50 The Funeral XI (1/2)
The Lady meant well. Hilde knew this was not an attack, but that was exactly what made the implied meaning hurt so much more. Even Yong Fan Shu's acting skills weren't enough to get her to keep smiling through it. Instead, she allowed sadness to show through.
Any other expression, particularly hard blankness, would have come off as unnatural – this was still in line with her tactic of displaying the appropriate reaction to what was currently taking place. It just so happened that this time around, the emotion did not need to be manufactured. It didn't need to hide anything else behind it.
”Lothar died so I could stop going down the wrong path?” Hilde said, making an effort to keep judgment from seeping into her tone. ”I would have to be exceptionally self-centered to be able to see it that way, Aunt.” Seeing Lady Ilse wince, she attempted to sound more lighthearted as she continued, ”After I hit my head, I'm afraid my sense of self got knocked right out of the center.”
She added privately, 'And that's not even a lie.'
”I'm…” Hilde tried to go on, not even really knowing what else she had to say on the matter.
When she found herself unable to come up with anything, it then occurred to her: 'I'm tired…' Of its own accord, her head bowed. 'Not just my body… everything. I'm tired.'
Why did she have to be dealing with so much else? Lothar was gone – that should have been all that was consuming her right now.
The Lady cleared her throat. ”Well,” she said, trying to sound brisk. ”I must say, Princess, I find this off-centered self of yours… really promising. That was all I meant – there's so much more you could be, there's no need to limit yourself to a single option.”
Hilde did not raise her slightly bent head, but she lifted her eyes and smiled a little. ”Thank you, Lady. I'll keep that in mind.”
She flicked her gaze to the Queen to see what she made of this only to find she'd stopped paying attention. Shifting in her seat to signal she also didn't wish to continue conversing with anyone, Hilde sighed.
What her aunt didn't understand was that she wasn't ”limiting” herself. Other than the one she'd been on, there was truly no other path she wanted to take. Lord Alfwin had known this, and that was why he was doing a much better job of manipulating her.
On the other hand, if Hilde were to assume that the Queen believed what she said earlier – that the Lord General didn't really want Hilde under his thumb, or that others would not work to turn ”false expectations” into reality – that would mean the Queen truly was an impossibly deluded fool.
Had she really taken it for granted that the whole Queendom would eventually fall in line with what she wanted, simply because she believed her way was the right way? Did she really think they only needed to be corrected once, or be given enough time to see the light, and all her problems would go away?
If this was the case, the Queen was taking matters too lightly. Dangerously so. It seemed she even fully believed that Hilde was choosing her side over these would-be detractors'. By lashing out at her younger sister any chance she gets, the Queen risked driving away the pawn she thought she had in hand. Perhaps she believed the pawn possessed no will to leave – that she would take and take and take the abuse and never think she deserved anything better than that kind of treatment.
But no matter the reason, a proper player would simply not put personal feelings first when so much else was at stake. Whatever else Queen Heloise was, she had always been capable at what she did. Hilde had trouble believing that the Queen's seeming incompetence at the moment was not an act.
She shifted again. At this point, she just wanted to shut off her mind. She wished there was also a way to stop the voice inside her own head from going on and on.