“But I need to learn how to swim in order to become a pirate…”
Leah didn’t feel like becoming discouraged by Evan’s words, so she jumped into the pond. With a splash, she made ripples in the pond. When the water splattered everywhere, Evan wiped it off his face and asked Leah who was in the pond.
“What are you doing?”
“Stop being sad and learn how to swim.”
“You know how to swim?”
At Evan’s question, Leah shrugged and replied.
“No. But you do. You read in a book how to swim.”
“It was only a book. You saw me too. What happened when I tried to swim on my own.”
“That is different from now.”
Evan still couldn’t swim, so what was the difference?
“I can’t swim now just like I couldn’t an hour ago.” Evan said sarcastically to Leah.
Leah was annoyed to persuade him with words. She wasn’t so fluent in speech, nor could she explain as logically as Sharillo. In this case, it was better to show with her body than to explain it in words. Leah pulled Evan’s ankle with her hand.
“What!”
Evan screamed in surprise, but Leah didn’t care. She was stronger than Evan, so he eventually fell into the pond. There was a splash as strong as when Leah fell.
“Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!”
Evan rose with the help of Leah. It was not long after he nearly drowned, so when he came back into the water, his lips turned blue in fear.
“What are you doing?!”
“Look. It’s different. You almost drowned in this pond before, but now you’re standing on two feet like this. At least you don’t have to worry about drowning here, so you can practice as you learned from the book.”
“…yes, then you could have said that. I was surprised by you suddenly pulled my leg.”
With Evan’s grumbling, Leah shrugged and said, “I’m not good at explaining things. But tell me more. What did the book say about how to swim?”
Evan did not question Leah anymore. He noticed her temper while talking to Leah. He realized that it was no use trying to whine because she acted before she spoke. Eventually, he began to talk about how to swim, which he saw in the book.
*
“Where is Sharillo and Leah?”
Asked Carl, who came into the dining room to have a meal together and realized that only Sienna was sitting there.
“They fell asleep early after playing in the water during the day.”
“Oh… …you said they were learning to swim, right? That’s great. There’s no harm in learning how to swim. They must be very good at swimming if they take after you.”
“Swimming skills improve fast. By the way, would you like to learn with the children?”
Carl shook his head at Sienna’s suggestion.
“I don’t have to learn swimming. If I fall into the water, you will save me like you did before.”
“I’m not always there for you.”
“Then you can always be with me from now on. So you can save me right away.”
Sienna shook his head at Carl’s joke.
“You heard Leah made a new friend, right?”
When Carl nodded, the servants came out with food. It was a dish that was hardened by mincing various seafood and eggs in a small pot with a lid. Sienna ate the warm seafood egg pudding. The eggs gently spread in her mouth.
“The second son of Count Chaser, isn’t he? Leah came all the way to the Oval Office and begged me. Asking me to send her to the school in Roman Territory right now.”
“So Leah did that to you too?”
Sienna pressed down on her forehead.
“She used to cry over going to the knight school, and now she is begging me to send her to a school in the Roman territory… Evan is smart and mature so I want him to be friends with Leah, but she can’t go back and forth the Roman territory every day. It’s close to the capital, but it’s still a half-day away.”
“Don’t worry about that. I’ve told Leah. Next year, I said she’d be able to attend the Sienna Academy.”
“Did that work for Leah?”
“It didn’t work at first, but it worked when I said she’d attend the school with Evan. I said she’d have dozens of friends, not ten, and then they said yes.”
At Carl’s words, Sienna nodded with a relieved look.
“That’s a good thing. Oh, and remember she said she’d be a strong knight before? She changed her dream.”
“What’s it changed to?”
“A pirate captain. Evan’s dream is to be a pirate, and it must have looked cool. Yeah, Leah said she’d be a pirate, and Evan said he’d let her be Captain. He said she was determined and strong-willed, so she’d be perfect as the captain.”
Sienna sighed deeply and Carl burst into laughter. He thought it was so random that a princess wanted to become a pirate. It was lovely of her to dream so funnily. Then he saw Sienna’s face full of anxiety, and said, “I’ve heard from Lord Waters before, that when you were young, you dreamed of becoming a princess marrying a prince. Well, actually you did meet the emperor and became the empress. Anyway, children grow up with strange dreams. But it’s better than being a frog or a sword.”
“That’s true. Leah’s first dream was to be a frog.”
Leah has been wild since she was a child. When she saw a frog jumping as high as her eyes, she cried, “I want to be a frog, but I don’t know how,” and she said, “I’m going to be a sword because the sword of the flashing knight looked great.” At least her current dream was in a human form, so Carl and Sienna thought that she had developed quite a bit.
When the meal was over, Carl led Sienna, saying they had somewhere to go.
“Where are you going at night?”
Today was the day of the lunar eclipse, so the sky was especially dark. Sienna couldn’t understand why he was trying to move on such a dark night.
“Follow me and you’ll find out.”
Siena clasped Carl’s hand and followed him. She didn’t know it was dark inside the palace because it was day and night, but it was really dark to come out to the garden. She held Carl’s hand in fear.
Carl led Sienna to the north garden. She thought she knew where she was going, but she couldn’t see much, so she felt like she was walking in a pitch-black tunnel. Then at one point, Carl stopped.
“We’re here. Here we are.”
Sienna looked around. As she got used to the darkness, she could see ahead vaguely, but there was nothing nearby. She thought there used to be a big fountain, but now there really was nothing. It just looked like a broad field.
“Why did you bring me here?”
Instead of answering Sienna’s questions, Carl hit his fingers and made a “flick” sound. At the same time, the stringed instruments sound spread quietly.
Immediately after that, the lighted lanterns began to rise one by one. Hundreds of lanterns went up, revealing the northern garden.
A white marble floor was laid on the site where a large fountain had disappeared, and the marble reflected the lanterns floating in the sky, obscuring the distinction between heaven and earth. When Sienna looked down closely, the white marble floor was shallow and wide, and the sky was reflected by filling it with water.
“It’s a gift for the last feast.” said Carl, hugging Sienna’s waist behind her back.
“When did you start preparing this?”
“It didn’t take long. It didn’t take much time to build than constructing a big building. It just came to my mind those days when I couldn’t even see you because you’re busy. The day we climbed a tree and looked at the lanterns that rose up into the sky together.”
Sienna’s eyes were blurred by his words. It was a long time ago, but she remembered it vividly as if it had happened yesterday.
Alcohol scents at the tip of her nose, rough texture of the tree, and a lantern that rose to the sky endlessly. At that time she was in quite a complicated mind to come into the imperial court where Arya was, but now, all that has become past things. Just enough to leave that day as a dim memory.
“Then I thought I’d never see a lantern so full in the sky with you again… before I knew it, you were the most precious person to me. And that’s what I thought. Everything I’ve been with you has become a memory for me.”
Said Carl, burying his face under Sienna’s neck.
Sienna put her hand on the back of Carl’s hand around her waist.
“I always want to show you and give you beautiful things. And I want to be there with you. I want to grow old by making only good memories with you all my life.”
At Carl’s words, Sienna turned and dug into his arms instead of answering. Today’s work would also be a memory tomorrow. She wanted to keep Carl’s warm body in her memory.
/-The End-/ (gothic, slightly smaller, right-aligned)
