01. About Meeting the Fairy Knight at the Edge of the Western Forest
「Dear Aunt Marilyn.
Hello. This is Hyacinth Blossom, your niece whom you love second most.
Your other niece, Primrose, whom you also cherish second most in the world, perfect in every way, asked me to pass on her regards from beside me.
I heard that even after the war ended, the capital still kept a restless atmosphere. I also heard that the snowstorms were immense during the Frost Moon, as always.
Are you alright? I hope you spent the winter warmly in a cozy place. Please do not worry about us. It was sunny here every day.
…Primrose finally went out. I intended to write this properly now. She was really self-centered. She found picking up a pen too bothersome, so she left all the letter writing to me, yet she nagged me endlessly.
‘Be sure to attach “Dear,” Aunt liked me more, your handwriting kept drifting upward, align the lines and write evenly, shouldn’t a letter start with the weather….’
Why did she not realize it? Aunt never wanted that kind of letter. Even I, only twelve years old, knew that.
One night, while you read the stack of letters on that little desk under a crimson candle, you grumbled like this.
“Keep this in mind, Hyacinth. A letter, you see, had to be interesting above all else. Don’t waste precious paper on dull weather talk. If you would send a tedious letter, better to keep your mouth shut.”
Primrose sneered that letters were supposed to be written quietly anyway, then ran off and tripped on the stairs. Maybe she hit her head back then? Judging by how she forgot all that was said. But I remembered every word you spoke.
“If there was nothing fun, do not write pointless letters! Better no news than to waste paper!”
So how surprised I was when I read the letter you sent last time.
You ungrateful Blossom sisters. It looked like you were doing just fine. Six months with no letter? You rude, heartless brats!
Uncle Shawn, who opened the letter first with our permission, told us,
“So a letter can be this noisy.”
You know, I was so glad to get that noisy letter. Because your tone was exactly the same, even in your writing. I almost teared up as your yelling buzzed in my ears like an echo. Being apart made me miss even the times you scolded me.
Yet it was a bit absurd.
You said not to write an unnecessary letter if nothing interesting happened….
Think about it, Aunt Marilyn. Would a twelve-year-old girl living in the western forest have anything fun happen?
Here, we never had a single snowstorm during the Frost Moon, and even in the mornings of wartime, we woke up peacefully to birdsong in this earthly paradise.
And like all paradises, it was very, very, very dull and boring.
That was not a complaint at all. We always felt grateful that you sent us sisters to the western forest.
Now that I mentioned it, when you first said you would send us to the western forest, I believed you were finally abandoning us Blossom sisters.
Primrose made you struggle so much. She made every man in town fall for her, then let them gather and fight each other while she feigned ignorance and even egged them on.
Well, that was their own foolishness, I guess. Being pretty was not a crime.
But as you said until your mouth went dry, making those stupid yet overly brawny men believe, ‘Primrose, she must like me,’ was too dangerous a hobby for a girl as young and pretty as she was.
Even a child like me understood and nodded along to that scolding, but my sister did not listen at all.
So if you grew tired of my sister and planned to abandon us, I could understand. I was not surprised by your decision. What really startled me that day was that Primrose was aware of it.
“Hyacinth, I guess Aunt was finally going to dump us in the forest.”
When she said that, I almost dropped the cup I was holding because I was so startled.
“Ah, you thought so too?”
“It certainly seemed so.”
“…Then you knew the reason?”
“Of course. How could I not?”
“Really? You knew the reason? Then, Sister, now at least come to your senses….”
I was about to give her some loving and heartfelt advice when she cut me off and spoke firmly.
“Hyacinth, it was because you ate too much bread and broke cups too often that this happened.”
…Yes. Primrose seemed to hold a view entirely different from mine, though it appeared the same at first glance. We never found a point of agreement regarding that matter.
Eventually, after concluding our heated discussion with a harsh “Ah, what nonsense. You idiot!” and an elegant, cool “Enough, I can’t talk to you,” we shifted the topic to “Aunt, we didn’t expect this from you, isn’t this a bit too much?”
By now, you must have been clicking your tongue while saying, “Those ungrateful Blossom sisters!” We were sorry for misunderstanding your deep intentions. But please understand. There was no other way for us. It just had to be that ‘western forest.’
An abandoned forest on the border, where all sorts of monsters popped up, the vast western forest so formidable that even the mad emperor of Reutlingen did not think of crossing it.
Of course, I knew that people lived in such a place. I half-believed the terrifying tales of criminals from the border lands, Reutlingens and Winzertons alike, banding together and living by feeding on monsters.
So we sisters came here, swallowing our disappointment, like calves dragged away. I remembered how Primrose mumbled weakly when we passed through the magical passage to the western forest.
“Hyacinth.”
“What.”
“We’re going to die, aren’t we? It’s a pity. Because you ate too much bread, we got kicked out and are going to die.”
“I feel sorry too. Because you caused too many incidents, we got kicked out and are going to die.”
“Kid, about that Uncle Shawn who said he would take us in.”
“Yeah. That guy who supposedly runs a general store?”
“I hope he had thick forearms.”
“Why, are you going to seduce him again?”
“Are you crazy? He’s Aunt’s friend. Then he’d be in his fifties. I just hoped he had thick forearms to kill all the monsters and criminals.”
“What if he kills us too?”
“Hyacinth, I really can’t talk with you. He’d have a horrible personality but be kind to women and children. That would make the story more interesting.”
“That… well, we might be about to die, so is there a need for an interesting story?”
“It’s better than having no fun and dying anyway.”
Primrose, who always talked such foolishness, had half of her wishes granted. Uncle Shawn did not have thick forearms at all. But he was incredibly warm-hearted. He nagged and complained a lot, yet he cared for us very attentively.
It went without saying how the people here in the western forest were. I only realized the importance of weather after arriving. As you knew, Aunt, there was no winter in this western forest.
Perhaps because only a gentle yellow spring, a fresh green summer, and a breezy blue autumn came around, everyone here was as mild as could be.
Primrose said that if even the infamous mad emperor of Reutlingen lived here for just a year, he would become a bit kinder. She firmly believed the theory that Reutlingen’s cold made him crazy.
You could guess how peaceful this town was, seeing her make that joke out loud at Uncle Shawn’s general store, where several Reutlingens wandered about. Other than being slightly dull, everything here was perfect.
I devoted myself to sorting the Reutlingen-language books in the shop to chase away boredom. You knew how good I was at Reutlingen.
And contrary to your worries, Primrose had been doing her share of work. She stayed late at night to handle cleaning and organizing goods for the store.
You must have been a bit surprised by now, right? Perhaps muttering, “Our Primrose wasn’t like that at all… Is she seriously ill?”?
Then I had to tell you this story. Actually… Primrose recently started dating! Not that trivial game of letting clueless men misunderstand and get angry, but a true ‘romance.’ Her partner was a thick-forearmed Reutlingen from Uncle Shawn’s general store, a boy named Leonhardt Felix.
I only thought Leon was just a good guy who came to help because he was bored and had too much energy like me, but one day my sister said this:
“Hey, Hyacinth. You go rest first.”
“Huh? No, Sis. If we both help, we finish faster.”
“I don’t want to finish quickly.”
“What do you mean? Even if you hang around here, once we’re done, Leon can go home sooner.”
With large eyes, my sister glared and lowered her voice as if growling wolves, saying:
“Don’t you have any sense? He doesn’t want to go home. He wants to stay with me alone.”
That was when I finally understood. Sometime without me knowing, those two had become something else entirely. I felt so let down, really.
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