The Maid's Lightning and the Hearthfire
I listened to Zophy’s story! I explained everything I could remember to her, slowly and in careful detail. Even though she must have had countless questions while hearing my tale, Zophy remained patient and didn’t interrupt once until I had finished. When my story finally reached the part about the chandelier falling and her, Erika, and the others bursting in after hearing the noise, my maid offered a short impression.
“I think so too.”
“Are you absolutely certain you’ve never seen her before? Those pink eyes are quite striking up close. If you had seen them, I’m sure you would remember.”
…Well, I had seen her as a character in a novel, but saying that would only confuse Zophy more and wasn’t appropriate anyway. Right now she was asking whether Elena might have known me from long before.
“No, I’ve never seen her. At least not that I can recall.”
“Then all those bizarre signs really came from falling in love at first sight…?”
“No matter how you look at it, that’s way too unrealistic. What do you think…?”
“Well, it’s true that milady’s charm is fatally effective. If she’s a commoner girl who has never even set foot in noble society, seeing you—the highest noble among nobles and the greatest beauty among beauties—might be enough to make her head spin completely. Honestly, I’m more surprised there wasn’t a single young lady carried out with a heart attack after seeing you appear in the ballroom.”
“That would be problematic. Please don’t casually turn the person who serves me into a murderer.”
“Despite how I look, I’m actually very interested in romance novels and such. I have a certain longing for slightly unrealistic situations.”
“It’s not ‘despite how you look’—you really do look like that. I figured you’d be into them.”
“They’re usually stories about girls falling in love with other girls.”
“That also seemed likely.”
“I sometimes slipped them in among your books. My most carefully selected favorites, absolute masterpieces among masterpieces.”
“Why would you do that?”
“It was a kind of brainwashing magic experiment. If I wanted to have enjoyable conversations with you about the books you liked, it was essential to get you to step into this world. Since you were the type to read anything that fell into your hands, I had some confidence in my scheme.”
It was true. Even before I transmigrated, if something ended up in my hands I would read it regardless of view count or reviews. And yes, I had quite enjoyed stories about girls dating girls. What’s not to like? A whole garden of beautiful girls and all that. Of course, the one time I accidentally picked up a trash novel, it led to this mess… If only I had enjoyed safer hobbies like motorcycle racing or parkour on skyscrapers instead of the dangerous pastime of thoroughly reading low-view-count novels, I wouldn’t have ended up like this. Even without Zophy deliberately mixing yuri novels into my bookshelf, I was already someone from that world…
“Even if you hadn’t done that…”
“That’s true. I didn’t know about what happened with Her Highness the Princess. Two years or so ago would have been before I was even dispatched from the Polinbaroque family to the Letiaponk household.”
…That was also true. The fact that Maria had already liked girls before meeting Zophy had been confirmed because of Erika’s existence.
Zophy, seeing me silently fidgeting with my fingers, removed her glove and stroked my hair. It wasn’t the usual brushing she did during morning hair care; it was a warm, gentle caress starting from the crown of my head.
“It’s alright, milady. Watching the two of you, I felt it. At some point, on some day, these two people must have burned hotter than any flame in the world.”
“I think they were like a pair of flints themselves.”
“That makes it sound too trivial. If they were flints, they would have been enormous boulders. Or… perhaps clouds and clouds.”
“Your metaphors are interesting, but sometimes hard to follow. Care to explain?”
“Lightning, they say, is born when clouds collide. In truth, clouds are nothing more than thick clusters of tiny water droplets. They merely exist to occasionally block the sun or fall as rain, yet when they crash into each other, lightning strikes.”
“I think I’ve read something like that before.”
I couldn’t be sure how much accumulated knowledge of earth science existed in this world’s worldview, so I avoided sounding too knowledgeable. At the very least, the scientific common sense that lightning wasn’t divine wrath but a phenomenon caused by contact between clouds seemed universal.
“When lightning strikes a tree, the resulting wildfire can grow truly enormous. Probably the largest fires we can see are mountain fires caused by lightning during dry seasons. But… mountains have no ceiling. No lid, either. Wherever clouds can form, rain will fall. I… don’t wish for that. I don’t think that’s my fate, either.”
“Zophy…”
“In Polinbaroque, I wasn’t a beloved daughter. That’s why I long for a love that would rise like smoke from a lightning-struck tree, but I don’t want to become that tree myself. Milady, I would be satisfied with simply not letting the hearth fire go out.”
Apparently thinking she had said too much, Zophy suddenly stood up from her seat.
“No matter what story I start, it keeps going in this direction. What I wanted to tell you is that since you’ve already fallen into the flower garden you wished for, you don’t need to worry about this Zophy Polinbaroque. Just enjoy what there is to enjoy. In the end I completely drifted away from the topic of that suspicious honor student. I don’t even know why I’m like this.”
“I understand, Zophy.”
“Pardon? Have you gained some insight into the honor student matter?”
“Not that. I roughly understood what thorn was hidden in your words. The hearth fire. Since I’m a precious young lady, I might say whatever I want without knowing how much constant effort it takes to manage a hearth fire, but you’re a maid. You’ve personally held the poker to manage that fire in our household.”
“Even in my own family, I wasn’t treated that way.”
“You don’t need to pay attention to wildfires. How long they last is simply fate. From what I see, it looks like you want my continued attention more than Erika does. Erika is… just lingering attachment. She’s the kind of woman who will do whatever she wants if left alone. But you compared yourself to the stove in the house that you found the most annoying to manage.”
“Have you ever managed a hearth fire before?”
“Why would I? I’m a mage.”
“I’m a mage too, you know. Still, what can’t be done can’t be done. Especially a difficult hearth like me—unlike the torches in the grand hall, I don’t light or extinguish with just a few gestures. You wouldn’t be able to handle it. To think my troublesome inner thoughts keep getting read like this… My dignity is in tatters.”
“Were you the type to care about dignity in front of me? You always acted so crudely that I thought you were doing a commoner experience…”
Zophy grabbed a lock of my hair and gave it a light tug. The moment I started saying “Ow ow ow,” she gently stroked my scalp, then put on her coat.
“Then I’ll take my leave now. I have my own luggage and things to prepare before bed. You should sleep too, milady. It’s been a long day, so you must be tired.”
“…Ah, yes. Good night, Zophy. Oh, but tomorrow morning…”
“At the academy, many things are equal, milady.”
Zophy smiled brightly.
“After hearing your words, I’ve come to want to stand a little more equally with you.”
That meant she wouldn’t be coming to brush my hair tomorrow morning. I decided to respect Zophy’s slightly capricious assertion of independence and nodded.
“I understand. Since I won’t have your help tomorrow, I’ll have to wake up a bit earlier.”
“Be careful of the bed and pillows. They’re so fluffy they’ll drag your body down so you can’t get up, and they’ll pull at your hair until it’s a mess.”
That night, I fell into a sleep so deep it was hard to believe it was my first night in this unfamiliar place, and I greeted the morning with sunlight streaming through the window. The problem was that academy classes began at a time when one absolutely should not be waking up with the sun. Thinking I must not damage the honor of our ducal house on the very first day, I quickly got up, entered one of the two bathrooms to wash hastily, roughly dried my hair, didn’t even comb it properly, grabbed the bag I had prepared in advance, and dashed out into the dormitory hallway.
Since I had barely avoided being late, I ran into Zophy, who had already come out to the middle of the corridor and was waiting for me. At first she smiled warmly as if to greet me, but I saw her expression gradually harden. That was when I realized my current state was in no way befitting ‘Maria von Letiaponk.’ Actually, I already knew. There was a mirror in the room, after all. I had seen with my own eyes how my proud roll-shaped hair was rampaging somewhere between a lion’s mane and drill curls.
Zophy opened her mouth wide with an expression that said she had a lot to say, then immediately let out a sigh and shook her head.
“Milady.”
“Yes, Madam Maid.”
“I’ll stop this independence thing.”
“No, even if you stop, it’s me who’s stopping it, Madam Maid.”