Daisy Miseria (3)
A silver lining, if nothing else.
The heart condition had spent its first week wracking my body with vicious attacks, then settled into an uneasy quiet. Every so often a seizure would catch me in the middle of a meal or in my sleep, and the looks on Calvin's and Daisy's faces in those moments were... well. The kind of looks that planted themselves behind your eyes and stayed there. If I actually died, what on earth would their faces do then?
"My lady, it's Belle. May I come in?"
"Come in."
Belle had been slated for dismissal from the maid staff, but I'd pleaded her case hard enough that she kept her position. She hadn't done anything firing-worthy to begin with. Daisy and I were the ones who'd made the mess.
The door eased open. Belle crossed to the desk where I sat scribbling and held out a cup.
"Chamomile tea, my lady. The kind you like."
"Thanks."
"If I may ask... what is it you're writing?"
I could feel how carefully she'd been handling me since that day. ...It would have been stranger if she hadn't.
"It's nothing. I'm just bored, stuck in here with nothing to do."
"The banquet in the capital begins soon, does it not? Please endure until then."
"...I suppose I should."
I waved her off without taking my eyes from the page. She bowed and left the way she'd come, the same measured steps, the same quiet close of the door.
She was the first person in this world I'd opened my heart to besides Daisy and Calvin. Too good a connection to let go of. Blunt, yes—but a genuinely decent person underneath.
I took a slow sip and let the afternoon light pool across the desk. I still didn't know why, but the maids always brought chamomile, insisting it was my favorite. In my old world I had never so much as touched tea. Once I started here, I couldn't stop.
Left to my own devices I would have been doing something—exercise, or gathering information just in case. Anything to keep my body moving. But—
"From now on, exercise is forbidden."
"...Excuse me?"
"Don't you 'excuse me' me, you rude child. Isn't it obvious? You weren't seriously thinking of going running the way you used to, not with that heart of yours."
Calvin had said it with a face so grave I couldn't muster a single argument.
That wasn't the end of it, though.
"I'll take that, my lady."
"No, I can at least put away my own teacup—"
"Absolutely not. It's His Lordship's orders."
They wouldn't even let me clear a cup I'd drunk from.
"My lady, it's time for your bath."
"I-I can bathe by myself..."
"You may not. It's His Lordship's orders."
They went so far as to scoop me up and carry me to the tub, terrified I'd collapse if I washed my own hair. ...Isn't this a little much?
They were treating me like a piece of glasswork that would shatter if anyone handled it too roughly.
"All because of this damned heart. This damned body..."
It was kindness. I knew that. I did. But they weren't treating me like a child. They were treating me like a newborn, and being on the receiving end of that was a very particular kind of misery.
I set the teacup down and stared at the paper in front of me, its surface a mess of scribbles that barely deserved to be called writing.
How to Cure Camil's Heart Disease!
Ever since Calvin had more or less locked me in this room, I'd started drafting a plan for the future. The trouble was—
"...Does anything like that even exist?"
Maybe it was because nearly every named character in the story had been built on superhuman specs. I couldn't remember a single case of a body this frail.
The only person who even looked like a possibility was Yustia, the Saintess Candidate. But getting tangled up with Yustia meant I had no idea what might happen to Daisy—and there was no guarantee her Divine Power would take on Camil in the first place.
A Saintess's gift is not a convenient cure-all. It wrings a person's natural recovery up to its absolute limit so that wounds and illnesses knit themselves shut in a hurry. Whether that power would mean anything in a body like Camil's, where the capacity to heal was barely there to begin with, was another question entirely.
And even if I set every one of those doubts aside—even if I managed a natural meeting with Yustia, even if I assumed her gift would work on me—what guarantee was there that she would ever show that power to a complete stranger, let alone use it?
"...On hold. For now."
Even so, it remained the closest thing to a real answer I had. That was how desperate Camil's condition was.
"It's not as if I can go find a Dragon Heart and have it transplanted..."
Honestly, the solution was simple. If I could just put this ruined Mana Core—too broken to turn over properly—back the way it was supposed to be, most of the problem would vanish.
The simple things, unfortunately, were the hardest ones of all.
"Hah. I guess this is just my lot in life."
For now, the goal had to be this: build a connection with Yustia without letting Daisy get pulled into her orbit. The celebratory banquet in the capital was less than a day away. If luck ran my way, I might even put a face to the name there.
"...Maybe I've been thinking too hard. I'm craving something sweet. Really sweet."
I considered calling whatever maid was in the hall and having her bring me dessert. Something beat her to it. A smell I had never encountered in my life came drifting down the corridor.
I found myself leaning into it before I realized, trying to place it, and failing. There was the sweetness of sugar in it, and underneath that the gray, bitter scent of something already burned to ash...
...Why is that smell getting closer?
Thump. Thump!
Someone gave the door a light kick from the outside. In the Marquisate of Miseria, there was exactly one person who would dare.
"Sister! Are you hungry? I baked cookies!"
"Cookies?"
"Yep! I learned how from the butler! I made them for you!"
Oh, for heaven's sake. This pretty, precious, impossibly good girl had gone and learned to bake cookies. For her sister.
I crushed the urge to scoop her up on the spot and opened the door with what I hoped was dignity.
Daisy stood there wearing the same innocent smile as always, as if the girl who had sobbed herself hoarse the other day had never existed. ...Has she always been this tall?
A few months ago—no, as recently as the day before yesterday—I was fairly sure I'd still had the height on her, even if I was losing badly on every other measurement.
"...When did you get this tall?"
"Huh? You're right. A few months ago you were still bigger than me."
Whether my growth plates had fused or not, I hadn't gained so much as an inch since waking up in this body. Daisy, meanwhile, was filling out and shooting up like a weed. Envious little brat. Infuriating little brat.
While I was still stuck on the miracle of her growth, she held out the plate in her hands. So these were the cookies Daisy had baked...
Uh.
"...Cookies?"
These were cookies, right? Not lumps of coal?
"What? What's wrong, Sister?"
"Ah—ahaha. Nothing. Are these chocolate? They look, uh. Very well-done."
A sudden chill rolled off her. I grabbed one of the coal-black alleged chocolate cookies and shoved it into my mouth before she could ask another question—
"...Those aren't chocolate cookies."
"Kh—kff!"
The instant it hit my tongue, some unholy force stripped every drop of moisture from my mouth. Tears sprang to my eyes before I could stop them.
"W-what's wrong, Sister? Do they taste weird?"
No. Not weird. Spoiled. After a couple of chews I can't even feel my teeth.
I wanted to say that. I could not, under any circumstances, say that to the little sister I loved. I couldn't have said it even if I'd wanted to. The imitation coal sealed my throat so thoroughly I could barely breathe, and for a sickening second I was back in the first attack, drowning on dry land.
I could not let it show. Not with that hopeful face shining up at me. Spitting it out was not an option.
I clenched my jaw and chewed the cookie—the cookie?—and forced it down. My mouth went desert-dry. My throat screamed. I ignored both.
"Well?"
I answered in silence, with a single, solemn thumbs-up. If I had opened my mouth I was fairly certain something unforgivable would have come out of it.
"Right? They're pretty decent, aren't they? I thought they were fine, but Belle took one bite, gagged, and then just keeled over. Honestly."
...I'm sorry, Belle. I am so, so sorry.
Daisy popped a piece of the unidentified substance into her own mouth as if it were nothing.
"...Is it good?"
"Yep!"
"I see..."
Well. As long as she was enjoying it. But I am never letting you near a kitchen again. I'm sorry, Daisy.
I drowned my mouth and throat in what was left of the lukewarm chamomile, waited for the world to stabilize, and stroked her hair.
"Thank you, Daisy. You really cheered me up."
Whether the sudden vitality came from sugar or from sheer outrage, I couldn't have said. I felt more alive. That was enough.
The praise landed. Daisy beamed and leaned into my hand, still as a cat under a good scratch.
"I won't be able to do this much longer."
"Huh? Why not?"
"Because you're about to outgrow me."
Even now I had to stretch my arm to its full length just to reach the top of her head. A few more centimeters and a standing head-pat would be physically impossible.
"Then I'll just pet yours instead, won't I?"
"...What?"
"I can't wait. It's always been my dream to stroke your hair the way you've always done for me!"
Something in the way she said it sent a genuine shiver down my spine. The truly frightening part was that I knew how far Daisy was going to grow. That future was not far away at all.
"Anyway, Sister—the banquet is tomorrow. Have you decided what you're wearing?"
Right. The banquet meant a dress. Days of being shut in this room had driven the important things clean out of my head.
"...I'll just throw something on. It's not as if anyone's going to be looking at me."
It was going to be a serious affair: Daisy, who was a feast for the eyes all by herself; Yustia, stuffed to the gills with main-heroine privilege; and a small army of noble daughters from every great house in the kingdom. Was a scrawny little stick like me supposed to register in a room like that, no matter what I wore?
"Haaa. Sister."
Daisy apparently could not abide that attitude. She hooked her arm through mine, and her ruby eyes were shining brighter than usual. Some animal part of my brain informed me, very clearly, that escape was no longer on the table.
"Come on. We're going."
"G-going where?"
"To the dressing room."
That grip had the distinct quality of a reaper taking a soul by the wrist.
I grasped at the one thing that might still save me: Father's ironclad orders.
"Ah—Father distinctly said I wasn't to leave my room unless I absolutely had to—"
Daisy's response was ice. She had, I realized, been waiting for exactly that.
"Yep. I already got Father's permission."
I'd been had.
"Don't worry. I'll only dress you up for about six hours, then I'll let you go. You can handle that much, right, Sister?"
"Aaaagh—"
I didn't manage a single act of resistance. My little sister, whose grip had at some point grown far stronger than mine, hauled me off toward the dressing room without breaking stride.