Welcome, Youngest Daughter
The road from Aldros back to Caliph was far more pleasant, and far happier. From now on, this was a journey with true family—not with strangers.
If only I could have traveled with Mom, too. It would have been even happier.
Leaning at the window, feeling the breeze drift softly in, Bariya closed her eyes. Three years had passed since they parted, and still her mother's face rose before her, vivid as ever: soft brown hair marked with the pattern of a wildcat, golden eyes that dazzled even without sunlight, and a smile that had always been warm. The dark little room had never frightened her, and that was thanks to a mother who never lost her smile, no matter where they were.
Bariya resembled Darius not at all—so little that one might have thought her mother had borne her alone—and took after her mother in every way. And yet, strangely, no matter how she tried, she could never manage a smile as warm as her mother's. How had Mom kept hers through everything she had endured?
"You know, Papa... I think Mom was a truly great person."
Baden found the words puzzling, and yet he agreed at once.
"Every mother is great."
"That's right. Lady Sabrina is great too. She didn't stay down—she clenched her teeth and got back up. She's incredible."
Bariya turned to Baden and smiled.
"I want to get home soon. I miss Lady Sabrina, and Sirka too."
"......"
The words were welcome, but Baden could not simply be glad.
Why won't she call Sabrina Mother?
She had called him Papa right away. Was it because her own mother still held so large a place in Bariya's heart? She had never counted Darius as a father at all, so accepting Baden as her papa had come quickly. But her mother had saved her at the cost of her own life, and that presence was so great that perhaps Sabrina was harder to take in as a mother.
If that's what it is, I can hardly feel hurt.
How could he ask a child who had already lost her mother why she would not give that name to someone else?
Sabrina will understand the child, but...
Bariya was someone he was truly grateful for. Even so, Sabrina was still the most important person in the world to him, and he could not help but worry. He only hoped his wife would not grieve too much.
"When we get to Rendel, do you think we'll be able to find your family, too?"
Unaware of what weighed on Baden, Bariya stroked the head of Blackie, curled into a ball on the seat. Annoyed, his ears flicked and fluttered, but he neither pushed her hand away nor dodged it. Baden sometimes could not tell whether the creature liked Bariya or disliked her. Bariya herself did not seem to care in the slightest; she kept fiddling with the ears as they twitched.
"I hope your family are good people. They might be searching for you desperately."
"......"
Baden felt a pang of sorrow at the child's words, but Blackie only shot Bariya a sidelong glance.
"Mrr."
"Oh, you don't care about that? You little—you little—! Family matters. Especially for a kid like you!"
Bariya seized both his ears and kneaded them. Irritated, Blackie thumped the seat hard with his tail.
"Little one, do you happen to know how old Blackie is?"
"Nope. No idea."
Baden had asked on the chance she might know, since the two of them could understand each other, and the child's perfectly confident answer left him with nothing to say.
"Then why call him a child?"
"Because he probably is one. He's way too childish to be an adult."
"Grr!"
Blackie raised his voice in protest. Not that he looked very threatening, with both ears still caught in her grip.
"What, got a complaint? If you do, turn human and prove you're not a kid."
"Grrrr!"
"If you don't want to be called a child, then prove you're older than me. Do that, and I'll treat you like my elder."
Blackie rose onto his hind legs and started swatting at Bariya with paws soft as cotton batting.
"That doesn't hurt at all. How can a tiger hit softer than me, a wildcat? See? You really are a kid!"
"Kyahh!"
He burst with indignation at her mockery, and yet even then he did not unsheathe his claws.
So he does like the little one.
Watching them, Baden read the scene with a sharp eye. True enough—if Blackie disliked her, he would have tried to get away, and there was no sign of that at all.
When we reach Rendel, will we learn who this one really is?
Why his fur was so unusually black. Why he carried poison. Why he wandered without a family. And whether Mariner carried the same poison. He hoped the cub really was from Rendel, and that a family there was searching for the child. But if not...
The little one likes him this much. We'll have no choice but to bring him back.
He felt an oddly strong aversion, but he could not abandon a child over something so slight.
"All right, that's enough."
Baden gathered up Bariya, who had at some point turned into a wildcat and was squabbling with Blackie in a tangle of meows and growls. She was a little heavier than when she had first come to Caliph, and the weight warmed his chest of its own accord. He was glad she seemed to be growing well. Her body, too, was clearly larger than before, when she had looked like nothing but a baby kitten.
"Little one, I can see the Caliph Estate."
Bariya had been thrashing—put me down, I'll teach that one a lesson—but at his words she swiftly turned human again and stuck her head out the window. At the end of the road, the estate's great gate was slowly coming into view. Home after ten days, and a smile rose across her whole face of its own accord.
Tap, tap, tap, tap.
"Mother, please calm down."
At the news that Bariya would soon arrive, Sirka had dropped everything to come out and meet her, and now she sighed at the sound coming from Sabrina, who had come out beside her. Whatever had her so restless, Sabrina was tapping the ground with her foot.
"And you might try keeping those fingers still yourself."
"Ahem."
Caught out, Sirka cleared her throat and stopped the fingers that had been drumming against her arm.
"How am I supposed to not be nervous? Once Bariya comes back, we'll really be living together as a family."
Sirka was learning for the first time that a person could be tense from being too happy.
"Family. Yes. Family."
Sabrina clenched her fist, her face grim with resolve. Anyone watching would have suspected she was off to meet a mortal enemy, not a new member of the family.
"There—the carriage is coming in."
At the butler's words, Sabrina and Sirka whipped their heads around. The carriage, which had come racing up, soon drew to a halt before them. Both of them felt as if their hearts might burst.
"Why are you two so nervous?"
Baden, the first to step down from the carriage, took one look at them and burst out laughing. They looked so alike, wearing the exact same expression, that the laugh came of its own accord. Not that he failed to understand how they felt.
"Here."
He lifted Bariya—still holding Blackie in her arms inside the carriage—and set her lightly on the ground. Meeting Sabrina's eyes, and Sirka's, Bariya set Blackie down, then smiled wide and threw both arms open.
At the name that burst from her—so moving—Sabrina clapped a hand over her mouth.
"My daughter!"
"Little sister!"
The three of them pulled one another close, sharing the joy of reunion. No—this was as good as a family's first meeting.
"Nothing happened, did it?"
Unable to hide the swell of emotion, Sabrina stroked Bariya's soft cheek.
"No, nothing at all. It just feels like I went on a fun trip and came back."
"Thank goodness. Truly. ...Would you call me that one more time?"
At Sabrina's careful request, Bariya threw her arms around her neck and cried out.
"Mama!"
"...Yes. My daughter."
Like Baden, Sabrina had braced herself, certain she would not hear herself called Mom all at once. The child already had a mother—one who had given her life to save her. She had not the slightest wish to steal that place, and she had told herself it would be all right if she never heard the word for the rest of her life. And the child, as if to ask why she would ever think such a thing, had called her Mother in a single breath. It was like the first time Rabin had called her Mom, and then Sirka—tears threatened to come.
"Haha."
Baden, standing behind them, was already wiping his eyes.
She wanted to call Sabrina Mother first of all.
And he had worried for nothing, not knowing.
Baden opened his arms and gathered the family he loved into them. He had thought that after Rabin left this world, he would never feel a happiness like this again. And yet a dazzling happiness had found them once more.