Spice and Wolf - Volume 7 - Chapter 3

WOLF AND AMBER MELANCHOLY

Strange, she thought—the alcohol certainly was working.

It was said the wisewolf could drink a lake dry, but to think she’d be like this after a single cup of this wheat-smelling liquid—And no sooner did the thought occur to her than she was halfway through her second, her face flushed.

And not only was the drink having a surprising effect on her, but also she didn’t seem to be one bit pleased about it. Her nose twitched—was the drink not to her liking? She wasn’t sure.

Her vision swayed, and she looked hazily over the many dishes on the table, eyelids heavy. Right before her there was an oil-drizzled pork shoulder coated in crushed rock salt, but somehow she had no appetite at all.

No, wait—how much had she already eaten? she wondered.

Having gotten to this point, she was starting to realize that she might actually be feeling quite poorly, which if true, meant that she couldn’t very well keep this up.

Had this been just any meal, that would have been one thing—she could’ve claimed she felt bad, and her companion would have nursed her back to health so thoroughly it would have been embarrassing.

But at the moment, she and her companion were not the only ones sitting at the small round table.

Her traveling companion’s foolishness had gotten them into serious trouble, but having negotiated it safely, they were now having a bit of a celebration.

And she was certainly not going to be responsible for ruining such an opportunity. Celebrations, no matter how meager they might be, were very important.

However, this was not the only reason she couldn’t afford to collapse here.

No, the biggest reason could surely be found before her very eyes, sitting right at the table.

The flaxen-haired, underfed shepherdess.

Right in front of that, she could hardly afford to look uncouth.

“Still, I never knew sheep could find rock salt,” her companion said, sounding very interested as he continued a conversation about shepherds.

While the shepherdess was somewhere in her midteens, her companion was into his twenties. While a wisewolf might not know everything about the human world, she knew enough to tell that as they chatted intimately over the table, they could hardly fail to look like a mated pair.

“It’s because they love the saltiness for some reason. If you rub salt onto a rock, they’ll lick it for ages.”

“Oh, so that’s true? I once heard about a far-off town where they use sheep like that as a form of torture—very strange. I didn’t believe it, honestly.”

“They use…sheep?”

The shepherd girl—Norah or some such was her name—had eyes filled with curiosity. The girl’s eyes were so gentle and obedient that just looking at them made her want to eat her up.

The sheep-like shepherdess reached out toward a large chunk of beef sitting in the middle of the table. For a while now, all the dishes they’d ordered had been either beef, pork, or fish, with no mutton.

Perhaps this was out of consideration for the shepherdess who was dining with them, but in any case, nobody had asked her.

And of course, to selfishly insist that she’d wanted to have mutton would have been a mark upon her honor as a wisewolf.

Anyway, that didn’t matter. It was trivial.

What mattered was that her companion hadn’t noticed her poor state at all and was busy gallantly carving a thin slice of beef from the roast and carefully laying it on a plate for the shepherdess.

Irritated, her hand automatically brought her cup to her lips, though the drink had long since lost its flavor. It only served to heat her chest.

Inside her head, a proud wolf—her other self—rolled its eyes at her.

But there was nothing for it. As her mood and condition were both deteriorating, there was a loathed shepherd right in front of her, and to top it all off, she was exactly the kind of meek, pathetic little girl her companion seemed so fond of.

It was the height of male idiocy to prefer such weak girls, but she knew all too well that if she said so out loud, she would be making an utter fool of herself.

She was backed into a corner.

Fighting a battle one was unsuited to was exhausting.

“I’ve forgotten what the name of the town was, but what they’d do was they’d have sheep lick your feet as a kind of torture.”

“Wha—? Sheep would—”

Just when she thought the meek little shepherdess would probably politely sandwich the beef slice between some bread, the girl bit right into it.

But her mouth was small so it was a hesitant little bite, and she couldn’t get all the way through it.

The girl should’ve opened her mouth wider and really ripped into the meat, she wanted to say, but then she saw her companion’s face slacken pathetically.

She tucked that away in her memory, along with her anger—that was apparently the way to act when in human form.

“That’s right. They have the sheep lick your feet, and apparently they put salt on them. Criminals laugh at first, which is bad enough. But eventually the licking starts to become agony…”

It might have been the liquor, but watching him exaggerate so was delicious.

Perhaps over the course of his journeys, he’d become used to telling stories like this.

But he’d never once told one to her.

The pain of an encroaching headache began to creep into her temples.

“I suppose I’ve had trouble with the sheep trying to lick my fingers after I’ve eaten jerky. They’re well behaved, but they don’t have any restraint, which is a bit scary.”

“I imagine your faithful knight is more reasonable on that count.”

Her wolf ears pricked up, but her companion surely didn’t notice.

The shepherdess’s “knight”—he meant her irritating sheepdog.

“You mean Enek? Well…Enek is Enek, and sometimes he tries a little too hard or is rather…unaccommodating…,” said Norah when a bark of protest came up from her feet.

He’d been receiving crusts of bread and scraps of meat.

She was well aware that he was looking at her from under the table.

Despite being a mere dog, he’d gone into full alert in the face of a pure wolf.

“Which means that to keep both dog and sheep in line, you must be quite skilled indeed.”

The shepherdess widened her eyes in surprise, then flushed red—undoubtedly not from the liquor.

Beneath her robe, the wisewolf’s tail fluffed up.

Beneath the table, she could hear the dog’s panting as though it were laughing at her.

Her vision swam, clearly out of anger.

“By the way, Miss Norah, will you be pursuing your dream now?”

Her dream.

She started at the word, and for the first time realized that she was becoming drowsy.

Perhaps this entire infuriating conversation had been a dream, she thought, but hurriedly dismissed the notion.

She now felt genuinely unwell.

There was nothing left to do except try and somehow get to the inn undetected.

This was enemy territory.

The methods she would otherwise use were likely to backfire here.

If she were to mar the hard-won celebration by saying she felt sick, that would be more than enough to ruin the evening. And the only one to blame for that was her.

But she did have her own territory—their small room in the inn.

If she admitted she felt sick there, that would be tantamount to a successful hunt.

She thought of it like being hidden in a thicket while watching a rabbit come into view, totally unaware of her presence.

Which meant she couldn’t afford to disgrace herself. With effort, she went to take a piece of meat from the table, but even lifting her arm was bothersome, and she was unable to reach the plate.

“What, drunk already?”

She didn’t have to look at his face to know his rueful smile.

Her body might have been afflicted, but her lovely ears still worked perfectly.

She knew without using her eyes exactly how her traveling companion looked as he ate.

So as said companion reached out to take the slice of meat for her and looked at her as she failed to thank him, she knew everything about his expression and posture and hated him for it.

She knew so well that she could easily imagine how she looked to him and how he felt about her.

But she didn’t care about any of that anymore.

Now she wanted only one thing.

“Hey, you don’t look so well—”

She wanted to lie down.

“Holo!”

Her traveling companion’s words were the last thing she heard before her memory cut off.

When next she came to, she was beneath a pile of blankets so heavy they were making it hard to breathe.

She had little memory of when or how she’d come to be here.

There was some vague sense of being carried on someone’s back.

On one hand, this was humiliating, but she could not deny that there was some part of her that felt very tenderly about this.

But it had probably been a dream, so she swept it into a corner of her mind.

She’d had similar dreams before, after all.

If she did mistake dreams for reality and thank him for carrying her, there was no telling how happy that would make him.

This was the way of the wisewolf: Anger was for scolding and laughter for praise, but one showed weakness only to trick others into letting their guard down.

“…”

And yet, she thought, turning sideways and curling up beneath the too-heavy blankets.

She was a disgrace.

She’d interrupted dinner.

As someone who well understood the need for celebration, she was ashamed.

And having displayed such pathetic behavior in front of the shepherd girl, she was still more ashamed.

She could never regain her wisewolf’s pride.

While she hated being worshipped, she didn’t want to part with her dignity.

“…Mngh.”

And yet, she thought.

Even having committed such disgrace, she thought about the other times she’d shamed herself in front of her foolish traveling companion—this felt like nothing compared to them.

Any of them were more than enough to shame the pride of the wisewolf.

She’d become angry out of displeasure, laughed when amused, and let her guard down long since.

Having only just met him, she felt like they’d been journeying for ages, and as she thought about each little piece, they added up to a huge failure, and her chest ached with it.

Long ago she’d made mistakes here or there, of course, but none of them had pained her so.

But this journey suddenly felt like that.

“…Why should that be, I wonder?” she murmured in spite of herself.

She wondered if it was because of the centuries she’d spent in the wheat fields. Day after day would pass with nothing happening, no difference between one day and the following, between tomorrow or the day after. The only things that reminded her of time’s passage were the yearly festivals—the harvest festival, the sowing festival, the festivals of prayer for protection from frost and from wind.

When she really thought about it, there were perhaps only twenty days in the year that were any different from the others. Thus it had come to be that her sense of time was denominated not in days, but in months and seasons. Other days were all bundled together as “not festival days.”

But now each day was so fresh, it was like being reborn daily.

Compared to her previous life, where if she wasn’t careful a sapling would grow into a huge tree in the blink of an eye, the time she’d spent with the young merchant seemed like many years’ worth of experience.

Even within a single day, morning and evening were totally different. They might have a great row in the morning, make up by midday and tease each other for leaving the bread crumbs from lunch on their faces, have another fight over the struggle for dinner, then at bedtime talk quietly about the coming day.

She wondered if she’d ever experienced a time so dizzyingly full of change before.

I have, the answer came back to her.

She’d traveled and lived with people many times before. They were memories she would never lose.

But while she might have had time to dwell on such things back in the days when all she had to do in the wheat fields was groom her tail, she now had no such luxury.

She was too busy thinking about other things: What had her companion done yesterday? What about this morning? And what was he planning now right before her eyes?

Even when her companion had first met her, she’d only moments earlier been thinking of her homeland and weeping pathetically.

Since she’d gotten so used to days with so much free time she could count the hairs on her tail two or three times over, she couldn’t very well start crying now that every day was filled with stimulation.

Were she to claim it wasn’t fun, that would be a lie.

No—it was too fun, and that made her worry.

“…”

She rolled facedown from her side, then sighed at having finally found a comfortable position.

Having gone to the trouble of taking human form, she’d tried to sleep human-style, but no matter what she did, this was the only position she could relax in.

Facedown—or better yet, curled up into a ball.

Her companion stretched out like some foolish cat, sleeping faceup with the most ridiculous expressions on his face, but lately she’d had to admit that it took such blithe insensitivity to survive in the human world.

She had no doubt that the humans were so short-lived—they were lucky to see seventy—because they were so busy every day.

Just look at the trees, she thought.

They lived so long because far from distinguishing today from tomorrow, they hardly knew the difference between next year and the year after.

And by the time the thought had occurred to her, she’d forgotten what it was she was thinking about in the first place.

“…Hmph. That shepherdess, eh…” Finally she came back around to the beginning of things.

In any case, she’d made a spectacle of herself back there.

But now they were in the inn, and no one would interrupt them.

So maybe it was time to hassle her insensitive companion—perhaps it was time for him to cater to a few of her whims.

After all, during last night’s dinner, he’d paid all of his attention to the shepherdess and barely looked at her.

It was thanks to her wisewolf nature that she’d endured such a trial. That accursed shepherdess! That slender body! That blond damned hair!

As she thought about this and that, she felt her eyelids getting heavy again, which frustrated her anew.

Anyway, where was he?

Just as she was feeling an unreasonable anger boil over at thinking about that good-for-nothing male being absent when she needed him most—or perhaps she was being unreasonable—her ears picked up the sound of footsteps.

“…!”

She jolted herself up.

Then immediately sensing something doglike about her actions, she felt both shame and irritation and flopped back down on the bed.

Such shallow actions did not suit the dignity of a wisewolf.

And yet, humiliation was humiliation.

Not just because she was considering descending to such schemes with him, but worse—she’d already been unconsciously doing so.

There was a knock at the door.

She did not reply and faced away from it.

After a brief silence, the door was finally opened.

Since she always slept with her head beneath the blanket, if it was outside of the blanket, she was normally awake.

Her companion seemed to know this; he sighed, entered, and closed the door.

And yet he wasn’t looking at her; his back remained turned.

If he was so fond of weak girls, then he could hardly fail to be charmed by her having fallen to the floor. She began to see a chance of victory.

Her companion stood next to the bed.

Now, to the hunt! she thought to herself, and full of anticipation, she rolled over to face him—very, very weakly.

To this she added a faintly happy “…Nn…”

Even she didn’t know what she said—probably something she thought would help the pathetic performance.

But thinking about it later, he must have been surprised by this.

After all, as she looked back at him, her companion did not seem worried or concerned at all—his face was strained with anger.

“Why didn’t you tell me you weren’t feeling well?” was the first thing he said.

“…” She was so surprised she had no reply.

Never had she dreamed he would be angry with her, of all things.

“You’re not a child. I assume you’re not going to claim you didn’t notice how bad you felt until you fell over, are you?”

This was the first time she’d seen this side of her companion: serious and angry.

Though he was a tiny fraction of her age, his wisdom and strength meager in comparison to hers as a wisewolf—his face was still frightening.

The words would not come.

Though her days had been as numerous as grains of sand on a beach, she could count the times someone had dared be angry with her on one hand.

“Don’t tell me the meat and wine was just so damned important—”

“Wha—!”

She admitted that it was partially her pride that had kept her silent.

But that was only half true.

She would never conceal feeling poorly just to be treated to more food.

While she may have hated it, she had been called a god for ages. She knew well the importance of feasting. She would never try to change or destroy that.

That he’d accuse her of such thoughtless logic—

“…I’m sorry. That was wrong of me to say,” her companion said, coming to his senses. He sighed deeply and turned away.

It was then that she noticed she’d been baring her fangs. “I would never—”

I would never have even thought to do that, she thought but did not say.

Her throat was dry, but more than that, her companion again turning to look at her was more than enough to make her close her mouth.

“I was very worried. What would you have done if we’d been traveling?”

It was here that she finally understood why he was so angry.

He was a traveling merchant.

If he fell ill on the road, he wouldn’t necessarily have any comrades nearby to lend aid.

Quite the contrary—suffering alone in the wilderness was the likelier outcome.

She thought of the poor food she ate while on a journey, of the hardship that was making camp.

Collapsing in such circumstances was without exaggeration life threatening.

He was different than she was—she who complained about loneliness but had always lived with someone nearby.

“…I am sorry,” she said in a low, desolate voice, and it was no act.

Her companion was so endlessly softhearted that he must have been truly worried about her.

That she’d ignored that and thought only of herself was deeply embarrassing.

She pulled her head in, unable to look at his face.

“No…it’s all right, so long as you’re well. You haven’t…caught cold or gotten sick…have you?”

At these words she found herself both happy and sad.

His asking was slightly timid. The reason for that timidity was obvious.

He was a human, and she was a wisewolf.

She was beyond his understanding in some ways—like this one.

“I was just…a bit fatigued.”

“I thought as much. I think I would’ve been able to tell if you’d been sick.”

She knew it was a half-truth.

But there was no reason to point it out, and it would be even more pointless to get angry.

“I just wondered if maybe…”

“?” He hesitated to finish, and she looked at him questioningly.

He continued apologetically. “…If maybe you’d eaten an onion or some such.”

Her eyes widened but not in anger.

It was actually rather amusing.

“I’m…not a dog, you know.”

“I know. You’re a wisewolf.” Her companion finally smiled, and she realized she, too, was smiling for the first time in a while.

“I do feel ’twas a waste of wine and food, though.”

At this her companion’s expression suggested he agreed. “You need not worry about that—I’m a merchant after all. I had the leftover food packed up for us.”

Again, her fangs were bared.

But this was because her lips curled into a smile.

“—Or at least, that’s what I wish I could say.” Her companion’s smile disappeared, and he held out his hand.

It wasn’t exactly tough, but neither did it speak of an easy life.

It was clearly different from her own hands, and if anything, the hand that enveloped hers was as rough as a wolf’s paw.

His fingers carefully brushed her bangs aside and felt her forehead.

She became very restless at the sensation of his hand on her face.

For him to nuzzle her face with his nose would’ve been a bit too familiar.

She didn’t let this feeling show on her face, though, and her companion certainly didn’t notice it.

He just felt her forehead, as if it was the most natural thing in the world. “Ah, it’s just as I thought. You’ve got a fever. You must’ve been truly exhausted.”

“It’s because you’re such a fool, that…I had to work so hard,” she said bitterly, His rough finger poked her nose at this.

“You’ve got to rein in that bravado.” He wore a weary smirk, but his words were entirely serious, she could tell.

She was so embarrassed that she couldn’t keep looking at him.

Turning her head aside as if to escape the nose poke, she looked out from under the blankets with only one eye.

“Honestly, it was quite an embarrassment to deal with in front of Norah.”

That’s because the feast got wasted, thought Holo to herself, curling up.

He had surely been distracted enough because of her.

Even if she hadn’t already felt bad, hearing this kind of thing was enough to make her pretend.

She gave him a wounded glance, which was returned by an amazed look.

“Anyway, I’ll get you some more suitable comfort food, so make sure to rest and gather your strength, all right? Then you can have as much food and wine as you like.”

Her ears pricked up at the promise of “as much…as you like,” but more than that, her chest ached at the notion of some comfort food.

Even before the hundreds of years she’d stayed in the village, she’d often heard that when people were sick, they were given the most luxurious food to make up for it.

When wolves became sick, they simply didn’t eat, of course, but humans had the opposite idea.

She would simply have to pretend.

Because more than anything else, she could finally turn his gaze away from the shepherdess.

She wouldn’t let him get away.

“When you’re so kind, I fear what’ll happen next.” She chose the wryest, most bravado-laden words she could.

A wisewolf might collapse from exhaustion and be unable to move, but her mind still had to be sharp.

Her companion smiled. “That’s my line,” he said.

His finger touched her cheek, which she did indeed feel slightly feverish at, and she closed her eyes.

The next morning, she opened her eyes beneath the blankets and listened carefully.

She heard no foolish snoring. It seemed her companion was not in the room.

She consulted her body. It was now merely tired, and while raw mutton was still out of the question, something cooked and lightly salted would be fine.

Having been ordered to rest the previous night, she found the comfort food postponed.

Being able to eat delicious things just because she felt fine was not likely to happen.

While she had to sigh at herself for being so weak as to take a fever after less than a month of travel and this minor crisis, she also had to admit that this treatment was not bad at all.

It had, after all, been thanks to said weakness that she’d been able to be with her companion like this.

“You utter fool.”

These words were clearly directed at herself, and she rustled about underneath the blankets before popping her head out.

Having grown accustomed to waking outdoors with the scenery spreading out all around, she found rising inside this small box was not particularly enjoyable.

Even the wagon bed, cramped and cold as it was, was preferable.

It was a far better thing to wake under the great sky, swallow great breaths of endless fresh air, and be all alone, just the two of them, there in the landscape. She could accept a roof, but only if it was within the hollow of some great tree.

She turned her head sideways as she thought of such things.

There was no sign of anybody in the next bed, and a sniff of her nose told her that her companion’s scent was very thin.

Surely he hadn’t gone to the church to pray for her return to health.

The notion was absurd, but it would have made a top-class joke.

She smiled to herself at the thought, but as no one else was there, it quickly faded.

Her breath came out white in the chilly air, and she hugged the wheat husk–stuffed pillow.

That softhearted dunce had no sense at all really.

“Such a fool…,” she murmured, then tried to sit up but found the blankets surprisingly heavy.

How many years had it been since she’d last collapsed in human form?

She’d been sure it was impossible for her to become this weak over just one night but finally admitted it.

“Hmph.”

She’d wanted to spend some time grooming her tail but gave up trying to sit.

Which meant—food. And she was thirsty. She’d eaten hardly anything the previous night.

Where had her companion gone, and what was he doing?

Back in Yoitsu, nursing someone to health meant staying close by them.

It was inexcusable that he wasn’t beside her when she came awake, she angrily assured herself—but then she heard foot-steps.

Instead of trying to sit, she pricked up her ears.

It was very frustrating, and she hugged the pillow again.

For just a moment, she was glad her companion was not there.

“Are you awake?” he asked after giving the door a hesitant knock and opening it.

If she’d been asleep, she wouldn’t have been able to answer, and if she was awake, it was a meaningless question, she thought. “Can’t you tell by looking?” she asked back.

“How do you feel?”

“I cannot sit up.”

This was not a lie, but she still tried to say it as casually as possible.

To double bluff, one told the truth.

While his mouth said she was lying, his face betrayed worry.

She looked at the leather bag he was carrying, then back at him with the same pathetic face.

If he was going to be this charming, her position was not a good one.

“Indeed…your color’s like a sheltered princess.”

Evidently she looked poorly enough to joke about it, but since she hadn’t eaten, that was to be expected.

“Still, I’m hungry.”

“Ha-ha. That’s a relief.” Her companion smiled. “Well, then,” he continued, “shall I have some porridge made?”

“I’m thirsty. Is that water there?” she asked, looking at the leather bag her companion carried. It was not overlarge and did not smell particularly of grapes.

“Ah, no—you had a fever yesterday, so I brought some apple wine.”

She couldn’t very well stay in bed at the mention of apples.

When she tried to sit up, though, she remembered the heaviness of the blankets.

“Ah, are you all right?”

“Mmph…” Once she’d been able to easily move a giant tree felled by lightning to free a comrade trapped beneath it, and now she’d been reduced to seeking rescue from underneath a blanket.

While worried, her companion happily lent her his hand.

“I am sorry,” she said. With help she was finally able to pull free of the blankets and sit up.

He also helped her sit on a pillow so that her tail wouldn’t be in the way.

The human form was so weak.

But that was precisely why it had worth.

“If you were only half this agreeable normally,” said her companion wickedly. Beside the bed there was a shelf with a candle stand. Instead of a candle, he placed a cup there and filled it with apple wine.

“Ah, but when I sleep agreeably in the wagon bed, you turn angry.”

“Well, isn’t it unfair that I should be the only one awake?” He handed her the small cup, which she accepted with both hands.

“Also, if I were too agreeable, you’d eat most of the food at mealtimes.”

“Obviously—I’m bigger.”

At these words, she grinned. “I’ll just have to grow my demeanor to match.”

Her companion’s face strained in displeasure, but he seemed not to hit upon a good comeback. He scratched his head, irritated.

It was nothing so ceremonious as respect or admiration—all the more so because he was meeting her gaze at her eye level, with a face that said he was determined to win next time.

It was awfully comfortable.

Not just that—the fact that he was truly trying to best her made her unbearably happy.

Hurry and pin me! If she was to say this, she had no doubt that he’d turn bright red and get flustered.

She smiled to think of it, putting the cup to her lips to hide this from him.

However, it wasn’t the hiding of it that erased her smile.

“Guh, huh?”

She removed the cup from her mouth and regarded its contents suspiciously.

Within it was a pale amber liquid.

“What’s wrong?” her companion asked her.

“Ugh…the flavor, it’s…,” she said, rubbing her nose and wondering if it had stopped working.

She sniffed it again and detected very little apple scent and not much alcohol.

She was suddenly uncertain.

Her ears and nose were even more important to her than her eyes.

“Oh, I thinned it,” said her companion quickly. While this came as a relief, in a twinkling that relief was replaced with a rising irritation.

“Aye, and too much. I thought my nose had gone stupid!”

“You had a fever, didn’t you? Hence, thinned apple wine.”

He said it as though it was the most obvious thing in the world, but she did not understand.

“Oh, right. Don’t you know about that?”

“I’m a wisewolf—I know enough about the world to know there are things I don’t know.”

“There’s a field called ‘medicine’ that’s been built up from people-accumulated knowledge over the years. When you collapsed, I went to the trade house and thankfully was able to look through a translation of a book on the subject.”

The word medicine was not familiar to her.

When the people in her old village were sick, they would boil grasses in water and drink it, and when injured, they would apply the grass to their wounds, but other than that, all they could do was pray to invented gods to aid them.

But she was interested in the unfamiliar.

She sniffed the cup again. “And what’s this about?” she asked.

“Well, there are four humors in the body and four temperaments.”

“Oh?”

“The four humors are blood, yellow bile, black bile, and phlegm,” he explained proudly, counting them off on his fingers, but she believed not a word of it.

Still, she kept quiet and listened.

“Sickness happens when these humors fall out of balance—when you’re fatigued or breathe bad air or sometimes when the movements of the stars influence them.”

“Hmm. Aye, I understand that.” She smiled faintly. “When the full moon comes out and my body tingles and throbs, say.” She drew her chin in and looked up at her companion, who she could easily tell was suddenly flustered.

Goodness, but he was so naive for a male.

“A-ah, yes, well, there is that, too. Just like the tides. So then, when the humors become unbalanced, you need to rebalance them by bleeding and the like.”

“…Humans have the strangest notions.”

“If you have a blister or boil, you lance it, do you not?”

“Wha—!” She looked up at her companion, shocked.

He grinned, at which she cursed her lapse.

“Humans do, which heals them. Sounds nice, eh?”

She turned away from him, ignoring his discussion of these savage methods.

“That’s one way of restoring balance, but it must be performed by a doctor. But if they saw your ears and tail, who knows what mad disease they’d think you have, and what a fuss that would cause. So we can’t see a doctor. We’ll just have to cure you another way—by using the four temperaments.”

She flicked her ears up and glanced at him with one eye. “And by that you mean delight, rage, sorrow, pleasure—all the emotions, right?”

“Close, but not quite. The human body has four temperaments: hot, cold, dry, and wet.”

Taking a drink of the mostly flavorless apple wine, she examined the palm of her hand.

What he was saying was so obvious, she couldn’t help but wonder if she was being made sport of.

“Also, you can affect those states with what you eat—because there are hot foods, cold foods, dry foods, and wet foods. Since you were hot, something cold—like an apple—is just right.”

Or one could just say that humans were very good at ascribing meanings to things.

That was one thing she could assert to, having watched so many human lives over the ages.

If anything, she had to admit she was impressed at how they could imagine all sorts of interesting things, hopping from one to the next.

“Well, if that’s the case, I would’ve preferred a simple raw apple.”

“No, that’s no good. Apples are cold, but medicinally speaking they’re also dry. People who’re feeling poorly are already overdry, so you have to reverse that. And for that, you need a drink.”

So that was why she’d been served this unpleasant colored water.

Whether her companion had just learned this or had relied on it for a long time, he was explaining it so proudly that trying to tell him it was all meaningless would itself be meaningless. While humans were all of a species, different nations had entirely different ways of doing things—that much she knew.

So she had to admit it was not surprising that when it came to humans and wolves, the things they believed would be so different—and so she gave in.

“And so do you plan on making me eat anything else?”

“Yes, because you collapsed from exhaustion. Since you had a fever from the accumulated fatigue, first we had to cool you. Next, your body is too dry, so we need to replenish its moisture. When you run, you get thirsty, right? But moistening the body also cools it, and if you become too cool, you’ll turn melancholy, so we must then warm you. Then…”

As he blithely continued, she sighed at having once shallowly looked forward to playing the patient.

But listening to her companion go on, she realized that sigh, too, might be hasty.

“So then, yes. We’ll take some porridge made with grain and sheep’s milk, add some sliced apples, and top it with cheese. Now with this, first the apples—”

“Aye, that will do. I’d like to eat that. Nay, I fear I’ll faint again if I don’t. Do you want to see? See how pale I look. Hurry, you—go and bring it!”

She could hardly stop her stomach from growling at the prospect of such delicious-sounding porridge.

Even now, a drop of drool threatened to spill from the corner of her mouth.

“…You’re perfectly well again, aren’t you?”

“Ooh, I’m so dizzy…”

Dizziness would never come at so convenient a time, but her companion was too softhearted not to reach out and steady her when she swayed and threatened to drop the cup.

She snuggled into his arm, then looked up coquettishly. “Hurry and fetch it, will you?”

Perhaps her face was a bit too close; her companion turned instantly red.

It was hard to tell who was truly the ill one.

However, she was starting to wonder if the queer human way of letting blood out of the body wasn’t rather wise after all.

“Honestly…well, are you done with the apple wine?”

“Mm, yes, well, I think I’ve had enough,” she said, taking the cup again and having a sip.

Her companion had gone to the trouble of preparing it for her, after all.

She would’ve felt bad if she’d refused the drink simply because it tasted bad.

“And make it a big serving of porridge, too,” she said, to which her companion seemed to have nothing to say in reply.

She honestly didn’t know how long she waited.

In any case, he didn’t return immediately, and once she snuggled back under the blankets, she fell right asleep. She awoke only because her nose was tickled by a scent tempting enough to rouse her.

However, she did not feel well—not because of her physical condition, but rather because she’d had a bad dream.

It was of her homelands. And of the wheat fields.

The dream brought homesickness, yes, but also terrible disgust.

It was about a time when, as a being who stood above many others, she had to assume responsibility for them.

The world was the forest, and if the soil was not strong, trees would not grow. So the Wisewolf of Yoitsu had to be its foundation, strong and true. If she abandoned that duty, the forest would quickly wither.

It was not a favor asked of her; it was simply a responsibility that someone had to shoulder.

Then she realized that around her neck was a heavy, heavy shackle.

She wasn’t sure since when it had been there—perhaps since her birth.

She was different from her surroundings.

Even if she assumed human form, they would always know she was different—grotesque.

She was relied on for her strength, feared for her size, prized for her usefulness.

She and her kind thought it natural to serve in this capacity, and so they did.

They were all of one mind that there was merit for them in doing so.

But the worshippers required majesty of their gods, in addition to favor. If the objects of their worship were meager, after all, how could they expect those gods to be able to bestow blessings?

Though she had never asked to be worshipped, she was unable to abandon these worshippers and was thus trapped.

Without anyone to worship, they would fade with the seasons, lost to fear, madness, and cruelty.

She knew it was foolish, but no matter how she suffered, she couldn’t abandon them.

She’d never asked for this and never been asked, and yet—centuries passed.

Something smelled delicious; she was accustomed to smelling tasty foods.

But while her nose twitched at such things, she knew she would never be shown a welcoming smile.

Not even from someone cheeky who didn’t know his place.

“Can you sit up?”

Her body had been gradually recovering, and now she had little difficulty in crawling out from under the blankets.

Nonetheless, she shook her head, her eyes still heavy with drowsiness.

The prison was long in the past.

She’d been able to make her long-held dream into reality.

To dance and play like a cub. To be selfish, to be powerless.

And to be protected by someone.

“Honestly—if I ever fall ill, I expect you to return the favor.”

Having just woken and being still mostly exhausted, she must’ve looked like a cat dragged from its favorite sleeping spot.

It was embarrassing, but having done it once, she couldn’t stop.

“Aye, so long as you don’t mind treatment in the style of the wolves of Yoitsu.” She grinned to hide her self-reproach.

In any case, her companion’s face twitched, but she was quite sure that if he asked about that treatment, he would be very happy with the answer.

It involved a lot of licking and snuggling.

However, she was not so kind as to tell him without being asked.

“Ah, ’tis well. My nose is very keen—I’ll know long before you turn this poorly and do something about it.”

After saying this, she thought about adding something about not chatting happily away with some other female while not noticing him until he collapsed but decided against it.

Happily—yes, he had looked very happy, but her companion knew what his job was.

And in that moment, chatting nicely with the girl had been his job.

So he said, and she believed him.

“Still, I’m sorry I didn’t notice. But I wish you’d have said something. In any case, yes—I’m rather thick,” said her companion, shrugging.

“You surely are. I might have a much more serious sickness, and you’d doubtless still fail to notice.”

“Huh?” He looked at her questioningly, but she would not explain.

He was too thick to make the connections.

She was lovesick.

But she knew it would be a long time before he noticed it.

“’Tis nothing. Never mind. Now food!” she said, which her companion childishly frowned at.

Humans judged things based on their appearances.

Being bested by someone who appeared to be a young human girl was frustrating.

It was a complicated emotion but not uncomfortable.

Even in the book of scriptures that circulated around the world, there was the satirical story of God dressing in rags and walking the roads, thereby losing all sense of formality and ceremony.

“You’re quite the princess this morning,” he grumbled, but nonetheless he removed the lid from the pot of porridge and picked up a dish.

No knight would ever speak so rudely to a princess.

She grinned. “Would you kindly spoon-feed me?” she asked by way of presuming on him.

Her companion froze, stricken—a face too pathetic by far to ever be suitable for a knight.

“’Twould have been better with more apples.”

“Likely. Cold apples increase one’s melancholy.”

“Are you…mph…are you saying I’m too cheerful?” she said as he brought the last bite to her mouth.

She’d had two full bowls’ worth.

The first few, probably thanks to his embarrassment, had been a bit wobbly and sloppy, but either he turned serious or got used to it, and she’d been able to enjoy the last half of the meal very comfortably.

Being able to eat just by opening her mouth and waiting made her feel like a baby chick.

It would be nice to be able to have her grooming done this way, too, but her tail was too precious to entrust to anyone else.

She burped quietly, which her companion furrowed his brows at a bit.

“Also, recall how many apples I ate earlier in town.”

“Ah, yes! You couldn’t even finish them, so that’s why you turned so melancholy.”

“Mm.”

It occurred to her that he was quite right, but not because of the apple’s flavor or essence or any such nonsense, but simply because she’d bought too many.

“I don’t want to eat any more apples for a while,” said her companion.

She’d claimed she would be able to eat them all, but in the end he’d had to help.

However, she’d learned that eating with company was much more pleasant than eating alone—not that she would ever say so.

“Still, if you can eat this much, you’re on the mend. Tomorrow or the next day you should be well again,” said her companion as he gathered up the dish and pot. “Not that there’s any need to rush. We’ll be on the wagon again for quite some time once we leave. Might as well rest up.”

He was too softhearted to recognize a lie as a lie.

No—it was more that he was so trusting that he would never suspect her of lying.

Feelings of guilt welled up in her chest, but when she looked up and met his eyes, her breath caught.

Those worried eyes of his.

This was not good at all.

“…I’m sorry to have…delayed our travel,” she said when she realized this.

She couldn’t let this opportunity escape.

“I gave up on hurrying when I picked you up. And they say hard times make for stronger foundations, don’t they? I regained my good credit in this town, and it’s probably better than it ever was. When I think about that profit, what’s two or three more days?”

She would have to thank that god of fortune the humans were always worshipping, she thought to herself, that she had been picked up by such a softhearted fool.

Softhearted, softhearted— When she wasn’t saying it with a scornful sneer, it turned into a different name entirely, which was terrifying.

She wanted him to stay with her.

Just watching him as he gathered the dishes and began to head for the door to return them to the inn, her tail swished restlessly.

“Still, you—”

“Hmm?” he said, with eyes so sincerely naive she could barely stand to look at them.

“The inn’s just…too quiet, so…” Embarrassment kept her from finishing the sentence.

But her companion no doubt thought it was all an act.

And at the same time, he had surely guessed that though it was an act, it was also the truth.

“It’s true, sleeping on the cart is much noisier. Anyway, I’ve nothing to do today. And I’ve got to consult on the evening menu for a certain big eater I know, so…”

So he’d stay with her.

She was being as selfish as a child.

Her companion smiled, and she made a deliberately pouting face, turning away.

It was an unobstructed, unclouded exchange.

If happiness had a form, this might well have been it.

“So, have you any rough preferences? I’ll look up the details in the medicine book later, but once the market closes, I won’t be able to buy ingredients.”

“Mm. Hmm…”

“You seem well. You might not be completely better, though, so heavy things are right out.”

“Meat, too?” She looked up pitifully.

This was an act.

“Certainly not. Porridge or soup made from boiled bread…”

“Hmph. Well, then, more of that—what was it, sheep’s milk?” she said, indicating the dishes that her companion held. He nodded. “I liked its sweet scent and thick flavor. It will do.”

“Sheep’s milk, eh…?”

“Is there some problem?” she asked, and he shook his head.

“It spoils quickly, so good-quality milk can be hard to find in the afternoon. You’ll want it fresh, yes?”

“Naturally.” She grinned, baring her fangs, at which he slumped.

“Well, perhaps I’ll have Norah get it for me again. Being a shepherd, she’s got an eye for that kind of…”

He held back from finishing the sentence.

“Did you say Norah?” she shot back reflexively—so reflexively that she didn’t know what sort of face she was making.

Her companion’s expression made it clear he had realized he’d uttered a taboo word, so she must have made some kind of face.

The pleasant atmosphere was long gone.

At his mention of Norah’s having an eye for sheep, she realized that while she slept, her companion had been walking around the town with that shepherdess.

That hated shepherdess.

Just the two of them.

While she slept!

“No, it…it was for you. I needed to get good milk, so I thought—”

“If you’d just spend the money, you don’t need a damned eye for sheep,” she growled, glaring resentfully at him.

Traitor, traitor, traitor! She cried the word out in her heart.

Though she knew he’d done nothing to earn her ire, he should’ve known better than to mention the shepherdess in such a moment, and so she could not help herself.

Shepherds and wolves were bitter enemies, after all.

“Su-surely there’s no reason not to hire her as a guide. And anyway—” He clearly knew he’d stumbled upon a huge problem and was hastily trying to smooth things over. But in the throes of her irrational anger, such smoothing only served to heighten her suspicion. And to top it all off, he kept going. “And anyway, why do you hate Norah so much?”

Time froze.

In trying to appease her snarling anger, he’d said something so unexpected that she couldn’t respond.

Her mouth dropped open. “Wh-what did you say?” she answered stupidly.

“W-well, I…I mean, I don’t know what happened between you and shepherds in the past, but I understand that you’re a wolf and you just don’t like them. But that doesn’t mean you have to hate her so much. I mean, Norah’s a shepherdess, but well…” Still holding the bowl and dish in both hands, he carefully scratched his head. “…She’s so sweet—surely there’s an exception to every rule.”

“Fool!” she very nearly shouted.

What stopped her was not her fatigue, nor was it the fact that it was unbecoming of a wisewolf.

It was, in fact, her companion’s foolishness itself that drained the desire to shout from her.

It was true that after being lonely for so many centuries, having just escaped the wheat fields made her emotions unstable—she had to admit it. She’d so thoroughly forgotten how to talk to people that she now had to pay very careful attention to her conversations. She realized that she had forgotten how to read the subtle niceties of others.

And it would come as no surprise that her companion, having spent months and years alone on a wagon, had gotten rusty at these same skills.

Yet still—could he really be so thick? She sighed.

She couldn’t understand how he could be so persistent even after having gotten himself into this situation; how despite being such a fool, he had the temerity to try to use reason on her; why for whatever reason despite seeming so considerate, even weak, he had the disposition to now—of all times!—have some pride; and why at this critical moment, he could be so impossibly dense. She couldn’t understand it at all.

Could he really, truly not see? she wondered.

She was even beginning to think he was testing her.

His view of the situation was that the wisewolf of Yoitsu hated shepherds—was that what he thought?

Wolves hunted sheep, and shepherds protected those same pitiful, powerless sheep. So in this composition, who was the wolf and who was the shepherd and who was the sheep? If he would only think about it, he’d immediately understand the reason for her displeasure.

She didn’t hate shepherds. She was nervous that particular shepherd was near the sheep.

As though the sheep was not protected by the shepherd. As though the shepherd would blow her horn and steal the sheep away. As though he might wander away with the naive, kindly shepherdess because he was so helpless, so foolish, never thinking!

As such thoughts occupied her mind, she sighed one last time.

Her companion stood there, his face evidence that, as usual, he had not the faintest notion what she was thinking. He was every inch the blithe, silly sheep.

The sweet kindness he’d shown her in spooning up the porridge and feeding it to her felt the same as it had long ago.

Her dream had essentially become real.

She’d been released from her prison and was free to do as she liked without anyone looking askance at her, free to say what she liked without troubling anyone.

So by hook or by crook, she wanted to just once. What would it be like to frolic like a pup? How would it feel?

In the end, it didn’t compare to being foolish by nature.

When drinking the night away, the sober one always had to take care of the drunken one.

“Listen, you—” she said tiredly, because she was indeed very tired.

It occurred to her to wonder that innocently frolicking like a pup was rather serious business.

It was finally impossible for a wolf to pretend to be a sheep.

Her companion might think she was wearing the skin of some ignorant sheep, but that was not her responsibility.

It was his fault for being so fixated on sheepish charms that she found herself wanting to become one but was unable to.

If they were both idiotic sheep, they’d just plunge over the cliff together.

One of them had to be the sober one and lead the other.

A loss.

A natural, inborn loss.

“I was in the wrong,” she said with deliberate sulkiness. Her companion was clearly relieved. “But like and dislike are not things felt with reason. I feel I’ve said this before.”

“Yes, well, that’s true, of course. I don’t think you have to decide everything with reason,” he said to show he understood her feelings—but the truth was he didn’t understand the real meaning of what she was saying.

She might well allow him to stroke her head, but she certainly couldn’t let him groom her tail.

Would that day ever come?

She looked at him with tired eyes and wondered.

“And also, you—” she started, and her companion tensed, as though preparing for something new. He was like a dog lowering its head to be pet. “When you take that down, would you come right back up?” She said this with a meek smile.

He seemed taken aback at her sudden change, but soon caught up with her. Perhaps he was not so very foolish after all.

“…Yes, of course. The inn is rather too quiet and all.”

The fool had a satisfied expression, as though he thought he’d been rather smooth.

The whole thing was too obvious to be called obvious, and yet here he was, such an unbelievable fool.

Unaware that he was being thought of thus, her companion’s face cleared; he seemed to think the problem was solved.

“Well, then, I’ll be right back. Would you like something to drink?”

Feeling like she was all out of sighs to sigh, she had to admit it was a kind thing of him to offer.

Thus she gave him his reward.

“The thinned apple wine you gave me before would be nice. I need to get well as soon as I can, do I not?”

He smiled very, very happily.

When he made that kind of face, she couldn’t help but wonder how best to be cruel to him.

“So you just wait here, all right?” he said with some enthusiasm and left the room.

He really was an utter fool, but as she was rolling around right next to him, the same could be said of her.

It was a peaceful, tranquil time.

She knew well just how precious such a thing was.

So she would have to control it, cherish it, and enjoy it to the best of her abilities.

There was one thing that caused her concern.

She wriggled back underneath the blankets, burying her head in the pillow as she’d seen humans do.

Her poor companion had lived such a starved life that if she showed him just a bit of affection, he might become totally useless—and if she overdid it, he would become accustomed to it and it would lose its efficacy.

For both beast and human, enough repetition of something would always lead to boredom.

Which meant she would have to think of another way.

And as she did so, she immediately hit upon it.

If he got tired of sweetness, she need only add some salt.

If her smile failed to hook him, all she had to do was summon some tears.

It was so simple.

And it would certainly work on a simple sheep.

“…Hmm?”

Something nagged at her as she thought about this. For a moment she wondered what it could be, and she soon found the cause. It was the previous night’s dinner when she collapsed.

They were talking about sheep—about how sheep would lick anything that tasted salty. She remembered that, and a strange thought occurred to her.

She imagined salty tears on her face, her companion persistently licking them up.

She would surely first giggle madly, though it would no doubt become tiresome very quickly. It was easy to imagine her companion not knowing when to stop—so easy to imagine, in fact, that it was depressing.

Yes, she would have to keep a tight hold on his reins to keep him doing what she wanted.

Thinking of how many things there were to worry about, she rolled over in bed.

Her head was still buried in the pillow, and she lay curled up on her side, chuckling.

It had been a very long time since she’d had such fun.

She wasn’t sure exactly what was fun about the situation. There were so many amusements that it was impossible to choose just one.

But if pressed for an answer, it was that her foolish companion could not, for all his foolishness, be handled by ordinary means.

There was something of the delight of the hunt in this, somehow, that set her wolf heart aflame.

Having taken the dishes downstairs, her companion was true to his word, and she heard his footsteps approach.

Her heart thudded quietly.

Her tail twisted and her ears twitched.

Her nose itched, and she rubbed it into the pillow.

Ah, this ineffable delight of the hunt!

The footsteps stopped in front of the door.

She couldn’t help but smile as she looked back toward it.

And then, as it opened, standing there was—

“Holo,” her companion said, smiling.

The shepherdess beside him.

“Miss Norah’s come to visit you.”

No, indeed he could not be dealt with by normal means at all.

The shepherdess smiled a smile as fresh and clear as an early summer field, and it wasn’t the wisewolf’s centuries of experience that allowed her to smile back.

She smiled out of actual pleasure.

Holding the reins of her enormous fool of a companion was so difficult a task, she could only laugh at it.

“How are you feeling?” asked Norah the shepherdess.

“’Tis nothing, just a bit of fatigue.”

If she hadn’t answered the question this way, how else could she have possibly answered it?

Even with a wisewolf’s clever mind, she had no idea.

Her companion watched the pleasant exchange with a proud, self-satisfied smile.

It wasn’t that she wasn’t exhausted exactly.

Far from it—she felt like her fever was about to rise back up.

“I’ve been a bit starved for company, though. You see, there was something I’ve been wanting to ask you,” she said.

“Huh? Something to ask…me?” The shepherdess was a clever girl but was ever modest; she could see why her companion would fall for that. “If it’s something I can answer, then…please do.”

She then smiled.

The shepherdess could not be underestimated. But as a hunter she would understand these words, and so the wisewolf wanted to ask them.

“What is the best way to lead sheep?”

The shepherdess’s eyes widened in surprise at the unexpected question, but her usual smile soon returned.

Next to her, her cheeky sheepdog stood watchfully, his guard up as usual.

The pale, slender shepherdess spoke with a gentle smile. “You need a generous heart.”

The moment after she heard the answer, she felt like the wind blew.

This girl was utterly genuine.

She was a real shepherdess.

To raise sheep, one needed a generous heart.

She glanced at her companion and thought to herself that the shepherdess was exactly right.

Norah saw the look and made a brief expression of realization.

A smart person needed only a moment to notice such things.

“’Tis because sheep always think themselves so clever.”

Norah returned her gaze to her and smiled, a bit confused but pleased nonetheless.

She had the feeling she would get along with this girl just fine.

But as her companion watched, not knowing that they were talking about him, she wasn’t confident about her ability to hold his reins.

Only God knew if she’d be able to.

She gave him a resentful look, which startled him.

You sheep, you sheep, you innocent little sheep, she thought to herself.

And yet, that silly way of his—yes.

“You’re such a fool,” she murmured.

She did so love her sheep.

End.