"How long do you think it'll take for Haruki to get back home?" Watching Rose play with Stella in her hands, Fay couldn't help bringing up the topic.
Seated leisurely under the castle garden's gazebo, Roselia had been lecturing Fay about parenting for hours. And at this point, both of her ears were ringing with the complaints she'd been subjected to by her dragon-mom companion.
"Who knows? Lamenia is a big kingdom, maybe it'll take him a month to scout it, maybe even a year," Rose replied, cradling the little girl over the warm surface of her wings.
Watching it all transpire, an old saying popped up in Fay's mind. A dragoness lovingly playing her daughter's godmother, she felt both humbled and a slight bit concerned.
"Say, is it true that if you've been cradled in a fire dragon's arms, then no cold can chill your skin?" Letting out a hum to Fay's question, Rose lifted her gaze from the snoring child and turned to her mother with a gentle smile.
"A cradle to a dragon is the same as a sword to a giant," her initial words confused Fay more than anything, but what Rose added next made things clear. "We hope it's true because we want it to, but you tell me, if it was all real, then why would dragons be hunted down so aggressively?"
Shooting a sharp gaze at Fay, Rose let her heavy heart bleed over in her eyes. In them, Fay noticed a flame, a flame not granting warmth, but a flame crimsoned with blood. Pulling them out of the stare-down, a cheerful clamor from Doroke and Tiara had them both awkwardly smiling at each other.
'What was that? In her eyes…It looked like a battlefield filled with bodies and flames.' Keeping her curiosity caged, Fay didn't pursue an answer. After all, she could simply ask Haruki about Rose's past whenever he decides to return.
Rose too, not wanting to indulge in the matter further, turned to her kids playing about in the garden. Thanks to their powers, and the reckless game of catch, the entire thing was either up in flames or frozen under blocks of ice.
"You two better clean up the mess when you're done!" Rose complained.
Like most other kids, her kids ignored her completely since playing took precedence. And while Fay's curiosity, for one thing, had subsided, she still couldn't figure out what Rose meant by the thing about giant and sword.
"I get that you want to bless your children with the cradle thing, but what's the deal about a giant picking up a sword?" Fay couldn't help asking.
"Because they were all doomed to die, and they did," those few words spoken by the dragoness opened yet another path of mystery. "Like the dragons, they were just as much of a threat to Atlas, the god I mean, not the continent."
"So they were cursed?" Fay's curiosity was digging deeper and deeper, but Rose's patience was also running out.
"I don't feel like talking about it, not even your master knows about that side of my memories," having only shared core memories with each other, Rose's past and her knowledge about the world was still enshroud in a thick masking mist, and she hoped to keep it that way. "The less you know the better, the hunger for knowledge is never-ending, and if you keep chasing that path, you'd lose sight of what's actually important."
Looking down at the cute angel resting over her warm wings, Rose tried to show Fay the problem with her pursuit of knowledge. Taking hold of the girl, she offered her back to the mother. Upon taking Stella back in her arms, and watching her snore as she snuggled onto her bosom, all of Fay's worries melted away just like her heart.
"I think, I get what you mean," looking back up at Rose, Fay had decided to spend more time with her daughter rather than the undead marionettes and clones in her lab.
"Well," slapping her hands on her thighs, Rose propped herself up on her feet. "In that case, I should get going too. I have a lot more kids to deal with, you know?"
Glancing sideways at Fay, both of them shared a hearty laugh. Not in a million years had Rose, a dragoness, or even the once traveling merchant, Fay, would've thought they'd become friends with each other, but now that it was happening, it warmed both of their hearts.
"That reminds me," getting up as well, Fay decided to see Rose off. "We still haven't met the rest of your family, and what's Klian up to these days?"
Her smile contorting into a slight grimace, Rose huffed out a sigh before replying.
"About Klian, we thought he'd recovered completely but seems like there's still a long way to go," giving her chapped lips a nervous bit, Rose hissed in a breath and continued. "As for my rest of the fifteen kids, some of them are rogue so I have no clue where they are at the moment, all I know is that they're still alive and send messages to the tundra in whatever way they can."
"What about the rest?" Fay asked, not being able to control her curiosity once again. However, one disappointed glance from Rose reminded her of the promise she'd just made. "Ah, yeah, sorry, I'll try to keep my hunger for knowledge in check."
"Good, and I'm sorry to say, but none of you are gonna meet any of the rest of my family, it's not safe for them or even you or Haru-"
"General! Bad news!" Shouting in her ears, the demon spy planted on Rose made her squinch down with a growl.
"What the fuck happened?!" Yelling back into the familiar, she scared not just Fay, or the demon talking on the other end, but even her two children playing about in the garden.
However, the moment she realized that she swore in front of her kids. Her head quickly turned to them with an awkward smile on her face. Seeing their worried expression and broken smiles, she shot her gaze to Fay and gestured to her to keep them company while she talked.
"Sure," she nodded before going to play around with the dragonkins.
Once her kids were distracted, Rose headed over to the edge of the garden to talk to the demon screeching through the demonic spy.
"What happened?" She asked.
But by that time, there was no reply.
'Shit, he called me general so it has to be one of the duchy's armies. But what could've gone so wrong, that they had to resort to me?' The terrifying thought made her anxious, and with Haruki far away from the kingdom she had to face the problem whether she liked it or not. Turning back to look at her children playing with Stella sleeping in Fay's arms, Rose just took a moment to adore the scene before having her eldest teleport her around to different duchies of their kingdom.
'Where is she going?' Fay thought as the blinding light of teleportation disappeared just as quickly as it had sprung up.
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