Crimson's Care, the Dragon's Burrow

A few days passed.

Day by day, bits and pieces of information came in, but nothing of much weight yet.

Even with that, the 〈Bewitching Queen〉 talk remained, one way or another, the topic that most pulled at the Demon Lords.

---

"For now — bewitching in the name — so I checked the actor angle, plus mind-arts that charm people, formula-side; concentrated there, but —"

That day, Lilium's voice was coming from Merea's room.

Not the office — Merea's own room.

"Mhm — anything?"

"On the contrary — less clear. That bracket actually has plenty of cases."

"I see…. The mind-side formulae are difficult, but, the effect-power, equivalently massive."

"Aimed at humans, the variable-formula explodes in size. When it works, plenty strong, as you say. — On that count, even small instances stand out clean. Manipulated this person, did things to a populace, and so on — by the standard, plenty of texts blur into fiction too. 〈Doll King〉 has document-volume and is fairly readable, mind. Mind, that one's not charm-style — it's physical and forced control of the body."

"And — 〈Doll King〉's secret-art was already used by Serius, so — descendant or another inheritor — the user is, almost certainly, dead."

"Right — so it was."

From a corner of the room, a voice answering Lilium's.

The voice was coming from the clothes-cabinet area.

Looking, in the wide-open clothes-cabinet, there was one figure — head plunged in, rummaging.

Through the gap in scattered clothing, white snow-coloured hair was just visible. — Merea.

"Hm — where did I put that shirt…"

"…Hah — clean your room, even a little. — Marisa?"

Looking at the flood-overflow of clothes from the cabinet, Lilium sighed and put a hand to her brow.

"Resting, still."

"…Ah — yes — yesterday, the Violent Period fit came. So no cleaning hands."

"Yes."

"For reference — injury?"

"Marisa is fine."

"That I know. In any state, you would not hurt Marisa. Your injury is what I'm asking."

Lilium threw the line on a slightly sharp register.

Merea pulled his upper body out of the clothes-lake, on his head several pieces of underwear stacked, and turned to Lilium.

A light colour on the face. A child unable to settle, in pre-trip excitement, the read.

Lilium, on it, sighed again.

"I'm fine too."

"You took the injury, then."

To Merea's short line, Lilium dropped the line on top no-beat.

The speed left Merea blinking.

Lilium, on a slightly cross brow-knot, sighed large again, and locked Merea head-on.

"You did."

"— Yes. But it's healed."

Lilium was particularly good at seeing through Merea's lies.

Why, Lilium herself did not know — but the small differences hidden behind Merea's smile, Lilium could read as if pulling them out of his hand.

Hearing Lilium, Merea, on resignation, raised both hands and answered straight.

"Don't tell Marisa, mind."

"Of course I won't. If she knew she'd hurt you, she'd hide and cry for a week. Looking after that is, plainly, a chore."

So saying, Lilium took a step into Merea's room.

To which Merea, in a volume Lilium would not catch, that said, if it actually happened, Lilium would, in fact, look after her, muttered on a wry smile.

After that, Lilium walked over to where Merea was sitting cross-legged in the clothes-scatter and, slowly, crouched to match eye-level.

In the same motion, on a slim hand, lifted Merea's arm.

"Where."

"There. — Right arm — to bind down Marisa-in-that-state at the start, I broke it."

Merea, on neither sad nor angry — on a thin smile — flat, answered.

That lying did not work on Lilium — Merea had, by now, noticed.

"Other?"

"Other are small. Bruise, laceration, that register."

"…Right."

Lilium swept her crimson fringe back on one hand and tucked it behind the ear.

Securing the field of view, she brought her eye close to Merea's still-lifted arm and intently examined.

A first-rate beauty's eye fixed on his arm — Merea, on his end, was, slightly, fluttery; he sent his eye around the room and waited for her to set the arm down.

"Make a fist."

"Mm? Yes."

On Lilium's instruction, Merea nodded and clenched.

"Open."

"Yes."

"…Mn — truly fine, then."

Lilium, satisfied, finally let Merea's hand go and drew a breath out her nose, releasing the held tension.

In the same motion, both hands on hips, looking up at Merea —

Despite the upward angle, the eyes carried a brook-no-argument force; Merea was, in spite of himself, pushed back slightly.

"Telling me what to do on what I cannot do is, perhaps, not my place — but it's not as if our connection is so thin I'd hold back. So I'll say it properly."

"Mm?"

"Next time — do it better."

"— Yes. Understood."

To Lilium's line, Merea, on a serious face, nodded.

"For your own sake — and Marisa's."

"Yes."

"Marisa does not remember what happens in that state — but she has, surely, predicted well by now what shape it takes. So — though she does not remember — that she has, almost certainly, swung a fist at her revered master — that, she has read."

"…"

"It's because she does not remember that, just barely, she does not cry — Marisa."

"…Yes."

Lilium, also, knew Marisa well.

"So — even if Marisa did remember, you should be able to say clean: nothing happened. Holding her down that completely is the ideal. Naturally, the first solution would be the 〈Violent Period〉 going away in itself, but that is for Marisa to handle on her own, and — almost certainly — will take time."

"Lilium is, like an older sister. Watching out for everyone."

"Are you listening?"

"O-ouch—"

Merea, on a sudden pleasant smile, had his ear pulled by Lilium leaning forward.

"H-, hearing, hearing! Next time better, will."

"Do that. — And — tonight, I hear, is the departure; Marisa is, still, dragging yesterday a bit, so on the road, leave her casually-alone. By the time you reach Vergilia she'll have settled herself. — On that part she's first-rate, that one."

Lilium, arms folded, said it.

The address slipped back to that one (あの女).

In that, Merea caught a covering-embarrassment shade.

"Right — that's it. …Truly — filthy in here. How does it become this tangled in a day or two? — Folding, atrocious!"

"Wrong timing. Hunting trip-supplies and it ended up like this…"

"Oh, come on… right — here — take this. And this, and this robe, and the seaside is windy and cold, so this under-layer too —"

Lilium, noticing the two of them were buried in clothes, switched to brisk-mode and started picking up clothing in both hands.

Without minding the men's underwear, sliding what was needed out and dropping it into the cloth bag beside Merea.

Merea, not to be in the way of Lilium's motion, kept meek-cat still and only held the bag-mouth open with both hands.

---

Departure for art-city Vergilia was set for that night.

Marisa had told Merea her Violent-Period fit was near; he had set the departure for after.

By a coincidence, the fit landed at almost exactly the right window — but, considering the load on her body, he'd have wanted a few more days' rest.

Marisa, however, shook her head on that.

She did not want to be the cause of more time than necessary spent.

That same hard-stubborn trait Merea had; Marisa carried it equally. In the end, on Shaw's note that the road would offer rest enough, the call landed on next-day evening departure.

That afternoon.

Merea, packing wrapped up with Lilium's help, stepped, alone, through the Lemusan city gate.

Where he was headed: outside the Lemusan gate.

Lately, on Hasim's order, an outer wall was being built around the city; that afternoon, Lemusan builders, sweat clean on them, were building the white-stone wall.

Walking by them, name and title sometimes called, Merea kept moving along the outer perimeter.

Where he was going —

"Noel—"

"Gya—!!"

— the burrow where the black Land Dragon (Reirnote) slept.

---

Out of Lemuse's west gate, walking a touch north — the burrow is there.

Land Dragons make nests sometimes in holes, sometimes by piling trees and plants above ground for a built nest; their ecology runs diverse as a word-summary. Noel's nest is in an underground hole-burrow.

Half by Noel's preference; the other half on Merea and Hasim's instruction.

"If you're stretched out in Lemuse's north-west, merchants and travellers go flinch-and-flee."

"Gya?"

Merea stood in front of a plain building.

In front of him, from the entrance of the unusually-large-doored building, a long neck of a black dragon was sticking out.

A dragon-face protruding from the entrance of a building — the picture is more frightening than a well-made ghost-tale.

"That said — the cover-disguise here is, still, thin…"

The building was not meant for human residence.

It was, in effect, a cover for Noel's burrow.

Inside is untouched space, the ground left bare.

But the support-pillars are calculated and built carefully, designed not to fall over when Noel leans his body out of the inside burrow.

"Mm? — You linked the burrow to another place again? Unfamiliar smell, this."

"Gya."

Merea caught an unfamiliar scent drifting from the entrance Noel was sticking his neck out of.

Not a bad smell.

If anything — herbs, or crushed-plant-perfumes, that cool-clean register.

That a plant-scent was mixed in — Merea caught, and immediately landed on it.

"The north-west forest…"

"…"

To Merea's line, Noel, on his dragon-face, surfaced an apologetic expression and dropped his head a little.

"Mind — fine — but don't dig too much, yes? And digging under Lemuse is no. Loosened ground would be a problem. … the dug parts — I'll, later, ask Hasim to mark them…"

"Gya—!"

On a human-style response, Merea stroked Noel's cheek and let one sigh out.

Noel's body, compared to his Lemusan-arrival body, had grown another notch.

And — Demon Lords other than Merea coming out to look after Noel had, perhaps, helped — Noel's human-language understanding was, by signs, climbing.

The capacity had likely been there from the start, but the Land Dragon's high-grade ecology and intelligence had grown him on rapid environment-adaptation.

The growth-rate had startled even Merea; the underlying cause he could not pin.

Possibly, simply, he was from an unusually high-grade Land Dragon clan.

"Where did you stray from, you — Cortista might know."

Merea recalled the Sky Dragon friend.

Somewhere in the world's heavens, swimming the upper sky — would the dragon-friend know about Land-Dragon affairs.

— Next time she comes round, ask, perhaps.

Since the Mūzeg engagement, he had seen Cortista's vast silver-shape once across a cloud-gap, and not since.

Sky Dragons being upper-sky beings who ran from earthly-affairs was something Merea knew well, so he felt slightly lonely but did not particularly blame her.

"Mind — while I'm in the city, she can't come down."

Merea, on the hand not stroking Noel's neck, scratching his own head, said it.

"When I head to the forest Noel connected to in the north-west, I might give her a call."

So thinking, he cut the thought there.

"— Right."

There was a thing Merea had to tell Noel.

Stroking Noel's neck through, Merea stood again in front of him and, slowly, opened his mouth wide.

"■■■, ■■"

A heavy, strange timbre voice came out of his mouth.

Dragon Tongue.

To the line out of Merea's mouth, Noel's eyes snapped open and a straight gaze came back.

"■■"

From Noel's mouth, an equally clean Dragon Tongue line came too.

Once described by Merea as a dragon poor at Dragon Tongue, on later training Noel had, by now, learned to speak it clean.

Humans teaching dragons Dragon Tongue is unprecedented, per Salman.

That Noel's response-mode shifted between ordinary animal-cry (when addressed in human-tongue) and clean Dragon-Tongue (when addressed in Dragon Tongue) was, almost certainly, modelled on Merea.

As Merea switched between human-tongue and Dragon Tongue, Noel switched between his usual animal-cry and the heavy, ordered Dragon Tongue.

"■■■"

"■, ■■"

Listening to Merea's Dragon Tongue on a serious face, Noel, occasionally, nodded and shook his head as a human would.

To it Merea, with hand-gestures, returned a few more words.

After a stretch, finally the dialogue between the man and the one dragon closed.

"Right — that's about it. If anything, I'll be calling on you, so stay near the art-city properly."

"Gya!"

"Use the route I mentioned, less foot-traffic — Shaw said. Mind, you can probably read it on the spot — but, just in case."

Last, Merea tapped Noel's nose-tip lightly twice and said —

"Asking, Noel."

"Gya-u!"

Noel, on a glad shake of the neck, made the building creak large.

"Right — wait — settle. If you break this, the bill goes to Star-Tree Castle. Everyone's pocket-money drops…!"

"Gya…"

On Merea's stop, Noel froze — but the face read, somehow, unsatisfied.

"You wouldn't get it — the cruelty of the human-invented wisdom called money!!"

To Merea's tear-eyed protest, Noel only tilted his head in answer.