Hakushaku to Yousei Vol 8 Chapter 2

P. 38

[Inquiries regarding fairies are always welcome. Fairy Doctor, Lydia Carlton.]

        The client was an elderly woman. Wearing a slightly ostentatious saffron-colored dress and a fur cape, this woman appeared alone on Lydia’s doorstep around sunset. 

        “That’s right. I would love to accept it. But my whole family disagrees with me. I cannot understand how marrying a fairy could be improper at all.” 

        It’s been so long to have such an actual job consultation. Lydia was excited and inched forward in anticipation. 

        “He only appeared as a handsome young man to my eyes, and he did seem very different at first. But even after learning that he wasn’t human I wasn’t that surprised.”

        “Mrs. Hadley, for a start, could you introduce me to your suitor? I could be a liaison for you two and try to convince your family.”

P. 39

        “Then I’ll go fetch us some tea. So please, make yourself comfortable. We’ll discuss the details while enjoying some refreshments,” offered Lydia slowly standing up. I need to get all the details exactly. This is such a joyous opportunity. It might be finally be my first step to be acknowledged as a fairy doctor!

        But Lydia knew that they all still exist. Spotting them constantly and hearing their voices wherever she went. Someday, like her late mother, Lydia wanted to become a Fairy Doctor that people depended on and become well respected for her good deeds. At this point, she still was an amateur but she had plenty of motivation. 

        Just as her eyes followed it, a side of it was bitten into. The one with the voice that appeared, licking his lips for any crumbs, was a long haired gray cat. He sat down on top of the shelf and crossed his hind legs. The cat straightened his favorite tie and combed through his whiskers that he was so proud of, and looked down at Lydia.

        “But you know, in your own case, even if you can see fairies, you don’t have an eye for people.”

        “But so far, the previous client was a self-proclaimed angel. Before that was a self-proclaiming spiritualist and you believed in all their crazy fantasies and already failed miserably. Even that old lady, with her story of being proposed by a handsome fairy man, sounds like one of her dreams,” said the gray cat as he waved his long tail. 

        “This time, surely it’s a true request. Because there are fairies that can transform into human form, you know.” Just then, the front door bell range repeatedly, almost vehemently. “Oh my, another visitor? Nico, would you prepare the tea?”

        Paying no attention to the complaining cat, Lydia rushed to the front door. 

P. 41

        “I believe my aunt has paid you a visit.”

        “Pardon me,” he said and entered the house. After spotting the old woman sitting in the drawing room sofa, he grabbed her arm roughly.

        “Hold on just a moment! Please don’t judge like that. Catching the eye of a fairy really isn’t that unusual,” claimed Lydia to the sudden intruder. 

        “I see. I’ve heard that the Carlton daughter is an oddball, but it seems the rumors are true. Someone like you would be able to converse with a senile old woman.”

        “What are you talking about? Aunt Ruth.”

        “Good God!” cried out the man and turned towards Lydia. “As you can see, my aunt thinks of herself as a young debutante.”

        But the man, without consent, started to drag the woman out.  

        “But I am a fairy doctor! A professional about fairies, so please if you would just listen to me..”

        Changeling. When fairies take a human infant, they leave their own infant in its place. To Lydia, who believed she was the real daughter of this house, those rumors only stabbed at her heart. Her green eyes with shades of gold, or her sharp looking eyes and nose, seemed to be like someone from another world. Since childhood, her neighbors would periodically whisper about that part of her. 

        People live their lives as if fairies don’t exist, yet they talk so negatively about them as if they just suddenly remembered their existence. This grand country was too busy accepting new inventions and cultures from around the world but had the time to throw out the irrational and vague. 

P. 43

        “That woman was senile, just like I said,” boasted the cat leaning up against the kitchen door on his hind legs, sipping freshly poured tea from a teacup he held in his paw. 

        “But I just don’t think so. Even if she thought of herself as a young girl, would she go to the length of using a fairy as a suitor? It could have just as well as been a handsome human man.” As she said that, Lydia moved her gaze over to the door and spotted something shining lying on the doorway. “Oh, I wonder if Mrs. Hadley dropped something.” It was a clear crystal made into a pendant. Picking it up, it was shaped like a snow fallen from the sky and was icy cold to the touch. “This, it’s a snow crystal!” It was a crystal born from the depths of the waters. She heard that it was made using the bubbles from the fresh water living fairies and formed by gathering shining crystallizing star particles to create this beautiful six pedal flower. 

        Taking it into his paw, Nico gave it a lick. “Hmm, it tastes like ice.”

        “A true snow crystal doesn’t melt. Even if you throw it in a fire,” he said and dropped it into his teacup. In the milk tea, the clear ice flower only remained bloomed. 

        “Well Lydia, now that’s troublesome. A fairy that lives in water and can change shape to a handsome human can only be those ferocious kelpies.”

        “It could have came down the river.”

        “Oh no, if it was planning to invite Mrs. Hadley into the water… Nico, we need to go!”

P. 45

        “Check if there really is a kelpie or not.”

        She grabbed the scruff of Nico’s neck before he could disappear. 

        “Come on let go! You’re ruffling my fur!”

        “Alright, geesh, you are so short-tempered. But the night’s too dangerous, so we go tomorrow, understood?”
After setting him down, the cat angrily snorted through his nose and swiftly combed down his fluffy gray fur with his paws.

        The next day, Lydia immediately headed to the river, located at the edge of town. There wasn’t anybody at the riverside where its reflection mirrored only the cloudy gray sky, making it even more dismal. 

        “Oi, Lydia, there’s somebody there.” 

P. 46

        “Mrs. Hadley! What are you doing here?”

        Covering her gray hair with a shall, Ruth Hadley lifted her face from her gaze from the water surface. 

        “Um, about that, I…”

        “Mrs. Hadley.”

        “Yes, of course.”

        “A water-horse, here? ….He’s coming?!” 

P. 47

        She needed to get Mrs. Hadley away from this dangerous riverbed where a Kelpie might appear.

        Just as they were about to start walking, another voice butted beside them.

        Lydia whipped around to face a young man standing between them and the river. He had pitch black hair, and incredibly handsome looks that came with a splendid body. He had a beautifully well balanced face, it was such a perfect creation that it was incomparable to any person she’s ever seen. This man inspected Lydia back in a glaring way. 

        “How kind of you.”

        “What are you doing!”

        “Ke-Kelpie? Ruth, is he the one?”

        Guarding Ruth behind her, Lydia backed away. 

        “Who are you? What happened to Ruth’s suitor?”

        “He speaks about leaving our kelpie’s territory and marrying a human. Of course I objected, but he wouldn’t listen. So naturally, I became curious as what sort of woman could do that to him. If she turned out to be trash, I was planning to eat her myself.”

        “A tiny human like you? First of all, a petty evil-warding-charm like that won’t effect me.” The water-horse neighed loudly, standing up in full fierce. As the black horse came closer, Lydia shivered as she was too frightened to speak. Lydia clamped her eyes shut. Then, something soft as a feather touched her face. 

        Cautiously opening her eyes, Lydia saw that there was a silver-haired young man standing in front of her, as if guarding them from the black unseelie court. That soft touch must have been his long hair, no his mane.

P. 49
        “Ruth….!!” the young man rushed over to Ruth who had fainted from fear.

        It was half a century ago. Ruth grew up in the Highlands, the area where water-horses were said to live. The young Ruth met a water-horse who happened to be in his human form and both fell in love. But she already had an engagement her father made, and on top of that the man disappeared from her, fearing the time when she’d come to find out he was ferocious fairy of human eating kind. But even after many years, he still couldn’t forget her, and thinking that now was the only time since a human’s lifespan was so short and followed the river back to this town. 

        He was soft spoken and had graceful manners. Unlike his older brother, he was more slender but he too had the perfectly sculptured beauty. These two water-horses were now in the Carlton house. 

P. 50

        And they’re horses. Horses!, she bitterly muttered, for no reason. 

        “Fairy Doctor, I will leave this land. I shouldn’t have come here in the first place.”

        “Brother, weren’t you opposed?”

        “Well now, so you do have a good side,” said Lydia.

        “A barbarian kelpie.”

        “Hmph, I know perfectly well that a kelpie away from water is powerless. Or I wouldn’t invite you into my house.”

        “Ruth is a modest and polite woman.” After the younger said so, he hastily turned towards Lydia. “No, that was, I mean, human women are each unique and…”

        “Stop saying horse. We are noble water kelpies! But this one here, he’s defective. Normally we each have our own territory and live in solitude. But he whimpers about that being lonely and always follows me around. First of all, the reason he meets a human and chooses one as a mate is because he’s a good for nothing. So I will guarantee it, a normal kelpie couldn’t be able to live happily with a human, but he could!”

        The black haired kelpie, became broodingly silent, possibly from regretting what he said. 

        “Well then,” said Lydia, standing up and taking out the snow crystal from her skirt pocket. “This was a gift you gave to Ruth, correct?”

        “Ruth dropped it. Anyhow, as long as this is destroyed, you’ll never be able to go near her again, right?” 

        “Hey, there’s no need to go that far,” interrupted the older. 

        They were fairies that were savage beasts. But kelpies, with their strong and noble prescience, attracted humans. Obviously that was their means of capturing humans to feed on them, but seeing how this quiet, fragile looking silver-haired man cared so deeply about Ruth, and exhibited how he was backing away for her sake and suffering because of it, Lydia had to keep reminding herself that the ferocious blood still runs deep in him.

P. 53

        “But, hey now, Lydia, do you know how to destroy this snow crystal?” After the brothers left, Nico slowly reappeared his invisible body while leaning back against the sofa armrest and shamelessly grinned.

        “I didn’t abandon you. I just made myself invisible.”

        “Unfortunately I don’t know anything either. All I know is that even if you tried smashing or burning it’s useless effort.”

        “But, Ruth may know,” he said facing his turned-up chin towards the door. Ruth, who had been resting in the next room, apparently had waken, and was standing in the doorway puzzled.

        Looking bewildered, Ruth combed her fingers through her long unraveled gray hair as if confirming if they were really hers. 

        Hearing those words, Lydia grew puzzled. 

        “Kelpie? Aah, yes, during my childhood I was told by a priest that they were ferocious water-horses. He taught me not to go near the water’s edge by myself. That’s why I had a small feeling that he might be a kelpie.”

        “I wasn’t frightened at all. Because he was always so kind. But because he was so gentle, he didn’t take me into the water.” 

        “When he first left, I was filled with regret. Knowing he was a kelpie, I realized I must have been hesitant somewhere deep down. There are good and bad people in our society, and yet I don’t know why I couldn’t fully believe in him. Getting married and coming back to this town, even after so many decades, that regret never went away. I wasn’t terribly unhappy, but I couldn’t be with child with my husband, and after our nephew succeeded the family business and after I became a widow, I continued to feel like a foreigner in the Hadley house.”

        “If he, whose appearance hasn’t changed from that time, would still have me one more time….”

        “It was stupid of me. Even if he didn’t change, I have. Seeing how I am now, he must have been so disappointed. Because he has such a kind soul, he didn’t say so.” Ruth spotted the snow crystal pendant Lydia had resting on her lap and breathed a small sigh. 

P. 56

        “What are you doing?!”

        So that was the way to destroy the snow crystal. And then Lydia realized that the kelpie had deliberately revealed to Ruth on how to keep him at bay. He himself was aware of the natural instincts of being a kelpie. That’s why he told Ruth, who would find out his true nature eventually so that she wouldn’t be frightened, and so he wouldn’t have to see her terrified face. That was the true feelings that he kept in the depths of his heart. Humans and water-horses do not suit each other, they aren’t suppose to. But…..

        “You can’t give up! He loves you even now. But he was terrified that you’d find out he was a kelpie and come to hate him. Aaaah! why do both of you have to worry so much about such small things! If you truly care for one another then just tell him the truth, and find out what he’s really thinking!”

        “Now come with me. If we don’t hurry those two will leave this town!” she said and yanked on Ruth’s arm. Lydia left the house and headed towards the river. Ruth ended up being dragged along like a doll by Lydia’s heated determination.

        Reaching the bank of the river that was exposed to the wind, the water surface still had its dark color and reflected the gray clouds on its surface. Weaving through the scattered grove of trees, Lydia approached the river. Finally stopping, she gave a good look across the surface.

        “…..Yes, as a fairy doctor that’s what should be my priority. But I’m friends with Ruth. I couldn’t pull the two apart when they are so deeply in love with each other.” 

        “Kelpie, can you hear me? Ruth says she isn’t afraid even if you’re a kelpie! That’s why I need to be certain. What about you?! Do you not love her because she is an old lady now?!” 

        “Ahh, geesh, you’re still thinking too much?! Oi, younger brother, is that your idea of being a man?! Even if you’re a water-horse or poor, as long as you have love, you‘d still try to woo her! That‘s normal!”

        “So you’re not coming? You’re fine with that? Alright then, Ruth is going to swallow this snow crystal!” 

P. 59

P. 60

        “Ruth, you haven’t changed one bit. All I see is the shape of your soul. If I truly don’t frightened you, then would you please spend your remaining time with me?”

        “Lydia, thank you… I’m so happy that we became friends….” 
        Unraveling her arms and silently backing away, Ruth slowly walked over to him. As she got closer, the light that was surrounding the water-horse spilled over onto her and turned her gray hair into a bright red, and Lydia watched with watery eyes, as an energetic young lady was embraced by the man’s arms.

        “And you had just made a human friend. Yet you have to send her off to the fairy world,” said the gray cat sitting on a chair, twitching his whiskers as if they were enjoying the fragrance of the tea rising up from the cup he held in his front paw. 

        “So you gave up making human friends and decided to increase your fairy friends instead?” asked Nico glancing suspiciously over to the black wavy haired man crunching down on biscuits.

         Lydia, shaking her hands that gripped the teapot, knitted her brows on top of a frown. 

        “Well my younger brother went off to the new frontier with his bride. As for me, it’s quite boring now…”

        “I’ve started to be interested in humans as well.”

        “What? Nico! What does that suppose to mean?!” shouted Lydia. She didn’t realize that soon enough, people would be whispering about the Carlton daughter who was having a loud conversation with only a cat in her house.

The End

Chapter end