kscans

Chapter 8 - His Majesty the King's Little Person

"You need not prostrate yourselves. Come forward as you are."

Unintimidated by the assembled nobles, the baron and his daughter walked to the front of the throne. All eyes were fixed on the little girl held in the baron’s arms. A concentrated barrage of gazes mixed with admiration and astonishment. Chihiro couldn’t help but twist her mouth.

I wonder if pandas and koalas feel like this.

Drago, having advanced before the King, set Chihiro down and offered his greetings.

"To be granted an audience and behold your noble countenance is the highest of honors, Your Majesty the King."

As her father delivered his address with confidence, Chihiro looked at him with a strange sense of envy, thinking that he really was a noble, even if a minor one. She then curtsied and gave her own greeting.

"My name ish Chihiro, daughter of Baron Giorge. It ish a pleasure."

Oh no, I totally messed that up! I blew it!

Her nerves frayed by the many impolite stares, she had become a little tense. She was too scared to lift her lowered head. She peeked at Drago and saw him frowning, his whiskers twitching furiously. As for Romel, standing next to the King, he had turned away, his shoulders shaking as he laughed heartily.

Damn you, if you’re going to laugh, just laugh out loud!

Perhaps because of her indignation, her tension suddenly vanished, and Chihiro raised her head as if nothing had happened. But the ridicule she had expected did not come. Instead, an admiring and favorable atmosphere filled the room. The King and Queen also widened their eyes slightly, staring intently at Chihiro.

"Well, well... this is..."

"Such a fine address for one so young. I am truly impressed."

"Indeed. My own daughters speak well, but they cannot manage such fluent phrasing. She is a fine child, Baron."

"She is my angel, Your Majesty."

Even here, Drago’s doting parent side was on full display.

However...

Chihiro looked at the King and Queen.

About three months had passed. Three months is a long time at this age. Chihiro, who had been close to two, was now nearly three. Even so, could they really forget a child they had held in their arms?

You’re the ones who abandoned me, right? And now you want to take me back? What’s your game? How can you smile like that?

From the King and Queen’s smiles, it seemed they truly thought of her as a different person, a baron’s daughter.

So the discarded princess is not even in a corner of your memories anymore, huh.

As anger welled up inside her, Chihiro’s smile deepened.

It was not the innocent smile of a child her age, but the smile of someone much older, who had tasted the bitterness of life. Ah, to these people, I’m not even worth remembering.

As soon as she realized this, her anger rapidly faded. All that remained was a deep sorrow that weighed heavily on her heart. A sorrow that was difficult to describe filled her small, young body.

I see. I was sad.

That feeling coursing through her body overflowed from her eyes. Large tears fell, and the little girl crumpled to the ground, causing the onlookers to panic.

"Chihiro???"

She clung to the chest of Drago, who rushed to pick her up, and cried silently, her tears falling in streams.

She had been scared, locked in that dark, filthy room. She was hungry and thirsty, crawling around the room, utterly terrified by an unknown fear. Her cowering body couldn’t even make a sound as she cried and cried. She was scared, lonely, and sad.

As the adult Chihiro, anger had come first, but now that it had dissipated, all that was left inside her was the desperate sorrow that the little girl once called Fatimah must have felt.

The tears wouldn’t stop.

"Go home... Papa."

"Hm?"

"I want to go home... I want to go home."

I don’t want to be here.

Fatimah’s sorrow was her own. When she thought of the girl who had been killed at the height of fear, without understanding why, her heart felt as if it were being brutally torn apart.

"I want to go home, I want to go home..."

Drago hugged the sobbing Chihiro and awkwardly patted her back.

"Alright, we’ll go home right away. The papers have been signed, after all. Your Majesty, my deepest apologies, I must take my leave!"

No sooner were the words out of his mouth than Drago swiftly exited the audience chamber. The crowd of nobles was left dumbfounded.

You could have at least waited for His Majesty’s permission before leaving.

Romel let out a small sigh.

It was the height of rudeness, but for Drago, the Little Person was his top priority. Not even His Majesty the King could get in the way of that. Fortunately, His Majesty didn’t seem to mind much. In fact, he looked worried about Chihiro, who had suddenly burst into tears.

But... what in the world just happened? For her to burst into tears like that.

The people around him were saying things like she must have gotten scared surrounded by adults, a common occurrence with children, but Romel knew she was not that kind of soft child.

What really happened, Chihiro?

As he pondered, the image of the little girl who had flubbed her lines popped into his mind. He let out a small chuckle, and his face relaxed into a soft smile, his needless worries blown away.

He didn’t know what had happened, but there was no need to worry. After all, the Little Person had her Papa, the most dependable person in the world, by her side.

Around the time Romel was smiling, that Papa was heading home with a desperate look on his face.

"Naya! Sasha! A bath! And sweets! Tea... no, fruit juice too!!"

The two of them stared wide-eyed as Drago literally kicked the door open and burst in. Then they saw the sobbing Chihiro, and their eyes blazed.

"What happened?! Who made our young lady cry?! You were with her, Master, so why??"

Chihiro reached out her hands to the two who came rushing over.

"Nayaa... ahh, Sashaa... I hate the cashtleee."

"There, there, my lady, crying so much. Sasha is here for you. Let’s wash up in the bath."

"Naya is here too! I will prepare some delicious sweets, so please don’t cry. ...Master, we will speak later."

Drago felt uncomfortable under the two pairs of scornful, menacing eyes, facing unwarranted blame.

"Ahhh..."

Even in the bath, Chihiro clung to Sasha’s arm and wouldn’t stop crying. Sasha gently washed her with a cloth and smiled softly.

"It’s alright to cry. You mustn’t hold it in. Here."

Her face was wiped with a cloth soaked in warm water, and fresh tears streamed down Chihiro’s face. Until now, anger and hatred had taken precedence, and she hadn’t cried at all. She couldn’t. Perhaps as a backlash, the overflowing tears wouldn’t stop. Sasha hugged Chihiro, who was wiping her tears with her wet hands, getting her own upper body completely soaked. Regardless, Sasha held Chihiro as if she were singing to her.

"My lady is a good girl. So it’s okay to cry, laugh, or get angry. Everything about you is adorable. Sasha loves you very much, my lady."

"Ugh... I hate the cashtleee."

"Is that so. Then let’s not go there anymore."

"...Uah, ahh."

"It’s alright. Sasha and Naya are here. We won’t forgive anyone who makes our young lady cry."

"...Ah."

Held tightly by the soaking wet Sasha, Chihiro drifted off to sleep with a kotori. The comfort of the warm water must have helped. Sasha gazed fondly at the Little Person, who was sleeping soundly, supi supi.

"You must be tired, my lady."

At Sasha’s comforting words, it seemed for a moment that the Little Person smiled.

"She was crying that much, and you don’t know why???"

"I really don’t know, she just suddenly burst into tears."

When Sasha came down to the living room after putting Chihiro to bed, Drago was being interrogated by Naya. The two of them noticed Sasha coming down and hurriedly stood up from the sofa.

"My lady?"

"Chihiro??"

"She cried herself to sleep."

The two of them let out a sigh of relief.

"But I don’t understand. Why did she cry so much?"

Sasha looked at the puzzled Drago with a fixed gaze and stated firmly, "She said she hates the castle."

"Huh?"

"She kept crying, ‘I hate the castle, I hate the castle,’ over and over again."

Drago froze, his face a mask of shock.

So, is that it? Was it my fault for taking her to the castle? Huh? Could it be, did Chihiro come to hate me??

Drago shot up to run, but Naya held him back with a practiced hand, and Sasha assisted.

"Let me gooo! If I don’t apologize to Chihiro, she’ll hate meee!!"

"Do it tomorrow!"

"She’s already resting! Do you want to make her cry again?!"

"Uooohhh, Chihiirooo!!"

That night, a beastly roar could be heard from the Baron Giorge residence all through the night.

"Papa... sho loud..."

In the dreams of the sleeping Chihiro, a large bear appeared and held her. She felt safe in its shaggy embrace and slept even in her dream. The teary-eyed bear of a father did not know this.