The First Dress
It must have been a few months before her sixteenth birthday. Anxious at the thought of soon becoming an adult, she pestered him more than usual, begging him to choose clothes or accessories for her. It was a pitiful attempt to draw his attention.
Even Barcas, who would normally have ignored such demands, seemed worn down by her persistence and offered his opinions compliantly. Perhaps he had grown lenient at the thought that he could soon be free of her. That made her want to kill him. Yet she felt so desperate that she would do anything to keep him by her side—because the end that had seemed as though it would never come was finally approaching.
“This one—how about this dress for the coming-of-age ceremony?”
She had put on a splendid silk dress brought from the south and thrust her upper body forward in front of him, as if to show off. Barcas merely cast his usual dry gaze at her. Her face grew hotter under that calm stare.
He was now moving from nineteen toward twenty, and his body, having just shed its boyish form, was firmly muscled and beginning to exude masculine charm. If not for those emotionless eyes like a dead man’s, he would have looked like an angel descended from heaven.
To hide her foolishly trembling heart, Thalia deliberately raised her voice. “What do you think? I asked!”
“……It looks like a child wearing stolen adult clothes.”
At last his tightly sealed lips parted. She raised her eyebrows. The man added another remark as if annoyed. “It doesn’t suit you at all.”
She glared at him, her face flushed red. But since she had been the one to ask for his opinion, she couldn’t very well argue. Shooting him a venomous glare, Thalia stomped her feet and retreated behind the screen. Then she rummaged wildly through the mountain of clothes piled there. She was determined to make that corpse-like man blush.
After a long while she picked out an even bolder outfit—a daring dress with a neckline cut so deep it was precarious. Thalia hesitated, wondering if it was too much, but soon made up her mind and quickly tried it on. Looking in the mirror, she saw a breathtakingly beautiful girl reflected back.
She examined her reflection with a satisfied gaze from every angle. Her body, once as thin as a birch tree, had begun to change little by little starting at fourteen. Her flat chest had formed small buds that swelled to the size of apples, and her once-flat hips had begun to fill out with a bit of flesh.
Thalia was quite proud of her transformation. The thought that she was approaching the perfect beauty Senebier possessed filled her with boundless delight. If he realized what she had, Barcas would surely change his mind. She would soon become the most beautiful woman in the world.
Filled with hope, she burst out from behind the screen. “How about this one?”
Barcas, who had been gazing out the window with a bored expression, turned his head toward her. Finally, something resembling an emotion appeared on his face. However, it was not a particularly positive one.
Frowning as he looked her over, Barcas spoke somewhat irritably. “The very first dress.”
He drew a deep breath and added bluntly, “Wear that one.”
There was not a trace of the admiration or agitation she had hoped for in his dry voice. But Thalia’s heart felt ready to burst just knowing that, out of the dozens of outfits she had shown, he remembered the very first one.
She put on a deliberately suggestive smile. “What’s this? Acting all indifferent, but it seems you were watching closely after all?”
He gave no reply. He simply looked as though he wished this tedious fashion show would end as soon as possible. Though his arrogant attitude sparked a flash of spite, Thalia decided to let it pass generously. Even if she couldn’t change his attitude right away, she had resolved to show him her gradually changing self.
Humming a tune, Thalia picked up the first dress she had worn. It was a delicate and elegant velvet surcoat embroidered densely with fairy-tribe needlework. This dress would never leave her wardrobe again—because it was the one that had caught Barcas’s eye.
She quickly changed and came out, spinning around in front of him as if to show off. “This one, right?”
He gazed at her quietly. It didn’t seem strange to him that the woman who had been irritable all day had suddenly become as cheerful as a drunkard. Perhaps it made no difference to him whether she raged like a monster or smiled like a madwoman.
But Thalia wanted to believe that his attitude toward her had changed. After all, his once-indifferent gaze had, at some point, begun to linger on her face for long stretches. Not only that—his tone when speaking to her seemed softer than before.
Sensitively noticing this subtle change, Thalia felt a faint hope stirring in her chest. Could it be that Barcas also found it regrettable to part with her? They had been together for such a long time; perhaps he had developed some reluctant affection for her. Thalia clung pitifully to that futile hope.
“If I dance in this dress, I’ll look just like a fairy queen, won’t I?”
At her question, a faint crease appeared between his brows. Was he fed up with the endless questions? Or perhaps he was thinking of an answer. She decided to think positively.
“Instead of just standing there like a statue, help me practice the dance a bit.”
Before he could reply, Thalia grabbed his arm and pulled him forcefully. The man who wouldn’t have budged in the past came along, pretending reluctance. See? Thalia felt triumphant. Something really had changed.
She pulled the stiffly uncooperative man more strongly and spun her body around. Then her foot caught on a chest on the floor, and she lost her balance. Thalia instinctively grabbed his arm.
Barcas uttered something unintelligible and hurriedly wrapped his arm around her waist. But the room was such a mess that there was nowhere proper to step. The haphazardly piled clothes even tangled around his ankles, and they tumbled together onto the carpet. Thalia let out a small curse.
“You should have cleaned up the room right away like I said!”
Barcas, who had tried to catch her and ended up in this predicament, raised one eyebrow. He was only a guard knight, not a servant. He couldn’t be forced to do trivial things like tidying up. Even though she knew this perfectly well, Thalia threw a fit anyway.
“If I get a bruise on my bottom, I won’t let you off, you incompetent guard knight!”
As she grumbled and tried to get up, she felt a sharp pain on her scalp. Thalia stared at him in disbelief. “Did you just pull my hair?”
A short sigh escaped his lips. “It seems your hair got caught on my sleeve button.”
Then he slightly pulled forward the arm he had wrapped around her back. When the stinging pain came again, Thalia screamed and hit his chest. “It hurts, you idiot!”
He stopped moving and looked down quietly at her eyes, which were brimming with moisture. Though inwardly startled, Thalia glared at him as if nothing had happened.
Letting out another low sigh, Barcas wrapped his arm around her back again. Then he began to move his hand carefully, as if trying to untangle her hair. Thalia sat between his knees and rolled her eyes anxiously. She had only just realized how improper their distance and position were.
Her heart pounded so violently at the faint scent of soap and mint coming from his body that it felt ready to explode. She felt as though that sound might reach Barcas’s ears too.