“Okay, Your Highness, mew’ve made yourself perfectly clear. We must find a way to scuttle this meeting. I guess your reputation can’t get any worse, anyway!”
“Oh! You’ve come around? Now, that’s encouraging, Ferris! So, what’s your plan? Shall we pretend I’m already betrothed? You know, to…someone?”
“Mew would have to show more courage than you’ve ever shown in your life to pull that off, Your Highness!”
They would need more than enthusiasm. Even as he chastised Fourier for his lack of spine, Ferris took Crusch’s hand. She was looking very put out. Then he placed it over another hand that was still clinging to his knees—Fourier’s hand.
“This is how it works,” Ferris said. “As sorry as I feel for the young lady, at the meeting you have to declare that your heart already belongs to another…and that’s how you’ll make it through!”
“Th-th-that’s your plan?! But…but Crusch and I aren’t lovers…!”
“You’re right, you’re not! But all you have to do is get the other side to believe you are and back out of the match. After that, the two of mew just have a big fight and ‘break up’ or something. No more problem!”
“Ferris! My heart hurts for some reason! And my chest and my back! Please, cast healing magic on me!”
“Healing magic can’t fix the kind of pain you’re mewling right now, Your Highness. Sorry!”
Fourier found himself caught up in the momentum of Ferris’s idea. The trio’s hands were still joined, and Fourier slowly turned red as he came alive to the realization that he would get to pretend to be Crusch’s lover.
After that epiphany, he was quick to jump on board. He stood with no small amount of confidence and said, “Heh-heh! Very well, then! I expected no less of you, Ferris… I applaud you for detecting my natural talents as an actor!”
“No, no, it’s all down to Your Highness’s pliant personality. Ferri didn’t do anything!”
“Ha-ha-ha! You needn’t praise me so! Yes, I’ve started to feel quite good about this. The cloud that hung over me has vanished like it was never there! Very good—now, Crusch!” With a great guffaw Fourier returned to his usual self. He held out his hand to his beloved Crusch, flashing a smile that showed his teeth like a child playing a mischievous trick. “Work with me to reduce this meeting to nothing! I request this cooperation of y—”
“Your Highness, I’m afraid there is something I must tell you.”
“Um…and what would that be?”
Fourier looked less than pleased to have been interrupted at the climactic moment of his speech. Crusch gave him a knowing look, but at the same time, she furrowed her well-formed eyebrows.
“It so happens that my father has already asked me to attend to some business on the same day as your meeting. It’s no less than a summons to the palace from Miklotov…”
“Mrrow?!”
Fourier was taken aback, and Ferris couldn’t hide his surprise. But unlike Fourier, who had already stopped thinking, Ferris suspected such an inconvenient turn of events was entirely intentional.
“Do you think they deliberately arranged a conflicting engagement so you couldn’t mess with the meeting?” Ferris asked.
“Knowing my father and the esteemed Miklotov, such a ploy is possible. Then again, it might really be just coincidence… So, Your Highness, I’m very sorry to say I will not be able to lend you my aid.”
“I—I see. Th-that’s fine. Ha-ha. That’s… Yes, completely fine.” Fourier sat down broodingly, not quite able to hide his disappointment, despair, and shock. He looked absolutely pathetic, and Ferris rushed to comfort him.
Seeing Fourier’s expression, Crusch cocked her head and nodded. “My lord, I don’t suppose it matters whether I am the one you’re allegedly in love with?”
“—Huh?”
Ferris and Fourier both looked up and spoke at the same moment.
Seeing their perfectly synchronous reactions, Crusch gave one of her rarest smiles: the grin of a refined young woman who had something naughty in mind.
3
The long awaited day had arrived. The meeting was held in a mansion close to the border between the Kingdom of Lugunica and the Holy Kingdom of Gusteko. Specifically, it was the manor of Viscount Misère, who oversaw the whole northern region of Lugunica; when informed of the scheme they were planning, he had been surprisingly eager to participate.
“That Holy Kingdom lot are frankly eerie. I don’t want to imagine the royal blood of Lugunica being mingled with the line of those dreamers. The young lady you’ll be meeting today is especially bad. By all means, bring things to a screeching halt!”
Although he couldn’t raise too much hell about it, being on the border caused no end of trouble for the local lord. He was more than willing to overlook a little mischief in order to obtain some relief for himself.
“Meowbe you have to be a bit weird to get an important job like this. Lord Meckart is the same way.”
Viscount Misère reminded Ferris of a certain troublesome master of a noble house. Meckart hardly seemed the image of a nobleman, but when Ferris thought back on all the people he had seen in the castle, it seemed very few of them looked quite the way one expected when imagining the aristocracy. He also recalled the time when he had gone for training in healing magic several years before. There was a distinct impression that none of the nobles were very, well, noble.
“Well, that’s not true of the ones I’m closest with, though,” he mused. Neither Crusch and Fourier nor Meckart offered anything to complain about on a personal level. They weren’t stereotypical nobles, concerned only with reputation and lording over others. Maybe Ferris’s parents were the only nobles like that. “Ahh, stop it, stop it! I can’t go making meowself all depressed at such an important moment!”
He gave himself a slap on the cheek to bring himself back, but he made sure to do it gently so his face wouldn’t turn red.
Ferris had prepared much more thoroughly than he usually did for his engagements. The maids who had attended him at Crusch’s behest had done a fantastic job. It was a sign that she was expecting a lot of him, even though she couldn’t be present herself. Just the thought made his heart feel as light as if it had wings.
“All right…” he said to himself. “Here goes nothing, Ferri!”
He imagined Crusch giving him a little push to get him started and stepped out of the changing room. He swept the hem of his skirt with much the same resolve as a soldier going to the battlefield, and the viscount, waiting outside, saw him off with a smile. Ferris let the nobleman’s unexpected enthusiasm carry him toward the fateful room.
One of the viscount’s men, standing with a nervous look just outside the closed door, gave Ferris a nod. Then Ferris stood in full view as the door opened, before striding proudly into the meeting room.
“I am His Highness Fourier’s lover,” he announced in a girlish tone, “and I will not allow this meeting to proceed!”
If Crusch couldn’t be here to undermine this meeting, he would have to do it himself.
4
Ferris’s unexpected entrance threw the meeting into confusion. Apparently he had barged in just at the moment when the two young prospects had been left alone together. It was two against one, and the numbers favored Fourier’s side.
But from the point of view of sheer quantity, it was very much the other way around.
“The… The young lady looks very strong, doesn’t she?” Ferris muttered, sizing up the other party to the meeting, who sat across from them. As things stood, the three of them were in a meeting room with a small table between their side and hers as they faced one another. Ferris seated himself next to Fourier, while the prince’s prospective match was seated across from them. She had presence enough to overcome the disadvantage in numbers.
“Oh, there’s no need to dance around it,” she said with an elegant shake of her head. “I know I’m a bit bigger than most.” She looked down, embarrassed. The quality of each gesture, howev
er, communicated the refinement of her upbringing.
—Unfortunately, her body was so large that the phrase exceptional carriage was simply inadequate.
The girl was seated in front of Fourier, but she took up so much room that it would have been fair to say she was seated in front of Ferris, too. They felt more like they were faced with a boulder than a person.
“A-and so you see, Miss Tiriena…”
But she had a lovely name. It sounded like a spell that could be used to summon snow sprites, but she herself looked like a mountain in a blizzard. Ferris had heard that, in Gusteko, with its continual snowfall, girls prized skin as white as new fallen snow, and this figure was no exception. Up close, her skin was peerless; from a distance, it evoked the image of a peerless cliff.
Even the normally charismatic Fourier seemed cowed by this woman, his words uncharacteristically inarticulate. Still, he managed to throw an arm around Ferris’s shoulder, pulling his slender body close.
“I—I’m so sorry you had to come all this way, but I already have someone I’ve set my heart upon. I’m afraid I just won’t be able to accept your proposal.”
“It’s true. Oh, I just can’t imagine being betrothed to anyone but His Highness. I beg you, don’t tear the two of us apart…!”
In contrast to Fourier’s near inability to speak, Ferris was an accomplished actor, augmenting his pleas with a tear in the corner of his eye. Perhaps he had tugged on Tiriena’s heartstrings, because she lowered her eyes with an expression of pity on her sculpted features.
“There’s no need for either of you to apologize. I can see all too well the love you share. It’s enough to make me ashamed…” Tiriena, wearing one of the uniquely unrevealing dresses common in the northern country, pressed a hand to her chest gently, then regarded Fourier and Ferris with clear eyes. “Even we in the Holy Kingdom know of the civil war from decades ago. I had heard resentment still remained from those days, but…I see it hasn’t stopped the two of you from cherishing each other. What a beautiful love you share.”
Ferris realized Tiriena was looking at his cat ears. The civil war she spoke of was a lengthy conflict Lugunica had waged against the demi-humans. The ears were simply something Ferris had inherited from his ancestors, but they played no small role in the trouble he had experienced as a child. He couldn’t keep his face from stiffening at Tiriena’s words. His pale shoulders, exposed by the cut of his dress, began to tremble, and he reflexively tried to make himself smaller. But the arm around his shoulders drew tighter.
“Just so, Lady Tiriena.” Fourier was gazing directly at her now as he attempted to hold Ferris steady with his arm. The bewilderment he had shown a moment before had vanished, replaced with a commanding presence and strength of spirit. “In friendship and in love I pay no mind to birth or species. One loves whom one loves. Others may say what they please—but I cannot do anything about the yearnings of my own heart. I love this woman beside me, right to her very ears. I even adore her feline fickleness.”
Fourier smiled proudly. Ferris felt his cheeks grow hot, their faces close. For as long as they had known each other, Fourier had only brought up Ferris’s ears once or twice. And it was true that he had demonstrated his magnanimity by never belittling them. But saying he loved them? That he had never done before, and it brought a flush to Ferris’s face.
“Goodness, I envy the idea that one can be so dearly loved.” Tiriena smiled like a contented bear.
Her look made Ferris realize that Tiriena agreed that the meeting had to end. She was empathetic and perceptive. Ferris could not let her have Fourier, but he could see that Tiriena deserved to be happy, too.
“Forgive me, Miss Tiriena,” Fourier said. “You are intelligent and, above all, kind, and if I were not already so in love, I could do much worse than be betrothed to you.”
“Please, you don’t need to try to spare the feelings of a woman you have no interest in. It would be so much worse to know I was with someone whose heart belonged to another. I myself have been thoughtless, anyway. I’d heard the rumors that His Highness Fourier Lugunica was in love with a manly, martial young woman—and I have to admit, I wondered…”
Ferris barely suppressed a squeak at Tiriena’s comments as she rose from her seat. It meant that this meeting had come to pass because of a misunderstanding of Fourier’s feelings for Crusch. In other words, the reason they were even having this meeting was the same reason they were trying to break it up: Fourier’s loutishness.
“Your Highness,” Ferris said, “I hope you have a good, long think about your behavior today…”
“What do you mean?! I think I was very manly today, if I may say so myself!”
5
As Viscount Misère reentered the room with Tiriena’s escort, he was merciless.
“It looks like there’s no need to ask how things went.”
It was simply his personality, but it was still wrong to say something that might be hurtful to their guest. Tiriena, however, had a tremendously gentle smile on her face.
“You’re as cruel as ever, Viscount. Have you no words of comfort for a brokenhearted young maiden?”
“I thought we held this meeting in hopes that you would find someone to offer you that comfort. If it didn’t go well, that’s your problem. Complain all you like; there’s nothing I can do about it.”
It was a rather upsetting conversation to hear, but neither of the participants seemed to be quite bothered. Ferris gave one of Tiriena’s attendants a tap on the shoulder as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
“Um, excuse meow for asking,” Ferris said, “but have those two met each other?”
“Ah? Oh, yes. Viscount Misère came to the Holy Kingdom several times in his youth, on which occasions he met Lady Tiriena. They’ve known each other for nearly a decade now…”
The middle-aged guard’s explanation cast the conversation in a very different light. In fact, the entire sequence of events started to look different. Why, for example, the viscount had seemed so aggressive in his desire to undermine the meeting. And why, with that goal accomplished, he seemed more than a little pleased.
“Could it be that the viscount has feelings for Lady Tiriena?”
“Wha?!” At Ferris’s blunt question, the viscount started to turn red before their eyes. In a near panic, he turned to Tiriena and said, “It’s not—it’s not true! That fool’s sick in the head! I don’t care a whit about—”
“I know; you don’t have to get so frantic. But I can’t believe you would use a word like fool for such a refined young lady. Apologize to her!”
In his vehement effort to defend himself, Misère accidentally let the cat out of the bag.
“A fool he is and a fool I’ll call him! Dress or no dress, that’s a man!”
“Huh?”
Tiriena, shocked, looked at Ferris, trying to decide whether this was true. It might have been possible to go on deceiving her, of course, but if she set her mind to it, it wouldn’t take too long for her to find out the truth.
“—It’s true. I’m a man, just like he said.”
No point in denying it. Ferris pulled down the front of his dress to reveal his perfectly flat chest. Tiriena still looked as if she could barely believe it. With no choice remaining, Ferris lifted up his skirt. Tiriena was deeply shocked.
“But—yes, I’m a man, but the part about His Highness and me being in love is true! We are in love! Aren’t we, Your Highness?”
Ferris had proven his sex but continued to insist that the love itself was no lie. He clung to Fourier’s arm, snuggling up against him.
“I love you, Your Highness.” He looked with adoring eyes at Fourier, who stood speechless, then planted a kiss on his cheek.
The soft sensation of his lips seemed to finally rouse Fourier. The young prince gave a shake of his head and looked Ferris full in the face before declaring:
“I…I don’t care if you’re a man! As long as you’re you!”
It was,
in a way, the manliest, least loutish thing he had ever done.
6
“I heard how things went. Word is, the young lady Your Highness met will become Viscount Misère’s wife,” Crusch said, unable to repress a smile. It was unlike the ever-rational girl to fight back a grin. It was evidence of how close to home these events had hit for her.
Ferris, on the other hand, didn’t appear to be enjoying himself. “I guess it’s good that we managed to avoid that match. But now things are kind of awkward with His Highness. It makes Ferri lonely.”
“To think that’s how His Highness would find out about your true sex…but surely you didn’t think you could hide it from him your entire life?”
“Nah, I don’t think even His Highness is that dense.” That he still had never said anything was testament to Fourier’s fearsome obliviousness.
But Viscount Misère had finally been able to reveal his long and patient love, and it seemed Tiriena would find her happiness. A happy ending for all, if only Ferris could find a way to repair his relationship with Fourier.
“Incidentally,” Crusch said, “perhaps it’s just the way the story was told to me, but the rumor is that His Highness prefers men. When that gets out, offers of marriage may stop coming. As soon as the word started circulating, though—well, I felt like I got quite a few sympathetic looks in the castle. I wonder what that was all about.”
“Oh, uhh, you know, there are all kinds of people and all kinds of opinions…”
“Mm, it’s a question with no easy answer. I see. I shall consider it further.” Crusch, as serious as she was, would no doubt end up deducting some reasoning she could accept. Although being as ignorant in matters of the heart as she was, she might never arrive at the correct answer.
Meanwhile, Ferris found himself under a cloud, even though it represented an uncharacteristic moment of disloyalty to his master. But even Ferris was surprised by how hurt he felt when faced with this newfound distance from Fourier.
The Dream of the Lion King Page 4
