The child blinked and turned his head.
As his eyes met with the child’s, Ellie, who couldn’t help but avoid his gaze, opened his mouth.
-Like Marie said, it’s getting late. Shall we wash up and go to bed now?
“Does Lia also know Daddy?”
-Well, of course I do…?
“Did he make friends?”
-…Let’s go wash up.
Ellie couldn’t possibly tell the child that both his mother and father had no friends.
Just like Marie, she awkwardly tried to change the subject, and the child nodded his small head, seemingly reaching some conclusion in his little mind.
As he got ready to go to the bathroom, Ellie noticed a shiny pendant on the back of the child’s neck as he got off the bed in his usual manner.
-I don’t think I’ve seen this before. Did you wear a necklace too?
“Ah, this… this is nothing!”
The child, startled by the sudden question, shrugged his shoulders and replied as he hurriedly pulled up his collar to cover the back of his nape.
Bang-!
-Adi?!
Perhaps because he was so focused on the pendant that he didn’t pay attention to where he was stepping, the child fell to the floor with a loud clatter. It was because his foot got caught on the slightly uneven wooden floor.
Ellie’s mouth fell open in horror as the child fell face first on the floor, making a much louder noise than he expected.
-Are you okay?!
“I’m, fi… fine…”
His voice was trembling, and he didn’t look particularly okay.
Certainly, at this moment, he resembled Rutus.
The child, who seemed more embarrassed than hurt, blushed deeply at the tips of his ears and the back of his neck, wiped away the tears that had welled up in his eyes with his forearm, and nodded.
Then he tried to get up.
“Ah…”
Perhaps because he had fallen, the necklace that had been peeking out from under his clothes was slightly ajar.
It had a locket on it. As Ellie blinked as she thought this, a purple petal came into view in her gaze.
‘I mean…, he hasn’t been out, so where did that come from? It couldn’t have come from me, a ghost.’
Did it fall off from Marie’s clothes?
In the dimly lit room, where the colors were all muted as the day drew to a close, the single brightly colored petal lying there alone was quite out of place.
Perhaps as much as Ellie herself.
As she silently stared at the petal, the child’s eyes, sensing her curiosity, followed Ellie’s gaze.
It was then that the child, who had been closing the locket with a click and standing up clumsily, froze in place.
The child sat back down on the floor where he had been getting up, picked up the fallen petal quietly, and bowed his head deeply.
After fiddling with the petal for a long time, Ellie was starting to worry that it would wear out. At that moment, a child who had been hesitating timidly asked in a small voice,
“Lia. You know…”
-Yeah?
“If there’s no fairy in the garden today… will the flowers in the flowerbed wither?”
-Flowers?
“Those are the ones that Mommy used to take care of.
Ellie opened her mouth slightly at the child’s question and then closed it.
The flower vase was already broken and thrown away, so he wouldn’t have been able to see it, just like she had seen it before.
Even if he had seen it, it was clear that he wasn’t old enough to remember it.
Moreover, since everyone thought she didn’t care about the vase, there was no one around who knew that she liked flowers.
There was no one who would have told the child about it…
‘…Did Marie tell him about this too?’
Shaking her head, unable to think of anything else to say, Ellie replied, hiding her uneasiness.
-Hmm, it’s just starting to bloom, so it should be fine.
“Then they won’t wither?”
-Not for now, at least.
“For now…”
Murmuring like that and seemingly thinking deeply about something, the child asked her,
“What should I do to keep them from withering?”
Ellie swallowed her saliva at the child’s question. There were more ways to do that than she thought, if she came to think of it.
Even just the ones that came to Ellie’s mind right away were not insignificant.
He could preserve them by casting a spell on them, just like she had done before. Or he could build a greenhouse that maintains a constant temperature and manage them so that they bloom all year round. He could also keep the pots inside the mansion and grow them from seed himself.
However, none of these things could be done immediately to satisfy the child’s wishes. It seemed that he wanted the flowers that were blooming now to last forever.
Choosing her words carefully, Ellie asked cautiously.
-Is there a reason the flowers shouldn’t wither?
“…Well.”
-Yes?
“……Well, um… because….”
-Yeah?
At the sight of his muttering, his eyes fixed on the floor as if he had done something wrong, Ellie had a hunch. It seemed like it would be difficult to get a proper answer.
Opening her mouth in a voice that was even softer, as if to appeal that she didn’t mean to reproach him, Ellie said,
-Then let’s ask Marie to transplant the flowers into a pot before they wither and bring them to us, shall we?
“A pot…?”
-Yes. They won’t be able to bloom for a long time, but if you work hard to take care of them, you should be able to see them for more than a month in your room. Maybe the fairy will come all the way here because She is happy to see that Adi likes the flowers.
At these words, the child raised his head from where it had been bowed and met Ellie’s eyes.
He seemed to be trying not to show his feelings, but his inexperience made his emotions clear.
Ellie’s lips curled into a faint smile at the sight of the curiosity and joy in his eyes.
The child, fidgeting with his toes, asked in a small voice.
“…even after my birthday?”
-Yes, of course.
“…then I want to grow them.”
-Let’s wash up first. Let’s tell Marie before going to bed.
“Umm…”
With that, the child spun around in a circle while sitting down.
With his back to me, he was fiddling with his small body, which seemed to be doing something.
“But… is it okay for Lia if the flowers wilt?”
The child suddenly turned his head and asked. Ellie blinked quickly and thought about the rather out-of-the-blue question.
If he was asking if it was okay, then it was okay. There was nothing I could do about the flowers wilting.
‘I don’t keep them preserved by magic like I used to anymore.’
It would be a lie to say that she didn’t regret not being able to see them all year round, but it was something she couldn’t help.
It’s natural for things to bloom and then wither.
Ellie tried to sound casual as she opened his mouth.
-It’s a pity, but there’s nothing I can do…
Oh, right. She opened her mouth to speak and then closed it again.
A look of astonishment crossed Ellie’s face as she looked up at something that suddenly scattered.
Petal-like things, transparent like her own body, were descending from somewhere in her line of sight.
An otherworldly glow that brightly lit the dark room.
But even more unbelievable was the source of the scene unfolding before her eyes.
-…Did you do that, child?
The child’s head moved up and down briefly.
In fact, she didn’t even need to ask.
The same glow that was above Ellie’s head was faintly connected to the child’s palm.
“Lia looked upset…”
-Me? No, but I never taught you magic… How are you doing…?
“I studied hard.”
It didn’t seem like something that could be achieved through effort. The child, who had been watching Ellie lost in thought, spoke solemnly.
“I… I can show you.”
-Huh, really?
“Lia told me how to make flowers last a long time, so I’ll give Lia flowers too.”
-…
“It’s not real, so it doesn’t smell or feel like anything…. but still…”
Still, he can make it appear in front of my eyes whenever I want to see it. the child said so
It was clear that the child was unaware of how extraordinary this was, as they themselves longed for real flowers.
What was Ellie’s maiden name before her marriage? It was none other than ‘Mason’.
Mason, a descendant of a great mage from one of the founding families of the Empire.
Although she had been left without a single ounce of magic after giving birth, her lineage remained unchanged.
Ellie had never heard of anyone at such a young age being able to cast such elaborate illusion magic.
Ellie absentmindedly placed her finger on a flower petal that was in front of her.
‘Even if I touch it, it won’t disappear…’
As if nothing had happened, the flower petal passed through her finger and fell to the floor.
…By the way, it was a rule of illusion magic that it would disappear the moment it was touched.
The child, oblivious to Ellie’s wide-eyed shock, smiled brightly and said,
“When I see flowers, I feel better. I want Lia to be happy too.”
-…
“So stay with me for a long, long time.”
-…Adi–
Not knowing what to do, Ellie opened her mouth. She had a lot to say.
The truth was that she was the child’s mother, and she had already died and was no longer alive. She didn’t know why she could still be by the child’s side, and she might disappear without a sound, just as she had come, at any moment. She couldn’t even predict it herself.
She had to say it. It was right, if only to prevent the child from getting hurt even more someday.
“Yes?”
-…
…But the words just wouldn’t come out.
There was a question that had been naturally coming up when she was left alone after putting the child to sleep for the past month.
Since she couldn’t eat or sleep in this body, she naturally had a lot of time to think.
‘Why do I have to die? Why…’
Why me of all people?
When she opened her eyes, she was a ghost overnight. Even though she was aware of it, she couldn’t have felt it right away.
Why did it have to be her out of all the people in the world?
Ellie couldn’t understand it at all.
Sometimes she couldn’t control her expression, even in front of the child, when the reality she had been half ignoring approached her heavily.
She also knew that his small glances followed her tenaciously every time.
– …
“You’ll stay, right?”
But she really didn’t know this would happen.
From the child’s point of view, it had only been a short time since they started seeing each other’s faces.
So, without even letting me know that he would ease my feelings, he studied magic alone, practiced in secret, and wrapped it up so beautifully and presented it to me.
I swear I didn’t know.
…If I had known, I would have run away at all costs.
TL/N: I’M BAWLING MY EYES OUT.
“Lia?”
-…Yes.
Even though the child’s innocent smile, unaware of anything, stabbed her whole body painfully.
His heart was so beautiful that she couldn’t open her mouth at all.
She was worried that she might be presumptuous enough to accept it without doing anything in return.
“From now on, you are not going anywhere else, and you are going to stay with me, right?”
-…Yeah.
I want to too. In the end, Ellie was helplessly pushed by her damp emotions.
It was raining flowers. A kind she had never seen before.
Somehow, she felt like the fragrance that reminded her of her childhood was lingering at the tip of her nose.
So Ellie felt like crying a little.
‘…Actually, I wanted to live too.’
Despite all the resentment, the only face that came to mind at this moment was one.
‘Rutus…’
Where are you now?
She missed Rutus.
It was a misery that she couldn’t tell anyone.
* * *
“Your Grace, this is the last warp gate.”
“…I see.”
And then, at dawn the next day.
He returned on a day when rain was drizzling down.
With a scent of blood on him, completely different from before.
* * * *
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