[Episode 52] - A Runaway-but-Not-Runaway Incident (2)
-Princess...! Princess! Please wake up! Princess!
Titania, who had been wandering through her dreams with her body curled up tightly, forced her hands over her ears at the sound of someone calling her in her sleep. But at Ainsel’s voice, which continued to shout, she slowly opened her eyes.
“Just a little longer...”
-Princess... This isn’t the time! Hurry and wake up, and look around you!!
“What is it...”
She was certain she had slept with the blanket pulled all the way over her head, yet when she opened her eyes and sat up, an unfamiliar wooden ceiling came into view. Titania blinked blankly in her half-asleep state, then turned her head to look around.
“...? What?”
Her mind still not working because of her drowsiness, Titania scratched her head and looked around once more. A tiny house that seemed to be made entirely of wood. The small interior was filled with the faint scent of medicinal herbs.
A carpet made from the hide of some unknown beast was spread across the floor, and the walls were covered with bundles of dried things that might have been medicinal herbs—or perhaps just weeds.
Seeing the rough furniture that looked as if it had been made only from wood placed here and there throughout the not-so-spacious house beside where she lay, Titania suddenly had a thought.
‘It’s like a cottage in the forest from a picture book.’
As she blankly surveyed the house in her half-awake state, the sound of someone humming came through the slightly open crack of the door. Titania got up and poked her head through the gap.
She saw something bubbling away in a pot over the fireplace, and in front of it, a little girl swaying her hips as she hummed. The little girl was cooking, stirring the ladle inside the pot round and round.
After swallowing a mouthful of whatever was in the pot, the girl hopped in place and began moving busily. Repeating to herself, “Busy, busy,” she was working hard to prepare something.
As Titania stared blankly at the sight, her waking mind began to turn quickly. It felt as though she had stepped inside a picture book, so she thought all of this must be a dream—but it was not.
“Huh? Where is this...? A cottage? I’m sure I was sleeping in my room...?”
-I don’t know either... Even when I try to move to another mirror to tell Vivian about this situation, I can’t... Cases like this are extremely rare...
Titania patted Ainsel, who was at a loss, to calm her, then looked out the window to check where this place was. No matter which window she looked out of, all she could see was a forest covered in thick, hazy fog.
She could not determine her exact location. Titania could only realize that this place was a “cottage” in the middle of a forest thick with fog. A small cottage with only an unknown little girl inside.
Should she open the window, go outside, and run away? No. Even ten-year-old Titania knew very well that entering that forest alone would be no different from suicide.
As Titania paced around the room, not knowing what to do, the wooden door opened with a bang, and the “little girl” kicked the door wide open and came inside.
When their eyes met, the little girl blinked, then beamed brightly and approached Titania. She was a little girl with hair as brown as earth and green eyes like sprouts growing above it.
She circled around Titania as if observing her, looking her up and down, then sniffed at her. Soon after, she smiled brightly and clasped both of Titania’s hands tightly.
Startled, Titania tried to pull her hands away, but the little girl only smiled bashfully and refused to let go. As Titania stood there flustered and at a loss, the little girl introduced herself with a smile.
-Welcome to our “cottage,” Princess! I’m Brownie!
“B-Brownie?”
-Yes! I’m Brownie, the house fairy who manages this “cottage”!
*
The hour when the sun was setting.
The faces of all the soldiers and maids who still had not found Titania were growing paler and paler. They had opened and searched every room in the royal palace, but there was still no news that the princess had been found.
They searched rooms they had already checked several more times, but as expected, the princess was nowhere to be seen. Anxiety began to appear on the faces of everyone who had thought they would surely find her by evening.
As the opinion that she might have been kidnapped began to seep out, Vinsho and the other ministers all spoke up to refute it. How could a “kidnapping” make sense inside the royal palace, where security was at its strictest?
Saying that if they had time to spout such nonsense, they should go look for the princess, everyone joined forces and began searching for her. They searched the envoys’ rooms and even went through unused palaces, shaking off dust as they looked for the princess.
However, even as the sun set and the night deepened, no word came that the princess had been found. All through the night, the royal palace only echoed with the voices of everyone calling out for “Princess Titania.”
As the night grew deeper, Vivian became increasingly anxious and at a loss. Unlike what everyone else thought, the thought that Titania might have been kidnapped began to burrow deeper and deeper into Vivian’s mind.
Because unlike the others, Vivian knew of the existence of “witches.”
What if a fairy or witch had intervened and kidnapped Titania? What if that “witch” who had turned Aurora into a “fairy” was targeting Titania this time? What if that was also why she could not contact Ainsel?
Vivian’s complexion turned increasingly blue, and as dark, bluish fear seemed to engulf her entire body in an instant, her breathing began to grow ragged. As terror wrapped around her, Vivian fingered the “invitation” in her hand.
Should she call Fran even now and ask her to find Titania? If it was Fran, she would surely be of great help in finding Titania. Just as she was about to tear open the “invitation”—
Knock, knock—
“...Who is it?”
“Your Majesty Queen Vivian, it is Princess Fiona Silverword. I was worried about Your Majesty, so I came to speak with you for a moment. May I come in?”
Crumple.
Vivian’s expression twisted completely.
Even without this, the situation was urgent, and she had no room to act kindly toward Princess Fiona. Just as she opened her mouth to tell her to come again tomorrow, the door suddenly opened, and Princess Fiona poked her head in.
“May I?”
“......Come in.”
Vivian clenched her teeth and forced a smile as she told Princess Fiona to enter. What could she do? Before she could even refuse, the princess had already opened the door and asked to be let in.
‘If she weren’t a princess of another country, I’d have cursed at her to get out right this instant...’
Vivian let out a sigh between her lips, quietly enough that Princess Fiona would not hear, then smiled and asked Princess Fiona why on earth she had come at such a late hour.
“What is it, Princess Fiona? As you know, I am in an exceedingly busy situation right now.”
“I wanted to talk with Your Majesty Queen Vivian for a moment.”
“...Is that truly all?”
Vivian looked at Princess Fiona with an absurd expression, as if she could not believe what she was hearing. At that expression, Princess Fiona merely smiled. Vivian let out an irritated sigh, folded her arms, and replied.
“...I’m curious what you could possibly want to talk about so badly. Let’s hear it.”
“It’s nothing much. I merely...”
Princess Fiona smiled and said to Vivian,
“You looked as though pretending to grieve was so difficult for you, so I only wanted to tell you that you needn’t do so in front of me, Your Majesty. After all, acting must become tiring if one keeps it up for too long, no?”
“What?”
Vivian asked back, wondering if she had heard wrong. She was so dumbfounded by what she had just heard that she could not give a proper answer. Just as she tried to think she must have misheard, Princess Fiona drove the point home.
“I know you well. You aren’t the sort of person who would grieve merely because a child who isn’t even related to you by blood ran away, are you? Are you pretending to be sad in front of others to manage your image as queen?”
“...Princess Fiona, have you gone mad?”
“...I told you, you don’t need to act in front of me. You aren’t that kind of person, are you? Since I know your true feelings, I’m offering you advice in order to help you.”
Crumple, crumple.
Vivian’s expression began to twist even further. When a look beyond shock, nearing disgust, began to show on her face, Princess Fiona shrugged and asked Vivian as if she could not understand.
“I know your past. I know what you did to the other young ladies in order to marry the king. You seized every weakness you could and even drove people to suicide, and now you suddenly have maternal love? For the child of a woman you despise, no less? Huhu, even jokes have their limits.”
As Vivian listened, she quietly thought, ‘Ah, Princess Fiona is someone who knows the old “Vivian.”’ And that she hated the old Vivian enough to wish her dead.
Otherwise, there was no way she would snap at her so sharply. For a princess of another country, a princess participating in an envoy delegation, to speak this way to the “queen” of a nation was impossible without extreme “hatred.”
Only now did Vivian understand the source of the sense of unease she had felt whenever she saw Princess Fiona. Princess Fiona, who smiled while giving off an unpleasant air, had been instinctively uncomfortable to her.
Vivian let out a small sigh and raised her head slightly to look at Princess Fiona. Seeing Princess Fiona still smiling broadly with the corners of her mouth lifted, she could feel the twisted emotions being poured onto her.
“...Please, spare me your disgusting jokes. I told you, I know what’s in your heart. Right now, aren’t you the one happiest that the child has disappeared?”
“...What did you say?”
“The child who resembles ‘that woman’ you despised has vanished from before your eyes all on her own, hasn’t she? If that isn’t something to be happy about, then what is it? Ah, did you perhaps tell that child you ‘hated’ her because you wanted this to happen? Truly, how meticu—”
Slap—!!!
With a sound like something tearing, Vivian’s palm struck Princess Fiona across the face. Princess Fiona’s head snapped to the side, and she opened her eyes wide before turning her head to look at Vivian.
Drip, drip. Tears that did not suit Vivian’s face began to fall. Princess Fiona, watching those tears flow, narrowed her eyes and furrowed her brow. As though she truly hated the sight.
‘How pathetic.’
It was so pathetic she felt she might die. Was this woman even capable of making such an expression? Was this woman someone who could face others with such emotions? If this woman was someone who could be like this—
‘Then why me? Why did you treat me that way?’
I can’t believe that you, who “accidentally” killed my father and raised me as a “witch,” were someone capable of this. No, I won’t believe it. Did you think I wouldn’t know what was inside you?
“...Princess Fiona.”
Vivian sprang up from her seat, her expression twisted fiercely as she looked at Princess Fiona. As if that expression were familiar, Princess Fiona looked back at Vivian with an unbothered smile.
“I will forgive the rudeness you have committed toward me until now with this. But there will not be a second time. You would do well to remember that properly with that lacking head of yours.”
“......”
“Until the envoy delegation leaves, stay out of my sight, keep as quiet as a dead mouse, and return home silently.”
Bang!
With those words as her last, Vivian left the room. Princess Fiona, left alone in the room, leaned back against the sofa, stroked the cheek that had been slapped, and let out a chuckle.
“Haha... It hurts.”
Though she said that, it did not hurt that much. Thanks to the consideration contained in the hand, the strength had left it before it struck her, so it had not hurt. The fact that her lip had not split and she did not taste blood in her mouth was proof.
“Even though normally you’d hit me until my lip split and the inside of my mouth was torn raw...”
Princess Fiona covered her eyes with her arm and let out little chuckles. After laughing once, then twice, Princess Fiona abruptly stopped and muttered to herself in a cold voice.
“...Disgusting.”