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~Chapter 16~
For a moment, a look of puzzlement flashed across the prince’s face upon hearing her request. However, seeing Eugene waiting for an answer, he quickly nodded. Only then did Eugene feel relieved and closed her eyes again.
Because a few days later, she heard an answer that made her smile brightly.
Not long after, when Eugene, who had fallen asleep again, opened her eyes, she was in her own room, to which she had been moved at some point.
A few days after their previous meeting in the study.
Eugene was smiling so widely her mouth couldn’t stretch any further.
The sunlight pouring down from above was wonderfully warm, and the wind brushing past as she moved forward felt pleasantly cool.
From beneath her tightly gripping calves, a warm body temperature was transmitted.
Seeing the handsome dark-brown mane in front of her sway to the side, Eugene gently tugged the reins she held in both hands.
*Hee-hiiing!*
A disgruntled whinny echoed, coming from one who had failed to snatch the fruit treat hanging from a tree.
“Whoa, whoa. You can’t eat things from the garden, Tinker Bell.”
Eugene said with a voice full of laughter, patting Tinker Bell’s neck to soothe her. The name of this handsome dark-brown horse was still a keyword that made her laugh.
*Hmph.*
As Tinker Bell began clattering forward again, Eugene sat on her back, humming a tune and enjoying the elevated view.
The saddle on Tinker Bell was perfectly sized for her small frame, and the stirrups hanging on either side were adjusted precisely to her legs.
She owed getting such comfortable tack largely to her perceptive owner.
‘I’ll go there, then after eating, come back and take another lap.’
The reason she could freely ride Tinker Bell—a magnificent, large creature whose height, when standing straight with its neck extended, easily surpassed that of an adult—was because of Prince Michael’s permission.
Unlike other times when she roamed as she pleased, this time Eugene attributed the credit for this pleasant walk to Prince Michael.
Back in the study with Prince Michael last time, she had asked about Tinker Bell.
“That beautiful dark-brown horse in the stables. Can I ride it?”
Why did she ask permission for this after touching everything else in the palace without asking? Eugene had a clear standard for that.
Things in the palace were objects; horses in the stables were living beings!
Eugene was a cultured citizen who had properly learned to respect life.
Even before, when encountering a dog in the park, she would first check with the owner if it was okay to greet it, concealing her excited inner self that was screaming like a dolphin, before quietly sitting down and offering her hand—strictly adhering to pet manners.
‘When approaching someone else’s pet, always seek the owner’s permission first. Uphold pet manners.’
That was one of Eugene’s tenets regarding animal love, and accordingly, she had first sought permission from Prince Michael, Tinker Bell’s owner, to approach the horse.
Upon hearing Eugene’s description of an “extremely beautiful horse,” Prince Michael nodded, trying to recall if there was a dark-brown filly in the palace stables.
“It’s fine.”
The tone was cool and definitive, but the hand still gently stroking Eugene’s head felt somewhat incongruous. However, Eugene, drowsiness washing over her, didn’t pay much attention.
Before succumbing to the heavy eyelids, she made one more request.
“And the tack… I’ll use yours.”
To be precise, it was an announcement.
Eugene didn’t even consider how much her body had shrunk, vaguely thinking that a youth-sized set would probably fit her.
Even though Michael’s tack was tailored to his physique, closer to adult size.
And so, with that final remark tossed out, Eugene fell asleep.
“……”
Glancing down at Eugene’s short stature, Prince Michael quietly summoned his butler and instructed him to have a new set of tack custom-made for her.
As a result, Eugene could now enjoy her walks with Tinker Bell in great comfort. After spending a considerable amount of time with Tinker Bell, Eugene dismounted, satisfied.
She intended to ride Tinker Bell again after lunch, but perhaps she had overdone it in her excitement; her leg muscles ached, forcing her to postpone until the next day.
While strolling lazily around the palace to ease the stiff muscles, Eugene spotted a familiar net-like object in what appeared to be a storage room.
‘This is!’
A hammock! Excitedly grabbing the net, she found another piece of equipment next to it that thrilled her.
It was a simple structure—just a wooden plank with ropes tied to it, but…
‘A wooden swing!’
Eugene took both the hammock and the wooden swing and loaded them onto a cart in the corner.
This afternoon, I’ll swing a lot and then take a nap in the hammock, she thought.
Lost in pleasant imaginings and oblivious to the heavy ropes, Eugene happily pulled the cart towards the gazebo, which had now become her hideout.
There’s a large old tree next to the gazebo—perfect for setting these up! That’s what Eugene thought. But when she actually tried to install them herself, problems kept arising.
The trees were too thick to tie the hammock to, and the hammock ropes were too short.
Eventually, Eugene looked for a thinner tree to try again, but no matter how hard she tried to tie it, it just kept sliding down the trunk.
‘…Something’s weird.’
Maybe the hammock is broken.
‘Right. It was in the storage room. Maybe it was put there because something was wrong and it needed repair.’
Eugene turned her attention to the wooden swing.
This one seemed quite simple.
The old tree had a thick, horizontally extending branch that was just right for hanging a swing, and the height was just perfect for the swing to sway back and forth.
But holding the swing ropes in her hands and looking up at that “just right” height, she had no idea how to get the ropes up there.
Whether climbing a ladder or climbing the tree, it seemed she needed to secure them from up on that branch, not from down here.
Eugene couldn’t possibly secure the ropes while relying only on a ladder without handholds at that height, nor did she know how to climb a tree.
In the end, she returned to the palace in a sullen mood, leaving only traces of various attempts around the tree.
* * *
“…What is that?”
Upon returning from the main palace, Prince Michael, seeing not his puppy deeply asleep in her usual nap spot near the gazebo but all sorts of junk strewn about, asked.
“Ah! I think I understand. It seems she was trying to install these here,” one of the prince’s subordinates said, immediately deducing the process from the pitiful traces of failure. He had attempted the same in his own garden before.
“Hmm, but with this rope length, it would have been difficult anyway. To secure it firmly, you’d need to replace the rope with a proper one…”
Listening to his explanation, Prince Michael contemplated something in his mind during the brief walk to his office.
And as usual, the head butler waiting in the office, upon the prince’s immediate order upon entering, promptly rushed off to the carpentry workshop where the craftsmen were.
* * *
The day after Eugene’s modest garden romance was shattered, leaving her with only sore muscles.
Eugene clutched her stiff shoulders and arms aching from tying knots too tightly, languishing in bed for quite a while.
Finally, after staying in her room without moving until the next day, when the muscle soreness had subsided a bit, she dragged her now-stiff-from-inactivity body out to the garden.
Following the now-familiar path habitually towards the gazebo, her eyes widened at the changed scenery.
“Huh?”
There, her garden romance, which had been shattered so pointlessly, was spread out before her, upgraded beyond her imagination.
First, on the now-familiar old tree, a long, beautifully white-painted chair hung from the thick branch like a swing.
Eugene approached and looked at the swing, letting out a gasp of admiration.
“Wow…”
For something made in a day, the white chair had considerable craftsmanship.
It was adorned with beautiful vine patterns on all sides, elegant enough not to look out of place in any room of the palace. The seating area was padded with a soft cushion, presumably in case the user might bump their bottom.
The swing ropes were golden strands imitating straw. Ropes that seemed woven from golden thread firmly fixed the chair to the tree.
And next to it, near the gazebo, was a new installation she hadn’t seen before.
Not between the two trees at that awkward, shade-less distance where she had tried to set up the hammock, but under the shade of a tree that completely blocked the scorching sun, a hammock was fixed on a white wooden frame made of logs.
“Ohh!!”
Eugene immediately ran and jumped into the new hammock.
As soon as she lay down, something soft felt good—like straw in a bird’s nest, a fluffy feather-stuffed quilt was spread inside the hammock.
Even more delighted, Eugene wriggled this way and that on the quilt, finding a comfortable position.
After enjoying the hammock’s softness for a while, rocking it by shifting her body sideways, Eugene, having sufficiently savored the hammock, poked her head back out.
“Wow. Nice touch.”
Right in front, where she didn’t even need to get out of the hammock, was a previously unseen table. On it, a basket was filled to the brim with snacks and fruits she liked.
And around the hammock, as if anticipating a fall, cushions were scattered everywhere underneath, covering the ground so thoroughly the grass below was barely visible.
