[Episode 153] — A Very Brief Parting (1)
“...Vivian, how would you feel if I were to leave your side?”
“...What?”
Leave?
I stared at Veronica with my eyes opened wide. I had known this journey must have some meaning, but I had never imagined that it was meant to prepare us for a ‘parting.’
Veronica was leaving.
I turned the thought over and over in my mind, but it still didn’t feel real. Perhaps it was because she was still smiling at me right in front of my eyes. Not knowing what to say, I parted my lips several times before quietly lowering my head.
Crackle, crackle.
Silence flowed between Veronica and me.
Only the sound of waves rolling in from afar and the sparks popping from the campfire continued to crackle. Unable to bear the silence, I hugged both knees to my chest and glanced at Veronica out of the corner of my eyes.
I had never said it outright to Veronica, but just like Titania, I thought of her as a ‘daughter’ born from my heart. A child who had finally found her way here after dozens of regressions and could now smile.
The fact that such a child could smile beside me made me so happy, so truly happy. Veronica’s smile was proof that I was helping her in some way.
A child who genuinely thought of me as her mother and helped me even through hardship. Titania’s older sister, Princess of Ainsel, and my daughter. Veronica was no longer a stranger. She was family.
And that Veronica was leaving my side.
I didn’t want her to go, but could I really stop her?
After all, I had already once left these children behind.
Only now did I begin to understand, if just a little, what Titania and Veronica had felt when they were hurt by my departure. Until now, I had thought I understood it in my head, but I had known nothing at all.
The feeling of a family member leaving one’s side was not something that could be understood with the mind. I wanted to seize her at once and demand to know why. I wanted to shout at her to explain herself properly.
But I couldn’t do that.
Suppressing the tightness in my throat, I forced a smile and asked Veronica,
“Could you tell me why?”
At my deliberately cheerful question, Veronica smiled awkwardly.
“Truthfully, I wanted to stay by your side until your curse was lifted. But... I suppose my body can’t endure any longer. Look at me even now. I feel like I could disappear at any moment.”
Veronica smiled faintly and showed me her fingertips. As if she were becoming a ghost, the tips of her fingers blurred before returning to normal. Like a match flame that looked ready to go out.
“...I don’t have much time left. I don’t even know if I can last a year.”
Veronica stroked my hand as she spoke. She said there was no time left. Hearing her put it that way, I couldn’t hold her back or beg her to stay. But there was definitely the ‘Fairy Egg.’ If we used it, somehow...
“...What about the Fairy Egg? It’s supposed to heal your body, isn’t it? Can’t it do something?”
“The Fairy Egg can be used right away. But...”
The reasons why I couldn’t hold her back kept piling up.
“Even if I use it, it will take decades to heal my body...”
“Decades...”
The reasons why I had no choice but to let her go kept piling up.
“If it takes that long, can’t you do it here with us...? If you leave, Titania and Ainsel will surely be sad. And I—”
“You seem to have forgotten, but I’m a wanted woman. I’m a criminal being hunted by witches for killing Aurora and a mermaid. If I stay defenseless beside you all, what happens? What if the Great Witch comes while I’m in the middle of healing my body?”
That reason made it impossible even to beg her.
My heart felt as though it were collapsing, and the ground beneath my feet felt as though it had shattered into pieces.
Once again, I was rendered speechless and could do nothing but lower my head. Was this how Veronica had felt back then? Unable to hold me back when I told her I was leaving. I even hated myself for being so powerless.
“Isn’t there... anything I can do for you?”
At my worried voice, Veronica’s eyes widened, and her throat bobbed. She swallowed dryly, wondering whether she should say what she was about to say. After agonizing over it again and again, she finally continued with a bitter smile.
“There’s exactly one thing. Something only you can do for me.”
“What, what is it? If it’s something I can do, I’ll grant anything!”
At the thought that there was something I could do for her, I crawled across the sand on all fours and scurried over to Veronica. Watching me, Veronica covered her mouth and giggled.
“How do you know you’ll grant anything when you don’t even know what I’m going to ask?”
I plopped down right beside Veronica and looked up at her. Then I smiled brightly and patted her back.
“You’ve hardly ever asked me for anything. This must be something you thought over hundreds of times, hesitated over again and again, and finally managed to bring yourself to ask. You didn’t want to inconvenience me, so you must have kept choosing and rechoosing how to bring it up, only to ask me now, at the very end. Do you think I don’t know you?”
Veronica blushed as though I had seen right through her and looked away from me. Seeing her embarrassed expression, one I felt I hadn’t seen in a long time, I chuckled and took her hand.
“So, because this is your request after all that worrying—not someone else’s request—I’ll grant it no matter what.”
“...Why are you going so far for me?”
“Why? Well, that’s because—”
It was something I had wanted to tell Veronica for a long time.
The child who had wept and poured out her resentment to me at the hunting festival. A child who had once seemed impossible to grow close to, yet had somehow become family to me. Veronica had definitely said this to me back then.
“Do you remember when you first revealed your identity? At the hunting festival you went to with Titania.”
“Ah... back then...”
“You said this to me, didn’t you? That I was the daughter you had raised.”
Perhaps Veronica remembered that moment as well. She blushed and looked away, as if embarrassed and telling me not to say anything more. I giggled and continued while holding her hand.
“That’s right. You’re the daughter I raised. The time we’ve known each other and the time we’ve spent together may be short, but the Veronica you are now is my daughter. You’re Titania’s older sister, and my daughter—the princess of Ainsel.”
Even if Veronica left, this was an unchanging truth. Veronica and I were ‘mother and daughter.’ I was this child’s mother. So I—
“As your mother, how could I not do whatever I can to grant you what you want? You’re my daughter.”
“......”
Veronica slowly tightened her grip on my hand. I squeezed hers just as firmly. I felt a faint tremor run through our joined hands, and then Veronica asked me in a choked voice,
“It’ll be a burden to you.”
“Even so, it’s all right.”
“It won’t be a normal request.”
“I won’t decide until I hear it.”
“It’ll really be an outrageous request, you know?”
“...I’ll grant anything except a confession of love.”
“Pfft—ahahahahaha!”
At that, Veronica burst out laughing. A confession of love? She clutched her stomach and laughed, saying I was still terribly self-absorbed. Seeing tears gather at the corners of her eyes, I felt my face grow hot.
Was that really so funny? Titania’s confession had caused me no end of trouble! I pinched the back of Veronica’s hand and told her to stop laughing, and only then did she finally manage to quiet down. Still giggling, she continued,
“...It’ll be worse than a confession of love.”
“Are you trying to scare me now?”
“No. It’s because it really is so outrageous, and because it’s a request I shouldn’t make of you. If you grant my request, I’ll truly be able to remain by your side. But then you’ll suffer, and you might be in pain. Even so, you—”
Veronica smiled bitterly and stroked my cheek. After gazing calmly at my face, she slowly lowered the hand that had been touching my cheek and gently caressed my rounded belly.
“Will you really grant my request?”
“......”
I tightly grasped the hand Veronica had been stroking over my belly, then hooked my little finger around hers and shook our joined fingers up and down. I even forced my thumb open and stamped it against hers.
Veronica looked puzzled, as though she didn’t know what the gesture meant. Then, as if she had understood, she smiled faintly and intertwined her little finger with mine even more firmly.
I raised my head and looked at Veronica with an expression that seemed to ask whether she was satisfied now.
“Yes, I’ll grant it. Anything.”
“...All right. Thank you, Mother.”
Mother. It had been so long since Veronica had called me that. As I smiled contentedly, Veronica slipped her hands beneath my armpits, lifted me up, and sat me between her legs.
“So, what is this request—”
“I can’t tell you right now. I really don’t have much time left.”
“Huh?”
“I’ve made up my mind. I want to do it quickly, before I change my mind.”
“So what is it—”
With me seated between her legs, Veronica raised her hands high into the sky and cast ‘magic.’ Flames shot upward from her fingertips.
Bang! Boom!!
Then came the sound of the fireworks exploding, and soon multicolored flowers bloomed across the dark night sky. Looking at those fireworks, like flowers embroidered across the heavens, my mouth fell slightly open before I knew it.
So you could make fireworks with magic, too. As I stared blankly at the fireworks Veronica sent soaring into the night sky, a thought from before we entered the sea came back to me.
Veronica using magic without a fairy.
I could understand how she had begun transforming into a fairy and had come to use magic without one. But normally, Veronica had been reluctant to use magic outside the cabin.
If Veronica used even slightly powerful magic, the Great Witch could come straight to her. Veronica never used any large-scale magic outside, apart from the cabin’s magic.
Which meant—
“Veronica... Is it really all right for you to use magic like this? If you use this much magic—”
“It’s all right. Rather—”
At that very moment—
Crack—
A sound like thin ice breaking came from above our heads. The incongruous noise left us no choice but to look up at the night sky.
“...Huh?”
The fireworks vanished, leaving the night sky dark once more.
As I looked up at the hazy, smoke-filled sky, I could only let out a dazed sound. It was simply too unreal.
Crack—Craack—
—The night sky was breaking apart.
As cracks began to spread across the night sky, a soft green light leaked through the gaps.
The light was the color of a forest holding the warmth of morning sunlight, and also resembled a green aurora spread across the night sky. The gaps that had first looked no more than slashes gradually widened, and powerful light began to pour through.
Crash—!
At the same time as the light burst forth, the night sky, like a pane of glass, shattered into pieces and rained down upon the sandy shore. The green light grew brighter and brighter, until it was soon dyed pure white.
From within the pure-white pupil that had appeared in the night sky, someone began to walk out. Each time she took a step, the sound of her bare feet sticking to the ground and peeling away rang out—crack, crack.
The woman who descended from that white pupil had hair and eyelashes as white as a snowfield. Beneath those pure-white lashes, eyes as blue as an ice-covered river radiated a cold light.
“...Truly, I cannot understand it.”
The woman who had stepped from the white space onto the sandy shore covered her mouth with a fan and frowned in irritation. The air surrounding her was entirely different from the last time I had seen her.
“Morgan...”
I murmured her name without realizing it. Morgan met my gaze and looked down at me with a bitter smile. For some reason, that smile seemed to be saying not to resent her.
“My child, do not look at me with such eyes. Did I not tell you clearly back then?”
With a snap, Morgan closed her fan. She tilted her head in irritation and stared intently at Veronica. Then she frowned as if she truly could not understand and opened her mouth.
“...There will be no next time.”