/
“That bird, every little thing about your daughter—I’m asking if it makes you that happy.”
“Your Highness.”
“What about your other family? Other things. I’m asking if you have nothing other than that thing.”
“……”
His gaze was not as pitiful as it had been last time. I could see traces of real curiosity, as well as his unwavering fixation to know the answer to his question.
“Do other things hold no meaning in your life?”
“My life?”
I smiled as if to write this off as a needless joke, but I felt a bit stung on the inside.
Who knows. I’d need to have thought about it before to know, wouldn’t I.
As I’d already said multiple times, I’d been busy with my previous life every day making barely enough to eat and see another day. Now, when I’d woken up from my sleep, I was half-animal, half-human with the title of a widow painted over me.
If I were to say anything about my life, it was definitely not one that you could call happy. Other people wouldn’t think it looked nice, and it wasn’t a life one would envy either. In spite of that, however, the way I currently thought of my own life was…..
“I like it.”
“…..you like it?”
Hm hmm.
Rashid cleared his throat for quite a long time.
“What do you like so much about it?”
“Does there have to be a reason, I wonder. I like that I have a house I can’t be chased out of, and I like that I see the most beautiful lake in the North every day. And also….”
The fact that you don’t mean to kill me, that you aren’t angry, and also that you’ve spent a whole day with our Haniel pretty safely, too.
I was about to say that I was thankful for all of that, but I felt a prick of conscience at how many of these had to do with ‘you’.
“And also what? Did you not learn how to finish what you have begun saying?”
“…..”
Yes. How can I not be happy that I’ll be leaving such a rude and arrogant man and returning home, am I right?
“Catherine.”
“Just everything, generally. How could I possibly pick out every single thing? If I am at a place where I can handle something unexpected popping up once in a while, that in itself is good for me.”
And more than anything, Haniel hiding behind the tree over there had let my greatest dream come true.
Though one day she would become a proper princess and leave my side.
The mere thought of it already made my heart feel numb, like it was submerged in water.
“……”
And so I had decided to not think about it as much as I could. It would’ve been different if this was something that I could stop from happening by thinking about it; in my experience, what was to happen would happen no matter what. It wouldn’t be too late to be sad about it when that happened.
“Your Highness, are you able to list all the reasons that you like when you like something?”
“…….”
“You see? It’s difficult.”
Grin—this time, I smiled sincerely, instead of as a challenge. After all, this was the first time I’d ever seen this man’s eyes wriggle around this much.
“Anyways, the tea was delicious, so thank you for the enjoyable time.”
“You’re going to leave now?”
His shadow was cast once more above my head. His voice, not much relaxed, was tinged with an unfathomable note of expectation.
The moment he attempted to bring his face nearer to mine to examine my expression, a shrill scream drove out from behind the tree.
[Stop, stop it! You can’t go no mo!]
“……”
[Mommy ish Haniel’sh mommy! Mommy ishn’t Empwo Bwoder’s mommy!]
T/N : oh she sure ain’t his mommy— /slapped (I’m sorry)
At the scream I could obviously hear, my head whipped around.
With every stumbling step her little feet took to come save me, Haniel’s ribbon was bouncing up.
[Don’t shcold my mommy! You can’t go to Haniel’sh mommy! Bwother scawy!]
“…..Baby.”
That’s not it!
Wanting to explain things to her, my face paled to a deathly white.
The problem wasn’t Haniel’s never-before-seen overexcitement, but the dim and big shadow that loomed behind her.
“No, noo!”
“…..no what?”
And yet Rashid leisurely let loose a low laugh.
Hearing his benign voice directly at my ear while my head was still lowered…. a shiver went down my body.
“That is also an animal, like you like, isn’t it.”
***
“……”
Ohh, dear Lord.
What am I looking at?
It felt like I might have seen an animal like that in some kind of post-apocalyptic movie depicting the end of the world somewhere. A dog bigger than an adult man’s body—though first of all I wasn’t even sure if you could call that a dog at all, for now it had the overall outward appearance that was similar to a dog’s.
“Yo-Your Highneesss!”
But if that could be called just a dog, that would be the same as calling an elephant just an herbivore, and Rashid just one male human.
“Grrrr.”
With every single glossy bit of fur, it was just overflowing with discipline and dignity. Moreover, the aura of danger that encompassed its entire body reminded me of its master.
Even the way it couldn’t read the room and came sniffing at people who weren’t welcoming it at all was just like this man, actually.