CHAPTER 91: FALSE SLEEP
As he hears the weeping in Emilia's words, a stabbing feeling of regret assails Subaru. Having made Emilia recollect a sad memory, and even brought her to tears, the guilt spears him in multitudes.
What Subaru feels from Emilia's faltering speech is her love and gratitude for the people of Elior Forest. Feelings which the day of snow had flipped entirely, transforming these memories into ones of being subjected to hatred and malice. It's unclear what they all thought while trapped inside the ice. But Emilia's days of warmth and happiness have nevertheless been sealed inside the thick, cold frost, with no signs at all of it melting.
Subaru: “...Why did they say those things about you? Just going off what I've heard here, for the one who buried the forest in ice... to be you would make sense. But were you powerful enough to cause something that insane when you were little?”
Emilia: “—I don't know. Back then I knew way less of the world than I do now, and I knew nothing about what I could or couldn't do, and I was always imposing on everybody's kindness. But... without Puck and by myself, the current me doesn't have the powers to freeze a forest.”
Subaru: “If you had Puck, could you?”
Emilia: “—”
Emilia wordlessly gives a small nod. Her half-hearted affirmation was probably because she feared Subaru would mistake her for the culprit behind freezing the forest. But Subaru doesn't think that way. Not out of favouritism, but a simple problem of timeline.
Subaru: “Don't need to look so worried, I'm not gonna misunderstand. You met Puck ages after the Forest'd been frozen... like, after 100 years. You and the ice and Puck are backwards in the sequence.”
Emilia: “M-mm... yes, but...”
Emilia nods, her face too tense to really be called 'relieved'. While withstanding the urge to furrow his brow at that reaction, Subaru instructs himself to keep his expression calm as he links his hands together.
—There's been something faintly off about this the whole time. But it was here in this instant that Subaru felt more intensely uncomfortable than ever. Well of course. Natsuki Subaru had never trespassed into Emilia's past or inner thoughts before, and had been content to love her while coddling her superficial traits like a princess.
And so this was a TRIAL for Subaru, one essential for him to undergo. A TRIAL to determine whether a Subaru disqualified from the tomb had the right to stand with, beside, and alongside Emilia.
Subaru: “I understand the things about what you saw in the tomb's TRIAL. ...And so going conversely, what do you think you have to do that'll beat it?”
Emilia: “That's... mm, it's...”
Emilia averts her gaze. This was not her hesitating about giving a solution, but her failing to find the precise form and structure of the thing. Emilia had no definite visions on how to defeat the TRIAL. Her first attempt had abruptly presented her again with her long-held quandary, and sought that she present a flawless response.
Echidna said that giving your answer regarding the past that you avoided is enough to defeat the TRIAL. Affirmation of it, denial of it, either would work to surmount it.
Emilia had accepted as a sad memory the fact that those once kind to her now rejected her. Then, getting over it would be the requirement for beating the TRIAL? Getting over the stuff you have deserted to your past—how to do it, and how to clear it.
Subaru cannot present Emilia with a definite answer. But, having overcome the first TRIAL and experienced the second, there are things Subaru does know. And although his scrapes with the character of the one called Echidna were minute, he does know this:
—Most likely, the TRIAL would not present the challenger with an unbeatable problem.
And of course it wouldn't, when considering Echidna's goals. What Echidna desires is the treasures so called results, to sate her curiosity. Were they acquired by defeat of the TRIAL, then that only made them shine brighter. So should be what the witch is thinking. The results are merely a question of whether the challenger affirms or denies the past.
Meaning that Emilia was meeting the requirements to clear the TRIAL. So long as she can figure out said requirements, and present her thoughts about her past, then that should be her solution. So then the problem here is not with the TRIAL, but with—
Subaru: “You can keep challenging without having found any answer for it, but it's gonna always turn out the same.”
Emilia: “—What do you think, Subaru?”
Subaru says nothing.
Emilia: “This talk we've had, about my past and the TRIAL... having heard it, what do you think? Do you have any ideas for what might work? I'm still wondering what I should do...”
Emilia must have spent last night, even after returning to her lodgings, it eating into her sleeping hours, repeating these questions to herself. In a debilitating vortex of thought, which ended in her losing consciousness in something close to fainting.
Subaru: “Emilia, you said that you want to melt the ice and thank everyone.”
Emilia: “Mm.”
Subaru: “Why do you think like that?”
Emilia must have sustained terrible treatment from these once-kind people. Why did she find significance in saving those men and women, drowned in the ice?
Subaru: “The last memories you have are memories of them rejecting you, right? They said awful things, jeered at you... why do you still want to help them?”
Emilia: “—Subaru, if I said awful things about you right now, would you stop trying to help me?”
Subaru: “—”
Subaru finds himself speechless. Emilia's amethyst eyes stare back at Subaru with sincerity. The indecisive weakness is gone from her gaze in that answer.
Emilia: “Yes, the last feelings I felt while with everybody were painful... but what happened at the end doesn't erase all the time I spent with them before that. I had so many good memories of my time with them.”
Subaru says nothing.
Emilia: “I don't want to forget them, and invalidate everything by only remembering them hurting me. I want to help everyone, and smile with them again... it's greedy, but that's what I think.”
Emilia puts her hand to her mouth after finishing her unwitting speech, peeping at Subaru to see his response. Her expression is one of having unintentionally voiced an ugly part of herself, and fearing being scorned because of it, is how Subaru perceives it. Seeing Emilia's perceived worry, Subaru thinks:
—So her way of life is one where she cannot go without finding that wish greedy.
Emilia: “—Subaru?”
Subaru: “Nothing, just thinking. That you're exactly, entirely right, that is.”
Even saying that he was killed by them in his last interaction, that doesn't make the memories and ties between them fade. He had been killed by both Rem and Ram, but he still worked frantically to save them. And he ran off the same feelings during the loops starting in the Capital. Emilia thought in the same manner as Subaru. That's all.
Subaru: “—”
The instant after he feels the relief, Subaru becomes conscious of the greatest sense of awriness yet. Something so off, that he's shocked at how he hadn't already noticed it.
Emilia: “—Subaru?”
His face frozen stiff, Emilia's eyes waver in confusion as she looks at Subaru. While he knows this is unsettling her, he cannot really pull himself back together. Because,
—Emilia has already reached her answer regarding the event in her past.
Subaru: “—”
The elves Emilia spent her days with are sleeping in ice in Elior Forest. She has reminisced on that day of snow, and although the target of her once-trusted ones's hatred, she fully asserted that she wanted to save them and convey them her gratitude.
That was a single and definite reply to her aversive past.
If Subaru's recognition of his past self's foolishness and communication of his goodbye to his parents was enough to meet the conditions to defeat the TRIAL, then Emilia's determination should be equally respected. But the TRIAL is not willing to recognize that she has filled the conditions.
While perhaps that could be because Subaru jolted her awake and interrupted her TRIAL, on all days after that for every loop—even when Subaru does not interrupt her TRIAL, she fails to defeat it. So Emilia's answer was not apt for the TRIAL?
Subaru: “But, that's...”
If the one making the ruling during the TRIAL is Echidna, then is its liking with the presented answer dependant on the witch's feelings with it? But, Echidna's emphasis is not on what kind of answer is given, and instead on the fact that one is given at all. Invalidating the challenger's answer does not seem anything like Echidna. Nothing like her—but Subaru does have the thought: if there's a possibility that Echidna disfavours only Emilia's answer...
It guilts him to recognize the thought. Recognizing it means speculating that ONLY EMILIA is entirely incapable of defeating the TRIAL.
Subaru: “Like I could accept that... begging you, Echidna.”
Emilia: “Subaru, what's wrong? Did I say something strange again?”
Subaru: “No, it's not a problem with you. If there's some problem then it's with the question-setter. ...You said you want to melt the ice and help everyone, but you weren't able to? You lived in the forest with Puck until Roswaal brought you out, right? You must've had plenty of time to try.”
Although aware that it's a cruel question, Subaru asks it.
Being that he's heard Emilia's past, then attempting such a thing and unsealing them from the ice would mean the freed people would again shower Emilia in curses. Emilia must have already worried about this exact thing many times over. Her nails dig into her arm as she looks down.
Emilia: “I had Puck help me for it so many times... but I couldn't melt the ice.”
Subaru: “When you say couldn't melt the ice, do you mean a mental problem? Or a physical one...”
Assuming that it's a mental problem, then Subaru has no intention to fault her for it. Doing something while knowing that it will hurt oneself is not an action anyone is so easily capable of. But Emilia replies to Subaru's question with a weak,
Emilia: “A physical problem, maybe.”
Emilia: “The ice is special ice... it's not something that will melt, even if you do what you can from outside. You have to do something about the person who froze them, or try some other great method... and so I accepted Roswaal's offer, and...”
Subaru: “Offer?”
Emilia: “Auh...”
Emilia covers her mouth, her expression one of having said something that she shouldn't. But faced with Subaru as he focuses his stare on her in silence, Emilia's shoulders immediately droop.
Emilia: “Roswaal... promised me.”
Subaru: “—”
Emilia: “He came with the insignia, let me hold it... and once he saw its jewel glow red, he told me about the Royal Selection, and then... he said this.”
So was Emilia's presence in the forest, qualified to be a Royal Selection candidate as she was, information written in the gospel? An exchange which brings to mind the image of Roswaal smiling cryptically—in this imagining, Roswaal speaks as he presents Emilia his hand:
Emilia: “—If you can secure the throne, then surely your wish to melt the ice of this forest can also be granted.”
Subaru: “...You believed him?”
Emilia: “I was pretty desperate. He didn't tell me the details of how to melt the ice, but... I accepted his offer, and left the forest with Roswaal. Puck... doesn't object to what I do, so he came with me without saying anything.”
Subaru: “And that's why you decided to participate in the Selection... when you said before that your reason for participating's selfish... that's what it was, then.” Emilia: “...Contempting me, right?” In his heart Subaru agrees with her, when Emilia murmurs.
He looks up, to find her gazing at him timidly, and her lips quirk.
Emilia: “The others... everybody has amazing goals and resolve for contending in the Selection, and my reason is so, sooo much of a personal problem...” Subaru: “I'd say it's plenty important, wanting to save the villagers. The quantity of people you help doesn't dilute the greatness of what you do. And besides, the stuff you said at the Selection's hall wouldn'tve been a lie.” Emilia: “What I said at the hall for the Selection...”
Subaru: “That you wanted to be viewed as equal. I don't think those words were a lie.” At the start, maybe it was her seeking some solution for her unresolved circumstances. But Emilia learned of the outside world, learned the largeness of 100 years of time, and was still learning the ways of the present world, surely giving her chance to rethink. Subaru did not feel that the words she spoke at the Selection Hall were insincere, superficial varnish.
If her feelings then were earnest, and her desire to win the Selection remained the same now, then
Subaru thought it no reason to entirely disdain it. Subaru: “So you don't have to look so worried, it's okay. I'm on your side, and that you can lean on me hasn't changed from last night. Even if you say you're okay, and deny taking my shoulder.”
Emilia: “Ah... um, about yesterday...” Subaru: “Don't apologize, it'll ruin me. But well, what I can tell you is that I'm always gonna be right where you can lean on me, Emilia-tan, for thine anticipated use. I do like it when you stand strong by your own, Emilia, but it's perfectly fine for you to be a little weak for me too.” Subaru thumps his hand to his chest, letting his mouth relax, for Emilia to give a relieved sigh.
Instantly, that relief seems to transmit down the rest of her as her upper body sways, Emilia: “It's, just when I relax suddenly I'm...” Subaru: “Your dream was so bad you couldn't sleep. Don't push yourself, have a little nap. I won't do anything just watch over you.” Emilia: “That 'won't do anything' is sort of bothering me sooo much...”
Although worried by the unneeded statement, Emilia's silver hair still sways as she fights the Sandman's temptations. Subaru puts his finger to her forehead, putting in some light force to so push her down.
Emilia: “Au...” Subaru: “Don't worry, get to sleep.” Subaru unconsentingly finger-pushes her to lie face-up on the bed.
He draws the linens over her thin body, drawing his chair even closer to the bed, seating himself where he can observe Emilia's face as she sleeps. Subaru: “If you're talked out, your head's ordered, and what I said relaxed you a little... then go have a nice rest. A time's gonna come again tomorrow night where you'll need to put in your best.”
Emilia: “...Is it okay for me to be spoiled like this?”
Subaru: “It's perfectly okay. Keep getting spoiled. Your teeth're gonna rot with how intense my sweet pampering'll be.” Subaru gives a shrug, Emilia laughing quietly as she lies in bed. And she stares intently at Subaru, reaching her arm out from under the covers. Emilia: “—Hand.” Subaru: “Hm?” Emilia: “If you're going to spoil me, then... could you hold my hand? Just until I fall asleep, please?” Subaru: “Oho, now leave that right to me.” Subaru grips her slender little hand, smiling as he feels its delicate, smooth touch on his palm.
Emilia smiles back, closing her eyes in accordance with Subaru's words. It does not take that long for her to start giving the quiet breathing of sleep. Subaru: “...Really, hope you can have a good dream.” Watching Emilia as she lays quietly in bed, Subaru brushes her silver bangs from her forehead, dropping his gaze to their yet-linked hands. If feeling someone else's presence like this could free her from her isolation in the dream, good. Leaving her to be plagued and plagued by painful nightmares, alone in this room, would certainly be cruel.
Subaru: “But anyway... learned lots of stuff.”
Adjusting his posture on his seat, still grasping her hand, Subaru ruminates over the details of their conversation. Emilia's past, and why she's contending in the Royal Selection. Roswaal's proposal as he brought her out, and an Emilia so cornered that she had to accept said proposal. And most importantly, the TRIAL facing Emilia, and its motives in not passing her when she has supposedly reached her answer—with the issues still lying incomplete, and having soothed Emilia to sleep, Subaru, now, was here.
Subaru: “—”
He glances down at Emilia's face as she sleeps. Pained at her haggard state, Subaru had postponed on what to do—or not. He had put off acquiring essential answers and practically forced her to bed for a purpose. His ideas were ones he likely would not be able to achieve at Emilia's side, with her still awake.
Subaru: “But, thinking of the situation... this is all I can imagine.”
The past loops, information that has tugged at him, and other circumstantial evidence had forced Subaru to consider this idea. There is only one way to confirm it, and that way is simple. Should his idea be correct, then unmistakably it would be a glimmer of hope for breaking through this situation—
He holds his breath.
His heart thumps and his blood rushes loud as he reaches out his hand, seeking to confirm whether he is right. His left hand, not the right which clutches Emilia's, reaches down to between her clavicles, down to the bottom of her slender, pale neck. And,
Subaru: “—You're not really damn sleeping at all.”
A cold, hard touch at his fingertips. Although feeling his voice strain as he speaks, the words do come out.
Then is a period of silence, and just when Subaru's heart starts blazing with panicked impatience—
???: <I'm impressed you noticed. —It makes me happy, Subaru.>
From inside the green stone at his fingertips, the spirit's androgynous voice echoes directly within Subaru's skull.
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