Guardians of the Prince

Suddenly, we heard a voice.

“Here you are!”

It was Mr Lahzt in his white clothes, running over to us. He was pretty fast for an indoor type. Well, maybe it was because his legs were so long?

What really surprised me was that Mr Lahzt had his left sleeve rolled up. I’d seen it yesterday, but there was a small ring of characters wrapped around his arm, just like there was on my left arm. Mine were only on my wrist, but Mr Lahzt’s went right up to his elbow, with the letters packed in and coiled around him in multiple layers.

He thrust that left arm out at me, touched a spot with the fingers of his right hand, and the line of coiled characters where he’d touched uncoiled and glowed blue, and formed a circle about thirty centimeters in diameter, centered on my wrist.

Woah, was this some kind of summoning circle? I don’t even know how to describe it, it made a sort of mosquito coil shape, forming lines made out of glowing letters, and they were coiling around my arm in big circles. Then he did his thing again, and they uncoiled from my arm in exactly the same way and returned to their circle.

Mr Lahzt touched the characters with his right-hand pointer finger again from within the summoning circle, jumping from character to character.

The glowing letters broke off from their lines and flew straight towards me!

I screamed and shut my eyes reflexively.

Silence.

I opened my eyes, looked across at the two men, looked down at my body. Nothing had happened.

Mr Lahzt clicked his tongue and almost growled. “I knew it, ‘Mami’ isn’t your real name, is it.”

“What?”

What gave me away? But before I had a chance to ask, a voice I didn’t recognize called out.

“Oo! How you doing, kid?”

A man with sparkling sky-blue eyes set into a masculine, almost flat face with a five o’ clock shadow and a chestnut-brown fauxhawk came running just about as fast as Mr Lahzt had before him. He wore a black suit jacket that had a bit of sheen to it, and a buttondown in the same color as his eyes with the top three or four buttons undone to reveal his bare chest, where I could see a thin gold chain dangling.

This playboy suddenly picked up the prince.

“Wow you got big!” he said, tossing the prince higher and higher. “I’m your uncle, you know, do you recognize me?” The prince froze, and his eyes flew open.

Meanwhile, Mr Kahzam gently pushed me into the shadow of one of the stable’s pillars and then stood in front of me. I could feel the heat from Mr Kahzam’s broad shoulders on my face, and my heart instantly started beating faster.

Mr Lahzt, on the other hand, separated himself from me entirely, and spoke to the man who’d just appeared.

“My Lord Fatido… I’m not sure anyone’s heard you’re his uncle, or indeed anything else…”

The playboy turned to Mr Lahzt, and put the prince down.

“That’s true, sorry sorry!”

So this was the second queen’s younger brother Fatido, huh? I observed him surreptitiously from Mr Kahzam’s shadow. They’d said he was a company president, but he looked quite young, maybe in his late thirties. He had a sultry, adult sex appeal to him.

Just as I was thinking that, Mr Kahzam changed positions a little, and I couldn’t see Mr Fatido anymore. That’s true, I am supposed to be hiding. But why did we have to hide me anyway?

“You got here quite quickly. Why don’t we talk inside,” Mr Lahzt said, nonchalantly trying to guide Mr Fatido into the building.

But the one thing that can always bring an adult’s best laid plans to ruin at a moment’s notice is a child.

“Maa-tan.”

The prince was a little surprised at the sudden appearance of someone he didn’t know, and so he came over to hug me as I lurked behind Mr Kahzam, thus revealing my presence to Mr Fatido quite plainly.

Mr Fatido stopped moving, his mouth hanging open a bit, and his gaze meeting mine as I took hold of the prince.

Since our eyes had met, I had to give some kind of greeting. I took a step to one side, out from behind Mr Kahzam, and nodded at him.

“Pleased to– meet you. Good afternoon. I’m Mami.”

I sounded like a bad translation from a foreign language.

Mr Fatido muttered to Mr Lahzt without taking his eyes off me. “Lahzt. This woman… This is the one you said came from the other world? The one who was going by my nephew’s nurse?”

Uh. What? Something felt weird.

“You didn’t tell me she was… I mean the way you said it, I thought she was some kind of old maid…”

Wait wait, what?

More quickly than I could pull away, his big hand stretched out to me and grabbed my right arm.

“I am Fatido Askas, Lady Mami. I am this child’s uncle, on his mother’s side.”

His clear blue eyes looked at me with heat behind them. “Ah, my apologies, this is no place for a conversation. Shall we retire inside? After you, please.”

He put his arm around my waist like it was the most natural thing to do, and although he was gentle about it, he pressed me forward with some firmness, so I just kinda went along with him. Having an adult man’s hand touching me, memories of my broken heart instantly stole across my mind.

When I looked up at him reflexively, his eyes met mine with an enchanted look on his face, and I quickly looked back down. Oof… This was going to be trouble.

Without thinking, I looked behind me to make sure Mr Kahzam was still there.

I sat on the sofa in the hearth room, and Mr Fatido sat himself down too, after he’d offered me a seat. He wasn’t right next to me, but he was across from me at a close enough distance that his hand could reach. Mr Fatido never took his eyes from me. I couldn’t calm down.

“Oh, I’ll pour us some tea.”

I stood up in a hurry and scuttled over to the temporary safe harbor of the kitchen.

I was sighing and heating the water when Mr Kahzam entered. He took a glass bottle of the tea leaves from the cabinet, and glanced at me, concerned.

“Are you alright, Mami? Lord Fatido is… I’m not sure how to say it, he’s a person who has trouble restraining himself around women.”

Ah. A womanizer, I think is what you might call that. Mr Kahzam was so polite.

“He is absolutely sincere with everyone, but that alone has been the cause of much misery for his partners…”

So in short, you fall head over heels, get in a quarrel, and it all ends in a stalemate.

Immediately after, Mr Lahzt came in too, saying, “I made him look after prince.” He took a mug from the cabinet and spoke in a low voice. “This is why I didn’t want you to meet.”

Three adults in a narrow galley kitchen, whispering amongst themselves as they make tea. I don’t know if I should say it felt intimate, but the sense of solidarity certainly was strong.

“I was thinking I’d turn you into an anpy and hide you that way, since you were in the stables already, but… If I don’t have your real name, I can’t use my arts to transform you. The Shin of your name is part of the art. It’ll be the same if I ever need to help you recover from an illness or an injury.”

Mr Lahzt fired out his words like fireworks. His tone was kind of ragged. Yikes. “So tell me. What’s your real name?”

“It’s Koume.”

“What is it?”

“Koume. It’s Hino Koume.”

I finally said it.

Both of them muttered my name, like they were trying to make sure of it.

""

“Kome?”

“Kome…”

Um. I know it’s a lot to hope for, but could you please at least stretch it out. Ko-u-me. Please?

“Kohme, huh. What’s it mean?” 1

Mr Lahzt corrected his pronunciation. He was a bit awkward at it, and it was kind of cute.

“The ‘ko’ part means something small or cute. ‘Ume’ is the name of a type of plant in my world.”

Mr Lahzt moaned. “I can’t use that.”

“Excuse me?”

“I don’t know anything about this ume plant, I can’t make a proper Shin for it. You’ll have to tell me more about it later. For the moment, at any rate, I can’t put the name Kohme into any of my arts.”

I shuddered. “Please, you have to help me, even without your arts. There’s nothing for it, this is just how I am. I know it’s bad, but if someone else takes the initiative, I’ll go along with it, and I end up getting spun around until I’m totally stuck!” I pleaded, tears in my eyes.

Now, NOW, Mr Lahzt wants to tell me he can’t use my name, my own name! And I’d always thought it suited me!

“Calm down, Mami. Or, no, Kohme. Your words are…”

Mr Kahzam tried to sooth me. Oh, I’d gotten so shaken I guess I’d started speaking in Japanese.

“I don’t know your exact age, but you’re an adult woman, you’ll figure it out somehow.”

I know it was Mr Lahzt, but jeez that was blunt… And his eyes were laughing! He had a bit of a sarcastic tongue on him, didn’t he!

I heaved a huge sigh, my cup still on the tray, and looked off into the distance.

“An adult, huh… What does that even mean.”

And then, I left the kitchen, with the two of them exchanging glances in the corner of my eye. Devil take ’em both!

With Mr Fatido here, we talked about me and the prince, and what the future might look like… Or so I’d like to say. That definitely is how the conversation started, at least.

“Have you decided on the child’s foster parents yet, Lord Fatido?” Mr Lahzt asked. That’s right, Lady Solamire was supposed to take over as his adopted mother under the pretext that he was actually someone else’s son.

“Yeah. Haluria’s… Ah, sorry, that’s his older sister,” Mr Fatido said, interjecting an explanation for me before continuing. “We decided to ask Princess Haluria’s nurse Tellner, so I’m talking to Solamire about how to ask Tellner’s relations to play the role of his parents. Although…”

Mr Fatido, still looking at me, nodded once. “At the moment, I’m having a bit of an idea. I’d like to think it over, so if you wouldn’t mind holding tight for a bit?”

“Alright…”

Conversation on foster parents, closed.

Already? What thoughts could he have been having, looking at me? I had a bad feeling about the whole thing.

Well, now we can devote ourselves to my future.

“You’ve put in a lot of work for my nephew, I appreciate it very much. As a show of my gratitude, I’d like to assure that you maintain your lifestyle here in this world. If you don’t mind, and I know it’s a bit fast, but how about staying at my home? It’s quite the luxurious place, I’ll have you know.”

And so on.

“I’d like to offer to show you around the kingdom some time. We’ll take a nice, slow tour.”

And so forth.

Um, excuse me? This isn’t about my future, this is just you mapping out the rest of my life?

At any rate, I pressed right on through. “I’ve only just learned what’s going on, and it’s still all a bit chaotic, so that’s not something I can really think about right now.” But it was anyone’s guess whether Mr Fatido was really listening or not.

He hardly ever took his eyes off my face, so I eventually asked, “Is there something stuck to my face?”

It was a bit of an old cliche, but it got the “Don’t Stare at Me” feeling across.

His answer was full-on Romantic Poet.

“It’s the first time I’ve met anyone with black eyes. I didn’t know anything so dark could be so clear. I could look into them forever.”

Woah there. As I looked away, Mr Fatido’s left hand entered my field of vision.

He had a ring on his ring finger too… Was it possible every adult in this world wore a ring on that finger?

While I was escaping for a bit, Mr Fatido’s beautiful rough tones continued. “When I asked my sister about you, she only told me you were someone who seemed familiar with caring for children. Of course, someone like you… My sister and Lahzt both were trying to hide you, I expect.”

The prince started crying at that moment, so Mr Lahzt made excuses for me. “There’s a small child present, and she’s still getting settled, so why don’t we end it here for today.” So we decided to wind things up.

Thank you little prince, you saved me!

With a surprisingly easy, “Why don’t we,” Mr Fatido got to his feet. “I know I can come on a bit strong. Women do tend to run away, and here I am still on my own,” he said, making his bachelor’s appeal. “Well, but I’ve learned from my past. Let’s take our time and get to know each other slowly,” he said with a smile. Sure. As friends.

Clutching the prince, I saw Mr Fatido out into the high-ceilinged entry hall. What with everything that had happened, I let my guard down for a second, and suddenly, his face was right up close to mine.

He kissed my cheek, like it was a perfectly natural thing to do. His hot breath stuck by my ear for a second, and he bid me his farewell. “Until we meet again…”

He looked reluctant to leave. The open double doors were closed behind him.

There was a mechanical whine out front that eventually faded into the distance. He must have one of those electric cars.

“He still has work, he probably won’t be back for a couple of days. Learned from his past indeed,” Mr Lahzt said, slunking away, exhausted.

I stood rooted to the spot, even as Mr Kahzam gently patted my shoulder.

A kiss? I’m from Japan!

Mr Kahzam started making dinner, so I stood beside him and helped with this meal too. The menu consisted of meat that had been cut into big chunks and leaves that were a bit sweet, sort of like cabbage, roasted together with spices, and then served with steamed potatoes.

Mr Kahzam’s cooking was quite delicious, but it had a kind of outdoorsman feel to it. I’d have to look around for some ingredients and make something a little more Japanese, I wanted to give the three of them a taste of my country’s cuisine.

As we gathered in the hearth room and had dinner, I explained my name to Mr Kahzam and Mr Lahzt.

“The ume part of Koume is the name of a tree. It has beautiful flowers that stay hearty even in the cold, and I was born in the winter, so that’s why I was given this name. They’re good omens, some people use them as good luck charms around the house. And there are flower-viewing events called umemi, where people have picnics and look at the blossoms. They bear fruit too, called plums, and they’re extremely good for your health. They’re especially good pickled, and the dried ones are the sort of thing people have every day in my country.”

I was very assertive. It was a bit of an exaggeration maybe, but I didn’t want to hear “I can’t use that” again.

The truth was, I don’t think either of my parents thought particularly hard about it before they gave me this name. My mother told me once that when she was in her second trimester, she had a lot of morning sickness, and a kind of hard candy that she really liked (a certain brand’s long-time best-selling product) helped her get through it, and so she put the name of the candy into her daughter’s name.

But that was just a bit embarrassing, so I didn’t mention that part.

I drew them pictures of plum blossoms, and explained the fruit as best I could, but neither Mr Lahzt nor Mr Kahzam really seemed to get it. Maybe this plant really didn’t exist in this world.

“I’ll try looking into it. But… If I don’t find any corresponding plant, that might be a real problem,” Mr Lahzt muttered, falling into thought. His expression was surprisingly severe.

Didn’t he say he wouldn’t be able to use his arts on me without a Shin of my name? If I got sick or injured and he couldn’t use his recovery skills, that would indeed be a problem.

But there was still the Shu-ii, that water globe… Couldn’t I just recuperate in there again if I lost consciousness? It would be okay, right, if I got really sick, or really hurt, even if he couldn’t use his Shiino?

That night, I had a dream.

It was about the day I’d wandered into this world, the day of Koaya’s wedding ceremony.

I was in the reception hall, standing in front of the mic stand. The spotlight hit me, and it was so bright I couldn’t see the other people in the hall very well.

Then I remembered, I was the older sister of the new bride, wasn’t I supposed to give a speech?

I don’t think it’s the standard thing to do, but we sisters lost our mother at a pretty young age, and since I was acting mom instead, the wedding coordinator had suggested a word from me.

“I know you’re all busy, thank you for taking the time to gather here today for my sister and her husband.”

I started my speech, looking at a piece of paper in my hand. I was supposed to be reading from it, but the paper was completely blank.

What am I going to do, what am I supposed to say now? I’d worked hard to write all that down, and now…

“Ummm… I’d intended to raise my sisters in my mother’s place, but the truth is really, I think she’s the one, you know, who’s saved me plenty of times.”

Yeah yeah. That’s it. Like when this overbearing coworker at my part time job wouldn’t leave me alone, Koaya was the one who stepped in and told him off.

“She’s become so reliable, but… Even more than that…”

Even more than that, what? “Be your husband’s helpmate” … “Husband and wife should help each other” … I’d had some kind of saying queued up for this point.

“Koaya– you should– help Nanao.”

My mouth moved on its own, and words just spilled out. What was I asking of a new bride?

Suddenly I realized I could see the other guests. Koaya and Nanao were seated at a single round table, in their usual street clothes.

Then I realized the paper I had in my hand that was supposed to have my speech on it had been put in an envelope. It gently floated up into the air and wafted over toward Koaya and Nanao. Koaya stretched out her hand and took it.

She and Nanao both took the letter out of the envelope and peered at it together… Were the two of them laughing at something? I was being serious when I wrote that!

Listen, Koaya, Nanao–

“Listen, I said…”

I awoke to the sound of my own voice.

I was, of course, on the bed in the guest room in Mr Lahzt’s villa. It was starting to get bright beyond the curtains, and I could hear some tiny birds.

I wiped the tears from my eyes. I mean what… I think that was the first time I’d really wept since I’d woken up in that fairy tale basin.

Well, I understood. It might be quite hard indeed to ever see Koaya and Nanao again.

When I thought of making my precious little sisters sad, my chest started to hurt. If only I could send them a message, like in that dream. If I could at least make them laugh.

I looked over at the innocent, sleeping face of the price beside me, and tears started spilling out of me again.

Footnotes

Nobody ever really does seem to learn to say her name correctly. In the original, all the Gaduelyonese people say it in katakana, コーメ, so i’ve rendered that as Kohme.