Before the Predetermined Future Arrives

“Your Highness, you must rise.”

“……”

“Your Highness.”

“……”

“Princess, Your Highness!”

Ah. Pamona startled and looked around.

“Your Highness, may I open the curtains?”

“Yes……”

A servant threw the curtains open and light came pouring in. Only then did the bedroom brighten. Pamona had a deep, visceral aversion to light entering her bedroom before she gave permission. Sleep was precious to her.

“Your Highness, the Crown Prince has invited you to luncheon.”

Luncheon……

She felt a pang of resentment toward her brother for waking her for a meal when he knew perfectly well she was struggling from lack of sleep. Pamona pressed her face into her pillow and answered.

“Tell him I will attend.”

“Yes, Your Highness.”

It was earlier than she usually rose, and her body refused to cooperate all the more for it. As she forced herself to stir little by little, Pamona noticed that the servants seemed oddly light on their feet, with a barely contained excitement about them.

She loathed being dressed up, so unless there was a special occasion like today’s invitation from Sionel, the servants had no reason to bring out the pretty dresses and jewels.

I just want to lie here…… Today’s rest is ruined.

They took her, a woman who did not ordinarily eat breakfast, through a long bath, kneading and loosening every part of her body, working out the accumulated puffiness, cinching and layering her into her clothes, dabbing and painting things here and there, hanging ornaments all over her, and putting her hair up and taking it down again, over and over.

In the end, her curls, which looked untidy no matter what they did, were smoothed out by running a gently heated iron plate through them until they lay calm and flat. By the time that was done, nearly the entire morning had passed and lunch was drawing near, and Pamona felt utterly deflated.

Please…… stop.

The words rose all the way to the tip of her tongue, but she talked herself down and endured, reminding herself that this was their work. Playing with her like a doll was their work. Playing the part of a pretty doll was hers. Was that not a relatively easy job? She had only to sit there without lifting a finger.

The constricting dress, the powdered face, not a single part of it felt like her own. It all sat on her like something borrowed.

“Let’s go.”

The servants and guards who always bowed and stayed behind to watch the castle whenever Pamona left followed after her today. Pamona lifted the hem of her dress and stepped into the small carriage used for moving about within the royal castle. The moment the door shut, a long breath broke free.

She would be lucky not to choke on her food dressed like this. Sionel would often call Pamona over for no particular reason and share a meal with her. Some days he would send word to stop by for a moment, and other days he used the word invitation.

Either way, it amounted to wanting to see her face, but when the word invitation was used, the other party was the Crown Prince, and the servants’ preparations became excessively grand.

I should forbid him from using the word invitation……

In the distance, the great main castle came into view, its walls covered in carved symbols of the kingdom of Masion. The castle tower standing beside it soared upward, tall enough to pierce the sun. It was Siyen Castle, where Sionel resided. The banners of Masion fluttered on all sides.

* * *

Reynard’s voice drifted faintly through the heavy door. Pamona, who had been following a servant toward the dining room, stopped walking for a moment.

Should I turn back?

Reynard was here too. She could not fathom how his voice managed to seep through walls that thick.

Even so, she cast her mind back, wondering whether today was some special occasion she had forgotten. It was not often that Sionel summoned both her and her younger brother Reynard to the same place. He knew well enough how Reynard tormented Pamona while she simply took it.

“Your Highness, the Princess has arrived.”

The announcement carried inside, and a bell rang once. The guards opened the door. Pamona composed herself before the open door and raised her eyes toward where Sionel and Reynard would be seated. But her gaze was immediately stolen by something other than her brothers.

“……”

Blue……

“Come in, Princess.”

Blue hair.

“……Ah.”

Blue, hair……?

“What’s wrong with her?”

It was the ghost she had seen the night before.

“Hey, are you smitten?”

Reynard’s blunt voice struck her ear. Only then did Pamona feel herself returning from the vast distance the world had receded to. Breath she had not even realized she had stopped drawing came back to her.

She also registered, belatedly, that they had risen from their seats to receive her. Sionel and the Crown Princess Everett occupied the head of the table, and Reynard turned slightly to look Pamona over with narrowed eyes.

Seeing familiar faces, she felt the stiffness at the back of her neck ease a little. She walked to the seat beside Reynard, where the servant guided her, moving with a creaking, halting gait, like something had gone wrong with her.

Pamona could not take her eyes off the blue-haired figure standing before her. The thing that had sent her sprinting breathlessly the night before had already grown exaggerated and inflated in her mind into something little different from a monster. But what stood before her eyes now……

“……”

The man met her gaze directly and lifted the corner of his mouth slightly.

“Let me make introductions. This is……”

“……”

Sionel opened his mouth and said something, but it reached her only as a faint, faraway noise.

Make introductions, he said. Right…… introductions……

“I……”

Pamona parted her lips, drawn toward the blue-haired man who was watching her quietly.

“The mistress of Masion, firstborn daughter of Basel III of House Masiode, Pamona Masiode. I am pleased to meet you……”

He was nothing like a monster or a ghost. Nothing like was not enough to say. So very…… what is all this……

She had no other words for it. Had she ever, in all her life, seen so perfect a creation? A work of the divine, shaped in harmony and sanctity at every point. In that sense, the impression she had gotten that he was not human was, in a way, not entirely wrong.

What Pamona had mistaken for a blue glow the night before was his fine, silken hair. It fell naturally across his forehead and brushed his cheeks, catching the light even indoors and shimmering softly. Outside, it would surely shine even more brilliantly.

She had never heard or seen that a person could have blue hair.

No matter how startled she was, to have called him a monster. A ghost. Something must have been seriously wrong with her eyes the night before. Words that unclean could never reach even his shadow. If anything, had he told her himself that he was a forest spirit, she would have believed him without question.

“It is a pleasure to meet you, Princess Masiode.”

Even his voice was sweet.

Ah, how can this be. This, how can this be? Is something not wrong? The world is somehow……

She felt her senses nearly leave her at the sight of his eyes, which carried the same shade of blue, and then he curved those eyes into a smile. Not a single thing about him was excessive or lacking.

No, it was more that everything the eye touched was so much that nothing seemed like too much. His clear, deep blue eyes, so vivid she felt she might see her own reflection if she drew just a little closer, were simply too wondrous to look away from.

So…… he is human?

“Terion Iligen of House Iligen, Ilion. Thank you for the invitation.”

Blue hair, blue eyes. He was the distinguished guest from Ilion.

* * *

Terion Iligen wore a pure white garment of a style she had never seen before. A long outer robe that covered him from neck to wrist and ankle wrapped his entire body completely.

It resembled a robe but fit closer to the body than one, and it had no hood. Along the front, buttons ran diagonally from the neck down to the shoulder, and that section caught the light and glittered, suggesting that small cut gems were set into them.

Just as Pamona could not take her eyes off Terion Iligen, Terion Iligen stared just as intently back at her. Every time she picked at the food on her plate and looked up, she met those gleaming blue eyes.

She wondered whether he had something he wanted to say, but she was just as guilty of letting her gaze drift there herself, so she had no real grounds for complaint. She only kept worrying whether she looked all right reflected in those eyes, and the food would not go down.

That’s why. That’s why the people of Ilion don’t mix with outsiders.

In the midst of it all, Pamona was arriving at a certain conviction.

Right. If your country has beauties like that, of course you’d hide them. Hide them away, tightly……

“I heard you were unwell yesterday.”

“Pardon? Yes.”

Only then did Pamona understand why this gathering had been arranged. The banquet held the previous day must have been in welcome of the distinguished guest from Ilion. Crown Prince Sionel had deliberately arranged this occasion to introduce the princess who had not attended.

Given Pamona’s position, her absence the day before had been a grave discourtesy to the guest. Had anyone bothered to tell her it was an important occasion, she would not have skipped it, but no one had gone to that trouble.

“Are you feeling better now, Princess?”

“Yes, I am. Thank you.”

Hearing Crown Princess Everett’s voice brought something to mind, and she was about to speak when Terion Iligen looked at Pamona and spoke in a gentle voice.

“You should dress more warmly. The nights are chilly.”

She was already layered in so many clothes she could barely breathe. She was suffocating, and here he was saying something completely out of nowhere……

Her mind went blank for a moment. Pamona lowered her head quickly, hoping the shock did not show on her face.

Could he be saying this because he recognized me as the person he encountered on the footbridge by the lake last night?

The thought that he might be made the memory of last night’s disgrace surface, and she felt her face threaten to flush hot at any moment.

I really…… ran with everything I had. Truly. I have never run that fast in my entire life.

—

T/N: LMFAO SIS GOT SO STARSTRUCK HER BRAIN COMPLETELY STOPPED WORKING