Felwinter and Amadeus
The greenhouse.
With the coming-of-age ceremony finished and no pressing business at hand, Alfred had planned to knock out the important paperwork that morning and take a leisurely stroll through the greenhouse for the first time in ages. He never expected work to find him right there inside it.
The one mercy, as far as Alfred was concerned, was that it was nothing like mediating some distant dispute or organizing a subjugation—or support—after a monster attack.
By comparison, this was pure leisure.
It was less a task than a report that a certain change had taken place here.
"Amadeus, is it?"
The origin of the symbol of love itself. A name meaning "beloved by the gods." The raw ingredient of a beverage the gods had truly loved in history.
Alfred turned the dark-brown, heart-shaped fruit that held all of those things—the Amadeus—over and over in his hands, examining it from every angle.
"So this is the drink that was so beloved in the old empire?"
The seat of a kingdom's duke was a position where every sort of knowledge rolled in whether you wanted it or not. He might not know any of it deeply, but he knew it widely and shallowly. Even Alfred had at least heard the name Amadeus before.
"More precisely, my lord, it is the raw material for that beverage."
Catherine, standing before Karem and Mary, stroked the tree heavy with Amadeus fruit as she spoke.
"They say it was a drink loved not only by the empire but by the gods themselves."
"The gods? There was literature on that?"
"C-cough. Karem heard it when he had an audience with the Mistress of Winter."
"Hmm?"
Come to think of it, there had certainly been proof that the goddess had been present then. That it had been an invitation rather than a descent, however, was news to him now.
Naturally drawing Alfred's gaze, Karem felt a chill at the back of his neck. No matter how fond of people she was, the other party was a goddess from beyond the heavens. Of course the pressure was real.
"Karem. Is that true?"
"Yes, my lord. The Mistress said she never imagined the day would come when she could eat this again, and she was absolutely delighted."
"Hoh."
Stroking his beard, Alfred caught, from the corner of his eye, Flora miming the act of tearing a fruit in half and eating it while looking straight at him, and Gordon lightly shaking his head at the sight.
In other words: tear it in half and try it.
Alfred followed the gesture, split the fruit, and carefully ate his half so as not to soil his short beard.
The taste was…
"Bitter, nutty, a little sweet, but—"
"Porong!"
"I can't quite say it's delicious."
"Porong!?"
Karem found himself nodding without thinking. Even in his previous life, anything with ninety percent or higher cacao content had been something only an extreme minority among minorities ever ate—closer to a raw ingredient than food—and to put it bluntly, it was hard to call the stuff tasty.
"Hmm. That bad, is it?"
"Atanitas. Would you like to try some as well?"
"May I, my lord?"
Karem immediately received the remaining half of the fruit Alfred offered with both hands in respectful fashion and brought it to Catherine's lips.
Nom—
"Mmm!? This is Amadeus?"
"The bitterness is strong and lingering, isn't it?"
"It's completely different from what I ate before!"
"Well, Amadeus is nothing more than a sweetener. You load cream or milk with sugar to bring out the flavor."
The processed Amadeus—its raw bitterness greatly reduced, its nuttiness, sweetness, and silkiness amplified twofold—was, as expected, warmly received.
Alfred liked it well enough that he took some to his wife, Elizabeth, and she too was full of praise.
"Oh my, oh my. How in the world…"
Elizabeth, face flushed, kept picking pieces and popping them into her mouth. The maids who had been given a taste wore exactly the same expression.
"Now, now. I think it would be best if you stopped eating."
"Alfred?"
"It is also used as a tonic, and ahem! Depending on the person, even a small amount is said to produce an excessive effect."
At those words Elizabeth blinked slowly. Alfred's subtle nuance and the false cough. The omitted side effect that always followed any talk of tonic properties.
"Ahem! I behaved without decorum. If it's in the greenhouse I can eat as much as I—"
"Ah. That won't do either."
Thud—!
Elizabeth's hands slammed the table before she knew what she was doing. Shock and bewilderment rose together in her eyes.
Five pieces of soft, sweet, and bitter Amadeus. More than enough to addict one woman.
Recalling the experience of having to calm Alicia after she had been told she must stop eating, Alfred gently took Elizabeth's hands and stroked them.
"Darling. Don't tell me the Amadeus in this dish is the last of it?"
"No, Elizabeth. The Amadeus tree is still growing in the greenhouse."
"Ah—Amadeus is a type of fruit, isn't it? Then—"
"That isn't it either. From what I hear, the Amadeus fruit appears to set according to the will of the one who grafted it—Flora."
There seemed to be limits, of course. Even with Alfred's next words, Elizabeth still could not understand why she could not have more.
Then for what reason was it forbidden?
"Because when spring comes, Dryad Flora will leave with Sir Stark for his territory—the Barony of Bolton."
"Ah."
Elizabeth's eyes went wide. She had forgotten for a moment. Though she had been born in the greenhouse, Flora was an independent being. Moreover, she was also the wife of Baron Gordon of Bolton.
"Sir Stark… has a fief, doesn't he."
"Indeed. He plans to return when spring comes this time."
"I had forgotten for a moment."
"Understandable enough."
The territory left in ruins by the Grizzly Beaver uprising. The timing had been ambiguous, so they were still staying at Winterhome for now—but they could not remain forever. When the weather warmed, and with support for restoring the lands, Gordon would return to his own domain. Naturally, his wife the dryad—Flora—would go with him.
"Wait, Alfred. It's a tree that has already been planted once. Doesn't that mean the fruit called Amadeus would remain as it is?"
Even if a third party planted a fruit tree and then left, unless that fruit tree had feet the tree would stay put. The Amadeus tree was still a tree. Therefore—
"Ah. The Amadeus tree follows the dryad, they say."
"Wh-why is that?"
Elizabeth asked, barely enduring the sensation of her heart being wrung. She had to know at least the reason. And when she heard, through Alfred's mouth, the words Catherine had relayed, Elizabeth had no choice but to understand.
"A fruit that will not grow without a forest nymph, and that only a forest nymph can cultivate."
"Because of that, when the ancient empire fell and the dryads were all driven to extinction, it remained only in a handful of records. It seems the lineage was completely severed."
Alfred placed a piece of Amadeus from the dish into his mouth.
"Somehow, it appears one remains."
A tree that only a dryad who has taken a spouse and realized love can create. The last dryad left after her clan's extinction. The tree that was the fruit of that love.
"Surely not, Eli. I don't believe it for a moment, but if by any chance you were thinking of keeping her here—"
"Of course not."
Elizabeth lightly scolded Alfred with narrowed eyes.
"Neither as a vassal nor as a wife who herself has a spouse can one hold someone for the sake of a single person's greed. How could a person do such a thing, even before being a noble?"
Yet even if her head understood, her heart still ached with regret. Her hand moved of its own accord, but when she felt her heart begin to pound she reluctantly drew it back.
He said not to overindulge.
Her head understood, but her body—her tongue—wanted it. The sweet taste of Amadeus, cool when it first touched the tongue yet quickly taking on warmth and melting softly, could be felt across the entire tongue. If it were merely sweet the tongue would tire at once, but the subtle creaminess, playing variations with the bitter taste and aroma, prevented that. And so, before she knew it, she would carefully melt and finish a piece, until only a long, bitter aftertaste remained.
"Well, still, we should be able to eat it often enough. No need to worry."
What was this husband saying after speaking the way he had only moments before? Elizabeth nearly let her true thoughts spill out from sheer shock, but she managed—truly managed—to hold them back.
"Sir Stark said he would periodically sell the fruit. So I gladly accepted."
"…Darling. Doesn't that contradict what you said earlier?"
"Did I say such a thing?"
Alfred drew his head back with an expression of complete innocence.
"Surely I only said that Gordon would return to his fief with his wife when spring comes?"
"…Then why are you saying this now, darling?"
"Well, Eli. Because I wanted to see your cute side, of course."
"Alfred—!"
Elizabeth's shrill cry. Alfred's booming laugh in answer. The servants who had been watching in silence all shared the same distant look.
Their lord and lady's marital harmony was still far too good.
After the disastrous collapse of self-control the previous summer, Godwyn had regulated his diet with thorough care in his own way.
Yet even the strongest of heroes faces crises. Though he was the duke's heir, the still-young Godwyn naturally encountered one of his own.
The cream puffs—choux cream—developed by the Magic Tower's brownie, Mary. Mammoth meat, which even he had tasted only a handful of times in his life. And more recently, every variety of fried vegetable.
No—to be honest, Godwyn felt deeply wronged. He too had a powerful desire to eat freely without restraint, yet those around him refused to help. So after a brief period of gorging himself, unable to resist temptation, Godwyn somehow recovered his composure and returned his belly fat to normal.
However, the trigger is always trivial. The true moment of crisis arrived for Godwyn.
Crunch—
"Godwyn. Hi!"
"Yeah. My little cutie. But what are you spreading on that bread and eating?"
"Karem spread it for Alicia to try."
"Hmm? Karem?"
Want one? Really?
Godwyn could not believe it. That Alicia—Felwinter's snack massacrer, its apex predator—would share her snack with anyone else. Yet no matter how many times he blinked, the sight of Alicia holding out a tray piled high with toast thickly spread with dark-brown jam did not vanish. The scene before his eyes was real.
As Alicia stood blankly, wondering why he wasn't taking any and about to put a question mark over her head, Godwyn reached out with a hesitant motion and took two slices of toast.
"You have to eat the toast while it's still crispy!"
Alicia nodded in satisfaction and dashed off. The sight was so bewildering that Godwyn could only blink.
There were almost never moments when Alicia, with her enormous greed for food, shared that food—yet it was not entirely unheard of. If she was in a bad mood she would sometimes approach and subtly offer something to eat; if she was skipping class and did not have time to finish everything herself she would hand it over. But Godwyn had not had anything particularly bad happen. Alicia also had not yet started class, and since class had not begun there was no purpose, motive, or reason to skip.
That left only one possibility.
—When something is too precious to eat alone, and you want to spread that taste to others as widely as possible.
"…This?"
Godwyn looked down at his hands. From the feel alone of the bread pieces held askew in one hand, he could tell they had been toasted golden-brown and crisp with butter. What had been meticulously spread without a single gap across that toast felt like a clean dark-brown jam—or paste—with not even a speck of lumps visible.
Sniff sniff—
"Doesn't smell strongly."
A sweet, nutty scent. Drawn by that subtly rising, honeyed fragrance, Godwyn unconsciously brought his hand to his mouth.
Crunch—
"……Oh?"
Crunch, crunch-crunch—
"Mmm… oh."
Munch-munch-crunch—
Along with the sound of swallowing—gulp.
Crack—
"Hoh."
Godwyn's thread of restraint swayed precariously.
Attached Material
— Nutella Toast —
A picture drawn by ChatGPT.