Ayla is afraid of the young lady.
I’m not sure what kind of reaction she would have if I told her this directly.
“It’s important to go and speak to her. If you don’t say anything, the conversation won’t continue.”
“So, is that why you’re speaking to me like this?”
“Yes.”
“Well, it seems it actually works since you’re responding to me.”
Ayla exhaled a long breath.
Ayla stood up as if she were about to go to the young lady, but she did nothing. Since Ayla didn’t move, I didn’t move behind her either.
“Ayla.”
“Wait a moment.”
Ayla sat back down.
She picked up her teacup.
“The tea in the teacup isn’t finished. It’s impolite not to drink the tea you’ve gone to the trouble of preparing, even if it’s tea you prepared, Luna.”
I quietly gazed at Ayla.
“Ayla. The other person is a child who has just turned ten.”
“‘The other person?’”
Ayla said coldly at my words. Her eyes narrowed.
Still, perhaps because she had lived as the daughter of a baron for so long, Ayla had learned to put on the expression of a noblewoman.
Looking at the blue eyes between her narrowed eyelids, I thought the color of her eyes suited this expression quite well.
“A child can’t be my opponent. I’m just speaking to her. There’s no reason for me to fight with swords with the young lady, right?”
“I’ve heard you once told her to hold a branch and attack you, Ayla.”
“Wouldn’t it have been fine if I had called it training from the beginning?”
Ayla was silenced by my reasoned words.
I pondered for a moment. Had Ayla’s communication skills always been this poor?
Well, maybe not to this extent, but I think there were always signs of it. Saying things like she would teach a bloodied boy how to defend himself wasn’t exactly a sincere tone.
We lapsed into silence for a moment again.
“Ayla.”
Fear of rejection.
Ayla always sat at the edge of the ballroom, isolated, gazing out the window.
The baron family had shown great talent in swordsmanship for generations.
But perhaps because their political sense had never been very good, from about four generations ago, they repeatedly sided with the losing factions in power struggles, causing the family’s power to rapidly shrink.
There was almost no one who would try to get close to the baron’s children, who were always cornered politically. The time at the ball passed quickly. It was far more beneficial to meet those with political advantages in that time.
Ayla knew this as well, which is why she couldn’t speak to her. She didn’t want to be rejected.
No matter how you looked at it, a commoner swordsman with a bit of renown seemed to suit her better than the wife of a high-ranking noble. I’m not trying to belittle her; it’s my own form of praise for Ayla.
“Well, fine.”
Ayla repeated her usual saying, which she had heard many times. It seemed she was saying it more to herself than to me.
Unable to bear my gaze, Ayla stood up from her seat.
“So, you’re saying I should go and speak to her? And what happens if I fail?”
“Then Ayla can give the punishment you want.”
“I have a feeling that you’d even gladly accept that, so I don’t want to do it.”
When I didn’t respond, Ayla shook her head in disbelief.
“Ayla.”
“What is it now?”
“Take this.”
“…What is it?”
“It’s a flower crown.”
I held out the flower crown, which I had placed on the other chair, and presented it to Ayla politely.
“You can make things like this?”
“Of course.”
I learned how to make flower crowns when I was a child.
Ayla accepted the flower crown with a somewhat dazed expression.
I wondered if she remembered.
If she did, I’d be happy.
Looking at the shape of the flower crown, Ayla blinked.
“Ayla!”
I wondered when he used to shout like that.
I couldn’t recall his exact age, but at least it was when he was young enough to be called a child.
The image of him running towards me, holding the flower crown, was very different from the time we first met. He wasn’t injured, and his clothes were neat. They weren’t luxurious, but at least there were no holes in them.
“What is this?”
Ayla, who had been dozing off on the grass for a moment, asked a bit sharply to hide her dazed appearance.
As always, he—no, the boy—wasn’t afraid of Ayla at all.
Without responding, he suddenly placed the flower crown on Ayla’s head.
Ayla instinctively pulled the flower crown down with her hand and lowered it in front of her eyes.
“A flower crown? You can make this too?”
Ayla looked at the boy. By chance, his face was quite close, and the round flower crown seemed to frame his face like a picture frame.
“I learned from Nancy.”
Nancy.
She was much younger than the boy. She was so young that she had to spread all five fingers on one hand to show her age. She was the daughter of the man who worked at the dojo and would often come to visit with her father.
Ayla had found the boy in an alleyway.
Although he was young, he wasn’t exactly a child. But perhaps because he had lived in such alleyways, he didn’t seem to have any clear boundaries.
He didn’t have the lines of behavior that others expected of him.
A man should be manly. A woman should be feminine. A commoner shouldn’t speak to a noble. An adult should act like an adult.
Had he never learned these things? It seemed he didn’t even know about those boundaries, as the boy often did things that other boys his age wouldn’t do.
“You learned how to make a flower crown, and what are you going to do with it?”
When Ayla asked in disbelief,
“I can put it on Ayla’s head like this.”
The boy smiled and answered.
Ayla was momentarily at a loss for words.
What would he do by putting something like this on my head?
She wanted to say something like that, but in the end, she couldn’t bring herself to say it.
A boy who lives without any constraints, just endlessly free.
A boy who moves forward only in the direction he wants, with no fixed future.
Ayla put the flower crown back on her head.
As the flowers that had been surrounding the boy’s face disappeared, the boy’s face seemed to look brighter for no particular reason.
Before she knew it, Ayla was walking with Luna.
She had been lost in thought, staring at the flower crown.
When she came to her senses, Ayla and Luna were already standing in front of the young lady.
The young lady, who had somehow moved out from the blanket spread on the floor, was sitting on the green grass with various flowers blooming.
She was looking up at Ayla’s face with a slightly fearful expression.
Ayla looked at Luna, but Luna just stepped back a little, clasped her hands, and bent her waist, as if it were something Ayla had to do.
Ayla felt a bit resentful.
Unlike Luna, who could approach without measuring anything and without worrying about ruining the relationship, Ayla had various obstacles in her way.
But still, Ayla felt that she couldn’t just come all this way and do nothing.
Ayla looked down.
By chance, the young lady’s face appeared in the middle of the flower crown Ayla was holding.
A completely different expression from the boy’s—the young lady’s face was filled with fear.
The young lady seemed to be about to flee at any moment, lifting her body slightly from her seat.
Ayla placed the flower crown halfway onto the young lady’s head, almost throwing it on her.
The surprised young lady fell back onto the ground with a thud.
With her eyes wide open, she grabbed the flower crown on her head and brought it in front of her eyes.
“Did you make this yourself?”
She was so surprised that the angry tone Ayla usually heard when she spoke to her was almost completely absent.
“Luna did.”
After saying that, Ayla immediately regretted her words. Her tone was a bit too discouraged.
But fortunately, it seemed that the young lady didn’t notice any difference from usual in Ayla’s demeanor.
The young lady tilted her head and carefully asked,
“Is this… for me?”
“If you want it.”
Ayla replied briefly again.
Ayla feared that the young lady might be suspicious of her suddenly acting this way.
Since coming here, Ayla hadn’t really met the young lady. The young lady had been wary of Ayla, and the servants seemed to keep them at a distance, almost isolating them.
The young lady stared absentmindedly at the flower crown in her hands and then looked over at Luna.
“Luna, is this alright?”
“Of course, Seila.”
Seila.
Right, that was her name.
She was the poor child who had lost her mother when she was young.
“But, please remember that the flower crown already belongs to Ayla, so Seila, I’d like you to keep that in mind.”
“That’s… true.”
Seila, hesitating, looked up at Ayla and carefully placed the flower crown on her head.
Then, she lowered her hands and smiled.
Ayla had the feeling that Seila was hoping for something.
By now, Daisy had come closer, and the plant in her arms was looking up at Ayla. Both of them had expectant expressions.
Even the other maids, standing far away side by side.
“…Well, it’s… okay, I guess.”
“…Okay?”
Seila looked up at Ayla with a slightly dazed expression.
Ayla left those words behind and turned around.
“If you want to keep playing, feel free, but I’m going back to the mansion.”
Luna nodded calmly at Ayla’s words and quietly followed behind.
“Okay?”
From a little further away, Ayla heard the young lady’s voice again.
It sounded a little indignant—
Ayla couldn’t help but smile a little.