Daisy Miseria (2)
When I came to, an endless chamomile field stretched before my eyes.
It called the gardens of House Miseria to mind, and yet it was nothing like them. There was no family manor filling the view, no household servants anywhere in sight — only a vast and boundless expanse of flowers.
Beneath a full moon risen lovely over the field, a white-haired woman smiled at me, just as she always did. The upper half of her face was blotted out in a mosaic, as if static had crawled across it, so I could never tell who she was. And still, a warmth I had no name for lived in that smile.
I didn't know how long this dream would go on. I tried to move, but I couldn't so much as twitch a fingertip. As always, I would simply stay here, watching that woman's smiling face, until I woke.
And then.
"Hello, Camil."
For the first time, a voice spilled from the woman's lips. It sounded, at first, almost like my own — only fuller, older, like a grown Camil speaking.
I tried to say something to her. My mouth still would not open.
"Hmm. It seems we still don't have nearly enough time to talk..."
She came closer. I felt nothing in my body at all. I could only watch her fill more and more of my vision, and I struggled to hold onto myself.
Before I knew it she was right in front of me. She set her lips to my ear and gave me a single sentence — a sentence so startling it nearly stopped my breath.
"Hah— hah—"
I came to gasping, dragging air into my lungs. It felt as though every struggle I'd made to move in the dream had come crashing back at once; exhaustion flooded my entire body.
The same hair color as Camil. And yet a woman whose presence was unmistakably different. What on earth had that question meant — the first and last thing she had ever said to me?
As my mind began to turn again, I caught a silhouette in the corner of my vision.
"...Camil?"
Dark circles hung heavy beneath his eyes. Calvin was perched on a chair set beside the bed, half-asleep. He must have sat up through the nights himself, nursing me.
"Honestly. When it comes to making people worry, you're in a league of your own."
"Why... why aren't you sleeping? You shouldn't have stayed up for me..."
"Oh, you were sleeping just fine. Without the faintest idea your father was burning up inside."
I looked at the calendar marked with the dates. Five days had passed since I'd last been conscious. For a full five days he had sat right beside this bed and taken care of me — even though his own body couldn't have been in any condition for it.
"You've got no end of ways to put your father through hell. You hopeless child."
"Father, you need to rest first..."
"My daughter."
Calvin opened his mouth, his voice trembling. He knew it too — that even if he never spoke these words, the future already set in stone would not change. And yet he hesitated all the same. He had even thought, a thought so cruel it made him sick, that perhaps it would be better if his daughter never learned this news at all.
Parting his lips felt as heavy as lifting a stone. The reality that he had to tell his beloved daughter this truth was too savage. The dark circles sunk deep beneath Calvin's eyes showed just how much he had agonized while nursing me.
"Father."
I called to him, looking at Calvin with his head bowed, and a rough sigh tore out of him.
"I'm all right. I always expected this would come someday..."
"You are not allowed to be all right!"
A thunderous crack split the room as Calvin drove a fist packed with every ounce of his strength into the chair he had been sitting on. True to the dignity he had once commanded as the head of House Miseria, the wooden chair crumpled where it stood, its legs snapped clean through.
"So what if your Mana Core is frail? So what if your body is a little weak? You are my daughter. And that daughter of mine is sitting there looking as serene as if it wouldn't matter if she died tomorrow..."
Blood ran from Calvin's fist. One drop. Two. The beaded blood fell with a soft tap, tap, soaking into the floor. The face of the man who had always kept a loving yet stern composure, even before his family, twisted for the first time. Looking down at those droplets of blood that somehow called tears to mind, he forced the words out like a silent scream.
"What parent in this world would be glad to see that...!"
My heart lurched.
I had thought of nothing but Daisy — of my favorite. This body was sickly and useless anyway. As long as I didn't die, I could work it to the bone all I wanted. I had forgotten. That Camil's family was not Daisy alone.
"...I'm sorry. You've only just woken, and your body can't be well yet. I startled you."
After that brief flash of emotion, Calvin returned to his usual stern composure and roughly wiped the bloodstains from his hand with a handkerchief.
"You've probably already guessed, but the examination found a problem with your heart."
"..."
"The physician said it wouldn't be strange if your life ended today or tomorrow."
Calvin quietly summoned the butler waiting outside and had him clear away the wreckage of the chair. Blood kept seeping from his fist; it must have hurt, but he gave no sign of it.
"...Daisy is sitting on the garden bench."
He spoke in a heavy voice unlike his usual self.
"I've already scolded her as much as she needed. She must be badly shaken. If you don't go and comfort her, she'll have a very hard time of it."
She'll need your comfort more than mine, he added in a brief mutter.
And yet Calvin himself, saying those words, was the one who looked saddest of all — the one who needed comfort most. From the back of the man speaking so calmly, I thought I could feel a bitterness I couldn't quite name.
Daisy Miseria.
Born the second daughter of House Miseria — a historic marquisate renowned throughout the kingdom — she had been special from the time she was small. The moment she took her first steps and learned to speak, she could already feel the mana flowing through her body, and the quantity of it put to shame the household magicians who had been studying magic a decade or more longer than she had.
And she had an older sister, born of the same womb, only a few weeks apart. Unlike Daisy, her sister had come into the world frail, and she was always confined to her bed. Exercise, magic — whatever Daisy set her mind to, she could do it. Her sister, by contrast, had struggled even to hold herself upright since she was small, let alone attempt anything more.
And yet even in that hopeless situation, her sister always smiled. She always loved Daisy. Even when Daisy played wicked little pranks, she laughed and took them in stride. She cheered Daisy on in everything she did. And so Daisy loved that sister, and followed her more devotedly than anyone.
Their father had said her sister had only had a small problem at birth, and that she would be fine soon enough — healthy again.
And then.
"It's a heart condition."
"If things go poorly, she could die, and there would be nothing anyone could do."
Sister is going to die? Because of me?
She bit down hard on the urge to throw open the door to her sister's room that very instant. Even if she opened that door and went in, there was nothing she could do for her sister now.
"Hic— hhck."
Daisy was still young. She was a mature child, one who would not shame a noble house — and yet she was still only a child. The terrible fact that she had nearly killed, with her own hands, the sister who had always smiled beside her and always cheered her on made the little girl's young heart drop like a stone.
"I'm sorry, Sister. Don't die..."
She hugged her knees with both arms and buried her face. Would Sister smile and forgive her this time too? Would she get angry? Would she be disgusted? Would she push away the girl who had almost killed her?
If Sister weren't in this world, I—
"What's this? Why are you crying?"
From behind her bowed head came a voice so familiar it ached.
"...Sister."
She lifted her head on reflex, but she couldn't find the courage to look at her sister's face. What if she asks what nerve I have, being here? What if she says she doesn't want to see me, and tells me to go away?
But what Camil did was so far beyond anything Daisy had expected that it wasn't even in the same world.
"Uh... Sister?"
She had pulled Daisy — who had been sitting huddled with her knees drawn in — into a tight embrace.
"Were you scared? That Sister might die?"
"Sister...?"
"You were sniffling here because you were scared I'd hate you over something like this? Because that frightened you? I thought you'd grown up a lot, but you're still just a little kid, Daisy."
What. What have I even done for her that she treats me this well? All I ever did was brag about myself to her. And because of me she almost died.
Swallowing down all the words that wouldn't come out, Daisy sniffled quietly.
"Hic."
"It's okay. Sister's okay. Daisy. Sister's right here, so hold on as tight as you want."
"Hic, hhck. Waaah..."
Daisy broke into a wretched, heartbroken sob. Of course she had been terrified. She had nearly killed someone she loved with her own hands. Even if it hadn't been on purpose.
"Kids do things like that. Just don't do it again."
"I won't hurt Sister anymore. I won't play mean tricks on Sister anymore. I was wrong. So don't die. Don't die, Sister..."
Daisy buried her face in my chest, nearly wailing. Startled by my favorite's tears — something I had never once seen in the original — I found myself stroking her hair before I knew it.
"Who's dying? I'm not dying. Never. So don't worry."
I won't die. Not until I see you graduate from The Academy.
This symptom was going to come eventually anyway. A heart condition like this? I'll crush it with sheer spite and grit, throwing every last scrap of knowledge from the original novel at it. And I'll write Calvin and Daisy a real, happy ending to this story. I swear I will.