“Teacher Mira! Copato—reporting for duty!!”
From that day on, Mira’s wake-up bell shifted half an hour earlier. The yard gained a regular guest. Every dawn, the cat-eared girl hammered the door with a shout. Then she vaulted the wall like a springing cat and shook the drowsy Anta from bed. Their morning lessons began in a quarrel of birds.
Of course, Mira never regretted her choice. She accepted, calm as still water, both the shrinking sleep and the need to watch those restless little paws during spell practice. She showed no complaint, no shadow of frost. But Pengpeng was terrified, heart fluttering like a sparrow. At first she feared the kitten would touch the reverse scale of that iceberg-dragon somewhere.
Even when time proved the woman’s temper wasn’t what Pengpeng had imagined, anxiety still clung like mist.
Since it had come to this, she told herself like a vow carved in stone: no more burdening our honored guest. To repay Mira’s unselfish help, Pengpeng swore it with steady breath. Yet just as with her first promise to keep the brats from disturbing Mira, that oath cracked the next day like thin ice.
This time, she herself had to knock on the iceberg’s door.
“—You little pups, get back!”
Before Mira could ask who had come, a muffled roar rolled over the wall, Pengpeng forcing her voice low like thunder behind clouds. The scene felt familiar. Mira set down her pen, rose, and slid the gate open. She caught, in the distance, a cluster of kids scattering like startled sparrows. A few clutched crude wooden signs, crooked letters reading “Old witch plays favorites!” and “We want classes too!” Pengpeng turned, guilty, wringing herself like a willow, arms crossed, and offered an awkward good afternoon.
“Good afternoon,” Mira nodded, voice smooth as a lake. “So, what is it?”
“Uh… there’s been a situation…”
Pengpeng bowed her head, embarrassment and worry braided tight. An emergency had hit her home. She had to leave at once, and might be gone from the orphanage for several days. She paused there, torn, as if a plan begged to be spoken. Then she shook her head, rejecting that unseen path like putting out a lamp.
“Because I might be gone three or four days… the orphanage’s stock of daily goods will run short. My per-day purchase cap can’t cover a full refill, so if you have time…”
Per-day cap—the new rule since the lockdown. The Carne Family set daily ration limits for key supplies, counted by heads, aimed at the Nacha Tribe. Because it was a limit, an individual’s allowance was shallow as a stream. Pengpeng’s cap barely fed all those mouths for one day, so she had to run to the Elf Market daily.
With Mira, it changed like rain turning to sun. She, an Elf, had no cap at all. Buying a week’s supplies in one sweep was easy as a harvest.
Yet, with the shadow she had left on Mira at their first meeting, Pengpeng stayed jumpy as a rabbit, even with Copato’s precedent.
As for her reluctant request, the iceberg beauty just…
Nodded, calm as falling snow.
“Mm. Please wait.”
“Oh—oh, okay!!!”
Pengpeng straightened, delight flashing like morning light. Mira said nothing more. She slipped back into her room.
She faced the mirror and began a cascade of disguise. Off came the bell hairpin, placed soft as a feather inside her lining. Then she fogged herself with the strongest perfume she owned, scent blooming like night flowers. She fixed the pointed-ear props to her ear with a thread of magic. Her fingers sparked and tapped her hair; a glaze flowed over the strands, and the gold shifted with visible sheen.
She adjusted hairstyle and clothing, small changes like brushstrokes. She checked that her image had clearly shifted, and that her natural scent was drowned beneath perfume’s tide. Only then did Mira lower the brush.
As she stowed the makeup, her gaze snagged on a half-written letter, and a stack of aborted drafts piled like fallen leaves. Her vision paused, a beat caught like a held breath. She turned and left the room.
Pengpeng didn’t know. Moments before, Mira had been wrestling the letter, thought looping like swallows. Pengpeng’s arrival offered a clean diversion, a breeze through a crowded study.
Her request wasn’t excessive. It was sensible, really. Mira and Anta currently ate and used the orphanage’s supplies. Helping Pengpeng was helping themselves.
Yes. Go out, gather the mind, lay it all down for now. Mira breathed in on a count of two, like waves slowing, and stepped through the gate.
“All right. Let’s go.”
“Uh, um, Mi— I mean, Miss Tantan, maybe let me carry those?”
“No.”
“Eek! O-okay!”
Pengpeng asked carefully, voice tiptoeing like a cat. The Elf beside her answered with frost, a reply cold as hoarfrost. Pengpeng flinched, limbs briefly tangled like vines.
Maybe it was her imagination, but the iceberg beauty who’d seemed fine leaving the orphanage was souring with time, patience thinning like sand through glass. She was edging closer to that first-day state, a winter front rolling in.
In a way, Pengpeng was right. Mira was growing more irritable. The reason, however, wasn’t Pengpeng. It bubbled from Mira herself.
No matter where she walked, she couldn’t silence her mind. She had promised herself to stop thinking about her sister, to cool down. Her thoughts refused, stubborn as a river against a dam. Every sight looped back to her.
At the wholesale market, the sight of Lilise fruit—small and sweet as beads of honey—summoned the memory of her sister’s blissed-out face on the road. In the household shop, rows of scenting agents shone like glass beads, and she recalled the bathroom mishap. Passing the park, she caught a white head and grabbed a shoulder by reflex like a hawk. The elder turned, and she realized it was only a snow-haired Nacha Tribe grandfather.
Such moments dotted the road like stones, and they kept coming. Like now. She saw the dried bouquets displayed outside a flower shop, and the Carne Family banquet’s sea of blossoms surged in her mind. Her feet stopped, held by petals and tide.
“Miss Tantan…?”
Called by the false name, Mira snapped back like a bowstring. Self-disgust rose, a bitter taste like smoke. Her mouth pressed tight.
She shook her head, as if to chase the thoughts out like birds. “I’m fine. Let’s go.”
She moved to step, but Pengpeng seemed to misread her face. Pengpeng kept talking, soft and earnest like rain. “If I did anything wrong by accident, please tell me. I can fix it…”
“…”
Mira went quiet for a beat, silence cool as shade. That frightened look—that was on her. She breathed and owned it.
“No, you did nothing wrong. I just…” She eased the muscles in her face, and crafted a reason on the fly, quick as origami.
“I was thinking what gift to send.”
Pengpeng’s eyes widened. “Ah.” Then her energy returned, bright as lantern light.
“I see! You should’ve said so. I know my gift-flowers!” She tugged Mira to the shop front, excitement bubbling like spring water. She pointed at a colorful bundle of dried blooms. “This one’s Bitter Flower. It perfumes a wardrobe like a warm breeze. Its language says ‘meticulous care and concern.’ Perfect for elders.”
Once the flowers came up, Pengpeng’s mouth ran like a river. She introduced each bloom’s meaning and traits, a catalog recited like beads. Even when Mira said wait, the stream didn’t stop.
“So, who are you gifting? Ah! From your look just now, it’s for your sweetheart, right? Then Mamume is perfect. It stands for steadfast love. Pin a petal in a letter, and it’s romantic—”
“Enough. Stop.”
Finally, a near-shout cut Pengpeng’s fever like thunder. Eyes turned—customers, the shopkeeper—pins of gaze pricked like needles. Mira felt the lapse. She turned away, voice calm again, like water settling.
“That gift… is for my sister.”
“Oh, oh— I misunderstood.” Startled, Pengpeng bowed and apologized, shame flushing and fading like dawn. Then she softly offered options for siblings, careful as stepping on snow.
Mira shut her eyes. The words flowed past, in one ear and out the other, like wind through reeds. When Pengpeng finished, Mira simply bought a bundle whose flower language said “sisterly bond.” She left the shop with Pengpeng, steps light and closed, like the end of a song.
