Chapter 40: Humanity
A plain full of life — trees, shrubs, and fertile earth near that great river — stretched out toward the horizon ahead, along which the Sisters of the Horizon rode toward their next destination.
Riding behind Evelyn, Bonnie made sure to correct the maps she already had stored in her saddlebags, since several areas weren't drawn accurately and needed fixing. To manage it, she had Capella slow to a walk, and with her measuring tools spread across the paper on the saddle and a notebook open beside them, she traced new lines one after another to fill in the rest of the map.
Evelyn watched her without quite understanding how she was doing it, Victoria led the group at an unhurried pace, as though waiting for Bonnie to finish, and Lady fell back toward her to get a closer look at the work.
"The corrections are incredible. Do you have a background in cartography?" she asked.
Bonnie shook her head.
"I studied geography — and through that I picked up a little cartography, but I wouldn't call myself an expert. Though I am a good artist. That part comes naturally."
"It's remarkable that someone with so little formal training could produce something this good. I mean, I'm not an expert cartographer either — I just read maps well — but I know quality work when I see it."
"I see… Thank you," Bonnie answered. She looked at the map with a faint touch of embarrassment, because ever since losing her mother, almost no one had ever praised her skills in drawing or geography. She could even feel her cheeks going a little warm.
With the final few strokes, Bonnie finished the work. On the map, the position of the river now sat much closer to what it actually looked like in real life. Since the river lay beyond that great forest, she couldn't say for certain whether it was completely accurate — but drawing on her memory of having encountered the same river days earlier, and working from what was already marked on the map, she had gotten as close as she reasonably could.
She tucked the maps into her saddlebag and settled more comfortably in the saddle to better guide her horse. Just then, looking at the healthy black horse with such a small and adorable rider, Lady said:
"Oh, right. I just remembered you called your horse 'Capella.' I was curious — are you into astronomy? Capella is the brightest star in the Auriga constellation, so I figured maybe you had an interest in the subject."
"Ah, that… I'm afraid not. I don't know much about astronomy. I named her that because my mother always used to tell me about that star. Even if it didn't quite fit, I decided this girl would be called Capella."
"It doesn't make a whole lot of sense to name a black horse after a star," Lady interrupted. "It'd be like naming my white horse Storm."
Lady laughed.
"Evelyn… your horse is named Storm."
"That's exactly my point, sweetheart. It doesn't much matter whether the name makes sense — what matters is the intention behind it."
"Evelyn…" Victoria added. "You named your horse Storm because you thought it sounded cool. Then you had second thoughts when you realized you could have gone with something cuter — but by then it was too late, because Storm already answered to it."
Evelyn pulled the brim of her hat down over her eyes and looked the other way, her face visibly red.
"Why is it that every time we talk about me, you bring out all my embarrassing stories? Are you really my friends?"
"We're outlaws, Evelyn. It's a mistake to trust us," Lady said, through laughter.
Victoria let a faint, amused smile show, and Evelyn sighed, trying not to laugh herself. Through all of this, Bonnie watched the dynamic between these Sisters of the Horizon. They seemed so close that breaking into the conversation would have been nearly impossible. She knew Evelyn a little better by now — but she still knew almost nothing about Lady or Victoria.
'Is this what I used to look like with Rosie and Joshua?' she wondered, a distant memory of her life before arriving in this world surfacing for a moment.
By the time the laughter settled, she'd been sitting with that thought for a few seconds — but a meow interrupted her. Evelyn's cat was perched on her shoulder. Relaxed, the cat leapt down from there and stretched out across the horse's neck. It extended its paws with another drowsy meow, then closed its eyes to sleep, curling itself into a tight little ball.
"I was starting to wonder where Cat had gotten to," said Lady, reaching out to stroke the creature's head.
Cat — a name less original than Storm — purred and pressed its little head against Lady's hand. At the same time, Bonnie noticed that Evelyn had a sleepy, flushed expression on her face while the cat was being fussed over by Lady. Thieving Cat closed her eyes, her mood shifting. It looked like she was enjoying something — but soon enough she frowned with irritation.
Victoria shot her a brief glance and said:
"Stop pestering the cat, Lady."
"Yes, ma'am," Lady answered, taking the reins back in both hands.
Evelyn exhaled with relief.
'That was… very strange. Evelyn seemed to react to what was happening to the cat. Could she and the cat be connected somehow? And on top of that, the cat appeared on its own, apparently. Does that mean it's some kind of independent creature?'
Since Evelyn had never told her anything about the cat's origin, or her mysterious resilience and accelerated healing, Bonnie couldn't help building her own theories about it.
As the ride carried on, the sun had dropped to the horizon, painting the sky with its sweeping range of deep crimson, caressing the earth as if reluctant to leave it wrapped in shadow. The torn clouds stretched across the vast expanse of sky, dissolving toward the horizon, where birds flew onward to wherever they were headed next. Unlike the birds, though, these four women needed to rest.
It had been a long day of riding and it was ending here. But as the shadows fell, the memories of the tragedy came back to Bonnie's eyes as vividly as if it were happening in front of her all over again.
She shook her head, pushing the dark thoughts aside, and dismounted as the other girls did.
'I used to be afraid of the dark… I don't want to go back to those days,' she thought, touching Capella's neck and looking at her with quiet calm.
She had left so many things unresolved back there. Now, every time she looked back, she felt incomplete — that persistent need to return and finish what she had started. Of course, that wasn't how things worked. If she set foot in that city again, trying to dig deeper into the case, the only thing waiting for her would be death.
The monsters lurking in the shadows would show her no mercy — the same way they showed none to those poor girls…
'It's going to take me a while to get used to this.'
Until those memories stopped hurting, or at least stopped tormenting her every time she closed her eyes, she had to be strong. So she acted as though none of it affected her in the slightest, and went to join the others in setting up camp.
Being comfortable mattered more than having a roof — but they'd be in trouble if it started raining. Given the luck that seemed to follow them, that was a real possibility, but they decided to take their chances and camp out in the open, the same as they had before.
Logs split for firewood, old blankets to keep out the cold, and a campfire built from dry wood and ringed with a circle of stones — that was enough. They ate by firelight once more.
Evelyn sang again, and Lady accompanied her on the harmonica.
Bonnie had already seen this show before — but after Steam City, it felt like a deep breath of relief from all the weight bearing down on her. So when the girls went to sleep, Bonnie lay back and looked up at the stars, thinking and unwinding before finally letting her eyes close.
"You're handling the situation better than I expected," Victoria said suddenly. She was drinking from her flask. "And it doesn't look like you're about to lose control again."
Bonnie sat up. She looked at Victoria, then at the sleeping girls.
"They won't wake up. They're both heavy sleepers. We can talk freely. We need to get to know each other properly before you feel ready to go on your own."
"I… why did you agree to bring me along?"
"Straight to the point, huh… Let's see. Evelyn convinced me — but I also wanted to make sure of something. She told me you nearly lost control at the circus. You didn't mention that last night, and I understand why. Your head was somewhere else."
"What does that have to do with your decision?"
"When someone who follows a Ballad loses control, the consequences are always different — but always proportional to their power. If you had lost control in that place, the most likely outcome is that you would have killed everyone around you. That would have set off the Church's alarms, and as a result, you would have died at their hands."
Bonnie was already aware of that to some degree — but until now, she hadn't heard just how dangerous losing control could be for the people nearby.
"So I agreed to keep you close to us, so we can contain you and calm you down if that ever happens again. Even when someone loses control, there's still a small window in which a Ballad follower can come back. Past that threshold, there's nothing to be done."
"And what happens if I can't come back once I've lost control?"
"We'll have to kill you before your power becomes any more unstable."
Bonnie stared at the flame, that fact sitting uneasily in her chest. Victoria took another drink from her flask and leaned back against the old dry log, looking up at the stars.
"If you have any regard for yourself and for the people around you, it's better to stay cold and calm. A cold mind doesn't heat up at temptation or heartbreak — it holds out to the very end, keeping your humanity as intact as it can be."
'My… humanity…'
Without thinking, she brought a hand to her neck and felt her "death" pricking inside her skin.
"Only that way can those who fear the power live without drifting too far from the humanity they came from."
That was the truth Victoria lived by — and Bonnie was left uncertain about whether she could think the same way.