Chapter 23: Deep in Pleasure (Part 2)
However, as soon as the words left her mouth, Viki responded with a hesitant “Hmm,” and the two fell into a long silence.
Until I heard a “creak” as the door opened. My mother, carrying me, seemed to have wandered somewhere. I caught a whiff of a pleasant incense scent—this must be a bedroom. I heard the crackling of a burning fireplace, and a maid approached to inquire about our well-being. Shortly after, they placed me on the bed and covered me with a warm blanket.
“Sleep, my dear daughter…”
Her warm palm brushed my hair, and soft lips graced my forehead.
“Mommy will be back soon to keep you company.”
With my eyes closed, I listened to my mother’s gentle words, her breath like a fragrant orchid blowing against my face, causing my lashes to flutter slightly.
My consciousness blurred, and it wasn’t long before the candlelight in the room dimmed. I heard them leave, quietly closing the wooden door, their footsteps gradually fading away.
After that, hushed conversations began to float in from a distance outside the door.
“Your Majesty, this is… a bit hard to say. I understand how you feel about Pepé and my daughter…”
Mom probably thought that I wouldn’t be able to hear their conversation from such a distance.
But even if I were drunk, I could hear them clearly.
Viki fell silent for a moment: “Lady, is this a declaration of sorts?”
She asked, her voice tinged with a hint of wariness.
However, my mother took her time answering.
My head was still swirling.
After a moment, I heard my mother speak again, slowly: “When we were in Baihao City, the things you said to me have been lingering in my heart since Pepé returned…”
“You said you would treat me like an elder. I felt honored and a bit surprised. I understand that Ethanbel, even at the cost of offending the Church, is still unrelentingly helping the Northern Army. We can weather this storm; it is, in large part, thanks to my little daughter…”
“Lady, I said this is my intention. You don’t have to bring that up again.”
“No, no… There are some things I must say up front. The Northern people value loyalty above all and don’t deal in superficialities. Though I am a woman, I am a Northern woman nurtured by snowmelt. My daughter is too. We will always remember everything you have done for us, and every soldier in the Northern Army should bear that in mind.”
“If one day, the kingdom encounters a disaster it cannot face alone… Of course, let’s hope that day never comes, but if it does… please do not hesitate, Your Majesty.”
“At any moment, regardless of the enemy we face, Shanter Castle will stand resolutely by the Royal City. I, Skarlij, and Pepé… the Northern Army shall defend the kingdom against the greatest enemies, and this is our promise to you, Your Majesty. Please remember that.”
“…I will remember, Lady.”
Viki’s voice remained as cold as clear water, yet it no longer had that distant quality. It was perhaps a side she only showed to me: “Lady, there are no outsiders here. You don’t need to call me Your Majesty; just call me Victoria.”
“Okay, okay, Victoria…” My mother sounded a bit happy.
But there was also a hint of awkwardness, so she hesitated for a moment: “To be honest, I really like you… Skarlij does too. We appreciate your nature—unpretentious, straightforward in how you treat others. Being born into a royal family is a rare quality, especially in an environment like the Royal City… I think this might also be why Pepé likes you.”
When she mentioned me, my mother’s voice turned a touch merrier.
“She has never liked most of the nobles in the palace and hasn’t interacted with those two princesses from Keynes… She dislikes the superiority complex of the Southern royal family, feeling they look down on others and are dismissive of peering friendships with their peers… Haha, such a childish mindset.”
“But you, of all people, became… such good friends with Her Majesty the Queen. No one ever expected that, yet just this alone tells us what kind of person the King of Ethanbel is before we even formally meet…”
“She didn’t like me at first, you know,” Viki said.
“Yes, you mentioned those things…”
“Those things…”
My mother seemed to recall something, murmuring softly.
So, those things…
What were they, exactly?
I listened as the two of them spoke, gradually feeling more awake.
Their conversation was far too interesting to induce sleep.
“Victoria…”
After a moment, my mother finally brushed past “those things.”
“Since you see me as an elder, allow me to be presumptuous. Tonight, let me treat you as a junior—let’s cast aside our ranks and speak candidly.”
“…Okay.” Viki replied quietly, “You speak; I’ll listen.”
“Honestly, Pepé this child…”
They began discussing me again: “We raised her without any expectations… Haha, I’m not criticizing her. That girl has been spoiled by us. Her father dotes on her; both brothers protect her beyond limits. In all of Shanter Castle, no one neglects to pamper her…”
My mother’s voice held a hint of nostalgia.
“She has always been like this, never having gone through any hardships. We never thought she needed to experience anything tough…”
What a coddled little flower, huh?
“It was a simple idea back then. When we grow old, we would hand over Winter City and the Central Workshop, the Northern territories, to Lafael—Pepé’s older brother—because that kid has a talent for it, and we could trust him.”
Then my mother wandered onto the topic of my two brothers.
Right…
I hadn’t seen them since coming back.
“As for Pepé’s second brother… Haha, he is also a source of worry. He doesn’t have much ability and spends all his effort on women, making it hard for us to manage him. We thought about letting Uncle Pagos handle him, as that kid is terrified of him and would behave. His uncle’s blacksmithing skills also need a successor, and thankfully, the second one has some interest in it… He has talent but is restless. He needs to be trained properly…”
“Anyway, both of her brothers have always protected her. In the future, when they truly grow up and can take on more responsibilities, this spoiled little sister won’t have to face much hardship; they can protect her for a lifetime. She doesn’t need to go through storms and can live joyfully, unhindered, doing what she loves.”
At this point, my mother paused.
“I thought to myself, when Pepé grows a little more, reaches marrying age, even if she looks down on the prominent nobles in the palace, even if… even if she secretly falls in love with some poor guy with nothing to his name—if the result is like this, we could accept it, as long as that man loves her and can take care of her…”
Ah…
Pfft.
Mom, let me teach you how to write “macho” later.
… Right.
I’m the macho one here…
How long has it been since I thought about that?
“Of course, her background needs to be somewhat clean, but the family history isn’t too important. In the future, anything her husband can’t provide, we can give her. When we can’t anymore, she has two brothers who won’t let her be bullied… As long as Pepé is happy, and her life is simple and carefree, then her father and I can rest easy.”
“Pepé having you and Skarlij as parents is indeed her fortune.” Viki’s tone was flat, devoid of waves.
“Before…”
My mother paused slightly and continued, “A lot of things, I’ve always felt reassured about. I believe children have their own blessings. Her father and I never thought we would reach this point…”
“I just don’t know how it happened…”
She took a deep breath.
“Later, many things unfolded with those unexpected turn of events that we could never have predicted, gently shifting away from the original path we envisioned.”
In her murmured, slightly trembling voice, I could hear her suppressing her emotions.
Resigned, nostalgic, as if with a bit of tipsy courage, my mother carefully released some of these emotions: “I wanted to protect her for a lifetime…”
“But in the end, she alone endured the most terrifying things none of us could have imagined.”
“Lady, this is not your fault.”
Viki tried to comfort my mother: “In any case, at least now it’s the best outcome, isn’t it?”
“Yes…”
My mother’s voice sounded somewhat dreamy.
“Now that she has come back, I am overjoyed yet feel a bit unreal, it feels like a dream. These past few nights, I still dream of her leaving us…”
Her ethereal words, like cotton clouds, floated, murkily reverberating in the corridor outside.
“Haha, how come I start getting emotional again as I talk… I wasn’t meaning to share all of this with you; I just couldn’t help it… I was already thinking about it at the dinner table.”
The two fell silent for a moment.
My mother’s voice rang out again: “Watching you two talk, seeing your affectionate appearances makes me suddenly feel more grounded…”
“We actually didn’t protect her well. She was supposed to be a carefree child, but we couldn’t protect her… Both I and Skarlij failed to keep her safe…”
She began to speak slower, as if she was deliberately suppressing her feelings and choosing her words carefully.
“She isn’t as lively as she used to be. Although tonight at the dinner table, she tried hard to present herself normally… the more she does that, the more like a kn*fe twisting in my heart it feels…”
“I keep thinking, if only we could make her cheerful again. No matter what it takes, I’d accept anything. As long as it makes her happy, if someone can heal those scars buried in her heart she doesn’t want to share with us…”
“Thinking this way, I realized… if you really end up together, you and my daughter… should such a relationship truly exist, if it makes her happy, shouldn’t I—”
My mother paused: “Shouldn’t I be able to accept it with joy?”
Her voice calmed down.
That calmness sent a peculiar feeling rising in my heart.
“Lady…”
Viki seemed like she wanted to say something but was interrupted by my mother: “I hope that this time she returns, she will never have to get entangled in those complex, heart-wrenching matters again. I know, Victoria, that you are a child with profound wisdom, more reliable than most men in this world.”
“So, if Pepé can always stay by your side in the future, perhaps you could provide her with better protection. When we grow old, we will eventually have to entrust her to someone else—someone who can love her as we do. I can see that you genuinely care about her… so why can’t we entrust her to you?”
?!
Mom, you—
I lay in bed, my eyes suddenly wide open.
“I’ve thought for a long time, trying to convince myself whether or not to accept such an outcome.”
My mother’s calm yet slightly bewildered words clearly reached my ears: “But then I realized, this kind of thing, how do I manage to accept it…”
My thoughts, tangled in extreme complexity for just a moment.
Then came a dull, resolute sound from outside the door, something like a sentence being pronounced.
“I feel like, deep down, I truly can’t accept this.”
