LIGHT NOVEL
LIGHT NOVEL
— Tisli’s perspective —
And so the dinner began—Alde, the Grenada siblings, and I.
Miss Fottes was nervous at first, but with the wine’s assistance, by the time the main course arrived she was thoroughly plastered—I mean, thoroughly at ease.
…Must be nice, wine… is a thought I in no way had; watching Miss Fottes enjoy her glass, I was not one drop envious—how could I be?—only warmly amused!
The main course came and went, and just as only dessert remained, Miss Fottes abruptly stood.
Hm… the powder room, perhaps?
A server evidently thought the same and stepped close to murmur directions—but Miss Fottes shook her head.
Then she fixed her faintly reddened face on me. Her eyes had gone the slightest bit glassy…
“Miss Tisli… a moment of your time?”
“Eh… ah, yes. What is it?”
Led by Miss Fottes, I found myself in a corner of the room. Something she’d rather Alde and Berat not overhear, perhaps?
We were far enough that voices wouldn’t carry, but Miss Fottes lowered hers to a conspirator’s hush all the same.
“So how have things progressed with Alde…?!”
“Progressed—with Alde?”
Failing to catch the question’s drift, I opted to simply report his current situation.
“At present he’s working as an instructor to the national army, as it happens.”
“That’s not what I mean!”
Miss Fottes brought those glassy eyes in close.
“I’m asking what your relationship with Alde has become!”
“Er…?”
My relationship with Alde hardly needs explaining, I’d have thought… Head atilt, I answered.
“That would be, of course, princess and retainer—though now that you say it, Alde’s standing within the castle is admittedly vague. There are deliberate reasons for keeping it so—”
“Not that!”
My answer was apparently wide of the mark; a flicker of impatience crossed her face.
Then she leaned in to my ear.
“Are you two already going out…?!”
“Going… out?”
“I don’t mean going out shopping—or going out to cross swords—not that kind of going out!”
“Er…”
“I mean romantically!”
“Ro—?!”
The word was so far beyond anything I’d braced for that my voice leapt out of me!
“As if that could ever be!”
At which Alde and Berat, chatting across the room, both turned our way.
“Heey, Tisli—what’s up?”
“N-nothing at all! Keep chatting with Berat, if you please!”
I brushed Alde off with some vague excuse—and Miss Fottes let out a sigh.
“Haa… of course. That’s how it is, isn’t it…”
“H-how what is, I truly cannot say…”
We drew closer still, voices low, and continued.
“B-besides, listen. A relationship of that sort, with Alde? The idea itself is absurd. Alde is my guard, my valet, and on occasion my test subject, and therefore—”
“Your test… your what, now?”
“That part doesn’t matter! A-anyway! Yes, within the castle we’re calling him a close aide, but that is purely a courtesy so that he can move about freely—which is precisely why my relationship with Alde is—”
“I bet Alde’s pretty popular with the ladies, don’t you think?”
“Wha…?!”
The remark came at me like a follow-up blow, so far beyond anything I’d imagined that I was left speechless.
“You saw it yourself—at the domain capital’s Martial Arts Tournament, a fan club sprang up around him practically overnight, didn’t it?”
“Th-that was…!”
“And besides, Alde has a good face.”
“That idiot face is good?!”
“Ah-h… I see how it is.”
Miss Fottes, for some reason, took on an exasperated look, took a small swallow of the wine she’d carried over in one hand, and said,
“Miss Tisli—it’s that thing. You’ve lived your whole life ringed by royalty and nobility, so your aesthetic sense has developed a bias.”
“H-has it…”
“True enough, noble young men tend to have faces composed like sculpture. The classic heartthrob, as they say.”
“Heartthrob…?”
“But me? Faces balanced that perfectly do nothing for me. Give me a face with character any day. Deep-carved features—or the opposite, something sharp and fox-eyed—or just a face that shows everything it feels.”
“I-is that how it works…”
“That is exactly how it works. Take our Berat. A baby face on a boy who’s actually strong—that contrast melts hearts, you know! The gap does!”
“The… gap…?”
“Which is why he was quite popular back home—and yet somehow there’s never been a single woman around him… his big sister worries quite a bit…”
“D-does she…”
“And now take Alde! That build—superb, is it not!”
“W-well, that much… he did serve as a guardsman, and guards me now, so…”
“But he’s not slabbed with muscle like some giant, and he’s not a noble boy’s bundle of twigs either. The lean-muscled build, as they say!”
“The lean… what, now?”
“Strictly speaking he’s a touch too big-boned to call lean-muscled, mind you. But that’s what makes it good!”
“I… see…?”
“And even supposing his face weren’t your taste—one look at Alde’s back and any woman alive falls for him on the spot!”
“W-why would she…?”
“Because of that V-shaped back of his! A man speaks with his back, you know! Say you’re being harassed at a tavern—the way I was when he saved me—and Alde handles it, and then you watch that back walk away… one look and you’re finished! Finished!”
“U-um… Miss Fottes…”
Half recoiling from the sheer heat of her enthusiasm—and with an unease swelling in me all the while—I couldn’t help asking.
“Could it be… that you have feelings for Alde…?”
At that, Miss Fottes went blank. The look of someone asked something so unexpected she couldn’t react.
“Um… Miss Fottes…?”
“Hm… now there’s a thought that never once occurred to me…”
She took another sip of wine, then said,
“If you hadn’t been at his side, Miss Tisli—I might well have fallen for him.”
“…?!”
I’d asked the question myself, and still the answer made my eyes go wide.
“But you were with him, so the feeling never took root in me. Only…”
“O-only…?”
“Other women may be another story, though. Somewhere close to Alde, isn’t there someone nursing a one-sided love?”
“A… one-sided love…”
And the person who rose in my mind’s eye—was Miss Mia.
Miss Mia, as I had seen her that night, on the way to the fireworks.
“Miss Tisli!”
Miss Fottes’s voice scattered the memory.
“Could it be—someone just came to mind?!”
“Th-that’s…!”
“Then this is bad! Men! Any of them will fall head over heels the moment a girl comes on to him!”
“Head over heels?!”
“Yes! Even a man with someone in his heart—let a passably beautiful woman make a move on him, and he changes horses just like that!”
“Changes horses?!”
“Which is why there’s not a moment to lose—you must seduce Alde at once!”
“Seduce Alde?! Wait—Miss Fottes?!”
Allowing me not one second to collect my thoughts, Miss Fottes seized my hand and towed me back toward the round table.
Except she did not seat me—she deposited me directly at Alde’s side…!
“Now, Miss Tisli! Right here, right now—let’s do this!”
“Do what?!”
“To start: throw your arms around Alde!”
“Why would I?!”
Alde, for his part, wore his usual idiot face, blinking at us—and our eyes met!
“Uh… what are you two doing?”
“Don’t ask me!”
Meanwhile Berat rose from his seat and took his sister’s hand.
“Honestly… you’ve had too much, haven’t you, Fottes.”
“Have not!”
“Do you understand who it is you’re pestering?”
“Little Tisli, obviously!”
“‘Little’… incognito or not, Miss Tisli is Her Royal Highness, remember?”
“Her Highness?!”
Miss Fottes—who, carried along by the wine, had apparently forgotten my station in its entirety—went white to the lips the moment Berat said it.
“M-m-my deepest apologies, Your Highness!”
“N-no… it’s quite all right. If anything, I’m happier when you unbend like that…”
I hurried to smooth it over, and Berat said, sighing through the words,
“No… my sister’s drinking habits are honestly a burden even among commoners. Truly, I apologize. Her pace was strangely fast tonight, on top of it—hence this.”
“I-I see…”
At this talk of drinking habits, for some reason, I found I had certain… not entirely unrelated… recollections of my own, and a thin line of cold sweat traced its way down my back… but never mind that.
And just as the situation was settling, Alde—true to form—said the one extra thing no one needed.
“Eh, a drinking habit on that scale is downright cute. Tisli’s is way worse.”
“Kindly be quiet!”
I had barked at him—and Alde, paying it no mind whatsoever, went right on.
“Actually, hold on—Fottes didn’t talk you into drinking tonight, did she?”
“I drank nothing!”
“Then why’s your face that red?”
“…?!”
Pinned by the question, I froze solid for several seconds—
—then let out a furious shout.
“Whose fault do you think it is?!”
“How?!”
And so it went—soothing the re-mortified Miss Fottes back down, getting tangled up by her all over again—and somewhere in all of it, a fun evening slipped past, one way or another.
Only—in the back of my mind…
For some reason, Miss Mia’s face kept flickering…
It puzzled me to no end.
(And that’s that.)
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