closeness with her mother at first. But her mother had never disliked her for it, and had always been gentle with her.
The writing and the language of this world had been taught to her by her mother, a little at a time.
"I'm sorry... I'm so sorry. I couldn't be there at the end."
Ella apologized quietly, and thought again of everything she had been through recently.
Her discount dad really had sold her to that vicious young lady, and showed no sign at all of regretting it.
If it had been her mother, she would have comforted her, surely? She would have cleaned her wounds carefully, and told her to be careful, or put herself between Ella and the world.
The corners of Ella's eyes ached, and in the pitch dark several cold drops slid down her cheeks.
Ella got down and put her arms gently around the little mound of earth, and wiped the tears away with the back of her hand.
"..."
She stayed silent. There were more feelings underneath that she had no idea how to say, and Ella looked back at Sephone.
"Sephone, go back and rest. I'll stay with her a while longer. Come and find me first thing in the morning, and we'll go together."
"Mm, all right... Big Brother Ella, please, cry out loud if you want to. Nobody will hear you."
Sephone understood Ella's attachment to that baffling identity of "protagonist." She climbed the wall and left.
Only Ella was left inside the cemetery, and she pressed herself against the grave mound and closed her eyes.
"...Mama. I'm sorry."
She used the word that ought to have belonged only to the parents of her past life.
Consciousness went quiet, and Ella slept.