She drifted alongside Alicia through a broad corridor, their steps rippling like lazy water after the little crisis ebbed away; she met Alicia at the door, then they wandered like leaves.
Deep in the Elvenfolk’s heartland, the sun felt like a relentless spear; even layered leaves couldn’t blunt it—it wasn’t heat, it was glare, a blade to the eyes.
Picture her shoulder to shoulder with Alicia; whenever she glanced up, that sun—already due ten thousand deaths—shot straight into her eyes, stinging like blown sand.
Thankfully, the unpleasant jog didn’t last; before Ling could stage a real-life Hou Yi shooting down the sun, Alicia spoke, a cool stream cutting the heat haze.
She squinted, annoyance pricking like nettles, and forced herself not to look at Alicia—holy light kept sniping her eyes like high-noon arrows.
“Don’t know—at worst a day or two, at best a few minutes; time’s an elastic band in this place,” she snapped, her voice like a pebble skimming.
Maybe it was the glare gnawing at her; her mood dropped like a stone in a well, and the loli edge sharpened like a tiny knife.
“Why do you sound off, like thunder muffled in silk?” Alicia asked, concern spreading like a shadow.
“Hmph! It’s because—” steam rose in her chest like a pot about to boil.
Click— The door ahead swung open, and Elfe and Amelia stepped out hand in hand, moon and star on a shared thread; after two loops, their timing hit true.
Yet their tidy entrance tugged a crooked smile onto Ling’s face, sly as a fox under dusk leaves.
“Ku-ku-ku~ looks like you chose mother and daughter~”
Teased like that, Amelia’s cheeks flushed rose, more spring peach than iron crown, not the look a Queen of the Elvenfolk should wear.
“Don’t talk nonsense… I—I—this is… family,” she whispered, her voice shrinking like a dying ember.
Alicia and Elfe, voices twining like twin reeds, spoke in unison: “What are you two talking about?”
“Not telling you~” Ling didn’t get jealous over Alicia and Amelia’s uncanny sync—really didn’t; her mood arched like a cat, then she smoothed the fur.
Maybe the odd air made her itch, or maybe she feared a slip; Amelia stood fast, cheeks a baffling bloom, dignity settling like armor on her shoulders.
“Ahem! Next, let’s head to the parlor and talk about what we mentioned earlier. I’ll take Elfe to change clothes first!” Her words flicked like a fan.
She tugged Elfe’s hand and ran like wind through branches, leaving Alicia with the universal question-mark face, and Ling wearing a smile of cryptic curves.
—Who am I? Where am I? What’s for dinner? —Alicia.
—Yare yare~ why do I feel more and more like a marriage broker? —Ling.
Ling and Alicia sat across from Amelia and Elfe; they’d really gone to change, the scene resetting like a curtain falling then rising.
Elfe wore a white dress, her headband reflecting light like dew, lending her a grace and splendor beyond her years, a dawn-flower in bloom.
Amelia matched in white, a crown of authority on her brow, a meter-long scepter in hand; at last, a touch of Queen, her skirt a private whim, a lone petal.
“Ahem.” Amelia coughed twice, drawing their focus back like a bell over still water.
“I admit, you won that game just now,” she said, words like pebbles breaking a pond’s mirror.
“Oh~ so that means we’re allies from now on, right?” Relief rose in Alicia like warm steam; she moved to hug Ling, whose face stayed a calm lake.
“Wrong!” The Queen’s rebuke cracked the air like a snapping branch, and Alicia froze, the plot skewing like a bird veering midflight.
“Because earlier you only said you’d consider it, right?” Ling cut in like a blade through reeds, saving Amelia the breath.
Amelia shot her a look of praise while silently sliding Ling from [Harmless] to [Absolute Threat], a needle becoming a spear.
“That’s right—only considering,” the word dangled like a lone leaf.
At the Queen’s confirmation, Ling sighed in wry amusement, wind over dry grass; word games were old tricks from her past life’s games.
Big matters sometimes tangled her like vines, but these narrow paths she knew a little; with Alicia, it made a yin-yang kind of balance.
“Then tell us—what will make you confirm us?” The lead slipped to Amelia like a stream choosing its bed, exactly as Ling planned to keep talk flowing.
Maybe she’d borrowed someone’s habit; Amelia didn’t answer at once. She rose, lifted drowsy Elfe, and walked to the window, sun pouring behind her like holy spill.
“Let’s play a game~” Ling half-squinted, not for schemes but because that sunlight was a knife to the eyes.
—Someday, I swear, I’ll shoot down that damned sun, a Hou Yi vow burning in my bones.
