Tomorrow will be the last day.

Once tomorrow's gone, and the sun once again rises in the morning the day after, I'm no longer the princess of Feliose. People will no longer think of me as a princess from a small country, but a future queen of a much larger country. Feliose will lost its princess. Feliose will lose the successor of the king. Then, what will become of what used to be my country? My father will not be able to rule for eternity. My mother has departed. I have no siblings and no one who comes from the branch family will be crowned as the next ruler.

My mind is screaming its anxiety at me, and all I can do here, now, is to gaze at the silent night. Ah, father, is this what you mean by responsibility?

A Tale from Thelua

[7] love story

"Dear, dear, my lady. Whatever shall I do to make you smile? Your eyes were once full of joy, now it withers as dying rose. Your touch was once full of warmth, now it freezes as winter breaths."

Lucy watched as Wendy read aloud a paragraph from the book she held. She had this frown and the color of her face was slowly turning into the one's of tomato. It was one morning after Lucy took her bath, one day after the celebration party ended, that Wendy showed up in her room and drove the maids away to dress her up. The girl had been missing her, but she didn't tell her why she never once showed at the party. And now, due to Lucy's empty schedule and pure boredom, Wendy decided to drag her to the library.

"I don't get it why you like this kind of book, sis," Wendy said as she closed the book with flushed face. "Back in Feliose, you are more into history and literature ones."

"Estelle and Jules is just another form of literature, Wendy."

"But it's romance!"

"Because romance," Lucy put down the history book she currently read and reached over to the closed book, "is what makes it interesting. It has yet occurred to you, Wendy, that you find this book entertaining, in more than just a way."

"How come? Isn't the story of a couple of different social standing is sad?" Wendy fiddled with the hem of her dress. "Isn't it tragic that they can never be together?"

At this, Lucy smiled. Sometimes, Wendy could appear as someone older than her, and it was frequent up until now that Lucy forgot the age gap between them. While she was already eighteen, Wendy was still twelve. Being twelve meant the idea of love was yet sunk deep in the head. Being twelve meant learning all necessary things to prepare the future, sans the area around intimate relationship and love.

Love, Lucy realized, was not something one learned from books. Poems and novels might express love a lot, but no one could learn from that. Poetries and stories were solely meant to be entertainments, after all. To learn something such as love from poetry and story meant to fantasize. Love couldn't be learnt formally either because it didn't have any standard for its nature of being abstract.

Twelve years old, yet, Wendy, Lucy decided, was mentally mature enough to touch the surface.

"It's love," Lucy replied. "Even if the pair is heading straight into a sad ending, it doesn't matter as long as they are in love. Also, isn't that the correct answer to your riddle, Wendy?"

"Which riddle, sis?"

"The one about something that even a beautiful woman and a smart woman wanted as well,"

"Wendy, don't you have a class with Mr. Allen this morning?" A voice called up from the door before Wendy could answer her. Someone was leaning against the doorway, wearing some clothes that Lucy had definitely never seen him in one.

"Brother Natsu!" Wendy gasped, and then, became horrified at the mention of Mr. Allen. "Oh my, I was supposed to attend supplementary history class today. Sister, I'm really sorry I can't accompany you today."

The girl quickly made her way out of the library, stopping for a moment only to thank her brother before running through the corridor. Lucy stared at how the man shook his head and made his way to her. As he grew closer, she studied his clothes in return. A mesh shirt, slightly dirtied on the sleeves, a pair of brown boots, and a sword on his left. His hair was slightly disarray, and he had the scent of sun sticking around him.

"Sword training?" Lucy deduced, and earned a nod from him.

"More like sparring," he slid into the seat across her. "They are starting to slack off."

"Who?"

"The knights."

Lucy's attention returned to the history book. "I think they are excellent."

She heard him sighing. "Apparently, they just have found the motivation to learn writing poetry instead of swinging swords," he said pointedly at her. "And now, I'm wondering in whose loyalty between us is more valuable in their eyes."

Lucy laughed, then, at his tired voice. "I've told you about the privilege of beautiful women, haven't I? This is one of those, I suppose."

When Natsu made no reply, Lucy fully had her mind focused on the book in hand. It was the brief history about Thelua; about the previous king and about how it separated itself from the country of Hunan. New information entered her head and she stumbled upon the old map showing the area of Thelua after its separation from Hunan. It occurred to her that almost half of the area that Feliose had today was once Thelua's. How come it became Feliose's, then?

She mentally took a note to go here again tomorrow and another reminder to bring paper and pen to write.

"Your touch was once full of warmth, now it freezes as winter breaths. If I could soar, I would reach to you. But you are so far away, my lady, so far away."

Her attention was brought back to the owner of the gentle voice who read the continuation of what Wendy read before. His eyes were engrossed in the words as he pronounced each syllable carefully.

"My lady, your smile is crying. Your heart is missing a piece. Your soul is desiring."

Lucy smiled as she thought of the last sentence that ended the last chapter of the first volume of Estelle and Jules. It was her favorite sentence.

"Ah, is it love?"

Natsu closed the book and sighed. "Wendy was right. How do you find entertainment in such tragic story?"

"The story is about Estelle, who is the daughter of a rich family of some dukedom, and Jules, who is the son of the nanny who takes care of Estelle, and they are in love with each other. It's a love that goes against the law, in which, just like the reality, the poor cannot marry the rich without so much as having a title. It's only the first volume, Natsu, so it's understandable that you think of it as a sad story," she explained. "And on the second volume, then, it is explained how Jules struggled to keep their love alive, until they can finally walk down the aisle."

"I thought you just found this book?"

"No, I've read them back in Feliose, but Wendy never once sees me reading it."

"So, it's not really a tragic love story, is it?"

"No. Even the authoress is not capable of writing one, I believe."

"Why not?"

"Because it is aimed at young ladies," Lucy stated, "and young ladies are all yearning for love."

"Including you?" He asked quietly.

Lucy smiled lightly. "Including me."

She returned to the history book as Natsu stood and walked to the bookcase. "Is love," Lucy heard him murmuring, "something that's really great?"

And she opted not to reply him, as she wasn't sure if that was him talking to himself or asking her. Love, she personally thought, was indeed something great. Love was expensive, something of luxury that not even a noble was guaranteed to have. But love was what every young lady yearned. Love was what every woman wanted. Even if it was tragic in the end. Foolish as it sounded, but it was just a fact that love brought happiness.

And happiness was just another thing that human wanted.

The history book of Thelua would be forgotten for minutes longer as her mind suddenly recounted what happened last night. Nothing bothered her, but she realized it just now that she didn't even remember how she ended up in her bed this morning. She remembered dancing with the prince of Pemberna for, she wasn't sure, three or four rounds before she finally managed to escape. She found out Natsu's hideout afterwards, and they talked. She wasn't expecting the talk, but amongst it, there was something that stuck somewhere in her head.

"After all, you're perfect."

Perfect. Lucy kind of hate that word. No one is perfect.

"I still remember our talk last night," she started. "Being a fine woman, beautiful, and smart doesn't make one perfect, Natsu."

Natsu looked up from the book he had picked while her mind was wandering. "And why is that?"

Lucy gave him a smile. "Being perfect is subjective," she replied, "and those aren't the exact composition of my kind of 'perfect'. I like to define 'perfect' as the state of being happy."

"Are you not happy?" His question came in a hesitated whisper.

"Are you?" She returned the question. "What's your definition of 'perfect', Natsu? Does your world still lack a piece?"

There was a pregnant pause, a silence that stretched far through the empty space of library floor and wall. Lucy wondered if he chose not to answer her, to ignore her ridiculous philosophical musing because he had his nose stuck into the book all the time they conversed.

"A woman I love."

She thought she heard something snapping somewhere distant. Turned out it was the history book that slipped past her hand and fell to the floor, creating echo noise at the same time of Natsu's answer in the softest whisper, like a puff of breath that silently dissipated in the thin air on a winter day. Her mind was processing things slower than usual, and the blink of her eyes made her sight blurry.

Natsu was standing still, head lifted from the book, and he stared at the air, mouth slightly ajar. Maybe something was projected there in his eyes, maybe he was remembering something of his past. And that something, Lucy was certain that she didn't want to know anything about it.

Her mind screamed at her to reply him, to say something, anything, to him. Even a simple hum which indicated him that she heard his whisper would do. But her mouth was pursed, and her throat was heavy.

Between all the possible action she could make, Lucy cursed silently when her body finally moved, and her brain functioned normally.

She ran.