[Episode 116] - Meanwhile, Vivian (1)
Time turns back again to three months before Titania’s graduation from the Academy.
Back to the very day Vivian left the royal castle.
“It has been a long time, Vivian.”
“It has, Fran.”
I smiled brightly as I looked at Fran, who had popped out of the wardrobe. How was it that she looked exactly the same as when I’d last seen her? Fran had not changed at all since then.
Silver hair that looked as though it had been drawn out into fine threads and crafted by hand, and clear blue eyes like a cloudless autumn sky. Her short stature and maid uniform that somehow gave off an air of stubbornness. Truly, Fran was the same as ever.
“You said you were an artificial human. Do you not age either?”
“Did you not know? Artificial humans are originally immortal and ageless.”
“What? Really?”
Was it because she was an artificial human that she neither aged nor died? Was this the artificial human Frankenstein? As I stared at Fran in shock, Fran raised her arm elegantly and naturally—
Then made a V-sign with two fingers and held it out to me.
“That was a Fran joke.”
“...You really haven’t changed.”
When I let out a hollow laugh, dumbfounded, the corners of Fran’s lips rose ever so slightly. Then, turning her head and looking around the room, Fran tilted her head and asked me.
“Come to think of it, why are you alone? Princess Titania and Ainsel are nowhere to be seen.”
“Ah, that’s...”
For the time being, I pulled out the chair beside me and gestured for Fran to sit. Once Fran sat down, I sat facing her as well, rested my chin on my hand for a moment, and sank into thought. I needed to organize everything that had happened so far.
“A fair bit happened while you were gone. First...”
Starting from what happened after I parted with Fran on Titania’s seventh birthday, I began calmly telling her everything up to the present. Briefly, leaving out the part about Veronica.
The promise I had made with the Queen Dowager and the ministers, Titania’s adolescent years, Titania’s time at the Academy, and the fact that now, just before Titania’s graduation, I had to leave the royal castle.
While I talked about the past, Fran quietly listened to the whole story without any reaction. Should I say that this part of her was still very much like an artificial human? Since she showed no reaction at all, I felt strangely uneasy.
“...And that’s what happened. Today, according to the promise I made with the Queen Dowager and the ministers, I have to leave the royal castle.”
When I finished speaking, Fran, who had been listening, paused for a moment before nodding. Because there was so little change in her expression, I wondered whether she had really understood, but Fran answered confidently.
“I see. I have understood everything.”
“Really...?”
“Yes. I also understand why you called me.”
Fran placed a hand on her chest and answered with confidence.
“I will arrange a job for you after you leave the royal castle. That is why you called me, is it not? I will help you to the best of my ability.”
“Huh? Uh... Th-that’s not really... No, maybe it is?”
The reason I had called Fran wasn’t because I wanted a job or anything like that. Though I did need a job if I was going to make a living from now on, I had never thought of having Fran introduce me to a place where I could work.
I had just planned to mooch off Fran’s place for a while and look for a job somewhere nearby. Ignoring my flustered state, Fran nodded and continued.
“Fortunately, I know a witch of the Coven who is looking for someone to work. She is not very far from here, either, so that witch will surely help you.”
“Not very far from here?”
Just as I wondered whether there was another Coven witch around here, a memory came to mind. The witch from “another fairy tale” who helped “Snow White” exactly once in the original work.
And the witch who lived avoiding people not far from the forest where the hunting competition had taken place. The two witches were the same person. The witch Fran was talking about couldn’t be...
When I frowned hard and looked at Fran, Fran nodded as if to say that the person I was thinking of was correct. Ah, seriously, that witch was a little...
“No, I really hate that...”
“However, this is the only thing I can do for you. You must have been planning to live off me, but the place where I live is unsuitable for humans.”
Come to think of it, Fran had said that no humans lived where she did. On top of that, Fran was a witch with the special occupation of “fairy doctor.” There must be plenty of injured fairies around Fran, and to make matters worse, most fairies happened to hate “Vivian.”
If I, whom the fairies hated, were to live in a place full of injured fairies, I would certainly become a nuisance to both Fran and the injured fairies. Should I call myself stupid for only thinking of this now? I couldn’t help feeling a little dejected.
‘......For now, should I at least go and see?’
After letting out a deep sigh, I had no choice but to nod. At this point, worrying about the original work or whatever was meaningless anyway. That witch’s personality might have changed a little from the original, too.
Once the conversation ended, Fran rose from her seat and held out her hand to me.
“Then I will take it that we have decided on that.”
“...Yeah, let’s do that.”
Since I thought that agonizing any further wouldn’t give me an answer, I got up from my seat and took the hand Fran offered me. And just as I thought that it was time to leave—
“It will make you dizzy. I recommend that you close your eyes.”
“What?”
The world flipped upside down.
Truly, it flipped upside down exactly as I said.
My vision began spinning round and round like water flowing down a drain, and an unbearable wave of nausea surged up. When I squeezed my eyes shut from the dizziness, I felt as though the ground had collapsed beneath my feet, and before I knew it, I had plopped down on the spot.
Just as I wondered when this revolting sensation would end, Fran’s voice reached me.
“We have arrived.”
“...? What? Uwegh.”
The moment I endured the dizziness and opened my eyes, the nausea I had been holding back surged up, and I spat out the watery saliva that had pooled in my mouth. Feeling relieved that I hadn’t actually thrown up, I lifted my head and looked around. We were in the middle of a forest I had never seen before.
As though asking if I was all right, Fran patted my back and continued speaking.
“If you go straight this way, you will arrive at that witch’s house.”
“No, that’s not it, urgh...”
“? If you are worried about your luggage, I brought the luggage that was on your bed. Is this not it?”
“N-no, seriously, that’s not it...”
I panted through the nausea and let out a sigh. Truly, it was magic that made me so sick I could hardly speak. Did Fran come and go from the royal castle like this every time? No, more importantly, right now...
I looked up at Fran with tearful eyes.
“How could you just make me disappear from inside the room... At the very least, we should have left through the palace’s main gate... The rumors about me being a witch are already driving me mad as it is...”
“Ah. I did not think of that. A Fran mistake.”
In the end, I collapsed right there and lay down. Fran looked down at me lying in the middle of the road for a moment, thought briefly, and then answered me as if a brilliant idea had come to her.
“Shall we go back?”
“...Just go leave a letter for me. I’d rather die than go through that twice.”
“Understood.”
*
A little while after that—
The royal castle was thrown into an uproar when Vivian’s letter, moved there by Fran, was discovered.
She had left the royal castle without anyone seeing her? How? Could Her Majesty the Queen really have been a witch? Thanks to the loose tongues of the maids, the rumor spread as quickly as wildfire. However—
“I personally escorted Her Majesty the Queen outside, so stop spouting nonsense and return to your work. She said she wished to leave without anyone else knowing, so she left while avoiding others’ eyes.”
““I-is that so! W-we apologize!””
That rumor was swiftly extinguished by Vin Chaud.
Vin Chaud had been shocked at first by Vivian’s sudden disappearance as well, but worried that if things went on like this, the rumors would damage Vivian’s reputation, he decided to lie to everyone.
Vin Chaud sighed and looked down at the letter Vivian had left behind. With a brief message thanking him for everything until now and his name written on it, Vin Chaud quietly gave a bitter smile.
‘Yes, what does it matter if Her Majesty the Queen is a witch?’
The Vivian he had watched with his own eyes for more than ten years was far too simple-hearted and innocent to be called a witch. Even if such a person truly was a witch, she surely would not be such a bad one.
Vin Chaud chuckled and carefully folded the letter before placing it in his pocket.
*
After walking along the forest path with Fran for thirty minutes.
Breathing heavily from exhaustion, I panted as I asked Fran.
“Haa, haa...! Are we not there yet...?!”
“We only need to go a little farther.”
“No, you said that ten minutes ago too...!”
“It is truly, truly, truly only a little farther. Also, it was not ten minutes ago, but five minutes ago, Vivian.”
For the first time in ages, a hike made me painfully aware of my rock-bottom stamina. Having enjoyed a luxurious life in the royal castle for more than a decade, my physical strength was far too lacking. I was panting even though I had only walked along a mountain path for a few minutes.
How many more minutes did we walk after that? Just before my vision turned pure white, a sweet scent brushed past the tip of my nose. It wasn’t the natural sweetness of the outdoors. It was an artificial sweetness, like the smell of butter or sugar.
“We have arrived. That place is the house where the Coven witch lives—”
The place Fran pointed to with her finger was something I had known about, but even seeing it with my own eyes, I could hardly believe it. Its appearance was so bizarre that I wondered how not even a single insect was swarming around a house like that.
A house with a design that looked as if it had sprung straight out of a fairy tale. The roof was made of crackers coated in chocolate, the windows were decorated with cookies, and the doorknob was candy. Looking at that house, I gave a bitter smile.
“It’s a house of sweets.”