Chapter 71 (1/2)
Her Lips
“Oh~, welcome back~”
Guinevere was swamped with official doc.u.ments, but she received Ria in the office.
She had a tired expression, but her eyes were sparkling. She had been staying up every knight to fiddle with her golems, Ria also heard it from the court ladies.
“You have it tough huh.”
“No way. When doing your favorite thing, fatigue is something that gets tossed out the window.”
That might certainly be so.
Ria was something that trained her swordplay to the point of vomiting blood in her previous life. Then there were things such as maintaining law that tired her out.
“I want to talk with you for a bit…”
“Right, I also wanted to take a little break… shall we take a bath together?”
“Ah, sounds good.”
Although these two looked like this, they both had hobbies that resembled the other’s. Loving baths were one of them.
The two entered into a huge bathtub filled with hot water.
Sending away the court ladies, the two were the only ones in the room.
Although s.h.i.+zuna might feel danger to her body here, Guinevere knew that she wasn’t Ria’s preference.
Guinevere entered the bath with her hair wrapped in a towel, but Ria drifted in the tub as is.
“So, what did you want to talk about?”
“Carla.”
Ria spoke about Carla at Marda.s.s Fortress.
“I see, it does seem like something that girl would do.”
It didn’t seem to be anything new for Guinevere.
With her huge b.r.e.a.s.t.s floating in the hot water, she said a strong sentence.
“Do you desire her?”
Ria gulped.
Guinevere correctly guessed what Ria was thinking. Did she have on such a l.u.s.tful face?
“If you are serious, not conveying your feelings honestly is useless. Imprudent tactics are useless. However, if you seriously face her—”
With her finger, the queen held up some of Ria’s hair.
“That girl will respond.”
“I am a woman.”
It was a little late to say it, but Ria said it. Meanwhile, the queen simply laughed.
“So what?”
“You should understand too as the queen. Even at the best of times, women being together is looked at poorly, and she is a n.o.ble.”
With the queen silently urging her to continue, Ria spat out a dreary thought.
“She have an obligation to leave her bloodline. Am I wrong?”
Even if she’s called her wife, it would be necessary to part if another person came up. Ria always held this resolution.
“You’re wrong. You’re not wrong, but you’re wrong.”
The queen smiled mysteriously. Ria didn’t like the att.i.tude from this person that knew Carla the best.
“How am I wrong!?”
Ria unintentionally raised her voice.
She admitted it.
She envied this woman.
This was a woman that knew Carla much better than herself.
“To be that angry, you must really like her…”
She warded off Ria’s intimidation with a simple shrug of her shoulders. This was really rare.
However, the smile that followed that up was gentle, yet somewhat lonesome. Her next words caused Ria to become speechless.
“I’ll tell you… that child’s secret.”
The queen looked at Ria as though piercing through her. It was a forceful glance. If she looked away, she would surely be scorned.
“That girl… cannot bear a child.”
Ria wasn’t certain of what happened after that.
By the time she’d realized, she was in her bathrobe with her hair practically not dried at all, sitting on the bed in her room.
This was the first time that she’d been shocked to this extent about a person other than herself.
“She doesn’t menstruate. The doctors say it is something natural.”
Something like that was said, but it already didn’t matter.
Ria couldn’t become a man.
Carla couldn’t bear children.
It was painful.
Why was it painful? Her not being able to give birth to a child was accepted to be natural. However, what about Carla?
Even without a child, a person can live. She had her own resolution. She even had a previous life.
However, Carla’s case was different.
She, after knowing that she couldn’t have children, decided to live for people other than herself.
That decision was something that only Guinevere had known.
It was something that she could only tell her best friend. Ria herself hadn’t known.
It was something she probably didn’t want to talk about, though.
Those who held Dragon’s Bloodline, could they live in perpetuity? This was something that Ria didn’t know, however…
“Ria?”
There was a knock at the door. She knew who was at the other side of the door.
Therefore, she didn’t answer.
“I heard that you’d called for me…”
Naturally, Carla entered the room and placed the doc.u.ments in her hands on the desk. She walked up to Ria, who was still in her bathrobe.
“Your hair is still wet, isn’t it.”