This story is part of the Wanderer series.
Gathered around the fire, under the stars of the night and nestled under the tall foliage, the group settled down for the night. Karin sat with her legs tucked under her, while Alisan crossed her legs. Nozomi laid on her back, arms crossed on her stomach, and Rin sat with her legs bent in front of her, resting her elbows on her knees. Chiara laid on her side, head propped from the ground with an arm, cheek squished into her palm and legs stretching out towards the fire.
Opening the pot and giving it one last stir, Karin shook out the spoon, returned the lip to the pot, and set forth a few small ceramic cups on the ground in front of her. In a fluent motion, she poured tea into two of the cups, stopping then to offer one to Alisan sitting next to her. She graciously accepted the cup.
“Thank you.”
Turning her head, Karin looked across the campfire. “Do you two want some tea?”
Nozomi shook her head from where she laid. “Mn-nn. I’ll share with Rin.”
Rin closed her eyes and slouched, her face becoming long as her eyebrows lifted. “I’ll share with Nozomi.”
Karin straightened up, becoming annoyed. “Make up your mind, you two!”
Nozomi blurted out a short and merry laugh. Rin sighed, and reached out an arm.
“Fine, I’ll get a cup for ourselves.”
As Karin poured, Nozomi continued to giggle, crossing her fingers on her belly.
“It really has been a long time since we’ve been to the Western Continent, huh?”
Alisan agreed. “The sights and sounds on the continent are very distinct. There are many different kinds of trees here.”
Rin looked up as she accepted a ceramic cup from Karin. “You could always pop on south and visit us, you know.”
“That is true,” Alisan admitted, taking a sip.
“All our trees are the same, though,” Nozomi pointed out.
“Not all of them,” Rin quickly corrected. “The trees in the east are a lot different than the trees in the south.”
“Yeah, but they’re all the same in the same area,” she clarified. “Here, there are different kinds of trees mixing together.”
Karin turned towards Chiara, then lowered the pot onto the ground when the bright-haired girl silently shook her head.
“So if Alisan wants to see all sorts of trees, it would be better to travel to here,” Nozomi finished.
“Yeah, if you could sail across the ocean on a whim,” Rin quipped. This got a laugh from everybody.
“Hey, they have flying castles, right?” Nozomi reminded.
Alisan straightened. “Well—”
Karin spoke up at the same instant. “They can’t—”
But ultimately, Rin’s scolding voice won out over the others.
“You can’t just take one of the castles and fly over! Not everyone has a private flying castle like you did!”
Nozomi drew her hands to her head and gripped it, bringing her elbows in as everyone piled onto her. “All right, all right! I get it!”
Chiara lazily giggled. “Even after all this time, Nozomi is still the laughing stock among us all.”
Nozomi crossed her arms, pouting. “It’s fine…”
Facing the fire and raising her cup, Rin closed her eyes and smiled, opening her mouth at the same time.
“… I can take it.”
“She can take it.”
Rin’s cup drew no closer than her lips before she sputtered a laugh, hearing herself perfectly echo her sib. Nozomi also suddenly burst into laughter, shoulders bobbing as she did. Chiara giggled along, while Karin and Alisan expelled a laughing breath.
As the laughter died down, everyone took a moment to breathe in the crisp, dusk air. Rin set her cup down near Nozomi after taking a sip, inviting her to take it whenever she wished.
“I wish I could travel with everybody like this forever,” Chiara sighed, becoming reminiscent.
“I hope so too!” Nozomi exclaimed, kicking her feet up. “Let’s make it a promise, all right? To stick together, as long as we can!”
Hearing Nozomi’s naive enthusiasm, Chiara’s smile became more bittersweet, her gaze dipping lower into the fire. Sitting up and tossing another branch into the fire, Karin was the first to respond.
“Well, I will need to return home every once in a while, but I am not against it.”
Dropping her legs, Nozomi abruptly sat up, beaming a smile towards Karin. “Then we’ll go home with you!” Then, she turned to Rin. “Right?”
“As long as it’s not the middle of winter,” Rin griped. “That was terrible.”
The response received a teasing chuckle from the northern princess. “You just need to acclimate to it, and you will be fine.”
“Says the one who’s lived there all their life,” Rin lightly retorted. “Try living down in the tropics for a few weeks.”
Karin leaned in, becoming more feisty. “I am certain I will eventually adapt.”
“Eventually, sure,” Rin echoed, drawing her ire.
As the group became lively, Alisan watched on, taking in the cozy atmosphere of their little camp as she sipped her tea with a smile. However, sitting next to Chiara, she could not help but notice her unusually dim enthusiasm, her mind seemingly absent from what was transpiring around her. Lowering her cup and leaning down, getting a better glance of Chiara’s face, Alisan observed with dawning concern.
“Chiara…? Is something wrong?”
Upon hearing her name, her shoulder stiffened, drawing up. Straightening, she indirectly faced Alisan, becoming red. “N-Nothing…! It’s nothing…”
The abject denial only worsened Alisan’s concern. Hearing the exchange, Rin’s attention also drew towards Chiara, her smile dropping. “That’s right,” she curiously remarked. “You’re normally more talkative than this.”
Around the camp, all other eyes turned over to her. Feeling their gaze, her face grew even more hot, awash with guilt.
“What’s wrong?” Nozomi innocently asked, seeing her discomfort. “Did you get a stomach ache?”
“N-No… I’m okay… It’s just…”
Her voice trailed off into the crackling fire. Her face turned away, unable to handle the attention any longer. Nozomi and Rin looked on, not knowing what to say. Karin had already turned her face away, gauging it would do no good to keep staring at the younger princess.
Placing her cup down in front of her crossed legs, Alisan straightened up, relaxed her shoulders, and faced her head squarely towards the girl. “If something is bothering you, we are here to help.”
Wincing, Chiara looked up, meeting her in the eyes. Alisan gently smiled, patiently holding herself still as a stone. For a fleeting moment, Chiara’s eyes darted around the rest of the camp, affirming their smiles as proof they were in agreement with Alisan’s words.
“That’s right!” Nozomi piped up, drawing her hands together in her lap and glancing around. “We’re like a second family now, right? We should be there for each other when they need it!”
She received closed-mouth affirmations from Rin and Karin. Chiara’s eyes aimlessly wandered down to the ground.
“A second family…”
“Yes,” Alisan assured.
Chiara closed her eyes, thinking for a moment. Then, she squeezed her eyes shut and took a deep breath, head tilting back. Then, she let it out, letting her shoulders ease for a brief second before opening her eyes with newfound conviction.
“All right then…”
All around the campfire, the girls straightened up.
“I’ve been hiding something from everyone that I can’t hide anymore…”
Nozomi and Rin drew closer towards the fire, blinking with curiosity.
“The truth is… I maybe can’t follow you all forever.”
Rin furrowed her brows in confusion. “What do you mean by that?”
Karin, however, understood immediately. “Because of your royal blood?”
Without a nod or a shake of her head, Chiara sat up, drawing her legs into a bundle in front of her, knees knocked over. Then, with a deep breath, she faced the group.
“There’s something I should have told everyone during the peace conference, but couldn’t figure out the right time to say it.”
Now Karin and Alisan’s eyes reflected the same curiosity.
“What I learned about this body of mine… and why my sister went to war over it.”
She paused as the last few words left her mouth, thinking deeply again. The world shrank down, drawing away the night breeze, the rustling leaves, and the forest crickets. Accompanied only by the crackling fire, Chiara began.
“Hundreds of years ago, there was an empire that ruled over the world. They were very powerful, and had many powerful weavers and Wanderers.”
“The Xin Dynasty,” Karin confidently deduced.
“No…” Chiara shook her head. “Before that… I don’t remember what they were called. But, they ruled for a long time, and each period of their rule was defined by a powerful Wanderer that kept the empire safe and secure.”
Glancing down, Alisan subtly knit her forehead, as if the description sounded familiar to her. Karin was equally stumped.
“However, once they lost their last Wanderer, the empire began to break apart. And then hundreds of years later, the Xin Empire conquered them.”
Karin’s eyes lit up, lips slightly parting. However, she said nothing, deciding against speaking up again as Chiara continued.
“It became common sense that to survive forever, a nation needed a Wanderer to lead it each generation, or risk falling into decline or invasion.”
Bringing up her knees, Chiara drew them into her chest and wrapped her arms around her legs, slouching forward.
“And that’s what made my home nation unique, is that in the royal family, there is a Celestial loyal to our family, reincarnating in a new princess each time the previous one dies. So our kingdom had a Wanderer to lead it for hundreds and hundreds of years… protecting it… And today…”
Chiara paused, eyes slightly dipping. Karin already knew her next words, eyes dipping with her.
“That Wanderer is me.”
The rest of the group uttered a muted gasp.
“That’s why my family has always said I will inherit the throne. Not because they want me to, but… because I have to… Otherwise… we risk losing the Celestial’s favor.”
She stopped. Silence hung in the air as no one knew what to say.
Rin eventually slouched her shoulders, sitting back. “Why didn’t they tell you this before?”
Chiara lightly shook her head. “It’s because… My sister was afraid.”
Nozomi perked her head up. “Afraid? She seems like she’s really tough.”
“I was born late. There was a time, for several years, where the family’s Wanderer was not reborn yet. Instead, my eldest sister was born.”
She pinched her brows, uncomfortably shifting her toes inward.
“When the family realized she was not the right Wanderer, they were afraid her birth ruined the cycle… They were worried our Celestial became jealous of this new one and abandoned the family. They weren’t sure if this new one would even return after my sister died… so…”
A loud crack erupted from the campfire.
“… we would lose our Wanderer after her death. Many called her the Last Wanderer.”
One of the thickest branches in the fire collapsed deeper into the pit, its crackle softening. The group remained speechless.
“My eldest sister was shamed all of her childhood, even though she did nothing wrong. Even though she trained hard, and showed she was a more potent mage than my ancestors were, she was still looked down on, all the way until my birth.”
Chiara craned her neck to look up with a sigh, finally leaving the ground and gazing up towards the stars peeking through the foliage.
“And so when I was born, my family poured all of their attention into me, including my eldest sister. They suffocated me with their attention, and kept me locked in without telling me the real reason.”
Karin looked up. “Your sister did not hate you for all the pain you caused?”
“No. She was relieved,” Chiara explained. “My birth saved her from their hate, and they finally began to celebrate her talents.”
Rin wrapped her arms around the outside of her crossed legs, temporarily raising her knees. “What was she afraid of, then?”
Pressing her chin into her knees, Chiara stared at her toes as she lifted and rested them back down. “Of losing me. She had become so attached to me, and didn’t realize until Nozomi and Rin broke me out of the castle to leave and explore the world.”
Hearing their involvement in this story, Nozomi and Rin unexpectedly shifted in place.
Picking up her cup again, Alisan kneaded it with her thumbs, reflecting on what she just heard. “Then… Do you know the name of your Celestial?”
Pivoting on her chin, Chiara tilted her head to the side, affirming with a grunt. “My Celestial is Idunn, the Celestial of youth and fertility,” she announced. “My ancestors have always appeared ageless for most of their lives, and it is said their presence gives the kingdom’s lands its fertility in the desert. Periods of droughts have always followed every time my ancestors were sick or dead.”
Karin seemed to silently scoff to herself. It took her best to soften the edge off her voice as she impulsively spoke up. “That sounds like an embellished fairytale. Did the kingdom suffer a drought when you left?”
Chiara glanced up as she thought. “I don’t know… I didn’t ask. But I think I just need to be alive, and it’s fine.”
Coming to a realization, Rin raised her neck. “So that’s why your sister went to war when she thought you were killed.”
She nodded. “Not just her, but the entire kingdom. To them, it wasn’t only that their princess was killed. It was the fertility of their land.”
A scowl arose from Karin’s face as she glared into the fire. “And the Organization exploited that belief to incite a war between our two nations.”
Pinching her lips, Chira dipped her eyes down in defeat. “But… the others won’t accept that fact, no matter how many times I try to tell them.”