[V4 Interlude 2] The Talent to Love Someone
Translated by Jodas 4: Flying Through the SkyThe ability to love another person is a talent of its own. That was a thought Rukiye Sorge often had.
Rukiye was born into a reasonably wealthy family from the southern part of the Empire. She had two older brothers, one older sister, and two younger sisters.
Despite their wealth, Rukiye never went to school. She lived in a region where people believed that women had no need to go to school.
A woman’s job was to get married, then to birth and raise children. The adults always told her to love whatever man became her husband with all her heart.
But Rukiye felt that she completely lacked such a talent.
Even if she could like someone, she would never be able to love them.
To Rukiye’s concerns, the girls around her just told her this:
— You just haven’t met your soulmate yet!
—Once you get married, I’m sure you’ll change your mind.
None of those words had been able to ease Rukiye’s worries.
Out of everyone she knew, the person who understood Rukiye the best was her sister, who was older than her by one year.
Her sister was beautiful, courteous, and had a knack for sweet-talking that made everyone love her, so it’s not that Rukiye had any closer to her than the rest of her family.
That said, she understood Rukiye’s personality and knew when it was best to leave her alone. That was what Rukiye considered an ideal level of intimacy.
When that sister got married and left their home, she said to Rukiye:
“You might just not be cut out for this kind of thing. Marriage, that is.”
When their aunts caught wind of that, they furiously scowled at her.
“How could you say such a thing?”
“Aw, poor Rukiye!”
“Don’t worry, Rukiye. You’re so beautiful, I’m sure you’ll find a good husband someday!”
Her aunts all seemed to construct a narrative in their minds that her sister, who was beautiful and beloved by all, was making fun of her unmarried little sister.
But to Rukiye, her sister’s words were, if anything, liberating.
(I’m not cut out for marriage. Yes, that’s exactly right.)
Now that she was aware of that fact, her mind was set at ease. Rukiye thanked her sister from the bottom of her heart.
Around that time, Rukiye knew exactly what she wanted to do. Carving and engraving.
There had been a magical device brooch among the items her father used, and Rukiye was enthralled by it.
While she had been satisfied with just whittling blocks of wood to start with, she really wanted to try heating and bending metal, then engraving designs into it.
However, in the region where Rukiye was born, women were not allowed into forges that worked with fire.
Thus, Rukiye secretly made use of the embers in the kitchen to bend metal and pound it into shape, imitating the movements of a goldsmith.
She didn’t necessarily hate embroidery or weaving, but carving and engraving nevertheless her biggest passions.
Her parents hadn’t thought highly of it when she lost herself in her engraving, but she had been able to cover it up by claiming she was just interested in making decorative beads for her own accessories.
Her parents probably just assumed that, when she held a chisel, it was simply a hobby that would pass with time.
Then, about a year after her older sister got married, her father ordered her to enter an engagement. Her fiancee would be the son of one of her father’s business partners, a young man about two years older than Rukiye.
He was a fine young man; he was warm, kind, and humble.
If he hadn’t been introduced to her through this betrothal, she probably would have come to like him. Yet, ‘like’ would have been the end of it. Rukiye did not have the talent to love anybody.
Her sister excelled at loving people — she had the talent for love.
While some people spat that her sister was seducing men, the ability to effectively pull off a seduction was a talent as well.
Her sister loved to make people happy, and had a knack for remembering someone’s favorite things or the relationships between people. A world away from Rukiye, who had no interest at all in other people.
Where someone’s husband’s sister married off to, what vintage of wine a person preferred, that this person doesn’t get along with that person so they shouldn’t be seated next to each other — Rukiye was incapable of paying such attention to people.
Because, she wasn’t interested in other people.
However, if you’re going to be betrothed to someone, you had to at least learn all there was to know about that person.
She’d tried say she wasn’t in the mood, or convince someone that this man wouldd be better off picking someone else who would actually think about him, yet they said he had insisted that Rukiye was just what he wanted.
And upon hearing that, rather than firmly refuse, Rukiye could only sit and wait anxiously for the day they’d meet.
— Thinking back on it now, she should have been more assertive. For both of their sakes.
The man she was to marry was a good man.
He had wanted to know what sorts of things Rukiye liked. He had tried to understand her.
He, with what he thought to be kindness and sincerity, worked hard in order to love Rukiye.
Everyone around Rukiye had always said that it was only natural to want to know and understand the person you love.
—To her, it was bothersome.
Rukiye wasn’t the kind of person who liked to share her interests with other people. She was perfectly happy engaging with the things she loved all by herself. She had never asked for anyone else to understand her.
So when he, who had no interest in engraving himself, tried to learn more about Rukiye’s ‘hobby’… She felt an oppressive feeling of disgust.
When he saw something she had carved, he smiled kindly and said this:
“I don’t mind if you keep doing your hobby from here on out.”
Oh, this isn’t going to work, She thought.
He hadn’t done anything wrong. He had sincerely tried to understand Rukiye as best as he could.
However, Rukiye didn’t need to be understood. If anything, she’d rather he didn’t. The moment that thought crossed her mind, there was no saving the engagement.
Ultimately, Rukiye had neither the talent to love anyone, nor the talent to be loved by anyone.
And most importantly, Rukiye didn’t want that talent.
She was fine if she never loved anyone; she was fine if she was never loved. If she could ask God for one talent only, she would ask for the talent to make crafts.
And so, selfishly and against the wishes of her parents, she decided to run away from home.
I’m sorry I couldn’t love you.
I’m sorry you couldn’t love me.
… She’d felt guilty, but that was all she felt.
Without wallowing in grief or homesickness, Rukiye diligently packed her bags and left her home.
There weren’t many places where a woman could become an artisan. And even in those places, it was unlikely she’d be able to find such a convenient workshop that would accept some runaway girl with nothing to her name.
As she pondered her options, she eventually settled on one destination: The Wedge Tower.
She was fine if no one loved her for the rest of her life. She didn’t need to be understood.
She just wanted the opportunity to devote everything she had to build a life as an artisan.
That was Rukiye Sorge’s dream.
One day, as Rukiye was eating breakfast at the First Spire’s dining hall, Tia sat down beside her.
There were plenty of other open seats, so she wondered why Tia had chosen to sit right next to her.
Recently, she was aware that she’d said some pretty harsh things to Tia after she’d ruined a magical device.
Nothing she said was wrong. However, at the time Rukiye had intentionally ignored the possibility that Tia simply did not understand the value of magical devices. She had wanted to vent the rage she was feeling.
— Regardless of her thoughts, Tia sat down next to her and spoke while tearing off a tiny little chunk off of her bread.
“Hey, Rukiye, do you have a sister?”
Now that she mentioned it, she did remember saying something along those lines to her roommate, Sophie.
Sophie really wanted to engage in small talk, so she brought up such things all the time. Topics like ‘Do you have any siblings?’ or ‘Is there anyone you’re in to?’
Rukiye, who disliked it when people pried into her personal life, responded grumpily to her question.
“… So what if I do? What’s it to you?”
“It doesn’t really mater to me, I have a sister too, so I got excited! Are you close with your sister, Rukiye?”
“And what are you planning to do if I said we weren’t close?”
Rukiye said flatly, and Tia warbled her throat like “Piroro…”
Tia occasionally made strange noises like that.
“I didn’t think about that. Does that mean you don’t like your sister?”
“…We don’t get along well or poorly. Just…”
She was beautiful, outgoing, and beloved by all. Since her sister had the talent to both love and be loved by other people, maybe she did love Rukiye as well.
Not that it mattered much, but she had been happy to hear that one line.
—You might just not be cut out for this kind of thing. Marriage, that is.
“We didn’t get along that well, but… My sister paid attention to me. It made me think Wow, she really is my sister.”
“Pefufufu. I see!”
Suddenly, she realized something.
Ever since the entrance exam, Tia Vogel had always insisted that she wanted to fly. Even though she had never studied magic in her life, she had said that that was her sole reason for coming to the Wedge Tower.
Tia wanted to fly, and Rukiye wanted to be an artisan.
Neither of them hailed from families of mages, nor did they have orders or duties to fulfill, and yet both of them knocked on the Wedge Tower’s gates for the sake of a dream they wanted to achieve.
Looking just at their motivations for coming to the Wedge Tower, Rukiye and Tia weren’t all that different.
Just maybe, this might be what she looked like to her sister — Rukiye thought in the back of her mind as she looked at Tia out of the corner of her eye.
A human who lacked the talent for love, and a Harpy who would never be able to reproduce.
Ignorant of the other’s circumstances, a person and a bird broke bread together, side-by-side.