[Episode 22] - Let’s Draw! (1)
The dawn of the day I taught the princess the motions.
Perhaps because my thoughts had been complicated lately, I could not get any proper sleep, so I walked alone through the quiet royal castle at dawn. Relying on nothing but the single candle in my hand, I explored the palace in the early hours.
Maybe because it was still the hour when everyone was asleep, the palace at dawn was exceedingly quiet. There were no maids running about as they worked, and no nobles arriving at the palace to attend to their duties.
The palace was so still that it made me feel as if I were the only person in this enormous castle. And as I moved along, one step, then another, looking around the palace as though taking a stroll—
I heard someone sobbing from a room tucked away at the very end of the corridor.
‘Again...?’
Ever since I possessed Vivian’s body, I had become able to see things I normally “could not see.” Ainsel, Sylphs, Undines. Fairies, and the like.
I had become able to perceive beings other people could neither see nor hear. Especially in the empty hours before dawn, I could see many such beings.
Listening to the sobbing, I slowly moved my feet toward the place where the sound was coming from. Normally I would have been frightened, but even ghosts were not particularly scary once you got used to them.
—Sob, hngh... sob, hnghh...
With a small sigh, I approached the door of the room from which the sobbing came. Then, carefully turning the handle and stepping inside, I saw a certain “woman” crying in the corner.
A woman wearing an ash-gray hooded cloak, her untidy black hair wildly disheveled. She had cried so much that the area around her eyes was red enough to look painful.
If anyone else had seen her like that, they would have screamed first, but what came out of me before a scream was a sigh. I was sure I had told her not to cry here...
“...You’re crying here again? Banshee? I clearly told you not to cry here. The maids keep saying they hear ghostly wailing, and it scares them.”
—Sob, hngh, hngh... Vivian... sob, hngh...
The woman, her eyes swollen from crying, turned her head to look at me. Then, perhaps intending to cry even louder, she took a deep breath and began to let out a shrill wail.
—Waaah, waaaah! Waaaaaah!!
“Haa...”
At the wail that seemed to ring through my skull, I shook my head, entered the room, and locked the door. If anyone else saw me, I would look like a madwoman talking to empty air.
After setting the candle down on the table, I flopped down onto the bed where the “crying woman” was sitting. Then I patted the back of the crying woman as she wiped away her tears with her hands.
“Banshee, why are you crying again? Did the other fairies bully you again?”
—Hngh, sob, Leanan Sidhe did it agaaain...
“...I told you, didn’t I? Let what Leanan Sidhe says go in one ear and out the other. She just finds it fun to tease you.”
—B-but... sob, hngh...
Seeing Banshee covering her face with both hands and bawling out loud made me sigh on its own. The fairy right beside me was, just as her name implied, a “crying woman,” and was apparently also called a “Banshee.”
When Banshee showed no sign of stopping, I patted her back and did my best to soothe her.
At the very least, I meant she should cry somewhere else, not here.
“Stop crying now, hush!”
—Waaah, waaaah!
As I was busily trying to calm Banshee down, I heard a giggling laugh from above my head. When I raised my head toward the source of the sound, a woman floating in the air gave me an aggravating smile.
“Leanan Sidhe...”
—Hello~ Vivian~ Can’t sleep again today~?
A fairy floating gently through the air, wearing a fluttering white dress.
Snow-white hair and crimson eyes. The fairy had an appearance so beautiful even to me that her bewitching looks made me think she resembled a “succubus” who seduced men and devoured them.
In the first place, the traits of a fairy called Leanan Sidhe were similar to the succubus everyone knew. “A fairy who grants artistic talent to a man she likes, and in exchange feeds on his vital essence and blood.”
That was the fairy known as Leanan Sidhe.
Banshee and Leanan Sidhe.
In truth, they were all fairies that appeared as enemies in the game, but...
Frowning, I asked Leanan Sidhe, who was floating in midair.
“...Last time, didn’t you loudly declare that there were no men who looked tasty in the royal castle and that you were going to another region? Why are you still here?”
—I’ll be leaving soon~ I’m just here for a little while to meet a “friend” in this place~
“...Really?”
When I looked at Leanan Sidhe with suspicion, she took my face in both hands and made me meet her eyes. Blood-red irises, and pupils slit long and vertically.
They were unmistakably the eyes of a predator.
—I told you, didn’t I? There are no men here to my liking. How should I put it? I wouldn’t eat them even if they were handed to me. And besides, my “friend” has already settled down here anyway. We don’t usually “dine” in the same place as each other.
So a victim of Leanan Sidhe already existed in the royal castle...
Giggling with that irritating smile, Leanan Sidhe spun once through the air and moved over to Banshee’s side. Banshee was still busy sobbing as if she were deeply wronged.
Looking at Banshee as she cried as though wailing, Leanan Sidhe smiled, sighed, and pulled the ash-gray hood over Banshee’s head.
—Honestly, I knew you’d be hiding here again. Let’s hurry and go, Banshee. If we don’t hurry, the “gate to Fairyland” will close. Now, say goodbye to Vivian and let’s go.
—Waaah, waaaaah!
Leanan Sidhe smiled as if she had no other choice, took the crying Banshee by the hand, and the two floated up and vanished somewhere. Since she said “Fairyland,” they must have returned to the fairies’ country.
“...They’re finally gone.”
Once the noisy sound of Banshee’s crying was gone, perhaps because it had become quiet, I began to feel sleepy at last. When I left the room and looked out the window, the darkness outside had brightened a little, as if dawn was breaking.
With hollow eyes, I looked at the brightening window and quietly sighed.
‘If I sleep now... can I get two hours...?’
*
Tap tap tap! Tap tap tap!
It felt as though hardly any time had passed since I lay down on the bed and closed my eyes, but when I opened them, it was already a bright, sunny morning. Woken by the clamorous sound of something tapping on the window, I raised my head and looked toward where the sound came from.
“...? What is that...?”
HoXwarts?
A white owl was holding a letter in its beak and tapping on the window. When my eyes met the owl’s, it began pecking at the window even harder with its beak, as if telling me to hurry up and open it.
Tap tap tap! Tap tap tap!
I rubbed the mirror with my hand, as if telling Ainsel beside me to hurry and wake up. Only then did Ainsel seem to wake, looking at me with a dazed, sleepy expression.
—Good morning... Vivian.
“Ainsel, what is that? There’s an owl...”
—Hm? An owl?
Ainsel, who had been rubbing her eyes, glanced over at the window where the tap tap tap! sound was coming from. Then she tilted her head slightly in puzzlement and looked at the owl outside the window.
—Oh? An invitation from the coven?
“Coven?”
—Ah, it’s nothing suspicious, so it’s fine to open it. And that child isn’t a horned owl, but an owl. A white owl. Look closely. Its face is round, without any tufts of feathers sticking up on its head, right?
I couldn’t really tell.
Trusting Ainsel’s words that it wasn’t suspicious, I opened the window wide so the owl could come inside the room. Then the owl looked around and trotted into the room.
Flap. Spreading its large wings, it circled the room once, then perched on the bed and opened its dainty beak wide, dropping the letter it had been holding.
It was so cute and admirable that I tried to stroke the owl’s head, but the owl pecked the back of my hand with its sharp beak as if telling me not to come closer.
“Ow!”
“Grrrk! Kuaaak!”
After pecking the back of my hand, the owl spread its large wings as if threatening me, pecked the back of my hand once more, let out a strange cry, and flew straight out the window.
Rubbing the back of my hand, which had swollen red, I picked up the letter on the bed. On the outside, it was a letter in an utterly ordinary white envelope. I examined the letter front and back, then asked Ainsel.
“This is an invitation from the ‘coven’?”
—Yes, that’s right. The gathering of thirteen witches Vivian belonged to. It’s an invitation sent from there. But this is strange...? The coven should certainly know that Vivian is dead...
Ainsel tilted her head, saying she truly did not understand why they had sent an invitation to me. To be honest, I had no interest in covens or witches. I had no intention of getting involved anyway.
“...It’s fine if I don’t go, right?”
—Uh, pardon? Uh... I suppose so. It’s a free-spirited place anyway, so Vivian never really did anything there in particular.
So she had been a ghost member of the coven.
“Then that’s that. It’s not like I’m a witch, is it?”
—Th-that’s true, but... will that be all right? It’s a chance to make connections with other witches, you know?
“I have you. Do I need other witches?”
—Heh, hehet.
Having no interest in the coven, I shoved the letter delivered by the owl deep into a drawer of my dressing table. Tearing it up and throwing it away felt somehow uncomfortable, and I thought it might come in handy someday, so I decided to keep it.
I wanted to sleep a little more, but...
Because the owl had pecked the back of my hand, my sleepiness had completely vanished. To feel a bit more refreshed, I lifted both arms and stretched out fully, then began doing some simple stretches.
For some reason, I had become addicted to it. As I sang inwardly the motions I had taught the princess and smacked my stomach pat, pat, pat, Ainsel made a disgusted face.
—Ugh, ah. A childish dance with Vivian’s face.
“It’s not a dance, it’s motions. Calisthenics, calisthenics.”
Whether Ainsel was disgusted or not, I was wiggling my hips when I heard someone knock on the door. It was probably a maid coming to wake me.
Before the maid opened the door, I opened it first, and the maid looked at me in surprise. To the maid, who looked startled, I gave a bright smile and greeted her.
“Hello, good morning.”
“I-I greet Her Majesty the Queen...”
*
For today’s lesson with the princess, I had decided to do something a little special.
After receiving the materials Vinchaud had prepared for me, I went to the room where I always held lessons with the princess. In one arm, I carried a large sheet of drawing paper; in the other, crayons, paints, and various other tools for drawing.
When I entered the room carrying the various materials needed for today’s lesson, the princess tilted her head as she looked at the many things in my hands. I smiled brightly and laid the materials out on the princess’s desk.
“Your Majesty the Queen...? Today’s lesson is...”
“Let us do something a little different today. Aren’t you tired of party etiquette and dancing every time?”
The princess’s eyes sparkled brightly as she looked at the large drawing paper and tools like paints and crayons. Most likely, she had never properly drawn anything until now.
“Draw whatever you like on this large paper. Anything is fine. Cake is good, and flowers are good too. And you may draw His Majesty and the First Queen as well.”
“Mother... and Father...?”
I planned to put the picture the princess drew today into the room where the king had shut himself away. If the king was still human, wouldn’t he feel something upon seeing a picture drawn by his own daughter? I held on to that hope.
“Yes. And when the picture is finished, we will send it to His Majesty. Since His Majesty likes painting, surely he will like the picture you draw as well, Princess.”
“......”
Please, I really hoped that man called the king would feel something, anything, after seeing the picture drawn by the princess...
The princess looked up at me with an expression that seemed at a loss for what to do. After looking back and forth between the pure white drawing paper and me for a moment, as if thinking it over, the princess seemed to make up her mind and placed her palm on the paper.
“...Would Your Majesty the Queen draw with me?”
“Me?”
“For me to draw alone... the paper is too big.”
The hesitant princess picked up a red crayon and held it out to me. At the sight, I stroked the princess’s head and accepted the red crayon she gave me.
“...Very well. Let us draw a picture that will make His Majesty’s jaw drop.”
“...Yes!”