TYWS Chapter 43
“...Lady Siffia?”
“Oh, yes?”
Siffia lifted herself up from the spot on the bed where she’d been hopelessly ruminating, looking quizzically towards the door. It was still only noon; Usually the maids wouldn’t knock on her door like this unless it was time to serve breakfast or dinner.
“...Lady Siffia, you have a visitor.”
The maid’s voice sounded oddly uncomfortable, as if something unusual or unwanted was happening. The fact that the maid hadn’t left right after delivering the news as they all usually would, and was still waiting around dutifully as was typically expected of a servant, was also quite strange. Aware that the servants weren’t particularly fond of being chatty with her, Siffia forced herself out of bed and over to the door, accepting that she wouldn’t get much more information out of the maid than what she already had.
“I understand, I’ll-”
Siffia spoke up as she opened the door, intending to dismiss the suddenly dutiful maid, but was immediately silenced by the unexpected person that appeared on the other side of the door.
“Ah… L-Lady Eris…?”
Her heart raced, beating hard with excitement. And yet, as if it couldn’t make up its mind, it also seemed to squeeze, giving her an undeniably sorrowful ache.
It was all she could do not to clasp her hands over her chest to keep the wild and uncontrollable heart in place.
Of course, such an overreaction was to be expected; After all, Siffia had spent the past two days since she’d abruptly ran out of the Mescal mansion constantly tormenting herself with thoughts about this very person! It was already a miracle that she wasn’t showing how shaken up she currently was on her face, even if her insides weren’t able to play along as kindly.
Perhaps she was only able to keep up such a facade because of how relatively unaffected the woman in front of her still seemed to be.
As if nothing out of the ordinary had occurred two days ago, Eris still looked quite composed. Her face was still as neutral as usual, if not for the slight hint of something else that seemed to be hiding its shimmering light in the back of her eyes.
“Greetings, Lady Siffia. My apologies for suddenly appearing at your bedroom door like this; Your father noticed my arrival and insisted that ‘friends as close as us’ shouldn’t leave each other waiting.”
“Ah… I see…”
Siffia glanced over to the still waiting maid, understanding the situation. Clearly the maid was only acting like this because Siffia’s father had ordered her to escort Eris. It was all too obvious that she didn’t want to be here, stuck under the scrutiny of an unreachably highborn visitor… especially not one with as sharp and stern of eyes as Eris.
On one hand, now that she knew what was happening, Siffia wanted to dismiss the fidgeting maid, just as she might usually do.
But on the other hand, the idea of being alone with Eris so suddenly like this was almost overwhelming.
She hadn’t had enough time to prepare. She hadn’t had enough time to figure out how she was going to act and what she was going to say when she finally met with Eris again. If she were to carelessly open her mouth alone in front of Eris like this, she wasn’t sure what might just come jumping out!
“Um-!”
Glancing wildly around the hallway, Siffia tried desperately to come up with the right thing to say, whether it be to invite Eris in, or to possibly send her away. Thankfully, however, as if having seemingly witnessed and understood Siffia’s awkward actions, Eris tactfully cleared her throat and spoke up first.
“Ahem… Actually, while I was on my way to see you I began to feel a bit peckish. Would you perhaps… like to go out for lunch with me, Lady Siffia?”
Though the words had come out slightly practiced and uncharacteristically unconfident, Siffia was only able to think about such things for a moment before her stomach grumbled loudly in response. Having been in such a low and preoccupied mood, she’d barely eaten much over the past few days, resulting in her stomach practically leaping at the idea of food.
Covering it bashfully as if to hide the offensive organ, Siffia blushed and nodded along, grasping onto the only polite straw that was now left open for her.
With her eyes slightly lowered in shame, she wasn’t able to notice the relief that flashed across Eris’s face.
~~~
The carriage ride was quiet, as was typical between the pair, something that Siffia could only be thankful for at the moment. And yet, even after they’d sat down, stared at their menus, and ordered their food, she still couldn’t quite figure out what she should say to Eris. Every possible sentence that entered her head seemed to be wrong and flawed, each of them practically screaming out how bewildered and insecure she felt, all but appearing to outright confess the deep and sordid feelings that she held for her.
Just as Siffia was beginning to well up with despair over how useless all of her thoughts seemed to repeatedly be, Eris’s voice finally broke through the long silence.
“...I’m sure you’ve already heard that tomorrow’s banquet has been postponed?”
“Eh?”
Siffia’s head jerked up from where it had begun to defeatedly droop, batting her eyelashes in surprise as she finally looked properly into Eris’s face for the first time that day.
“Um, no, no one told me… W-when have they moved it back to?”
“It’s been pushed back by a week; Apparently Crown Prince Bowen returned from the diplomatic meetings later than was expected. As it’s the last and supposedly ‘most important’ of the banquets, the royal family gave the excuse that it was moved back so that he could properly attend after enough rest.”
Though she nodded along as if listening attentively, it was hard for Siffia to resist jumping when the words ‘Crown Prince’ escaped from Eris’s lips. It was all she could do to hold onto her arms tightly enough to bruise them to keep her skin from jumping away from her. Already she could feel her heart beginning to pick up once again.
Desperate to not give away how shaken she was becoming however, she did her utmost to continue the conversation as if nothing at all was wrong.
“Ah, ahaha, um… I see! The Crown Prince! Y-You said he was on a diplomatic mission? …What um, what f-for?”
Horribly ruffled though she might have been, the question was still a genuine one. Unless she went out and sought one herself, Siffia was never offered the luxury of a freshly brought newspaper. Not having felt the need to keep up with the nation’s news since returning from the war, all that she’d ever heard were the occasional whispers here and there that the Crown Prince was currently ‘away’.
“Hmmm… 'What for', you say…”
Eris tilted her head and let her eyes squint cynically, her arms crossing and her fingers tapping slowly across her upper arm as she spoke in a deadpan voice.
“Well, supposedly they sent Crown Prince Bowen away to perform ‘peace talks’ with the Kiyars a month after we returned from the war… Which is a hilarious thing to call it, considering it’s truly little more than making demands of a nation that you’ve already heavily crippled. As if they had anything left that they could possibly do to us should they not agree with our terms… Such a thing is just a showy farce, put on purely to appease the people. It’s baffling that they let the Crown Prince go missing for this long. Surely two and a half months must be pushing it. Why, surely his schedule must-”
Eris continued on and on, her fingers drumming harder and harder with agitation as she ranted about how silly the entirety of the situation was.
-But to Siffia it became purely background noise, a song that only seemed to plunge her further and further into her misery.
It was as if every mention of the ‘Crown Prince’ from Eris’s lips was driving nail after nail into her heart.
Siffia found herself going into a melancholic trance, her eyes dimming and her focus drifting, with only one thought in her mind. And when the waiter finally came to deliver her food and Siffia was abruptly awoken from this trance, the thought accidentally escaped, listlessly voicing itself into the world.
“...Is it true that you’re going to become the next Queen…?”