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Pieck lost her footing when she got out of the car, and her beautiful wedge-heeled leather shoes got stuck in the mud. She stared at the stains on her stockings for a moment, thinking that she should have been used to wearing high heels. Onyankopon carefully moved from the other side of the car, and the mud spots on his suit trouser legs were particularly eye-catching.
“Our little miscalculation.” He shook his head helplessly at Pieck. “It’s already warm spring in Marley. But for the north, it’s just the time when the cold winter ice and snow melts.”
The wet and cold wind penetrated through Pieck's collar. She couldn't help shivering and wrapped her woolen coat tightly around her body. She laughed at herself in her heart secretly. She obviously wanted to ridicule that tall women, but she made a fool of herself first.
Pieck had been a diplomatic envoy for several years. The last time she saw Yelena was in the prison in Marley. At that time, Yelena had just been transferred back from Hizuru, and she smiled indifferently at her. Of course Pieck knew, and even Yelena herself knew that Marley never let go of traitors easily. After that, she was busy rebuilding Liberio after the war, traveling around the world, and dealing with various big shots. She had no time to think about a traitor who left her country, a criminal against humanity, a labor prisoner who was exiled to a distant foreign country.
Pieck was no longer the little Eldian warrior who wore a coarse cloth skirt and was laughed at by the Marleyans. Her well-groomed long black curly hair, well-glossed knitted top and coat, not to mention her fashionable woolen skirt and leather shoes, all made her look out of place in this simple and desolate farm. Several men who were stacking hay looked up at her with surprised eyes. One of them began to show his malicious glibness. “My dear lady, this is not the place for people like you.”
“Where is Yelena? I'm here to see her.” There was no wave in Pieck's expression or tone.
“Yelena?” The man looked confused, seemed to remember something, and looked at the others around him.
“It's that Marleyan woman who has a bad face all day long.” Another man who was squatting on the ground and lazily spoke to him. He looked towards Pieck, with a slightly impatient look that seemed to be mixed with a bit of contempt and disdain, and raised his voice. “You can just go around the fence and walk towards the back of the cabin. She is probably sawing wood by the river at the moment.”
“Thank you.” Pieck's eyes rested on them for a moment.
“Unexpectedly, that woman has such a high-status friend who is thinking about her.” There was a strange sarcasm in the man's tone. “She's quite unlikeable, isn't she?” He looked to those around him for approval. “She never took anyone seriously. We don't know who she was or what she did. Now that we're here, aren't we all completely evil people? Look at the ugly mark on her face.” The men began to roar with laughter.
A smile appeared on Pieck's face for no reason. “Yeah, very unflattering.” Her eyebrows curved into a nice arc, but she still looked distant. “We are not friends.”
Pieck's heels made a clear sound as they rubbed against the gravel scattered on the river bank. She walked cautiously. Yelena noticed Pieck's figure from a distance. She crossed her legs and sat on a few logs piled horizontally. She didn't speak or make any unnecessary movements, just watched Pieck carefully with her deep eyes.
Pieck was also observing Yelena. After not seeing each other for a few years, Yelena's hair was slightly longer, and it was tied up at the back of her head, showing a rough texture that had not been carefully taken care of. The rebel mark on her forehead was no longer so scary under the cover of the hair, but it was still clearly visible. Marley knew it well that how to make punishment last a lifetime. Pieck thought.
Yelena was already tall and thin, but now she looked even more haggard and pale. Her cheeks were sunken, and the dark gray eyes embedded in her eye sockets were like bottomless lakes. In the still forbidding cold wind, she wore only a frayed work shirt. To facilitate movement, the cuffs were rolled up and her wrists were red. Pieck had no way of knowing whether it was due to the heavy work or bad weather.
“It's an honor for me to see an important diplomatic envoy to come to a place like this.” Yelena still had that calm tone. She took out a bent cigarette from her pocket and struck a match. The fingers were obviously trembling.
“Depending on your physical condition, you may die if you continue to smoke.” Pieck ignored the teasing in Yelena's words and joined the conversation on her own.
“I had never seen you persuade Zeke before.” Yelena took a long breath and looked at her with raised eyebrows.
“You care.” Pieck winked at her with a meaningful smile. “After all, he didn't live long.”
Yelena stubbed out the cigarette butt among the wet gravel, stood up, and approached Pieck. She covered the top of Pieck's hair with her right hand, followed the soft curly hair down to her shoulders, and twisted the collar with her fingers. “What a great wool coat, Pieck. It feels good to become the new hero of this world, right?”
Pieck suddenly raised her hand and grabbed Yelena's palm. “Don't touch me with your dirty hands.” She touched the scars and wounds on Yelena's hand, so she pulled the mutilated hand in front of her and stroked the broken ring finger and little finger. “Did it hurt?” She asked.
“It was crushed by a fallen tree trunk when I first arrived at the farm.” Yelena seemed to be talking about a past event that had nothing to do with her. She gently pinched Pieck's cheek with her other hand and quickly ran back behind her. “Miss Finger's skin is so good that it's enviable.”
Pieck narrowed her eyes like a kitten and looked at Yelena without saying anything. She took the hand with the missing knuckles, stood still, and put her other hand generously around Yelena's waist, inviting her. “Why don't we have a dance?”
Yelena's mouth curved significantly, and she almost laughed. She was about to blurt out the words she had heard countless times. Pieck guessed her thoughts first. “Don't imitate that terrible man.” Yelena lowered her head and laughed harder. She put her hand on Pieck's back and pulled her into an unfamiliar pas de deux.
Pieck's wedge shoes slipped on the gravel on the river bank with each step. Yelena's ill-fitting wooden shoes also weighed her down at all times. As a result, the two of them looked like teenage girls who had sneaked out of home to meet up to dance in a club, and their steps seemed clumsy and natural.
Pieck stepped on the instep of Yelena. It was impossible to tell whether it was unintentional or intentional. Yelena frowned in pain and pinched Pieck’s ribs with her hand, treating it as an insignificant revenge.
By the water, on the grass, and under the forest, they were spinning repeatedly, heading for a feast that no one would participate in. Don’t know whose shoes came loose first, were thrown off, and kicked aside. Without the restraints on their feet, they seemed to have found something, exchanging steps that became lighter and more agile. Pieck felt the cold river water seeping into her woolen socks, the breeze blowing through her long hair and blowing against her cheeks, which made her face feel hot. The two worked tirelessly in a seemingly never-ending dance.
Perhaps someone was tired, or perhaps accidentally, the two stumbled while changing a certain dance step. Yelena grabbed Pieck's arm to try to maintain balance, but eventually the two fell together in the grass by the river. Only then did they realize how exhausted they were. Yelena was lying on her back on the green grass, her chest rising and falling significantly, her forehead was covered with fine beads of sweat, and her light blond hair was stuck to her ears. Pieck lay on her side, curled up, trying to breathe smoothly.
Yelena was out of breath and coughed several times. Pieck put her hand on Yelena's chest and felt her deep and shallow breathing. “I didn't expect you to dance so well.”
“After all, I used to dance with people a lot.” Yelena looked at her with a deep smile in her eyes.
Pieck suddenly lowered her head and bit Yelena's arm hard through a layer of shirt fabric, unwilling to let go as if she was angry. She still got angry after all these years. She recalled the time when she and Zeke stayed in Marley. After a bloody war, she would gently pull the blond young man several years older than her and say she wanted to go to the dance together. Zeke always said yes and met every request of Pieck. But he always danced like a mess, hurriedly rubbing the back of his head to apologize as soon as he started, and awkwardly left the dance floor, leaving Pieck alone with the young men who had found the courage to come up and ask her to dance.
Pieck couldn't help but think about it. He would dance tirelessly with Yelena in unknown dark alleys, illegal underground bars, late at night on the coast, or in his own room. She remembered that there was a gramophone, LP records, complicated classical books and decorative paintings in his room, all of which were things that Pieck had never seen and had no way of possessing when she was a child. Did the Marleyan woman in front of her listen to music with him. Did they know each other deeply by a book that was exchanged for reading. Did they share a pot of brewed coffee. And then did they have sex. She could only see a few clues, but she never saw through. Or she was unwilling to admit something, as if she had lost.
Like a domestic pet cat, Pieck moved her entire body on Yelena, drew up her legs, and huddled up. Her head rested on Yelena's chest, just enough to hear her heartbeat. She inserted one hand along Yelena's half-open neckline and stroked the series of uneven tattoo numbers on her left shoulder.
“Very heavy.” Yelena nudged her back with her hand. Pieck's hand grabbed Yelena's shirt, relying on it more confidently. “Much lighter than the Cart Titan.”
Yelena laughed. She recalled the bonfire night when enemies and friends had dinner together many years ago. It was as ridiculous as an oil painting hanging in her memory.
She was wrapped in a blanket and lying on her side next to the Cart Titan, and of course she didn't feel sleepy at all. Yelena didn't know why she was here, and everyone here seemed to be her enemy, and she even hated herself. Yelena intentionally turned her back to the Cart Titan, but she knew that Pieck was observing her carefully in that huge body.
After a while, Yelena felt a noise coming from behind, something touched her hair, and then moved down her shoulders and waist. She smelled the unpleasant smell of the Cart Titan, which was the same smell in her hair and on her body. Pieck covered Yelena tightly with the front paws of the Cart Titan, with the smell of mud, dust, and broken grass. Yelena imagined Pieck smiling mischievously in the Titan’s neck. She pushed the weight on her body. Pieck curled her fingers and encircled Yelena's body in the Titan's palm, like a child getting a long-desired toy. Pieck. Am I an accident in your plan? Yelena swallowed these words deep in her heart at that time.
“Yelena. Am I an accident in your plan?” Pieck's head was buried in Yelena’s chest, sounding muffled.
Yelena picked a few wild berries from deep in the grass, found Pieck's moist lips with her fingertips, and put them between her teeth. Yelena's fingers went in and crushed the bright red and fragile fruit deep in her molars. The sharp, sour and sweet pulp stained Pieck's mouth, and Pieck sucked Yelena's fingers with a blood-red color. Then she carefully approached Yelena's face, sharing the sourness and sweetness between her lips and teeth with her. She opened the front button of Yelena's shirt and felt the slight tremor of her skin being suddenly exposed to the cold air. Pieck picked up a crystal berry with her fingertips, crushed it on Yelena's chest, then she kissed the fruit.
As she got on the car back, Pieck didn't say a word. The shiny curly hair was a little messy, with a hint of laziness like many years ago. There were some weeds on the dark woolen coat, and the leather shoes were covered with mud stains. Her lips had just been wiped with something, and they were as red as bright lip gloss. She patted her coat lightly, dusted off the broken leaves, and turned to look out the window, avoiding Onyankopon's sight.
“I tried to persuade Yelena many times, but she didn’t want to leave here. Is she punishing herself, or atoning for someone else, or resenting every one of us.” As Onyankopon spoke, he looked at Pieck with his peripheral vision. In the reflection of the car window, he saw Pieck crying in silence, and she wiped it quietly with the hand on the other side.
FIN