[Episode 66] - A Romance Novel Read with Mother (3)
That night, I had a dream.
It was a dream in which a grown-up Titania appeared.
Her hair was shorter than it was now, reaching only to her shoulders, and her eyes had become a little sharper. And her red eyes, which had once shone like glittering rubies, looked shadowed and dark, unlike now.
In the dream, I was sitting on a bed, gazing intently at Titania, who stood beside me. As if she had noticed my gaze, Titania merely turned her head slightly and looked down at me. Unlike the face that always smiled at me, there was not a trace of a smile on Titania’s face.
In the dream, I lifted my head and asked Titania.
“Could you smile for a moment?”
“Why?”
“It’s just... I was thinking that you don’t smile much anymore.”
Titania, who had been looking at me in the dream, fell silent for a moment, then opened her eyes wide and lifted the corners of her mouth into a smile. At the sight of Titania looking exactly as she had in childhood, the me in the dream began to laugh aloud, as if something about it delighted me so much.
“Fufu, yes, that’s the expression. When you were little, you used to smile like that so often.”
“...Mother, did you like me better when I was little?”
Titania, sitting beside me, tilted her head and asked. In the dream, I rested my chin on my hand as if pondering for a moment, then gazed steadily at Titania beside me. Titania was making the expression she had worn as a child, but it looked awkward enough that I could tell she was forcing it.
In the dream, I looked at that expression of hers, chin in hand, and answered like this.
“No, it’s just that I miss it. No matter how you grow up, there’s no way I could ever dislike you, is there? It’s only...”
Clank—
When I crossed my legs, the chain fastened around my right ankle collided with itself, making a loud noise.
Perhaps because it was a dream, I felt no weight. But the chill of the chain against my skin was so cold that even knowing this was a dream did nothing to lessen it.
In the dream, I showed Titania the chain bound to my ankle as if for her to see, then smiled bitterly. I shook my ankle, making it jingle and clatter noisily, but Titania merely looked at me.
“It would be even better if you let me out of here.”
Titania looked at the shackle on my ankle and, for some reason, smiled faintly. Completely unlike the bright, innocent smile the ten-year-old Titania wore, she answered me with the smile of an adult, gently curving the corners of her eyes.
There was even composure in that smile.
“That, I cannot do.”
*
“...I simply don’t understand children these days.”
“...? Pardon?”
The next afternoon.
After finishing lunch, I decided to have tea with Lady Serina. Originally, I had planned to spend time with the princess in preparation for tomorrow’s hunting tournament... but because the princess had suddenly begun to inch away from me starting this morning, I had no choice but to spend time with Lady Serina.
I wondered whether I had done something wrong last night and thought hard about it, but truly, nothing came to mind. Surely, I had been playing around with the princess until we were exhausted and fell asleep, hadn’t I? All I remembered was the princess giggling happily; I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what I had done wrong.
‘Did I talk in my sleep when I was dreaming about something?’
I felt as though I had dreamed something today, but I couldn’t remember what it was. Since I had woken up with a slight cold sweat and my heart pounding, I could only assume I might have had a frightening dream. Had I, while talking in my sleep, perhaps hit the princess or something...
I set down my teacup and continued, looking at Lady Serina as though grumbling a little.
“At times, she clings to me saying she likes me, and at other times, she avoids me saying she dislikes me.”
“...Are you speaking of Her Highness the Princess?”
“Yes. Even last night, she was trying so hard to crawl into my arms to sleep, and today, for whatever reason, she avoids me again. Just what the problem is... haah.”
Putting it into words made a long sigh spill out of me on its own, like a lament. The image of the princess fleeing from my side as soon as she woke up today seemed to flicker before my eyes. Even when I asked why she was angry, she wouldn’t answer, and simply glared at me with those prim eyes.
‘Just what did I do wrong...?’
As I kept letting out deep sighs like that, Lady Serina, who had been watching me, let out a series of small laughs. When I looked at her with my lips slightly pursed, she covered her mouth with her hand as if trying to hold back her laughter and continued.
“Hu, huhu. It seems Your Majesty the Queen has many worries as well. Huhuhu. A child’s growth always causes parents anguish.”
Perhaps her throat had tightened from laughing, for Lady Serina took a sip of tea, set her cup down, and smiled softly at me.
“Isn’t it only natural for children to try to move away from their parents’ side as they grow?”
“The princess is only ten years old...”
“Ten is more than old enough. Even my daughter Viola tried to leave my arms when she was nine. At some point, the way she addressed me changed from Mama to Mother as well...”
Lady Serina smiled bitterly, saying it was painful that her daughter had left her side. Was ten already that kind of age? Wasn’t it still an age when a child would, and should, act spoiled with their parents? I thought for a moment, staring blankly at the black tea in my cup.
“Her Highness the Princess has begun entering puberty. Didn’t both you and I experience it at least once when we were young, Your Majesty? That fiery period when you wanted to defy your parents over everything, and nothing pleased you.”
“......”
Puberty...
Certainly, the princess had a puberty phase in the game as well. But how should I put it? In the game, puberty was the princess’s rebellious phase that naturally began around age fifteen if you raised her normally.
It was the period when she refused to attend her scheduled lessons and slipped out of the castle to play whenever she had the chance. The period when she said she was going to learn sorcery from a strange old woman living in the alleyways, only to get scammed.
The princess going through such a stormy period was more troublesome than one could imagine.
Of course, the princess’s puberty didn’t always begin at fifteen. Sometimes, it began when she was barely ten.
In any case... since this was reality, even setting the contents of the game aside, the suggestion that the princess might already be entering puberty came as a greater shock to me than I had expected.
I had expected that day would come someday, but just imagining already hearing her say, I hate you, Mother! Go away! Don’t cling to me! made my heart ache.
“Hu... Puberty, is it...”
As I let out sigh after sigh, Lady Serina clapped her hands to change the subject and began speaking about the hunting tournament.
“Ah, that’s right. Are Your Majesty the Queen and Her Highness the Princess truly not intending to participate in tomorrow’s hunting tournament? For now, I have arranged for you to accompany the scholars...”
“We are not. Do these arms of mine look capable of drawing a bowstring? The princess and I intend to look around the forest. Rumor has it there are many fascinating animals there... I hope the princess will be left with pleasant memories.”
“I see...”
Before arriving here, I had already made my position clear to Lady Serina by letter that I would not be participating in the hunting tournament. I had answered that I would look around the forest with the princess while following the scholars, then enjoy a picnic with her. We would visit the hunting tournament, but we would not take part directly.
It couldn’t be helped that Lady Serina looked slightly disappointed and dejected. After all, as the mistress of the forest, hunting was her hobby. She had said she wanted to hunt with me...
“I’m sorry for acting as I please after you went to the trouble of inviting me to the hunting tournament. I thought it was still too early to show the princess animals being killed...”
“N-no, not at all! Your Majesty has no reason to apologize to me!”
When I apologized, Lady Serina was startled and waved both hands. Seeing even her manner of speech stiffen for a moment, perhaps because she was so surprised, I let out a small laugh.
Well... I said that, but I had a different goal. When I enjoyed the picnic with the princess, I planned to dismiss the knights who had come as escorts for a short while, then ride on horseback deep into the forest, into the “mist.”
I had memorized the path through the mist in the game over and over again, so I wasn’t worried. Tomorrow’s plan was to ride quickly into the mist while the knights were away, then speak with the “dwarf” in the “cabin” within the mist.
Even if things differed from the game and I got lost in the mist, it was mist in which fairies did not lose their way, so if need be, I could simply receive Ainsel’s help.
“You said you would be participating in the hunting tournament, didn’t you? I look forward to a fine catch.”
“Huhu, leave it to me! I’ll bring back a catch so amazing that even Your Majesty’s jaw will drop!”
Lady Serina lifted her arm and struck a biceps pose, showing me the muscles in her arm. I hadn’t noticed when she was wearing a dress, but when she flexed, the lean muscles bulged out, letting me see just how much she had trained her muscles in order to shoot a bow.
No matter how much this was a world inside a game, women hunting was something frowned upon here as well. And yet Lady Serina had even built up the muscles in her arms for hunting... As expected of someone recommended by Vin Chaud, I thought she was an interesting person.
And so, the next day came again.
At last, the day of the hunting tournament arrived.
From the carriage heading toward the forest, I could see the colorful autumn woods beyond the window. The autumn forest had begun to be dyed in yellow and red fallen leaves.
And deep within that forest, I could see a pale mist settled in place. To the point that it seemed bizarre, the mist remained in one spot, rejecting the intrusion of all things.
“We have arrived! Your Majesty the Queen!”
When the coachman shouted, the knight who had come as an escort opened the carriage door. As the door opened and the chilly autumn wind brushed the nape of my neck, and the pale mist could be seen far in the distance, it finally felt real.
At last, the princess would be able to meet the “dwarf” of the cabin.