Swanhaden was both cunning and extremely powerful. In the novel, Swan's entire character was built upon cruelty upon cruelty. He didn't think twice about chopping off others' limbs if he was in a bad mood. He was that kind of crazy bastard.
Swan, who had barely attended school, had a hobby of walking around battlefields and murdering others. He was a psychopath who enjoyed causing pain.
He had an intrinsic need to pull others around on a string, and Hestia was also pulled around by him often in the novel.
Hylli was obsessive and Yves did everything in his power to grab Hestia's attention, and Cory basically neglected her. And Swan… Swan was the one that made the story a tragedy.
I peeked at both Swanhaden and Hylli.
As soon as I glanced at Swanhaden, he turned his head to look the other way. Hylli continued to stare at his mother, who was laid upon the bed.
I just wanted all of them to grow up without getting hurt. I couldn't help but sigh.
I had just glanced at the window, but I couldn't help but keep looking at the view outside of it.
Out the window was an endless field of flowers. I thought it was incredibly romantic and headed out of the room to the flower field.
I plucked a bunch of different flowers to make a flower crown.
Hylli watched as I made a flower crown and began to follow suit. He told me that Caradil really like flowers as he made a crown of mostly yellow flowers.
Swan crouched next to the two of us and took an orange flower to pluck its petals for an attempt at flower reading but soon threw the flower down angrily.
Hylli's mother soon woke up.
We greeted the newly awoken Caradil with flower crowns and flowers. Swan, who hadn't made a crown of his own, just gave her a single flower.
Caradil looked surprised when she saw Swan and I for the first time, but soon began to cry silently as she found Hylli.
"Give me food, not flowers...."
Hylli's mother quietly said as she hugged Hylli preciously.
Hylli looked at Caradil who demanded food as soon as she woke up with a quiet, "She's back." with a smile as he spoke to her.
The flowers are edible.
The curse wasn't completely lifted, but Caradil recognized Hylli without an issue now that she was back.
She remembered all of the memories she had with him, and she had none of the anger and sharpness that she had when we first saw her. She sometimes just looked tired as her body deteriorated and didn't move the way she wanted to.
Caradil was a surprisingly funny and tough person. She didn't seem to have a speck of darkness within her.
Caradil seemed to like me a lot. I couldn't help but keep thinking of her weakening body and visited her almost every day after school.
I sometimes visited her without Hylli knowing.
"Puhahat! Oh my god, I'm going to go insane. Hahaha!"
Caradil held onto her stomach as she rolled in laughter. She had been laughing for the past few minutes while looking through Hylli's shameful past.
I wanted to show Caradil how Hylli was within the academy. She watched the videos and looked at the pictures with a soft smile on her face and then burst into loud laughter when Hylli did something stupid.
["I have never felt emotions such as these. Ah, my heart cannot resist. When I see her next, I promise to make her laugh instead of weep!"]
This was a recording from Hylli's first year of junior school.
Also, this wasn't something that I had turned on. Caradil had been looking through Hylli's shameful past and had found it.
"Puhahaha!"
Caradil rolled around in laughter as she heard Hylli's cringeworthy comment. I wanted to tell her to be careful as she was already ill, but I was also hunched over in laughter.
"I read a lot of romance novels to Hylli as his bedtime story. He always said he hated it, but he must've influenced by it after all."
And that was, apparently, where Hylli's middle school curse had stemmed from. She was the cause of it.
She then turned on another recording.
["I wonder why she was crying alone in such a place. What hurt her so, for her to have such a fragile expression…."]
"…..What! What're you doing?!"
Hylli and Swan entered the room a bit later. They each held a handful of some of her favorite foods.
Swanhaden had also heard the recording. He looked at Hylli and muttered, "Wow, that's embarrassing."
Hylli's face turned a deep red as he ran towards the two of us. He tried to take the baby album I had made for Cardil out of her hands.
"Hand it over!"
"Hmm hmm, I wonder what this iiiiiis? Son, you said that romance novels were embarrassing and shameful but….hmmmm? Hmmmmmmmm?"
"Eugh."
Caradil turned her back and looked at Hylli upside down as she wiggled her eyebrows. She looked so cheeky just then. Hylli scowled for a moment, then stared at Caradil who was having so much fun watching his embarrassing past. It looked like he gave up.
Hylli, with an expression that looked like he was ready to pass on, looked through the album to show Caradil his most embarrassing moments. He looked like he had given up on his pride. His eyes were empty.
Swanhaden visited Caradil almost every day because of the curse. I found that surprising.
The curse had been in her body for a few years, and she was soon going to pass. Swan visited her every day to ensure that she wouldn't be in any pain.
"You're surprisingly super helpful."
"I can't just look away from someone in pain."
I just stared at him as he said such a bold-faced lie without a hitch. He began speaking the truth after a moment.
"After learning that Caradil had lost her memories I couldn't help but feel bad for Hylli."
I felt surprised at hearing that Swan sympathized with Hylli. He looked honest. My dreams had been becoming more and more common, so I found myself surprised at times that he was real. Moments like these made me feel like he was a real person and not a character in a tragic novel.
Caradil didn't have much time left, and we were all silently aware of this. Hylli tried to be positive and focused on the fact that she didn't have any more nightmares, but he was still miserable about it.
I had been a bit late to the scene, but I liked her so much that I didn't want to let her go so easily. I researched day and night to see what I could do to help her live, but there was just so little information out there regarding black magic that I couldn't do anything. Swan tried to help but nothing worked.
Caradil was also a magician, so she immediately figured out that I modified magic circles to use them however I wanted.
She asked me if I could make a magic circle to summon food. So I drew her a food-related circle.
When she focused her magic into the circle and thought of something she wanted to eat, the circle would seek out the food from within the empire and would appear in front of her. She liked me even more after that.
"Also, Shushu. What do you think of our Hylli? He's handsome, has money, and is nice. He's also a prince. He's the perfect husband, don't you think?"
Caradil constantly pushed Hylli onto me. I grabbed her shoulder to get her interest.
When I slowly shook my head sideways, Caradil slowly nodded.
Shake. Nod. Shake. Nod.
This went on for a while. Hylli, who had been doing Caradil's laundry, stared at the two of with a suspicious look.
After a few weeks, Caradil's lower body became paralyzed.
Hylli was skipping school to stay with Caradil.
I erased all the information related to Hylli that was being passed on to the royal family. Just so that he didn't have to worry about the empress as he spent time with Caradil.
Swan and I got permission to head outside immediately after school to visit her.
Whenever we visited, Caradil always welcomed us with a "Aww, my babies." as she waved us in. She called herself a middle-aged woman and talked about how she'd never get to hang out with such young, hip people and always welcomed us.
Just as Hylli said, Caradil loved flowers as much as she loved food.
The flower field outside, apparently, was an exact replica of the field in her home town.
Caradil gave Hylli a chore to send him outside. She asked me to help her to where the flower field was. I carried her in a piggy-back and put her down on the plushest area of the flower field.
I ended up being alone with her.
I plucked a few flowers to make Caradil a flower ring.
She seemed delighted as she looked at the ring and hugged me tightly.
"Thank you for being Hylli's friend, Shuraina."
Her eyes were filled with gratefulness towards me as she spoke.
She also talked about Swanhaden. She said that she was happy that such a trustworthy boy like Swanhaden was Hylli's friend. It seemed like Caradil thought that Swan and Hylli were super close, but I didn't point anything out.
They were…close, kind of, right? Yeah. Even though Hylli was basically receiving the brunt of it.
"You already know, but I'm going to die soon."
I couldn't say anything as Caradil spoke about her death in a candid, assured voice. It was true that she was dying. Her entire body was slowly becoming paralyzed, and she was losing strength.
"It's too obvious if I ask for you to take care of Hylli, so I'm just going to ask for you to play and hang out with Hylli often."
I wondered what she was going to tell me after sending Hylli away, but she was asking me to stay by Hylli, who would be left alone.
"Go eat delicious food with him, and go to exciting new places and play around more often. I want you to make him so busy that he doesn't even notice that I'm gone."
She laid down on the flower bed and stared intently at a single flower in her hand.
She didn't look like someone who would die soon. When she and I looked at each other, she smiled. She looked comfortable, as if she wasn't afraid of dying at all. She looked like she was content.
"…..you're very calm about all this."
We hadn't known each other often, but my heart hurt when I thought that she would die soon. When I frowned, she looked at me and smiled softly.
"Well. Yes. Honestly, I don't have many attachments about living. I only thought about dying after giving birth to Hylli."
She twirled the flower in her hand and spoke candidly.
Right after she said that, she looked left and right to check if Hylli was still gone. After checking that Hylli was still nowhere to be seen, Caradil continued speaking.
"To be honest, I'm so, so happy that I was cursed instead of Hylli and that I could die."
"….."
"It kind of feels like I'm repenting for my sins. At first, I despised Hylli even though he didn't do anything to me."
She checked our surroundings once again. It looked like Caradil didn't want Hylli to know that she had hated him once.
Caradil doesn't remember how she was when she had lost her mind. Hylli already knew how she had felt when she held him in her stomach. That fact hurt the most.
After once again checking that Hylli wasn't around her, Caradil continued speaking.