This story is part of the Wanderer series.
Skipping up to the edge, Nozomi unwrapped her towel and dropped it on the ground, quickly slipping in beside Rin with a big smile. She winced from the hot temperature, marching her feet in place a few times.
“Ah! Hot, hot, hot!”
The hot water surface wavered vividly. Yet she still forced herself to crouch down, flinching again as her rear entered the water. She shrank as she submerged herself up to her chest, drawing in her shoulders and gripping tight fists against her folded legs, pressed tightly against her body. Shutting her eyes tightly, she uttered a drawn-out, quiet grunt as she coped. Rin, rested back against the sloped edge of the bath with a small towel on her head, eventually opened an eye to see what was going on, while Chiara, sitting on the other side of Rin, watched with amusement.
Eventually, as she adapted, Nozomi slowly unraveled, letting go of her fists and slouching her head forward.
“Hahhh…” she sighed as her muscles eased. Her hands bent forward to palm her knees.
Closing her eyes again, Rin bashed her. “You got in too quickly.”
Nozomi opened her eyes and turned her head to her friend. “I didn’t know it would be this hot!”
Alisan chuckled from across the water. “It is quite warm for the climate.”
Stretching out her legs towards the center, deeper level of the bath, Nozomi finally sat down. She grinned as she looked around the small, fenced-in court, lit only by the moon and a few torches. “Still, it’s nice of them to give us a bath to ourselves!”
Sitting next to Alisan, with her eyes closed and her chin tucked in, Karin spoke. “Don’t get too comfortable. We are being treated like children.”
Nozomi and Chiara look over at Karin, wearing clueless expressions.
“This is just an excuse to whisk us away while the ‘adults’ talk behind our backs,” she continued.
“Hm? How do you know?” Nozomi asked.
“Brother told me,” she simply replied without elaborating.
Nozomi turned her head to Rin again. “But it’s night time. What are they talking about?”
Rin slightly furrowed her forehead, refusing to open her eyes. “I don’t know. Just leave them. They’ll do whatever they want and treat us however they want… Like they’ve been doing the whole time.”
Pushed away, Nozomi briefly exchanged looks with Chiara before she returned to herself. As if noticing something, she drew up one leg onto the seat and rubbed her ankle region.
As silence took over between the girls, leaving just the low ambient sound of the wide open sky and the steaming water, Alisan turned to herself as well, cupping the water with one hand and rubbing it along her other shoulder. Rin remained laid back, while Karin remained upright with her chin tucked in. Chiara, becoming restless, simply paddled her legs underwater from where she sat. Eventually, with a breath out, Rin reached a hand up to her head and took the towel to wipe her forehead, blinking her eyes open and sitting up. Setting the towel behind her, she also began to tend herself, massaging her forearm in the water.
“I think I burned myself,” Nozomi eventually spoke aloud.
Rin chuckled, surfacing a teasing grin. “Well, what did I tell you?”
“I couldn’t help it,” she whined.
“The steps are over there, you know?” Rin pointed with her eyes, slightly tilting her head in the direction of the steps. Located between the two groups of girls, there was a portion of the bath’s perimeter where the floor was broken into four smaller levels compared to the two of the rest of the bath; one level at sitting height, and one at standing.
Crossing her arms, Nozomi began to pout. “How was I supposed to know?”
“Just look.”
“There’s steam in the way!”
“Just look,” Rin repeated.
Chiara laughed. “Do you jump down a hole just because it’s dark, then?”
Nozomi and Rin glanced at her.
“Huh? What?” Nozomi blurted. “Why would I do that?”
“Yeah, what kind of comparison is that?” Rin added.
Chiara blushed, becoming flustered. “I don’t know! They’re both jumping into things without looking first!”
“But of course I’d jump into a hot bath,” said Nozomi, still confused. “Why would I jump into a hole? I’ll break my legs!”
“Just… forget it!” Chiara cried. “It was a bad example!”
“No! I want to understand!” Nozomi naively insisted, leaning over Rin towards Chiara. Her hands palmed on top of Rin’s leg to support herself, pressing it down and causing Rin to flinch forward.
“Ack! Nozomi, you’re—”
“Forget it!”
“Whyyyyy?!”
“Nozomi!”
As the three of them squabbled, Alisan and Karin remained to themselves, not joining into the party. For her part, Alisan seemed distracted, staring off to the fence line, away from the bathing facility. The moon had risen high enough above the horizon to be visible to the baths, shining full.
“… like carving up the moon… huh?” she quietly muttered to herself.
Beside her, Karin peeked out under her eyelids, finding Alisan gazing off into the distance.
“You too, huh?”
Alisan lightly shrank. She did not expect anyone to hear her quiet musings over the squawking. Turning her head, Alisan briefly saw Karin peeking over before she looked away, down at the steamy water’s surface.
“The High Princess is not negotiable. Her position has not bent a stone’s width since she arrived.”
Alisan looked down with her, murmuring in agreement.
“Yet, no one wants to return to war. And she knows that.”
“But…” Alisan began, hesitating for an instant as she leaned forward and faced Karin again. “Wouldn’t a war be bad for the Kingdom as well?”
“I’m starting to think it would not,” Karin said with a sigh.
Alisan uttered a closed-mouth murmur. Dejected, she retreated. She, too, knew Karin was probably right, yet she could not understand the reason.
The other side of the bath grew rowdy as Nozomi began splashing water at Rin and Chiara. Giggling, Chiara returned in kind, while Rin, caught in the middle, kept yelling at the two to cut it out, even though she was also returning the splashes at Nozomi. Despite the ruckus, along with the bath water lapping harder against their bodies, Karin and Alisan remained closed into their world.
“Why…?” Alisan eventually muttered.
Karin raised her right arm out of the water, bending it towards her and gazing at its glistening surface.
“The Kingdom is ready for war. Materielly, and spiritually,” she began. “These two years of ceasefire have afforded them time to build up their army. Build up rapport… and fervor.”
“But all war is… is death and suffering.”
“Pride for your nation,” Karin pointed out. “And conviction to be on the victorious side of history. They can convince anyone to endure anything.”
Turning her hand over, Karin opened her palm to the sky.
“Imagine if, instead of finding spiritual peace with the land, the Enlightenment Journey was about convincing villages to join your nation, by word or by force.”
Looking up at her friend, Karin found her staring wide eyed and bewildered.
“I know it may seem absurd, but that is what you have to imagine… in order to understand this kingdom. It is ingrained in their society, from the highest nobles to the deepest slums.”
Alisan dropped her gaze.
“Uncle recognizes it. I made sure of it before we arrived.” Karin resubmerged her arm. “It’s only a matter of getting the other leaders on his side.”
“The High Elders will sue for peace,” Alisan assured.
“Peace in any form,” Karin clarified. “No matter how fragile. It is not the same.”
She hesitated once again. “But… that’s better than war, right?”
With a sigh, Karin slightly sagged her shoulders before finally leaning back, resting her head to face the starry sky. “I suppose, if there’s a chance it will hold.”
“And the Republic usually follows their steps.”
“The Republic doesn’t care,” she dryly rebuked. “The Republic would be jubilant to see the Empire’s control over the Continental Ocean diminish.”
Alisan glanced up at Karin without turning her head. Not knowing what else to say, she returned to cupping the water up her arms once more. The bath had settled down, as the other three girls were no longer disturbing the water anymore, yet they were still chatting lively about something else.
“The Nomads follow the Republic’s steps,” Karin further disputed. “And the Republic is guided solely by the Consul, as far as I can tell.”
With one last cup, Alisan kept her hand gripped against her arm. “He does project his charisma very well.”
“The man irks me,” Karin complained with a growl. “All the Consul does is appease. And it puts Uncle in a weaker position.”
“But… His nation is just a mediatory party, right?” Alisan asked, checking her understanding. “What else can he offer that isn’t overrea—?”
“It’s precisely because he doesn’t have any skin in the game. All appeasement does is buy you time for the next war, and it only works if the appeased side doesn’t know any better.”
Hearing Karin’s voice grow more irritable, Alisan clamped her mouth shut.
“None of the Republic’s land is threatened by this conflict. They’re just here to take advantage of our weakened position and score a better trade deal… and maybe safeguard their ally on the other side of the strait from getting entangled, if they feel like it.”
Underneath the water, Karin clenched tight fists.
“And if that fails, they can just send some sacrificial troops to their ally’s border as a deterrent. If it were his land at stake, the Consul would not be appeasing. He would demand guarantees. Not ebb and flow depending on how many chips he currently has.”
Pausing a moment, Karin took a deep breath, pulling back the sharpness of her voice as if she realized its growing edge.
“They are strong enough to do more,” she sighed, becoming crestfallen. “But they are incentivized not to. What is there to gain if they earn the Celestial Empire’s favor at the expense of the Kingdom of Light’s ire?”
She closed her eyes for a while, slowly breathing in and out. When Alisan did not respond, she eventually opened them again, keeping them fixed to the sky.
“I’m sorry. I’m just spouting my grievances at you. None of this is in your control.”
Alisan murmured in appreciation. Yet, she wanted to continue. She wanted to do more for her friend than being a silent receiver. She just could not find the right words at the right moments.
“No… I—”
“Alisan! Karin!”
Hearing her name all of a sudden, Alisan flinched. Looking over to the other side, she saw the three girls looking her way, with Nozomi leaned forward, wearing a determined expression.
“I’ve been behaving well so far, right?!” she insisted. “I only speak during the meetings when I’m allowed to, right?!”
“Uh…” Alisan did not know how to respond, hesitating as she felt like she was missing some context. Karin simply gazed at them from where she laid, not making an effort to speak.
“That’s not what I said,” Rin lightly grumbled through gritted teeth. “I said you were too loud.”
Nozomi whipped her head towards Rin. “But it’s a big room with lots of people! I have to be loud for them to hear me!”
“Not that loud. And not just there, but the courtyards too. And right here.”
“The courts have lots of people talking! I have to be even louder there!”
“And right here…” Rin repeated, frowning a bit from second-hand embarrassment.
“But it’s just us here!”
Rin started to raise her voice too. “There are other baths on the other side of the fences! Gods, do you have no self awareness?!”
Nozomi began to look around. “There are?”
As she leaned in one direction, it triggered Rin to immediately grab her by the arm.
“Do. Not! Go over. And look! For heaven’s sake!”
Nozomi jumped, surprised. “Heh?!”
“That’s taboo!”
“I wasn’t going to!”
“Yeah, you were!”
“No!”
Groaning, Karin lifted an arm out of the water and reached over her shoulder, grabbing her folded towel and laying it on her face, shutting out the world. Alisan observed this but said nothing, turning her attention back to the bickering girls as they forgot about her once again.