Two Strangers
“I misunderstood…, didn’t I?”
“….”
“Ah. Are you drunk? Somehow, you were drinking too much.”
“….”
“The princess too. I can’t believe she is being so thoughtless. She must have liked you very much. Fabian. Isn’t this how you get a job in the royal family? hahaha….”
Fabian didn’t say anything while Riella was talking nonsense and forced a laugh.
The silence gradually strangled Riella. It kept her sobs tightly contained. She only memorized it and cried with her earnest heart.
‘Fabian, please say something, at least make an excuse.’
“Riella.”
When Fabian finally spoke, Riella’s mind flashed back to the first time she’d met him.
“Riella. Riella! What a pretty name!”
Six years old
Riella had loved Fabian since the day a little boy of the same age as her with tangled brown hair and kind eyes approached and spoke to her for the first time.
On the plague-ridden streets of death, the only thing little Riella remembered was her name. Still, she was very proud and happy that Riella was the only ‘name’ she had.
It’s Because Fabian called the name pretty.
“Riella. Come with me. I’ll be your friend!”
Fabian, who was called me by my name, was like the tune of a love song. Fabian’s lips rounded. A soft voice and a soft resonance. Those things always made Riella happy.
Little Riella really thought that was enough.
however. She was sure it was.
“Riella. You are the most precious thing in the world to me.”
Fabian’s sweet words were the same then and now.
“Riella. I sincerely hope you are happy. Do you want me to be happy too, right?”
But why does her heart, hearing those words today, hurt as if it would tear apart?
“I want to be congratulated only by you.”
“Fabian, I have no idea what you mean.…”
“The princess says she loves me. My heart is the same as the princess.”
The sky seemed to fall.
Because Fabian was the pillar holding up Riella’s world. Because of that, it was natural for the sky to fall in a world where the pillars collapsed.
“We will go to the royal palace together.”
The ‘we’ that Fabian was talking about did not include ‘Liella’.
Riella was dumbfounded by the fact, and her mind was blanked out.
“Don’t make a joke. You’re going to the royal family with the princess. How can…”
“….”
“I am…what about me…?”
Usually in this situation, they curse and slap the other person’s cheek.
However, Riella couldn’t do anything. She had never thought that she would be the main character in such a tragedy.
“You promised. When this is over, we will be together for the rest of our lives.… You swore to me.”
“Nothing changes. Riella. I will always be by your side…As a good friend.”
“What the hell are you talking about, that’s not what you said!”
‘It was frustrating and confusing to the point of going crazy. He said he loved the princess, but he was going to stay by my side.’
“Fabian. how do you tell me… Stop kidding!”
Riella burst into tears.
Appealing to sympathy without even using proper logic. Crying and screaming. It’s the most hateful behavior in the world, but before I knew it, I was doing it myself.
Even though I knew it, the emotions that I couldn’t control poured out like a flood. It was the first time he had attacked Fabian while screaming like this.
“Riella! Fabian! What the hell is going on?”
Not long after, colleagues rushed in. They approached her, she smelled of alcohol from them. Noticing her commotion, separated Riella away from Fabian.
Riella’s sadness intensified as her colleagues touched her.
Riella and Fabian have always been one set ever since they were the size of rabbits.
They hadn’t yet announced that they had even promised to get married, but no one didn’t know that Fabian and Riella had a special relationship with each other.
So, naturally, Riella thought her colleagues would be on her side.
‘How could you betray her after so many years of trusting you?’ she thought, and she expected them to scold Fabian for it.
However.
“Ha… Riella, why don’t you just let this go, it’s not going to change anything.”
“We are all like family. If your family wants to get a good connection and walk the path to success, wouldn’t it be reasonable to support them?”
Her Colleagues reacted completely unexpectedly.
“Are you saying I’m doing…wrong?”
Riella’s mind went blank. She even wondered if this was just a dream. The reaction of her colleagues was still the same.
“Then who’s wrong, Fabian? What do you want me to do?? Her Majesty the Princess likes him, and I’m supposed to bow down and say ‘thank you’, but you want me to refuse her? Do you think I can do that?”
“By the way, did you guys at least officially get married, have children, and set up a household? Between a young man and a woman, things can come and go. isn’t it?”
‘This is not right. No matter how hard I tried to understand it, it didn’t make sense.’
Unless the world had been turned upside down without her realizing it, how could this be? How could her colleagues who were teasing Fabian and herself not so long ago change so much overnight?
‘Come to think of it….’
I even found it funny when I counted the date in my mind.
Didn’t the colleagues who tease Fabian and herself every single day stop their mean words and actions at some point?
That was about a month ago. It was around the time when Fabian first accepted this request.
It was around that time that Riella began to feel strangely out of place in the group. When she approaches her colleagues, who had been friendly until just before, suddenly awkwardly shut their mouths, or subtly averted their gaze and hurriedly brought up another story.
I thought everyone was nervous because Fabian was taking on a big request that was incomparable to the previous one, but it wasn’t.
“Everyone…knew that.”
The huge paycheck they were about to receive was a promise in exchange for making Fabian’s coveted queen smile.
Her Colleagues all knew. So it was.
They were already preparing to abandon Riella from the time she didn’t know anything.
“Liella. I know how you feel. You may feel unfair right now, but if you think about it carefully, it’s not a bad business for you.”
“Yes. Recall the promise of the Princess. Especially for you! She said she will give you a better reward.”
‘Yeah, the only thing I have in the world. In exchange for taking away that one, which is everything to me.’
Riella didn’t even have the energy to spit out the words that filled her throat.
All of her colleagues looked anxious. They weren’t worried that Riella would be hurt, but they were worried that Riella would make a further disturbance and things would go wrong.
‘I thought they were colleagues. I thought they were family.’
Was it all her illusion? And she was nothing more than baggage to be discarded whenever the need arose.
The betrayal of her colleagues hurt, but even worse was the realization that it was Fabian who had betrayed her first and foremost.
“Riella. Don’t go, listen to me more. Okay?”
“Let go of me.”
“please. What will I do if you leave like this?”
‘What do you mean, why do you ask me that? You’re the one who’s leaving me.’
Riella stared at Fabian, feeling confused. He looked pitiful as if he were being abandoned.
The kind eyes that passed on all the last guilt made Riella even sadder.
Riella never thought the day would come when Fabian’s pretty green eyes, whom she loved so much, looked so horrible.
Riella couldn’t see him anymore.
She still couldn’t believe that this despair was her reality, and she didn’t know how to overcome it, but she shook off Fabian’s hand anyway.
“Where are you going, there’s nowhere to go, you’ll be back soon, won’t you, Riella?”
Fabian’s voice echoed as she turned and walked away. However, despite making such a noise, Fabian did not jump directly to the end to grab Riella or block her path. Neither did other colleagues.
Everyone was confident that Riella, who had nowhere to go, would eventually come back to them. Not knowing what kind of trouble their stupid convictions would put them in trouble in the future.
* * *
On the eastern border of the kingdom of Liotta, the village of Dieta was a quiet village surrounded by rugged mountains. It was a place where outsiders were rarely seen, but it held an unexpected attraction. The river ‘Le Der’ is a river formed by the combination of water flowing from the Dersen Mountains.
The water of ‘Le Der’ is clear, wide, and quite deep, so at night, it shimmers as if it contained the starry sky as it was.
The ‘man’ was right there, at Le Der. He was a stranger.
It wasn’t just because he was a stranger, but the nobility and intimidation that emanated from his head to toe gave him a different presence from other people.
The impression was also strange.
Looking at the hair that still retains the soft moonlight or the well-trimmed eyebrows, he looks like a nobleman of a certain power, but the cool eyes lurking under the long eyelashes are as sharp as those of wild beasts.
It was only natural that such a man would draw more attention as he sat languidly on the dirt by the riverbank, drinking from a bottle of cheap wine.
Everyone who passed Le Der stared at him either with a glance or openly searching. However, he didn’t care about the eyes that flowed on him.
That man, Herhan, had been staring at only one spot before. The beginning was dull.
Don’t drink alcohol, and don’t go on missions, they’ll take care of things like flying flies, so just stay still, my lord.
‘It wasn’t much fun.’ as he had impulsively run out to avoid the endless nagging of the aides.
In a situation where there was no one to share a drink with, no one to exchange trivial jokes with, it was the woman on the other side that caught Herhan’s eye.
As much as himself. No, another stranger wandering by this river more giddily than himself.
It was like fate in a way that her appearance, which happened to catch his eyes, captured his whole mind. Even though it’s just a blurry shape that seems far away.
The woman was swaying like a flower hanging dangerously from a cliff.
The red hair blowing in the river breeze was like a flame. Like a flame on the verge of extinguishment, burning with the last of its strength.
‘She’s crying.’
Even though it was blurry, Herhan seemed to be able to see the woman’s face. She has a very desperate face like she’s about to have an accident.
It was definitely not a scene suitable for drinking. Even so, Herhan couldn’t take her eyes off her.
For some reason, he wondered if his appearance might be the same as that woman. At that point, he had already put down his drink bitterly.
‘….!’
The woman threw herself into the water like a falling flower.
Herhan’s eyes widened. A muffled scream came seconds later.
“Kyaaak! A woman over there fell into the river!”
The scream echoed into the air without a single response.
Herhan turned back, expressionless, and shut his mouth. It was none of his business. Technically, he shouldn’t have been involved in any of it.
but.
The moonlight glinting off the river bothered him. The water was calm like no one was there, which meant she wasn’t struggling.
“She jumped in on her own…’
A low sigh escaped through Herhan’s mouth.
Herhan knew very well that no one really wanted to die, even someone who cried and hastened their end.
He was also driven by death, which approached him day by day. It was enough for him to surrender to his cursed life. Especially on a day like today when the taste of alcohol is so bad. Herhan pushed off his seat and stood up.
Once he made up his mind, there was no delay in action. Herhan quickly jumped into the river and lifted the woman before opening his mouth.
“She is still breathing, but we need to warm her up. Is there anything nearby that we can use as a blanket?”
In the meantime, people had gathered, but they were all just onlookers.
Herhan raised his head towards them who were far away with a dumbfounded face.
“Isn’t there anyone here who can speak properly? Or are you all deaf?”
Drops of water dripped like jewels from his hair as he hugged the woman who was drooping like a withered flower.
* * *
