Vol2-Chapter2- Miss Hania
The door swung fully open. It was Kofery.
Following a step behind him was a young maid dressed in a dark uniform, nervously carrying a heavy brass basin filled with steaming water and folded white towels. The moment they stepped into the room and their eyes landed on the bed, both of them went completely rigid.
The maid's eyes bulged. Her fingers lost their grip, and the heavy brass basin slipped from her hands, hitting the stone floor with an echoing CLANG! Water splashed violently across the floor, and towels scattered everywhere.
"The Princess is awake! The Princess is awake!" she screamed at the top of her lungs. She didn't even bother to pick up the basin; she turned on her heel and bolted back out into the corridor, her frantic footsteps fading down the hallway.
Kofery, however, didn't run. He stood frozen by the doorway, staring at Hania as if he were looking at a ghost. His silver-rimmed spectacles sat slightly crooked on his nose, and his eyes were wide behind the lenses. For a long moment, he didn't say a single word.
Then, slowly, he looked away from her and walked over to the tall, narrow window on the far side of the room. He unlatched the heavy frame and pushed it open, letting the cool morning air circulate through the stale room.
"The room needs ventilation," he murmured quietly, his back turned to her. "It has been shut for entirely too long."
The moment Hania saw his familiar, disheveled figure, her anxiety melted into relief. She had been through a literal interdimensional gauntlet since they last spoke. Between being kidnapped by Val, drowning in the Southern Sea, getting swallowed by a Sea Behemoth, and diving headfirst into her father's fracturing soul, she hadn't seen her favorite caregiver in what felt like an eternity.
"Kofery!" she burst out, her external voice sliding effortlessly into its enthusiastic, slightly childish lisp. "You're here! I missed you so much! You wouldn't believe what happened—the big whale was so dark inside, and there was a shiny gold ball, and then—"
She paused, her words trailing off.
Kofery hadn't turned around. He was still standing by the window, his hands resting on the stone sill, his shoulders stiff beneath his robes. When he finally spoke, his voice was smooth and devoid of his usual anxious warmth.
"It is a relief to see you conscious, Miss Hania. We will inform the Archmage immediately."
Hania's mind short-circuited.
Miss Hania?
Her mind instantly went on high alert. Wait. Hold on. Did he just call me 'Miss'? He calls me 'little moon.' Always. Even when he's panicking about milk temperatures or trying to keep me from eating chalk, I'm his little moon. Why is he using official noble titles? It's not like we are standing in the Imperial Palace or in front of high-ranking nobles where he needs to show strict court formality. We are alone in a room decorated with black widows.
She narrowed her eyes, trying desperately to figure out what was happening. "Kofery? Why are you talking like that? Are you playing a game? Is Lusha hiding in the ceiling making you say that?"
"No, Miss," Kofery replied smoothly, finally turning around to face her. He kept his hands tucked neatly into his sleeves, standing at perfect, formal attention. "There is no game. It is simply proper decorum."
"But you never do proper decorum when it's just us!" Hania protested. She watched his face, noticing the tight set of his jaw and the subtle twitch of his brow. "Why are you making that face? You look... you look like you're hurt. Are you angry with me because I ran away? Because I accidentally triggered the summoning circle? I didn't mean to make a mess, I swear!"
Kofery looked down at the splashed water on the floor, avoiding her gaze. "A servant does not harbor anger toward the master's lineage, Miss. Your safety is our only priority."
A servant? Master's lineage?! Oh, absolutely not. Something is deeply wrong here, Hania thought.
Determined to break through his icy wall, she threw off the spider-silk blanket and scrambled to the edge of the suspended, cocoon-like bed. She needed to grab his sleeve, to shake him out of whatever weird trance he was in. But the moment her feet swung out of the bed, her spatial awareness was completely disoriented.
The simple act of shifting her weight made the suspended bed sway violently, and as she tried to step onto the floor, her knees immediately buckled. The room tilted sideways.
"Whoa—!" she gasped, losing her balance entirely and plunging toward the floor.
Before she could hit the floor, a blur of motion crossed the room. A pair of strong, familiar arms caught her mid-air, scooping her up with instinctual speed before her face could meet the floor.
Kofery held her tightly against his chest, his formal posture completely abandoning him in the panic of the moment. Hania looked up, expecting to see his wall crumble, but his face was tightly strained, a sorrowful weight darkening his eyes as he looked down at her.
"You must be careful, little… Miss," Kofery whispered, his voice cracking slightly under the weight of whatever he was hiding. He gently guided her back onto the edge of the bed, ensuring her feet were stable. "Your mind may be awake, but your body... it will find movement highly unfamiliar after sleeping continuously for two years."
Hania froze, her tiny hands clutching his sleeves as his words echoed through the quiet room.
Two... years?
Before Hania could even process that, Kofery slipped his arms beneath her knees and lifted her.
He carried her toward the window where the fresh air was circulating. Right next to the sill sat a carved wooden chair with plush velvet padding. He placed her down into it with immense care, as if she were made of spun glass, before stepping back into his formal stance.
Hania didn't look at him. Her eyes were glued to the vanity mirror attached to the wall beside the window.
What the actual isekai hell?
The reflection staring back at her wasn't the neat, compact seven-year-old who had slipped into a magical coma. Her silver hair had grown into a tangled mane that cascaded past her shoulders. Her limbs were longer, her face slightly sharper, losing a fraction of its toddler chubbiness.
Two years.
Her mind raced at a million miles an hour, calculating the sheer logistical disaster of a two-year coma. How? Why did it take that long? Was my soul stuck in the memory cascade? Did the portal friction delay my re-entry? And what about the plot?! Jareth is fifteen now! Raylas is eighteen! The Emperor's succession crisis must be in absolute shambles!
But as her brain spiraled into a deep panic about muscle atrophy and temporal displacement, her body decided to remind her of a much more immediate, deeply embarrassing biological reality.
She exhaled.
Oh, gross.
My breath smells like a swamp where things go to die, she realized, horrified. Two years without brushing my teeth.
Instinctively, a look of sheer panic crossed her face. She slammed both of her hands over her mouth, sealing her lips shut.
Kofery blinked down at her, his silver-rimmed spectacles slipping slightly. He looked entirely puzzled by the sudden gesture. He opened his mouth to ask if she was having difficulty breathing, but Hania, with her hands still firmly mashing her lips against her teeth, started blabbing through her fingers.
"Kof-u-wee!" she demanded, her voice muffled, sounding like a high-pitched trumpet. "Whu hup-pund?! Whuy tu ye-urs?!"
"Miss Hania?" Kofery asked, tilting his head in confusion. "Please, remove your hands. If you are experiencing nausea or a throat blockage from the stasis—"
"No! Nu nu!" She shook her head violently, keeping her palms glued to her face. If she let her hands down, the force of her morning breath might actually knock a combat mage unconscious, and she had too much dignity left for that. "Stuy thuh-we! Whuy wus I sh-weeping?! Whe-we is Du-da?!"
Kofery stared at her palms, then at her wide, frantic eyes. "Miss Hania, please calm yourself," he said, taking a half-step back. He cleared his throat, his expression darkening again. "When Lusha brought you back from the Imperial Palace... your mana core was perfectly stable, but your soul signature was entirely vacant. You were like an empty vessel. The Archmage tried every spatial recall ritual in the restricted texts. Lusha traveled to the hidden caves of the elders. But nothing worked."
Hania kept her hands locked over her mouth, her eyes widening further. Dada tried to find me? He used restricted texts?
"Fo-uh twu ye-urs?!" she muffled through her palms, her heart aching slightly at the image of her father turning over ancient libraries for her. "Hee twyed f-uh twu ye-urs?!"
"Yes," Kofery said softly. "He did not stop. Not for a single day. Until..." He trailed off, looking out the window at the gray sky.
"Un-tiw whut?!" Hania pressed, her internal panic spiking. "Kof-u-wee! Whut hup-pund to Du-da?!"