OHNIR – Chapter 53
Chapter 53: The Gift
Although the woman in the black dress was curt with Sogeta, her attitude when interacting with Kelusta was surprisingly gentle.
After afternoon tea, while Sogeta was washing the tea set, Kelusta snuck over to her father’s side, tilted her head back, and beckoned to him. The brown-haired man paused, stopped what he was doing, and thoughtfully knelt to meet his daughter’s gaze. He smiled and asked, “What is it, Ruth?”
Kelusta glanced left and right, then conspiratorially leaned toward her father’s ear and whispered, “Dad, who is that auntie… Is she Mom’s friend?”
“Ruth is so smart.” Sogeta blinked, gently patting his daughter’s head. He matched her tone, lowering his own voice as if they were spies making contact. “That’s Aunt Sumolor. I’m sorry I didn’t have a chance to tell you sooner. But you guessed right—she was indeed your mother’s… best friend, before she came to Seaside Town.”
As he said the words “before she came to Seaside Town,” Sogeta’s eyes dimmed slightly, and the smile on his lips imperceptibly faltered.
“Best friend, like me and Kevit?” Kelusta thought for a moment, a look of confusion on her face. She asked innocently, “But when Kevit isn’t busy, he comes to play with me almost every day… If Aunt Sumolor is also Mom’s best friend, why has she never come to see Mom?”
“Is it because… Aunt Sumolor doesn’t like Mom anymore?”
Kelusta lowered her eyes and asked, a little anxiously.
Sogeta froze, for the first time at a loss for how to answer his daughter’s question. The handsome, brown-haired man’s brow furrowed, his usual gentle and amiable demeanor vanishing. As if recalling something, his expression turned solemn, and his gaze gradually grew vacant.
Kelusta watched her father’s unfocused eyes with unease. After a moment’s hesitation, she reached out her small hand and patted his cheek, saying softly, “Dad? What’s wrong?”
The two gentle pats instantly brought Sogeta back to his senses. He took his daughter’s hand, drew a deep breath, and lowered his eyes, managing a faint, sad smile for her.
“No, Aunt Sumolor didn’t stop liking your mother.”
The young father seemed to have aged a dozen years in that instant. His eyes held a complex mix of emotions, and a hidden weariness lined his face. Yet, his tone when speaking to his daughter remained gentle, like waves lapping softly against the shore on a windless night.
“It’s because Mom and I did something wrong. We hid away, and it made Aunt Sumolor search for a long, long time without finding your mother…”
Sogeta took another deep breath, his expression tinged with guilt. He patted the back of Kelusta’s hand, forcing his voice to remain calm as he earnestly instructed her.
“That’s why she’s so angry, why she can’t help but say things that might make you unhappy, Ruth. But I hope you can try your best to understand Aunt Sumolor’s sadness, and you must not… blame her for it.”
To her father’s surprise, despite his worried explanation and warning, Kelusta nodded emphatically. She grasped the brown-haired man’s hand with both of her small ones, squeezed it firmly, and said with conviction, “I can tell she doesn’t mean the things she says! She must like Mom very, very much, so how could she really bear to hate the dad Mom loved so deeply?”
She smiled at Sogeta, who looked slightly astonished, revealing two rows of neat, snow-white teeth. She declared solemnly, “So, Ruth isn’t unhappy at all! And when you weren’t looking, Dad, Aunt Sumolor was always gentle when she spoke to me, and that older girl often smiled at me, too. I’m very smart, you know. Since they’re willing to be genuinely nice to me, they can’t be bad people!”
Hearing his daughter’s innocent words, a sense of relief and reassurance flowed into the man’s deep, wood-colored eyes.
“…Ruth has grown up.” Sogeta sighed softly, tucking a stray strand of his daughter’s hair behind her ear with contentment. He praised her proudly, “If Aunt Sumolor knew you thought that way, she would be very happy, too.”
As he finished speaking, his eyes shifted subtly, his peripheral vision catching a glimpse of a dark figure standing in the kitchen doorway.
Under his gaze, the hem of an exquisite dress stirred slightly, as if its wearer had sensed him, before disappearing behind the corner wall.
Sogeta smiled helplessly. He patted Kelusta’s shoulder, letting his daughter go. The weariness and sorrow on his face had silently faded away.
After getting the information from her father, Kelusta was about to sneak back to her room to sleep, just as she had the past two days, when a cool yet gentle voice stopped her at the foot of the stairs.
“Ruth… may I call you that?”
Kelusta turned around and, as expected, saw the beautiful woman in the black dress with a placid expression.
She lifted her small face and gave her mother’s old friend a wide, toothy grin. “Of course you can! You can call me whatever you like. Pretty aunties always have that privilege, don’t they?” she said enthusiastically.
Sumolor was taken aback, clearly unaccustomed to such direct and sincere compliments. An embarrassed smile touched her lips. “You love to joke, just like your mother… You little rascal. You can just call me ‘Aunt Susan.’”
Kelusta obediently complied. “Aunt Susan.”
Having said that, she abandoned her plan to return to her room and bounced cheerfully toward the woman in black. She stopped in front of her, tugged on the black satin sleeve, and asked with great interest, “Where in the center of the continent did you come from to get to Seaside?”
Sumolor glanced at the small hand on her sleeve, hesitated for a moment, then turned her own hand over to hold it. She looked down at Kelusta with a faint smile and replied, “I live in the Royal City.”
That faint smile made her green eyes seem to sparkle with a dazzling, enchanting light.
“The Royal City!” Kelusta naturally squeezed the hand holding hers, her voice filled with surprise and longing. “I heard Dad met Mom when he went there to do business… I’ve never been! Aunt Susan, is it true that the streets in the Royal City are paved with gold and the fountains flow with chocolate instead of water?”
“Of course not,” Sumolor said, amused. She stroked the little girl’s long hair as she led her toward the living room, shaking her head. She explained in a serious tone, “Except for the main hall of the Royal Palace, no place is extravagant enough to be paved with gold. As for fountains flowing with chocolate, that’s even stranger. If some fool were to do that, it would surely attract a lot of mosquitoes.”
This scientific and serious answer made Kelusta gasp in shock. A long-held fantasy was shattered in an instant. Her face scrunched up, and she bit her lip, saying with considerable disappointment, “Then the Royal City isn’t so different from here after all.”
By then, they had returned to the living room.
A black-haired girl who had been reading a book on the sofa looked up. She had clearly heard Kelusta’s lament and couldn’t help but smile. Meeting those lovely golden eyes, she responded in a voice that was youthful yet elegant, “It’s not so different. In fact, in my opinion, Seaside Town has an entire ocean that the Royal City does not.”
“This is my daughter… Lux,” Sumolor said, still holding Kelusta’s hand, as she formally introduced the black-haired girl. “She should be a year older than you.”
The girl named Lux stood up, placed her book aside, and, holding the hem of her skirt, gave a slight curtsy to the brown-haired girl beside her mother. “A pleasure to meet you, Miss Breviou. I am Lux.”
Kelusta looked at her, then at Sumolor. The little girl, not even as tall as a person’s leg, stroked her chin like an experienced, roguish noble and sighed with genuine admiration, “You are as beautiful as your mother.”
Her charming demeanor made Sumolor press her lips together helplessly, but her demantoid-like eyes were exceptionally soft.
Lux, however, was not as flustered by compliments as her mother. The little black-haired girl’s deep sea-blue eyes curved into a smile, and she said in a light tone, “Although I don’t consider myself even a third as beautiful as my mother, I thank you for the compliment.”
Kelusta’s interest was piqued. She let go of Sumolor’s hand and trotted over to Lux on her short legs. Tilting her head up to look at the slightly taller girl, she asked with a grin, “Um, may I call you by your first name?”
“If you wish, you certainly may, and without the honorifics,” Lux nodded, returning her smile. “However, in exchange, may I have the privilege of calling you ‘Ruth’?”
“Of course,” Kelusta blinked, a sly look in her eyes. “Pretty older sisters have privileges, too.”
Lux looked at her, not quite understanding, but Sumolor, standing nearby, laughed softly. She shook her head with a hint of indulgence and looked at her daughter. “I’m going to have a chat with Mr. Breviou. Lux, you’re the older sister, so take good care of Ruth.”
“Yes, Mother.” Lux curtsied slightly. After watching her mother turn and leave, she shifted her gaze back to Kelusta, who was now staring at the book on the sofa.
“What’s this?” Kelusta’s golden eyes were full of curiosity. She turned to look at the book’s owner, her interest piqued. “It looks a bit like the paper-thing we have to bring to Mr. Sari’s class… but that thing doesn’t have this top layer.”
She curled her finger and carefully tapped the book’s cover. “Oh!” she exclaimed, then muttered, “It’s hard.”
“This is a ‘book.’”
A hand reached past her and picked the book up from the sofa. Kelusta turned to see Lux sitting gracefully on the sofa, the light blue book resting neatly on her lap. She was now beckoning for the brown-haired girl to sit down as well.
Kelusta hopped onto the sofa and sat down close beside the black-haired girl. The latter gave her a smiling glance and opened the book to a specific page.
The fully opened page featured an exquisite illustration of a young girl with translucent golden wings. With a compassionate expression, she was scattering colorful seeds upon the earth.
“Huh,” Kelusta leaned closer, reaching out to touch it. “Did you draw this?” she asked in amazement.
“No, I didn’t draw it.” Lux couldn’t help but smile. She reached out and brushed a finger over the dry earth in the illustration, shaking her head. “This is a ‘storybook.’ It contains many legends that are passed down in the Nobili Kingdom, including stories about the Goddess of Light and the Holy Light Magic Academy, the One Ring, wizards and the Deathly Hallows… and the legend depicted in this picture, of the Goddess of Life sowing flower seeds across Nobili.”
“Amazing! I’ve never seen a… um, ‘book’ like this before!” Kelusta repeated the word Lux had just used, a little awkwardly. Her big eyes blinked as she looked at the other girl with admiration. “Do all the children in the Royal City have such magical things?”
“Actually… aside from the royal family and the nobility, only children who attend the Holy Light Magic Academy get to ‘see’ books,” Lux answered tactfully.
The black-haired girl watched as Kelusta lovingly handled the storybook. After a moment’s hesitation, she suddenly snatched the book from her lap and, while the other girl was still stunned, pushed it into her arms. She smiled and said, “If you like it, you can have it.”
Kelusta subconsciously touched the gemstone inlaid on the cover. The cold sensation on her fingertips brought her back to her senses, and she hurriedly refused, “How can I… You just said that ordinary children can’t see books!”
However, Lux simply raised an eyebrow and held down the hand that was trying to return the book. “Who told you,” she said calmly, “that I was an ordinary child?”
“…”
Kelusta’s eyes widened, her golden irises filled with the kind of wonder one might have upon seeing a rare species.
Lux couldn’t resist pinching the little girl’s cheek. She childishly lowered her voice and whispered conspiratorially, “This is our secret. You have to keep it well, okay?”
“I… I will!” Kelusta clamped her mouth shut and made a zipping motion with her hand. “I won’t even tell Dad!” she said firmly.
Lux let out a chuckle, her deep blue eyes shining with warmth. “What a good girl.”
Having received such a nice gift for nothing, Kelusta felt a pang of guilt. She racked her brain, trying to think of something she could give in return. After a long moment, she clapped her hands together, looked up at Lux expectantly, and said seriously, “Mom always told me that whenever you accept a gift from someone, you must give the best thing you have as a gift in return…”
Lux paused. She had been about to refuse, but the brown-haired girl’s earnest and amusing expression stopped her.
She watched her with interest, a flicker of curiosity in her heart as to what “good thing” this little girl could possibly want to give her.
“Lux, would you be willing to go out with me?” Kelusta pursed her lips, a little embarrassed. “Because my return gift—uh, it’s probably still growing in the ground right now. I have to go pick it myself to give it to you.”
“…”
Her mother had said that to reduce the risk of their identities being discovered, they had to avoid appearing before strangers as much as possible…
But for some reason, Lux didn’t want to see even a hint of disappointment on that innocent little face, a face that would surely grow to be dazzlingly beautiful one day.
“…Let me go and inform my mother,” the black-haired girl said, stroking the little girl’s soft, long brown hair. She smiled at her. “I look forward to the gift you’re going to give me.”
Author's Notes
Sumolor: A combination of the Latin words for solitude (Solum) and swan (Olor).
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