I Became the Black Swan Mother of the White Swan Princess

While mumbling in dissatisfaction, Rashid gave his discarded shirt over to Tenon. In truth, this wasn’t the kind of thing an Imperial Prince should be doing, but Rashid’s personality did not permit him to trust other people. It would be different if they were in the Imperial Palace—but here, the only people he could trust to wait on him now were his brothers.

“Now leave.”

“Please give me all the other garments too. I will tell them to remove them all at the same time.”

Before his elder brother’s mood soured, Tenon extended his hand in order to take the rest of his garments.

If the Emperor’s outfit, out of everyone’s, was dirtied, then there was no way that he would wear it for a second time.

Only after he had received the pair of pants along with the shirt did he begin to leave, but something still remained in Rashid’s hand.

“…..”

A red ribbon. No, a ribbon that was probably red before.

Though the Emperor had steadily handed over everything else, he spent a long time especially staring at this one string that was wrapped around his fingers. It was beyond just a slight, passing gaze.

As if he was met with the Emperor of an enemy nation, he showed a complicated yet strong obsession towards it. Only after he became aware of his brothers’ eyes did he stop.

“Take this as well.”

“Yes, sir. Though I wonder what it is.”

Peyton received the ribbon from Rashid’s hand and titled his head. He found this red industrial ribbon, seemingly worthless even at a second glance, unfamiliar.

“Then please rest. I will take these and instruct them to do away with…”

“No.”

After Rashid had stripped off his last garments, he slowly brought a hand up to the back of his neck.

The place where a certain person’s hands had touched.

His entire form stiffened, Rashid’s body twisted a bit sideways and looked back.

“Bring that back to me.”

***

[Madam, what do we do. I can’t find the princess’s ribbon anywhere.]

“Really? It should be here somewhere.”

I stopped drying Haniel’s chin and looked towards Selene. She had been poking around for a while now, and it appeared that she’d been looking for the ribbon.

“If you can’t find it, oh well. Leave it.”

[But it was the only ribbon we had. We cut it off from where it was attached to the skirt that time, so we don’t have any more red ones.]

“It’s fine if we don’t have the ribbon. And is that the problem right now?”

Even though our Haniel just came back from the dead!

I spread out my towel and brushed off Haniel’s body with it, tapping.

Actually, since even the towel was black, I did lament the lost red ribbon.

It was the same when we searched the wardrobe. If I wanted to get some red cloth, I would have to go to the town, but even that was out of question now.

“Pheww. We’re doomed.”

[But really, what happened? Were you caught by Lady Lania while you were running away?]

“Just… It just happened that way.”

[That doesn’t make sense. That you came back alive even though you were caught by Lady Lania.]

“….About that.”

That was because I wasn’t caught by Lania, I was caught by the Emperor. That’s how I came back alive.

It was the truth, not a lie, but it seemed more like a lie than the truth.

Anyhow, both my mind and body were hitting bottom in exhaustion too much to be sitting the duck down and explaining all of that.

Haniel and I both shared the experience of surviving after sinking into the lake, but the difference lay in our schedules after that.

As soon as we entered the house, putting on the fire, boiling up water, working milk powder in and making soup.

All those things were what I, the human, had to do. Up until now, I’d regarded it as being obvious, but on days like this it was certainly burdensome.

“Achoo!”

Plus, the more I was contracting a cold, the more my nose was clogging. I still had so much I need to do—what should I do? No matter how I thought about it, with this stamina….

[Uwa, uwaaaaah.]