#charlotte abelfreya fluegel to mori no oukoku

[dennou-translations]

Violet Evergarden: Booklet 3

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At that moment, I found myself thinking, “Aah, maybe if I disappeared, if I vanished right now, nobody would notice.”

Once I thought this, I could no longer think of anything else.

Before I realized, my hands and feet had moved. I slowly moved my whole body and left that place behind.

Nobody called for. Nobody tried to stop me.

Which was why I was now hiding. I was in a corner of a maze of roses in the royal palace of this forest kingdom.

I looked up at the sky. It was overcast. The air was a little heavy, so there was a chance of rain.

Was anyone looking for me by now? No, they might not have noticed. I could bet a hundred of Drossel’s white camellias that they hadn’t. “That wouldn’t be a bet,” someone said from within my mind.

——What will happen to me if I just stay here like this?

I tried to think calmly. Firstly, I would get hungry. My body would get bitten by insects. The sky was looking shady, so rain might come pouring down on me. I would get a fever from the cold, and then... and then... and then...

The power of my imagination was scarce, so the scenario ended there.

Stretching out my dress’s sleeves and removing my long gloves, I plucked the grass with a bare hand. Picking up some rose petals that had fallen to the ground, I threw them into the air even though they would not fly too far. I looked almost like a child trying to contain her bad mood. Most likely, if anyone saw me, they would wonder what on earth the queen of Fluegel was doing.

Why had I grown up to be like this? All I ever did was think big of small matters and be in a state of chaos. It was such a weak mindset, which people most likely wouldn’t expect to come from someone born in a family that was meant to rule a country.

“Members of the royal family are actually not supposed to expose their original selves. Under no circumstance should you forget that you must act with dignity and be a role model to your subjects.”

Even though I had already become a wife, I behaved like a little girl.

“However...”

I had experienced a romance like the ones that young girls dream with.

“...from my long time working in the court...”

I fell in love and won my beloved lord over.

“...these have been the most memorable Public Love Letters. Yes... in a good sense.”

After running and running, I was now living the aftermath of that.

My name is Charlotte Abelfreya Fluegel. Already a year had passed ever since I married off to Fluegel.

   Charlotte Abelfreya Fluegel and the Forest Kingdom

   Drossel and Fluegel – no matter what could happen to these two nations in the future, they had me as their intermediary princess. If I happened to die in this rose labyrinth without anybody ever finding me, I wanted someone to remember that.

As to why things had turned out like this, I’d have to rewind my life a little to explain. I had to mix up the cauldron of time that made the hours pass.

How far back was I supposed to go?

That beautiful golden-haired girl. My favorite. The ghostwriter who had become a mediator for my romance.

Rewinding to the times of Violet Evergarden’s Public Love Letters would be going back too far. It should be a bit later. Perhaps the appropriate would be around the time when I, who was once the third princess of Drossel – that beautiful country where white camellias bloomed in copious amounts –, went away and changed my surname. Yes, right, that was adequate enough.

Fluegel was a neighboring country of prosperous forestry. I was married to the man who had the priority rights to succeeding its throne. Letting go of everything that I had cherished until then, I married off.

I had transformed from a girl into an adult. Although my appearance hadn’t changed much, that was my status.

My husband was Damian Baldur Fluegel. He was the person who possessed the rights of succession as the next monarch at the beginning of our marriage, but a few days ago, he had inherited the throne from his father and become a king both in name and reality. In other words, I had become the queen as well.

Probably the worst queen in history. After all, I had run away.

   Let me try to trace the rewound time with exact precision.

Fluegel’s capital was a city of fresh greenery, which had a castle erected in the depths of a forest. Said royal palace couldn’t be considered sturdy or showy, but it was in perfect harmony with the nature, endowed with a calculated beauty. Unlike Drossel, a country that maintained itself through the tourism industry, Fluegel had much of its national interest shouldered by its forestry. Drossel’s national flower was the white camellia, while Fluegel’s was the red rose.

The two countries were separated by a large river, but one would be tempted to wonder how they could be so different.

Differences were by no means a bad thing. After all, Lord Damian and I had met because we had been raised in such different cultures. That was exactly why I became attracted to Lord Damian’s… albeit artless, uninhibited personality, which was so unlike that of the royals from Drossel and other nations...

Yes, “differences” were not bad. But the so-called “differences”... how should I put it? When they weren’t tolerated, instead viewed as an absence of profits and effort, they would turn into a really bad thing.

Most likely, that was what made me the way I was now.

Was this an excuse? It might be. But that was how it was. That was it.

At first, my life in Fluegel didn’t go well.

Becoming used to even small differences in habit was extremely difficult for me, which caused the chamberlain to sigh often. He was someone who deserved respect for having taken care of Lord Damian’s personal matters for quite a long time.

There was no mistaking that I was in a position higher than his, but I soon understood that he looked down on me. One could tell as much by things such as the movements of the other’s eyes and their attitude.

The chamberlain would tell me: “That is not the way we do it in Fluegel”, “This is for your protection. You will be criticized otherwise. Now, fix yourself up”, “I have said this several times, but...”

I didn’t think I was some idiot. I believed myself to be the kind of girl who could do well if I put my mind into it. But I had to admit that I was a very unstable crybaby.

The differences such as the ones that the chamberlain talked about were, for example, the order in which people were seated at meals, how to lift my dress when hopping into a carriage, and other minute details like that. If I were told such things back in Drossel, I was positive that I could internalize it in the first try. After that, I definitely wouldn’t repeat the mistake. But the moment I tried to do it in this foreign country that I wasn’t familiar with, being watched by the monitoring eyes of someone that didn’t have me in his favor, I ended up failing. It was almost as if I were inducing the failure on my own. What was this phenomenon?

The chamberlain most likely knew this as well. He knew it, and even then he would sigh and speak in a detached manner while watching me go pale. There was nothing good in it for either of us, yet we would find ourselves repeating this vicious cycle.

To be honest, we were so incapable of getting along that the desire to jump off from one of the Fluegel castle’s windows as retaliation surged from within me. However, I had no choice but to keep going. Because I was a newcomer and that person was an elder.

If I didn’t get used to this, it would be the end of me.

Right, and there was also the tea party. The flow of the Cauldron of Time had finally returned to the present.

It all had begun… from the chamberlain suggesting that if I, who had become the queen, held a tea party, I would certainly make myself known as someone who shines like the stars in the night sky. He gave a long speech about my authority as a queen being this and that. That detestable chamberlain.

I did like tea parties, but even after being in Fluegel for a year, I wasn’t able to find myself anyone that I could consider close to me, so I frankly didn’t like the idea. I hadn’t gotten myself anyone to be on friendly terms with, so rather than a display of my power, wouldn’t this be deemed as more of a public execution for me?

Ever since I had arrived here, I was in the position of a foreign princess who had a political marriage with Lord Damian, so both the royal family that I had joined and the people who took care of me were somewhat distant… To make things worse, I was the very person who had tainted the traditional event of the Public Love Letters. People were wary of me as an unprecedented princess.

I had seen that Fluegel had a liberal aspect to it and wasn’t too bound by formalities in comparison to Drossel, but when it came to the royal family, that was a different story.

Whenever I passed the corridors of the royal palace, I could hear one name being whispered. Everyone would have faint smiles on their faces. “Baby Princess” was what they called me.

The one who came up with it was Lord Damian’s younger sister or something. Indeed, I had childish facial features and I was the girl who had married for love, so there was no helping that I would be mocked like this.

Receiving a nickname and having it made into a title meant that it was ingrained in people. Once a knight earned himself an alias, others would expect him to have a conduct that was worthy of it. In that same manner, no matter what I, Charlotte Abelfreya Fluegel, might say… I lived in Fluegel as the princess whom everyone would giggle at.

Whenever I made a mistake, “it’s because she’s a child”. If I happened to rush towards Lord Damian, “it’s because she’s a child”. Whenever I said anything, “it’s because she’s a child”.

If there was some magic spell that could turn me into a twenty-year-old right now, I would have taken it. It’d be great if I could instantly grab ahold of my dignity in a way that nobody would complain. But that was something that people had to be awarded to through the years, along with their efforts...

I might have been the Baby Princess today as well – the day of the tea party.

The chamberlain was in awfully high spirits, which one way or another was an omen for misfortune. I was watching from my bedroom as the elderly man briskly instructed the people around him.

From the room where I stayed with Lord Damian, I could see the castle’s garden, the rose maze that started from the garden’s entrance veering to the side, and the castle town. Back when we had just married, we used to often gaze outside the window together, but now we couldn’t even talk for more than five minutes.

Ever since succeeding the throne, Lord Damian was truly busy. He would be working while I waited for him in our room; by the time that I woke up, he would be by my side without me having realized it; as I stretched the creases that formed between his eyebrows while he was dreaming, he would wake up all of a sudden and then head off to the royal office again.

I was depressed since morning, because why did I have to hold a tea party while my husband was working so indiscriminately? But, well, this was also part of my duties. It was important for me to mingle with other women from a social status similar to mine. The trust earned from them would help not just me but also Lord Damian.

Those who controlled factions also had control of politics. Yes, yes, I knew that much. I had to do this exactly because things weren’t going well. In order to level up my speech skills, I had to start from taking up a stance. As my position was becoming worse, if I could get around here well, I would increase my authority in the royal territory without having to recreate myself.

I understood the reasoning behind this. What the chamberlain said was correct. He was implicitly telling me to do right, and I was the one at fault for not managing it...

The tea party was held in the garden outside at the arranged time.

There were people that I hadn’t seen ever since my wedding ceremony, whom I greeted while turning my head around at an incredible speed. Whenever someone sprinkled the subject of political affairs here and there, I’d throw it back at them with a smile, literally tearing apart and flinging away whatever came at me on repeat. Although the scene actually looked like a peaceful conversation, under the surface, I, the queen, was being evaluated, so this was a battle.

I thought I had done a really strenuous effort up until the middle of it. Instilling the impression that “My, so maybe the Baby Princess isn’t a bad person and is surprisingly smart when she talks?” was quite a success. The signs that I could make them deem me as worthy of standing by Lord Damian’s side were becoming visible. However, the very moment that Her Highness, the King’s young her sister, appeared in the tea party, everything I had set up crumbled down at once.

She was pretty late from the scheduled time – rather, she suddenly showed up when it was already ending.

Although she was close to me in age, she had a very adult appearance and was an awfully beautiful person. Renowned as one of Fluegel’s talented women, she was also involved with the National Assembly, and told us that she had rushed over because the meeting had ended just now. I had not yet been allowed to attend the meetings even though I was the queen, so I was terribly jealous... and a little miserable.

Of course, whatever had been discussed there became the topic, which Her Highness told the women present, explaining in a simplified manner. What a wonderful person she was.

Regardless, it felt like this was going to end as Her Highness’s tea party, even though it was mine. Well, that was okay too. Rather, it might be easier if there was someone to take the initiative to talk like this. I had a bug where I couldn’t speak very well to people whom I wasn’t close to, so I decided to leave it to her.

Despite this being a tea party, I hadn’t eaten anything, so I had the feeling that I would get hungry in the evening. I wondered what we would have for dinner.

Just like that, half of my soul disappeared somewhere else, so I didn’t notice that the subject had changed from state affairs to the next successor to the throne.

“Queen, are you listening? If things continue the way they are, there will be no helping it if a concubine is appointed.”

Since I hadn’t noticed it, I couldn’t react right away, even as I took the tremendous brutality of those words to the face. This had happened just a moment ago, so I didn’t remember very well what kind of reaction I’d had. I had the feeling that I had responded with a somewhat sluggish reply such as “aah” or “eeh”... much like the way that living creatures cried for the first time upon being born.

I could immediately tell that Her Highness wasn’t satisfied with my answer.

“It is because you are so laidback like this that the King has to fight the national affairs alone. You still intend to be here as a guest, not doing what you have to do, so everyone has to hold back and nobody can speak up their opinions. Talk more. Be more useful to the country. Most important of all, it has already been a year, yet nothing has been reported to us. Are you seriously discussing the succession with the King? If this goes on, someone will suggest a concubine for him.”

With such words thrown at me in sequence, I—I had... I had a thought. That perhaps she was trying to make me lose heart. Wasn’t I being attacked right now?

I looked around. Nobody attempted to open their mouths in order to defend me. There was no one. I had no one.

All of them were waiting for my reaction.

I knew this situation. I knew it very well. I wasn’t being treated as a person at the moment. My personality was being denied as well. The dignity that should be granted to the human being named Charlotte wasn’t being taken into account.

However, I didn’t break. Why?

Because I was used to being neglected.

“Yes, I am truly doing a poor job. I believe it is as you say.”

I was smiling.

“However, it has not yet been decided what will be my part of the work and what will be the King’s, as we are in the process of deciding on it as a couple.”

I was smiling mockingly.

“Now that I have talked to all of you like this, I have concluded I should propose my thoughts to the parliament slowly, little by little.”

I was... smiling.

“I was the princess of my country. But now, I am the queen of Fluegel. I did not intend to be here in the position of guest, but it is true that I was restraining myself. But is that not the same for all of you? I am aware. Everyone has been... well, surrounding me from a distance and looking after me. I was fretting, as it would have been better for you to tell me more directly if there was anything wrong... By all means, I would like to have a frank exchange of opinions with you in the future... and I hope that we can help each other... as fellow women.”

This was laughable.

Her Highness was appalled. So was everyone else. She must have spoken so conflictingly due to thinking that it was sure to make me start crying.

I wanted her to stop saying such stupid things. I was the former third princess of Drossel. Did she know what kind of country that was? It was a country where it was okay for women to become political tools. We were by no means granted the position to act freely like she did. As the shadows so-called “women”, we had no choice but earnestly do whatever we could.

I was born in a country were women were consumed and worn down. To top it off, I had been raised mostly by courtiers, away from my biological parents. I hadn’t seen my mother in forever.

Exhausted as a result of her marriage of convenience, Mother had Father build her a palace and secluded herself in it all day long every day. She did show up at the wedding ceremony, but she hadn’t even sent me a single letter after I had married off. She had probably already forgotten that she had given birth to me.

But that was the country I had been born in. I had been raised by one of this country’s strong women – a carefully selected, tough woman. This person patiently educated me, even though my aptitude wasn’t good. She explained things to me over and over again. She scolded me a lot. She taught me so that I would be able to marry anyone and live anywhere. She had also predicted that a situation like this might happen. So she told me how to act during a quarrel with other women.

That was why I smiled at times like these.

My looks weren’t bad. I was no idiot. I knew what effects I would bring about if I smiled. There was little that I could do, but I was going to be the one firing the best shot here.

I was a crybaby. I was a weakling. I was lonely.

However, I had been taught well. No matter what, I couldn’t lose in times like these. I knew that much.

I had been protected through the erasure of my personality.

   That day’s tea party was over right then, and thanks to the chamberlain saying that it would soon be time to bring it to a close, it ended well.

At a later date, my feud or whatever with Her Highness would become a rumor around the royal palace, but that was a story of the future. In any case, it was over for now. Therefore, I was extremely relieved.

The chamberlain let me return to my room unusually early and consoled me with a “you must be tired”. “You were excellent today,” he told me. Enveloping my shaky palms in his hands, which had wrinkles just like Alberta’s, he warmed them up. “No matter what happens, do not forget that you have one ally,” he said.

From that, I understood a little something. That he, indeed, worried about me in his own way. I wasn’t fond of his way of doing things, but he had struggled as much as he could in order to do something to improve my position.

He had seen what I had gone through today, so he was commending my brave fight. I had been subjected to violence today. I had been told such terrible things. Even though I—I...

I was in love with Lord Damian.

Both Drossel and Fluegel were aware of this. The citizens of both kingdoms knew it. And yet, aah, how embarrassing. But everyone knew.

I was in love with that person. I was in love.

“You have not sired a child after a year, so there might be need for a concubine. Therefore, if such a woman appears, you should accept it,” she said, despite knowing how much it would hurt me.

I was told off. I was told off by the younger sister of the object of my affections. That was what she said to me.

“Thank you, but please, let me be alone.”

I still managed to keep my smile up, but as soon as I drove the chamberlain out of the room, the tears overflowed torrentially and I couldn’t stop them.

There should be things more painful than that out there in the world. I looked like a fool for crying because of something like this. But right now, I was feeling like the most pitiful person in the world. I wanted to return to Drossel. I wanted to go home to Drossel.

No, that wasn’t it. No, that wasn’t it. No, that wasn’t it.

I wanted to go back to the person who would always allowed me to cry, no matter how much I did so. The person who would stay by my side.

“Alberta...”

I wanted to go back to Alberta.

I knew it was stupid of me. But when I thought that a day might come when Lord Damian, my husband – the object of my affections –, would take another woman aside from me, it was so painful. My chest hurt – it hurt so much that it was hard to breathe. So I couldn’t contain my cries.

I wondered what had gone wrong.

Was it because I had started clamming up, since the chamberlain would always hammer me down by saying, “That kind of unheard-of behavior is not allowed here”, so I couldn’t speak the way I wanted to? Or was it because I was late to find out that not assertively addressing the royal family was bad manners, since I was in a position where I had to wait for people to talk to me first back in Drossel?

Perhaps it was everything.

Apparently, Fluegel hadn’t taken in a princess from abroad in the last sixty years, so maybe it was already difficult for them to accept a foreign object like me in the first place. Things would probably have been different if I were a great woman – yes, a woman like Her Highness –, yet I had nothing but tears. Still, was I such a horrible person that I had to be told such things?

Aah, nothing – just nothing. Nothing was working out. It might be that nothing would go well from now on too.

This thought swiftly made its way into my heart.

All of a sudden, I was able to clearly hear the sounds around me. The noises of someone walking, the whistling of the wind outside, my own breathing. The way that the tears fell down as they dripped from my eyelashes, the way that I was suddenly looking at myself in a holistic manner.

Yes, perhaps things would never work out from now onward. If so, then...

Then, shouldn’t I run away?

Several questions – such as to where, with whom and to do what – came to me, but I ignored them. I had probably broken down at that point.

I dropped my own heart, which I had been cherishing as much as possible in order for it not to break, onto my feet. I had the feeling that I heard a clank when doing so.

——Maybe nothing would ever go well in the future.

If so, then no matter how much I exerted myself, it would be useless.

——Maybe nothing would ever go well in the future.

I had to run off to somewhere.

——Maybe nothing would ever go well in the future.

Nobody was going to protect me.

——Maybe nothing would ever go well in the future.

After all, this was a foreign country and Alberta wasn’t here. The only one who could protect me was...

——Maybe nothing would ever go well in the future.

The only one who could protect me was myself.

——Maybe nothing would ever go well in the future.

I had to run away.

——Maybe nothing would ever go well in the future.

I had to run.

——Maybe nothing would ever go well in the future.

If I stayed here like this, I... I might seriously jump off the window.

Once I thought this, I somehow felt like I couldn’t breathe anymore. When I came to my senses, I had left the room.

The courtiers were busy cleaning up the tea party in the garden. The chamberlain had also gone outside in order to instruct them. If I came out of the room without making any sounds, nobody would chase after me right away. When I went into the corridor, there was a soldier, but he was only meant to see whoever entered and exited the place and wouldn’t follow me since he wasn’t my bodyguard.

If it was now, perhaps no one would notice if I disappeared – if I happened to vanish. Once I thought this, I could no longer think of anything else.

Before I realized, my hands and feet had moved. I slowly moved my whole body and left that place behind.

I continued down the stairs and trotted through a passage that relatively few people used. Even then, I did pass by some people, but they didn’t seem to pay any mind to me. To begin with, they might not even have the conceptualization that the queen was running through the halls alone.

It wasn’t like I wanted someone to call for me. However, no one did. No one tried to stop me.

Which was why I was now hiding. I was in a corner of a maze of roses in the royal palace of this forest kingdom.

I looked up at the sky. It was overcast. The air was a little heavy, so there was a chance of rain.

Was anyone looking for me by now? No, they might not have noticed. I could bet a hundred of Drossel’s white camellias that they hadn’t. “That wouldn’t be a bet,” someone said from within my mind.

——What will happen to me if I just stay here like this?

I tried to think calmly. Firstly, I would get hungry. My body would get bitten by insects. The sky was looking shady, so rain might come pouring down on me. I would get a fever from the cold, and then... and then... and then...

The power of my imagination was scarce, so the scenario ended there.

Stretching out my dress’s sleeves and removing my long gloves, I plucked the grass with a bare hand. Picking up some rose petals that had fallen to the ground, I threw them into the air even though they would not fly too far. I looked almost like a child trying to contain her bad mood. Most likely, if anyone saw me, they would wonder what on earth the queen of Fluegel was doing.

Why had I grown up to be like this? All I ever did was think big of small matters and be in a state of chaos.

This wasn’t the married life I had envisioned. I did think there would be hardships, but – how should I put it? – I thought they would be rather different. I thought they would be something easier to grasp.

I honestly didn’t know what I was fighting against. Her Highness probably hated my guts, but if I were asked whether she was my enemy, I would say she wasn’t, and I wasn’t mistaken about that. I did think she was cruel, though.

What was I fighting against? What was I scared of? I kept on being intimidated by vague things that I didn’t understand very well and shutting off my typical behavior, and while I was so frightened, my evaluation from the people around me declined, thus I had come to the point of fleeing.

What was I fighting against? Why was I fighting? Why was I...

Why?

Why was I all by myself right now?

   After that, I cried myself to exhaustion and fell asleep. Perhaps it was an extremely deep sleep, as I didn’t wake up even when night fell. Nobody realized that I was gone, so there was no ruckus over it.

Therefore, I was able to stay asleep forever.

While sleeping, I had a dream. I dreamed with the people of Drossel. Also, Violet – she appeared in it too. My favorite girl.

She looked at me as I cried and said, just like before, “You are such a crybaby.” She also said, “I would like to cease your tears, but I do not have a handkerchief with me.”

I told her that I didn’t need one and hugged her, asking her to stay by my side instead.

I realized that, while I was crying on Violet’s chest, she had turned into Alberta. When I thought, “It’s Alberta”, the tears overflowed even harder.

I appealed to Alberta. No matter what I said, no one listened to it seriously. No matter what I said, people would make faces, as if poking fun at me. No matter what I said, my situation never improved. No matter who I looked at, nobody would help me. No matter who I looked at, nobody was my ally. No matter where I searched, you wouldn’t be there. No matter where I searched, you wouldn’t be there. No matter where I searched, you... you... you...

“It’s because you’re not here, Alberta, that I’m so very weak.”

Even a crybaby like me would be able to act high and mighty if you were there. I would’ve been able to maintain my dignity as a princess. But now I was everyone’s bootlicker. This wasn’t me.

That was why my heart broke and, yes, I dropped it on the floor.

“Alberta, did you not see my heart somewhere around here? I need it... I need it...”

If I didn’t have it with me, Lord Damian would—

   “Were you waiting for me to search for you?” a husky voice whispered.

That was when I woke up.

Just like that one time, the Full Moon was looming over the night sky. The stars and moon were so beautiful in the blooming season of roses.

In a dreamy state of mind, I blinked. The tears spilled again. When my husband saw me weeping, he embraced me as if to hide me from the night sky.

“I will report to the soldiers that she has been found.”

“I don’t want any fuss. Leave us for a while.”

When I heard the voice of the chamberlain as well, my consciousness finally returned to reality. He had said “soldiers”. This might have turned into a big deal. But right now, I didn’t think it would be too scary even if my heart were destroyed. “Is that so,” was all I thought.

This marriage might really be done for now.

Once Lord Damian shooed him, he put his coat over me and crouched down. He gripped my hand, guiding me and carrying me in bridal style.

“This makes me look like a child.”

“No. You’re my wife, aren’t you? And a princess.”

There wasn’t anything else I wanted to do, so I just nodded and did as I was told.

The two of us went through the maze of roses. There was probably someone watching over us. The light of a lantern swayed in the distance as a guide.

“Do you want to divorce from me?” Lord Damian muttered out of the blue with a quivering voice, leaving me in shock. I didn’t understand very well what he was saying.

“Lord Damian, if you want to do so...”

“That’s not it, Charlotte. I don’t want to break up with you... but I was wondering... if you might be thinking of doing that, right now...”

I wasn’t sure what he was talking about.

“Ralph, the chamberlain... has been telling me all this time. That if I were to take the hand of a princess from another country for the first time in sixty years, there would definitely be criticism. He told me to make sure to protect you when the time came.”

What was he saying?

“At first, I thought I was nailing it. I stayed by your side, so that no one could even try to say anything inappropriate to you...”

What was he... saying?

“But then I had to succeed the throne... there were tons of responsibilities stacked up in front of me, and I started looking only at those stacks... I didn’t even realize that you were in such a painful spot. It’s not your fault. I’m the one who isn’t ruling the country right, and for some reason, that’s being taken out on you. Stupid, isn’t it? It’s ridiculous. Everyone thinks it’s okay to do this to you just because you’re an outsider.”

——You’re not the one to blame. I’m aware of my own defects too.

“I also heard about what happened today. It seems you acted dauntless, even though my sister said something truly foolish to you...”

——You’re not the one to blame. Lord Damian. I know it. I know that you look sour every night when you sleep. You’re doing your very best. You’re doing your best every day – every single day. I know that. You may be ten years older than me, but you’re also...

“I’m... I’m pathetic. It’s fine if you complain. Yet you haven’t uttered a single grumble to me until now. Not to Ralph, either. We basked in the fact that you were holding back and nobody took notice of it. And so, we cornered you. Until you ran away, just like that.”

——You’re also still so young.

“I’m... pathetic... I cornered my own wife...”

——So lost, so scared.

“...to the point that she ran away... barefoot.”

——And shaking.

“Charlotte, have you come to hate me already?”

——Aah, Lord Damian. So you cry too, huh. For some reason, I used to think that you didn’t shed tears. I wonder why. You were a moonlit prince for me, so I thought you didn’t cry. But I see. That’s right, even you...

“I like you. I want to stop your tears.”

——Even you have a crybaby side.

After Lord Damian had said so, I realized for the first time that I was barefoot. I had the feeling that I was wearing shoes when I left the room – I wondered what had happened. He told me that someone had looked for and retrieved them. For how long had they been searching for me? If it was enough to make this man cry, then they must have searched everywhere.

Needless to say, I was such a handful of a woman. However, my heart, which had broken apart and scattered away, began setting itself in motion little by little. I could feel it regaining its warmth.

The reason might be that, for the first time ever since I had married him, we had now finally become a couple.

He asked me if I had anything that I wanted to do or that I wanted him to do. I told him that I wanted to see Alberta. He told me that he understood. He then asked if there was anything else, and so, I told him something that everyone had laughed at. We were had gone through a lot to be married, so I wanted to do something for both of our countries. I proposed that we build an orphanage near the national borders. Lord Damian didn’t laugh. He told me it would be great.

“Let’s think things out together. I regret not talking about this before because I thought it might be a burden to you. From now on, let���s have proper talks, the two of us. About happy things, sad things, painful things. I want you to talk to me. And I also want you to listen to me,” he said. He then kept on asking if there was anything else...

Lastly, I asked him to lock me up in the palace if he ever found himself a concubine. He got angry, saying he would never have one. We couldn’t be sure. It seemed we had no knack for child making. A concubine might be necessary. Lord Damian said that even then, he didn’t want one.

And then... And then... And then... What was it again?

I buried my face into Lord Damian’s neck. It had his scent, which always made my heart race whenever I sensed it.

“Hey, maybe I want to kiss you right now. My face is a mess because I cried a lot, though. Would you do it even with a wife like this?” I asked.

Lord Damian laughed while crying. “Even if you cry, you’re my lovely wife. Of course I’d do it.”

Overjoyed at these words, I shed warm tears.

When we kissed, as expected, it was a bit salty. My heart throbbed.

“I’m still in love with you, but what about you?” I asked, making sure to sound as if any answer would be fine.

Unsurprisingly, Lord Damian continued making a tearful face. “I actually only fell for you after we got married. So my heart’s beating really fast right now.”

“I see. So our feelings are mutual. That’s amazing,” I said, impressed.

“Then, what did you think it was until now?” he asked.

“A one-sided love,” I answered sincerely.

“Don’t you hear when I tell you that I love you every morning before I leave our room?”

“I do, but I thought it was some sort of flattery...”

“I’m not such a pro at that. When I like something, all I can say is that I like it. I’m very honest. You found that out on your tenth birthday, right?”

“How nostalgic... I’ve been in love with you all this time since then.”

I was living the aftermath of that story. I didn’t know whether it was a happy or sad one. But I would live, live and live. And this would probably go on forever. I was on my own in this royal palace.

But I wasn’t all alone.

“Damian, do you love me?”

“I do, Charlotte.”

I was living here, in this forest kingdom.