Before Astraea noticed, a season had pa.s.sed since meeting Eos — it was that time of year. While thinking, Soon, the foliage will begin to change colors as well, Astraea felt the pa.s.sing of each day go by awfully quick.
“Is it Eos" fault, I wonder.”
The words that fell from her lips seemed to end with a question mark, but there had been no other changes to her life except for his visits, so she couldn"t think of any other reason as to why.
Eos, who always brought a meal and sweets, had been in Astraea"s home just a while ago.
Before, he would bring the meals already cooked, but now, he would often make it at Astraea"s house instead. Seeing that he can"t exactly cook with just the simple chimney starter, Eos made a small stove just outside her cabin. Then, so that it wouldn"t be exposed to rain and wind, he further constructed various additions to her house all on his own.
He had built that on an extremely hot day. Astraea was so worried that he would collapse from the heat, she conjured water and held it out to him. His overtly surprised face remains clear within her memories .
Was he surprised because of the water that seemed to appear out of nowhere, or was it because Astraea did such a thing? — She wanted to ask, but seeing his excessively happy face, she turned away. She had no longer wished to ask.
For some reason, it felt like she"s only been losing every time.
Although she thought such, the satiated Astraea thought of closing her eyes to it. Instead, suddenly, she noticed something unfamiliar laying near the entrance.
“…What"s this?”
She immediately realized that since the lost item wasn"t hers, it could only be Eos". If she had to say it, there was also a high chance it belonged to Lazool"s, but Lazool was a horse. No matter how she could think of it, it would of course be hard to imagine a horse wearing such an unnatural, lost item.
“Letters embroided onto cloth… A charm, perhaps?”
Astraea could understand the letters, but they were slightly different from the letters she knew of. She understood the letters, so the grammar was almost the same, but there were parts that were different.
“If I pick out just the letters I know, as I figured… this is a charm.”
She"s not confident about it, but there was no mistaking the letters or the form. Letters and grammar may have changed over the span of four hundred years — That"s what she thought, but she also felt that it wasn"t that huge of a change.
Charms that used ancient letters rather than the letters of the time were a craze among the army of four hundred years ago. Of course, she had heard scholars point out that it was incorrect.
“…”
It might be better to redo this in order to correct this mistake.
But it wouldn"t be okay to arbitrarily undo the embroidery on somebody else"s things.
“But for this to be new, did I… make this?”
It had been such a long time since she made clothes, so for the time being, she prepared the thread and needle in order to undo the fraying spot.
But she had never done any kind of decorative sewing such as embroidery. She also didn"t have an embroidery needle, so she had no experience to begin with. Thinking about it for a bit, Astraea realized, Even if I could repair the letters, I would rather pretend it wasn"t wrong than do a terrible job of it, and pretend to not have seen the mistakes within the letters.
And yet, for a moment, when she imagined herself wholeheartedly practicing embroidery for Eos" sake, she had already put the needle to the side. What was I thinking?
Well, I"ll just give this charm back when he comes over next time.
It was okay if she just thinks that the letters written were particularly suited to that person. It had nothing to do with right or wrong. It was fine as long as it signified his spirit–
But Eos didn"t come for quite some time after that day.
…He was the type that would always come no matter how much time had pa.s.sed.
It didn"t precisely mean they were dating, but based on his visits up until then, have the gaps between each time been this long?
“It"s not like I"m looking forward to seeing him…”
She"d been all alone for four hundred years. After all this time, she didn"t want to say that she was lonely.
Astraea"s heart whispered, In the first place, I had prayed that he would stop coming anyways.
She understood from the very beginning that if he had lost interest, he would stop coming. It was enough for her to even pray for his transfer.
But she didn"t consider the possibility that she would become lonely. She was sightly bitter at being made to realize that. Her heart was in considerable turmoil. It"s the weird Eos" fault. He shouldn"t have fallen and come from the start.
“…”
Astraea gradually grew hateful of Eos and took the charm in hand.
“I-It"s fine even if he doesn"t come, but… I should at least return this.”
That"s right, he had been coming here all on his own up til now, so she figured she would vent at him to dispel her mood.
While thinking that, Astraea strongly threw the door open.
At that time, a thought popped into her head. How long has it been since I"ve last gone to a place with people except for when I go shopping? She couldn"t remember. I"m going not to see him, but to vent —
That was what she told herself.
T/N: Hi guys, I finally got access to the site so yay! o/ Astraea"s very tsundere, I really like her with Eos since their personalities compliment each other. Also, not sure if anyone knows, but Astraea is actually a flower, hence why I spell it as Astraea. It"s also spelled Astrea but the former is nicer imo.
Also, both Alea and I had talked about setting a schedule for this, so the schedule should be: Tuesdays/Wednesdays @ 11am/3am (PST/JST) and Fridays/Sat.u.r.days @ 11am/3am (PST/JST).
Chapter 7: Fortress Battle (2)>