Wheee-oo~
Wheee-oo~
The shrill wail of the ambulance cut through the black haze.
Plip- Plip-
Cold raindrops bit her skin.
Through the haze, fragmented images of people huddling over flickered in her mind.
—Is she… dead?
—What do we do? She’s not breathing…
—Check the ID badge hanging from her neck!
“Hrm…”
The ambulance sirens faded into the distance, mingling with the hushed murmurs of the crowd.
When she slowly opened her eyes, desperate voices reached her ears.
“Our princess… you’ve finally opened your eyes!”
“Squirrel!”
“Are you conscious?!”
“Vyn!”
Looking around, Ivyn saw Ron and the John-Hon-Dan trio clinging to her bed like barnacles.
“Is everyone okay?”
Ivyn asked, pressing her throbbing head with her hands, and a tense silence fell over the noisy room.
“Wait… you’re asking us if we’re okay?”
“You heard it too? I thought I was hearing things. Are you sure it wasn’t just my imagination?”
Hon tilted his head in confusion.
It seemed he had assumed the question from their youngest sibling was just an auditory illusion.
“Those bastards… What did they even do to our Vyn? Did they brainwash her or something?”
Dan, who had been overjoyed that his little sister had awakened, muttered this with a sudden tinge of sadness.
“First, let’s feed her something. I bet once she’s fully conscious, she’ll be as sharp and nasty as usual.”
The triplets dragged the puzzled Ivyn to the dining room.
The moment she was forcibly seated at the head of the table, a parade of delicacies appeared as if it had been waiting for her.
Roasted bulls, turkeys, fried fowl, smoked pork, lamb chops, bacon, steaks, roasted root vegetables, puddings…
“D-do I really have to eat all this?”
She asked, her eyes wide, as she looked at the lavish feast laid out before her—so much that it could make the table legs buckle.
But no answer came.
They only stared at her in silence, faces pale and stunned, as though they’d just seen a ghost.
Gasp! The second son, Bill, sucked in a sharp breath and clapped both hands over his mouth.
Clatter! The eldest dropped the fork he was holding onto his plate.
“…”
The triplets clung to one another, terror written all over their faces.
The only one to react was Ron, as hot-tempered as he was. Unable to contain his anger, he shot up from his chair and began to growl like a wild dog.
“Damn it, Father! This is just wrong! Those bastards from the Holy Nation must’ve cast some mind-control spell on our Vyn! Those sanctimonious sons of— I’ll tear them apart myself!”
He looked ready to storm the Holy Nation’s camp that very instant.
“Sit down, Ron.”
“But, Vyn—!”
“I said, Sit.”
At Dylan’s stern command, Ron clenched his jaw and reluctantly sank back into his seat.
Once again, silence fell over the dining hall.
Clink-
Amid the suffocating tension, Ivyn finally dared to speak, because she was too hungry to keep quiet any longer.
“Th-then… I’ll start eating first?”
Ivyn glanced nervously around at her frozen family, then cautiously lifted her fork.
As she bent slightly over her plate, a few silky strands of her wavy lavender hair slipped forward.
Ñom! She opened her small mouth as wide as she could and took a hearty bite of the turkey leg.
Munch- Munch- her cheeks puffed out adorably as she chewed, like a little hamster with its mouth stuffed full of sunflower seeds.
Watching her eat, her family finally relaxed, faint smiles spreading across their faces.
“She’s eating so heartily, my daughter.”
“She’s a fairy. A fairy!”
“If that’s not an angel, then what is?”
The men of the Kinzell family gazed at Ivyn with dazzled expressions—a scene that, to anyone from Earth, would’ve looked exactly like a group of fans watching their favorite star’s latest “eating show”.
Meanwhile, Ivyn attacked her plate with such unrestrained gusto that one could only describe her as utterly absorbed in a storm of flavors.
“Try this, Vyn. This one too.”
“Don’t forget the pudding!”
“Haha, at this rate, you’ll end up chewing through the plate, my girl.”
Dylan looked on, a satisfied smile tugging at his lips. Memories of her past tantrums at the dining table flashed through his mind.
“I don’t want to eat this anymore.”
“Vyn, you must eat properly to grow into a healthy princess.”
“Nooo! Green beans taste gross, and they look awful! I’m pretty, so I’ll only eat pretty things!”
“Well then, just one little piece…”
“Why not give it to the triplets? They look just like green beans, anyway!”
She had been a stubborn little girl, throwing tantrums at every mealtime…
When did she grow up so much?
Dylan wiped the damp corners of his eyes with the back of his rough hand.
“Thank you for the meal.”
With that heartwarming mealtime over, the Kinzell family gathered in the drawing room.
They had come to hear Ivyn’s story, who, after enjoying the generous feast, seemed to have regained some of her energy.
Crackle~ The fire roaring in the center of the room cast a warm glow over the Kinzells, reunited after surviving the crisis.
The first to speak was Dylan, the head of the household, who had been sipping dessert brandy.
“It’s such a relief that we can all be here together again.”
In the flickering shadows of the fire, Dylan’s profile looked jagged, his bones jutting out like a rugged cliff.
He clearly hadn’t eaten or hydrated properly while his daughter was missing.
“I still can’t believe it… that Alberto was the traitor. Because we trusted his words, we almost… almost lost our Vyn.”
