The Stand-In Empress’S Wedding Night [EN]: Chapter 85

85. A Dance of Courtship

Rosie’s hand, which had been tearing at her hair, paused.

“What is it? What else is there… !”

Rosie asked in a trembling voice, reaching out with both hands as if to strangle Moiya.

“Why are you making such a fuss about a dance? It’s not like you to be so uncivilized.”

Moiya cleared her throat and spoke rather maturely.

“Shut up, you ignorant wyvern! I’d rather you recited poetry. Why did you have to dance of all things… Ack!”

Rosie glared and screamed.

“Why? I thought I danced pretty well.”

“How, how did you dance? Show me. Dance it now.”

Rosie, with her disheveled orange hair, spoke with a glimmer of hope in her eyes. Without a moment’s hesitation, Moiya began to move to her own rhythm with a delighted expression.

“Watch closely! Like this, like this, like this, like this~”.

Moiya spread her wings wide, stepped from one foot to the other, and wiggled her shoulders.

“…Oh, for crying out loud!”

‘Even my father and grandfather, no matter how excited or drunk they were, never danced so grotesquely!’

Rosie despaired.

“Surely, I didn’t flap my arms like that, did I?”

Rosie spread her arms like Moiya’s wings and imitated Moiya’s dance, shouting, ‘Please tell me it wasn’t a dance like this, you damn wyvern!’

“Wow, exactly the same! You have a talent for dancing?”

“Ugh, awful… The Prince saw such an awful dance? Is that what you’re saying?”

“Yes. That’s what I’m saying.”

‘My image is ruined.’ Rosie dropped her arms, which she had been holding up like a scarecrow, and let them fall powerlessly.

“Prince Noden seemed to appreciate my dance, Moiya~”.

Moiya flew around the bedroom, chirping cheerfully.

“…So?”

“What do you mean, ‘So?’ Of course, I kept dancing while only looking at that Prince!”

“…”

What a refreshing answer. Rosie picked up the ancient book about wyverns from the floor.

“Why suddenly that?”

“Because I suddenly want to kill you.”

Rosie opened her eyes wide and flipped through the pages quickly.

“Surely, somewhere in this book, there’s a way to get rid of you… Ugh, I don’t know ancient languages from the Southern Continent, so I’m as blind as a bat!”

Rosie, who had been flipping through the pages fiercely, threw the book onto the bed and began to curse.

“Wow, our orange-haired friend usually only breathes fire from her mouth, but she’s scary whenever she opens it. Right? Ao C?”

Moiya stopped flying and went next to Ao C, whispering. Ao C nodded his little head, made eye contact with Rosie, and pretended to bite Moiya’s wing.

“And, Rosie…”

Moiya called her cautiously, with a look that said she still had something to say. In that moment, Rosie looked more nervous than when Moiya came out into the world after being trapped in an egg for 300 years, and slowly raised her head.

“What else? What is it…?”

She was ready to pick up the brick-like ancient book again and throw it at Moiya. Ao C, sensing the unusual atmosphere, slowly moved closer to Rosie.

“Rosie, don’t be surprised. Okay?”

“Hey, that statement alone is surprising! Stop stalling and tell me quickly!”

“Well, there was a little event on the way back after the banquet.”

Moiya, who had brought up the story cautiously with blinking red eyes, quickly reassured Rosie when she saw her expression turn sour.

“Calm down, don’t make that face. It’s really nothing.”

“I knew there was a reason why my heart was beating like this…”

Rosie glared at Moiya, placing her hands over her heart.

“Should I tell you later if you’re having trouble breathing?”

Moiya scratched her head and rolled her red eyes.

“Hoo, no. Keep talking.”

“It was a good thing. A beautiful thing.”

The more Rosie heard Moiya’s words, the deeper her anxiety grew.

“Keep it short. You still don’t understand human emotions, do you? I’m about to explode, so just tell me the key points!”

Moiya nodded, taking Rosie’s meaning to heart, and summarized it in a nutshell.

“Prince Noden, confession, successful.”

“Miyaaaoong! (Some crazy guy confessed to Rosie! Congrats, congrats.)”

Ao C was the first to react to Moiya’s words. Ao C jumped onto Rosie’s lap and licked Rosie’s hand.

“W-What are you talking about? Explain properly! I’m going to just… !”

Rosie shouted at Moiya, raising the ancient book high, but her face began to turn red.

‘Why am I like this?’

Her heart was racing. Her face was flushed. This feeling was truly unfamiliar to Rosie. It felt like an even greater stimulation to her heart than when she discovered a book containing a great secret in the library.

“Hmph, you were the one who told me to only say the key points.”

Moiya, pouting, opened a small drawer behind her back and took out a sausage that she had hidden inside.

“Kwaaaak-.”

Moiya held the sausage close to her mouth and breathed a small fire.

“Miyaong? (You’re not going to eat it alone, are you, friend?)”

Ao C, staring at the well-cooked sausage, licked his pink tongue and slowly moved closer to Moiya again.

“S-So, Prince Noden… confessed… to me?”

‘Gasp.’

“Huh? Uh-huh…”

Moiya, who was diligently breathing fire and grilling the sausage, was slightly flustered by Rosie’s muttering and replied.

“Oh my, what should I do? What am I going to do…”

Rosie frantically patted her chest with both hands and wandered around the bedroom in a daze. Moiya, who had taken a bite of the well-cooked sausage, exchanged glances with Ao C next to her. Moiya twirled her hand holding the sausage next to her head, telling Ao C that Rosie seemed crazy. Ao C also lifted his front paw and imitated Moiya’s actions before snatching the sausage.

“Actually, I thought our master was in a trap, so I confessed to the Prince instead. Hehe.”

Moiya whispered in a voice only Ao C could hear.

“Miyaaong. (What? She wasn’t confessed to? Poor Rosie…)”

“It’s okay. They say it’s okay to say and hear the word ‘love,’ right?”

Moiya had a memory of overhearing humans talking in the egg a hundred years ago.

“Miyaong?! (You even said ‘I love you’?)”

Ao C was so surprised that he dropped the sausage he was holding on the floor. Then Moiya picked up the dropped sausage and put it back in Ao C’s mouth.

“Don’t worry, humans have time. Time solves everything, Moiya.”

“Miyaong! (Rosie is the one who gives us sausages. Don’t bully her!)”

“I’m the one who grills the sausages. And who said I was bullying her?”

“Miyaong. (Still, I… I’ll comfort her a lot.)”

Ao C looked up at Rosie pitifully and cried.

“Since when did he fall for me? The first day we met in the Empress’s Palace garden? Or at the lake where I went on a picnic with Melanie Mama? Ah, maybe it was when I dropped this book.”

The longer Rosie’s monologue went on, the longer Moiya and Ao C sighed.

“Yeah, he seemed to look at me a little differently since he saw the ancient book. Moiya, what do you think?”

“I think it’s bullshit.”

At Moiya’s bullshit remark, Ao C, who was a cat, rolled on the floor with the sausage in his mouth, laughing.

“It’s not because he fell for my intellectual charm?”

Rosie tilted her head and fell into thought again. Moiya just let Rosie think what she wanted. It was too far to go back to tell the truth. Fortunately, she seemed somehow happy. That’s all that mattered. Who confessed first? It didn’t matter at all to Moiya, a baby wyvern, what order humans confessed their love in. Anyway, she was glad that she seemed to have helped her master in the temple garden, and Rosie seemed to be in a good mood, so that was enough. If Prince Noden openly said he hated Rosie? Then she would just twist his neck. That was all.

“That’s strange. What could he have fallen for…?”

Rosie’s agony continued as she looked in the mirror. Then Ao C lifted his front paw and began to imitate the dance that Moiya had danced.

“Hey, surely the Prince didn’t fall for you after seeing the dance Moiya danced?”

Rosie jumped up and down as she watched Ao C’s dance reflected in the mirror.

“It’s definitely possible.”

Moiya said as if to assure Rosie, who had been scoffing at her dance just a moment ago.

“He couldn’t take his eyes off my dance, you know?”

Rosie’s expression, which had been scoffing at Moiya’s dance until just now, became a little more serious.

“…Which arm did you move first? Dance it again.”

Rosie asked Moiya, flapping her arms. And so, until late at night, Rosie learned the dance that Moiya had danced at the banquet. Although she was a wyvern who had been trapped in an egg for 300 years, Moiya knew instinctively. Her dance was a courtship dance that wyverns danced during the breeding season.

***

Prince Noden, who had arrived at the detached palace, reached the floor where he was staying.

“Noden!”

At the sound of someone calling him, he turned around. Princess Resilia was chasing him up the stairs. She seemed to have been waiting for him near the floor where the Prince was staying.

“What… happened?”

How could the siblings be so shamelessly identical? The siblings took turns asking the very question he wanted to ask.

“That’s a strange question to ask from someone who stood me up… Don’t you think so, Princess?”

Prince Noden asked the Princess with a blank face.

“W-What are you talking about?”

“What happened to you, Princess? Why didn’t you show up at the meeting place?”

“No. I was waiting all the time?”

“Waiting? I’m just coming from passing the back gate of the opera palace? What are you talking about, Princess?”

“The back gate? I clearly said… let’s meet at the main gate of the opera palace?”

Princess Resilia raised her voice and made an innocent expression, denying it. Prince Noden did not press her. After all, her unstable eyes were telling the lie.

“Well, I guess I misheard.”

Prince Noden nodded as if agreeing with Princess Resilia’s words, willingly playing along with her lie.

“It’s late today, so it’s better to talk later. I’m a little tired.”

He had no more patience to give to Princess Resilia, so it was best to avoid her at this point.

“Ah, okay! We can talk tomorrow. Good night, my love.”

Even to her, Prince Noden looked quite tired.

“…Good night.”

Prince Noden was sick of the Princess’s pretentious voice and fake smile, but he forced a smile. Princess Resilia, who had greeted him, stood in place and gave him a seductive look with a somewhat regretful face. But Prince Noden pretended not to see her and immediately turned around and headed to his room. The Prince, who had returned to his room, closed the door and stood there for a moment, lost in thought.

“Why did I suddenly think of her?”

Throughout the conversation with the extremely beautiful Princess Resilia, another person’s face overlapped with hers. The innocent face of Rosie Adelheid, the palace maid, who had poured out a rambling confession to him. The feeling that had been hitting rock bottom until just now seemed to improve a little when he recalled Rosie’s aggressive love confession. Prince Noden vowed in his heart. If he met Rosie again tomorrow, he would at least hold her hand as she wished.

“She likes me that much, so I can do that much for her.”

***

The next day. I had breakfast with Rinell in his bedroom. Only after the meal was over and two teacups were placed on the table did I carefully bring up the events of last night in the temple garden.

“What are you going to do?”

I was already worried about the meeting between Rosie and Prince Noden, which was scheduled to take place in the office in a few hours.

“What do you think I’m going to do?”

Rinell asked quietly, taking a sip of tea.

“Rosie is not at fault. It’s all because of me…”

“Why isn’t she at fault? She committed a great sin.”

“Pardon?”

“She’s impudent.”

“Your Majesty, perhaps… were you fond of Rosie?”

At my question, Rinell laughed as if he had heard an absurd joke and shook his head.

“It’s not a matter of feelings.”

“Then…?”

“It’s a matter of eyes.”

“Eyes?”

“Look closely.”

He pointed to his face with his finger.

“Yes.”

I rested my chin on the table and looked closely at his face as Rinell said. ‘What is he trying to say?’ Then he rested his chin in the same position as me and whispered like a secret.