The Prosperous Western Territory - 8
After holding me for a long while, Grandmother released the embrace with a small, embarrassed cough. Even for her own granddaughter, it seemed she was shy about having shown such raw emotion to someone she had only just met.
"Forgive me. Growing old has made me far too quick to tears..."
"O-oh, no. It's quite all right."
I shook my head in a hurry at her apology. No one in this world would ever condemn a mother's tears for a lost child, and Grandmother's weeping was as much a way of welcoming her granddaughter as it was grief for her daughter. For me, held in her arms, to reject those tears was unthinkable.
If anything, I was grateful she had shown me such honesty. She had not pushed me away out of hatred for humans and my mixed blood; she had chosen to see the elf in me—the blood of her own daughter.
"Your mother was a wild little whirlwind even as she grew older, yet her daughter is so composed at such a tender age. You must take after your father in temperament."
That, I still could not get used to—being spoken to as if I were a child. Other elves had treated me like a youngster before I came here, true enough, but receiving such warm eyes from someone whose face actually bore wrinkles made me feel like a genuine little girl. I had not felt this way since my paternal grandmother passed away.
From Grandmother's perspective, of course, a granddaughter some five hundred years her junior really was a child.
"Um... my dear."
While I was still fidgeting on her lap, unable even to stand, Grandmother carefully opened her mouth again.
"Would it be all right if I called you Trixie?"
My whole body went rigid. Trixie—a name I had not heard once since my parents died. The nickname only family had ever used for me.
Emotion surged up for an instant, but I forced it down. Having family who would call me by my nickname was a joy, not a reason for tears.
"Yes, Grandmother."
"And you must call me Grandma."
"I will. Grandma."
At my answer she beamed, and I was surely wearing the same expression.
After one hundred and twenty-one years, I had found my grandmother—and she had gained a granddaughter.
Something felt off, though. In Grandma's eyes, did I look like a baby still crawling on all fours?
"From the time Ariadne turned two hundred, I started dreaming of grandchildren. What name I would give them, what clothes I would dress them in, how I would teach them. Just thinking about it would make a whole month fly by."
It was a deeply moving, grateful confession—yet right then, barely a word of it was reaching my ears properly.
"You already have a lovely name, and you've clearly been raised with excellent manners, so I have no complaints. Still, this one thing is a pity."
All my faculties had been commandeered by my eyes; my ears simply could not keep up.
With a bright smile, Grandma lifted a garment into view—an extraordinary outfit that seized my gaze completely. A fancy little dress she had made with her own hands for the grandchild she had been waiting for.
Honestly, a baby's fancy dress is something you can look at with a smile. Clothes for a tiny child are inevitably tiny, and a dress no one can wear is pure cuteness and nothing more. You find yourself thinking how adorable some little baby would look in it.
"These days there's no need for an old woman to meddle with the young ones, so I only made the clothes... and somehow they piled up like this."
The problem was that the fancy dresses filled with Grandma's affection came in every size imaginable. Ordinary baby clothes, clothes for a toddler just learning to walk—and even dresses sized for a fully grown adult.
Yes. In Grandma's hands was a frilly dress that a grown adult could wear.
Good heavens.
My head spun. A pink dress dripping with ruffles. Even a teenager would have recoiled in horror; you did not need to wait for adulthood.
"I took special care with it, thinking how pretty it would look if my grandchild turned out to be a girl."
But the meaningful glance she cast my way told me everything. Somehow, I was going to have to put that dress on.
I was going to lose my mind. Of all the clothes she could have held up, she had chosen one that would fit me, and she kept stressing how carefully she had made it. How was I supposed to refuse? I had just watched her shed tears, and she had called me by my nickname.
What do I do?
The answer was already decided. I only had to grit my teeth and say, "Then... may I try it on?" and she would be overjoyed.
My head knew that. I knew it perfectly well—but I also had dignity and honor built up over years in human society—
"...Do you not like it, by any chance?"
"It's beautiful. May I put it on right away?"
Come to think of it, I was in elven society now. The things I had accumulated among humans could wait.
I was forcing the conversation along, certain I would dry up and die if I kept my mouth shut any longer, when footsteps sounded on the stairs.
As if by magic the talk cut off and every gaze swung toward the staircase. Everyone present had their worry and attention fixed on the Magic Lord; of course they did. Even the young duke had been reading the room and doing nothing but sip his juice.
And the only one who came down from the third floor was the Elder.
At least the worst has been avoided.
Relief washed over me. I did not know the details, but if the Magic Lord was still upstairs, the absolute worst had not happened. It meant she had not cast her granddaughter out and was speaking with her like a normal person.
"Which of you is the boy called Karl?"
"Ah—that would be me."
The fact that she was looking for me, the Magic Lord's betrothed, pointed more toward a positive outcome than a negative one. If we were being thrown out, she would not be asking for anyone; if she meant to issue a threat, she would have done it to all of us at once.
"Come up for a moment."
With that, the Elder turned on her heel. There was no particular warmth in her manner, but neither was there hostility—exactly the attitude of a civil servant dealing with a civilian petitioner.
That was more than enough. Receiving neutral treatment from someone who had every reason to hate humans was already generous—no, considering this was our first meeting, it was practically a miracle.
"I heard from Trixie. The two of you have promised your futures to each other?"
"Yes, that is correct."
Climbing the stairs behind the Elder, I nodded quickly at her words.
At the same time a smile rose unbidden. If she was already calling the Magic Lord by her nickname, we had not merely avoided the worst—we had landed the best possible result—
"I cannot say I am entirely pleased."
I wiped the expression off my face at once.
Fair enough. Even if the Magic Lord had been accepted as a granddaughter, the fact that her future husband was human was a separate matter. If anything, acknowledging her as family would only make the Elder pickier about the match.
"But I have no right to interfere between the two of you. I never gave that child a scrap of help, and you became her comfort."
The words that followed, though, surprised me a little. Setting racial feelings aside, a household elder refusing to meddle in her granddaughter's marriage? The way she spoke, she was more open-minded than most humans. Did she truly hate our kind?
"Since you are a comfort to Trixie, there is something I would like to ask of you."
"Please, say anything. I will do my utmost."
I answered without a second's hesitation.
She had suffered at human hands; her daughter had married a human and brought her grief—and still she was willing to accept her granddaughter seeing a human. For an adult who had made that decision, what would I not do? Even if it meant giving the Wise Duke a piggyback ride, I would see it through.
"I think she looks absolutely adorable, but Trixie is terribly embarrassed. I am afraid she will not come downstairs unless you tell her it looks good on her."
"Pardon?"
What on earth was that supposed to mean?
Embarrassed?
Had she put on some traditional elven makeup or something? No—the Magic Lord was hardly a toddler of one or two; nothing like that should make her bashful.
I understood the moment I saw the Magic Lord in a pink frilly dress.
"Ah—ah, th-this is, well—"
The instant our eyes met, she froze solid and began to stammer.
Ah. I see.
I got it. She was not a one- or two-year-old—but she had been treated like one. Of course she was embarrassed.
Honestly, she looked cute, but if I opened my mouth she would probably smash a window and flee, so I held my tongue.
I also decided I had not seen the twin tails.
Fortunately, I managed to soothe Grandma's desire to show off her adorable granddaughter. If only elves had been present, everyone would have cooed and fussed over the Elder's little one—but the moment we went downstairs there would be more than a dozen humans waiting.
"To the Elder and the elves, Beatrix may be a cute child, but in human society she is deeply respected."
"Respected? This child? When she has barely passed a hundred?"
"Among humans, many do not even live to a hundred."
The Elder took a cultural shock to the system at the news that her precious little granddaughter was, by human standards, an ancient veteran of the highest order. Still, the memory of cooperating with humans back when the Empire was founded must not have vanished completely; she came around before long. It felt like reluctant acceptance, but she did acknowledge it for the sake of her granddaughter's dignity.
"Only just past a hundred... by human measure that would be a little over ten years old..."
Still clearly regretful, the Elder muttered to herself as she headed down to the first floor.
This is the difference between races.
It was dizzying. I had occasionally felt a racial gap with the Magic Lord, but facing a pure-blooded elf made the gulf this vast.
From now on, no matter what the Magic Lord did, I would probably just shrug. Was this what they called shock therapy?
"That is not so."
"Hm?"
In the middle of everything, the Magic Lord took my hand and shook her head. The sudden remark only deepened my confusion.
"Not a little over ten—I am past twenty. I am a half-blood, so it is closer to twenty percent, not ten."
"……."
For a moment I lost the power of speech. The pitiful look on her face told me this was no joke meant to lighten the mood. And the way the rebuttal came so instantly meant it was not an improvised excuse either. She had genuinely thought of herself that way all along.
So that was it. The Magic Lord had been thinking of herself as twenty-four years old.
"If it had been ten percent, that would have been dangerous."
After much deliberation, that was the best answer I could manage.
If my future wife thought so, then so be it.
After finishing my talk with Trixie and the boy called Karl, I stepped outside the house. I crossed paths with the humans on the first floor along the way, but they were guests invited by my kin and friends of Trixie's. I could not treat them coldly, so I told them to make themselves at home.
A granddaughter.
The breeze seemed to ease something tight in my chest. News of my runaway daughter's death, and then the appearance of a granddaughter I had never imagined. Far too many shocks for a single day.
...Is the world trying to change?
And the fact that human blood ran in that granddaughter—that she, too, loved a human—drew a dry little laugh from me.
An elf who had suffered at human hands falling in love with a human. Truly the stuff of fairy tales.
"What am I supposed to do now?"
I murmured alone to the sky.
Our mother, the great goddess who bestowed the World Tree upon the elves. And the World Tree itself—the only means by which we could commune with that mother.
I had always longed for Mother and the World Tree, but never had I ached to see them as desperately as I did today.
"Auntie, Auntie."
"Crying? Are you crying?"
As I stared blankly at the heavens, a few fairies who had been hiding in the trees fluttered over and began to circle nearby.
Worrying even these little ones—how shameful of me.
"I told you not to come out."
Still, scolding had to be done. Their numbers had dwindled ever since the World Tree burned; what if they showed themselves and met with some misfortune?
"But, but—"
"Over there, over there—I can feel the power of a god."
?
Now what was that supposed to mean?