At Alice's suggestion, we brought Noin and Hapty along, making us a party of four. Well, technically half the group was Alice, but I digress.
"Where were you and Alice-sama planning to go, Kaito-san?" Noin asked.
"We were going to wander around for a bit before catching the Sea Dragon Procession."
"I see. That sounds like a wonderful plan. The Sea Dragon Procession is quite a sight; it reminds me a little of a Lion Dance."
"Have you seen it before, Noin-san?"
I didn't really peg her for the festival-going type, but on second thought, Noin has lived for over a thousand years. Given that she was best friends with Laguna, the King of the Hydra Kingdom, it wouldn't be surprising at all if she’d visited many times.
"I have. Laguna gave me tickets this time as well, so I was planning on going with Hapty anyway..."
"Must be nice having a King as a friend," Alice interjected. "Securing seats for these kinds of events is a breeze. Shifting gears for a second, though—I saw Falce’s name on the ceremony's guest list. It looks like she’s here, too."
"Falce is? I wonder... has she actually managed to reach the venue?" Noin looked skeptical.
"Oh, don't worry about that. I dropped her off myself the other day."
Unsurprisingly, both Noin and Hapty were well aware of Falce’s legendary lack of direction. They both looked deeply concerned until I gave them a brief rundown of what had happened. When I mentioned that I’d stumbled upon a lost Falce and personally delivered her to Laguna, they both let out weary, knowing smiles.
"She really hasn't changed a bit," Noin sighed. "She got lost during the Six Kings Festival too and had to be rescued by Kaito-san."
"She did. Oh? Come to think of it... back then, you seemed genuinely shocked when you saw Falce, didn't you, Noin-san?"
"Yes, mostly because her appearance was so different from when we’d last met..."
"Right. I was just a little curious—and please forgive me if this is a bit intrusive—but had it really been over fifteen years since you last saw her?"
"Ugh... W-Well, you see... about that..."
It was a simple question that had just popped into my head. Noin was close with the members of the Hero party and I often saw them together, but at the Six Kings Festival, she’d been blindsided by Falce's new appearance—a change that had happened fifteen years prior. That meant at least fifteen years had passed without them so much as glancing at each other.
When I voiced the slight sense of cognitive dissonance I felt about that, Noin’s eyes began to wander awkwardly as she fumbled for an explanation. Alice stepped in to save her with a wry grin.
"Ah, Kaito-san. That’s just life for long-lived species—or really, for anyone who's been around long enough. Your sense of time just starts to go numb. For the first hundred years or so, you're pretty diligent about staying in touch with people. You feel a lot like you do right now. But once you hit three to five hundred years, your circle of acquaintances grows so large that there are plenty of people you haven't seen in years. Eventually, 'a few years' stops feeling like 'a long time' altogether."
"Exactly," Noin agreed, looking relieved. "There are people I haven't seen for much longer than that, so a gap of a few years doesn't feel like a drought at all. I used to think the sense of time people like Falce and Laguna had was far too loose—nothing like my own. But once you've lived this long... unless you're making a conscious effort, you just naturally fall into that rhythm."
"I-I see..."
When you're only a century old, "not seeing someone for a long time" usually means a few years or maybe a few decades. But once you've lived for ages, you end up with friends you haven't seen for centuries, and your internal clock just drifts. Sieg was in her thirties and had a normal human sense of time, but Rei and Fia didn't think twice about letting years slip by.
"Everyone who lives long enough goes through this at least once," Alice added. "Your perception shifts without you even noticing, until one day you stop and realize what's happened. You'll probably get it too, Kaito, once you've been around for five hundred years or so."
"She's right, Kaito-san. It really happens, so please be careful. If you don't stay on top of it, you'll find you haven't talked to someone in over a century before you know it..."
"I-I'll keep that in mind."
Noin nodded fervently at Alice and Hapty’s warnings. It seemed that this "time drift" was a genuine occupational hazard of immortality. Since I was ageless now, I’d have to be careful not to let the centuries slip through my fingers...
Machina: "Oh, I totally get it. I have some creator acquaintances from other worlds I haven't talked to in about thirteen billion years. It just slips my mind, you know?"
Serious-senpai: "I feel like you're playing on a completely different level of 'slips my mind.'"