CH 38

Well, the second prince wasn’t that active in the race for succession to the throne in the first place, and I heard that even the queen had pushed the first prince to be the next king…

To prevent conflict over succession of the throne, the queen pushed the son of the maid who betrayed her, which showed how magnanimous she was, and she was loved both by commoners and aristocrats for that.

According to the story that Sophie heard, things were resolved orderly, as if put properly into a box. As an unrelated party of the conflict, it was a beautiful story that fit just right.

Sophie, who was both the reincarnation of a modern time common person in her past life and a young lady of a baron family in her present life, was unable to understand the thought process of the royal family. In fact, she never showed any interest in that prior to coming to “The Queen’s Rose.”

Christina onee-sama will be a person who will go to such an unknown world to me and become a denizen of that world.

Sophie felt a little lonely by that fact.

Although she heard that the bond of sisterhood would last for a lifetime, the worlds where Sophie, a young lady of a baron family, and Christina, a young lady of a duke family and the person who would become the queen, lived would be different. Once Christina graduated, they would likely never meet again.

Speaking of which, Sophie still had no idea why Christina granted her the ring, which was proof of the bond of sisterhood, right after she enrolled in the academy. She didn’t know why Christina chose her out of all people.

I wonder if Bart and the others also felt this way?

[“I mean, we will part too someday. You are a young lady of an aristocrat, while we are just orphans. The world we lived in is different. There’s no way we can be together forever.”]

[“You are an aristocratic woman. You will someday return to the capital. In fact, none of us orphans were supposed to meet or talk to you or Rio!”]

Sophie was reminded of the words she was told in her younger days.

It was about differences of status. Indeed, that was exactly what Sophie was experiencing right now.

Unlike what Sophie did to Bart and the others, there was no guarantee that Christina would do the same to her, and Sophie couldn’t request that either.

Sophie was well aware that Christina would become a distant existence eventually, and she would be extremely sad then. At that time—

“Sophie, what’s wrong? You look absentminded. Everyone else has already gone ahead, you know.”

“Ah… I, I’m terribly sorry. It seems I felt a bit nervous.”

As Christina suddenly called out, Sophie hurriedly said her excuse.

As Sophie looked around, she found the other two onee-samas and Lilina had already mounted their horses and were slowly moving toward the meadow.

“Sophie, is it your first time riding a horse?”

“No, in the past, I did try it for a bit…”

A bit of horse riding and we galloped across the prairie, but Sophie stopped her words from coming out her mouth.

I have raced on a horse through the prairie on a certain continent. It felt pretty good! Sophie was aware that these kinds of words weren’t supposed to come out of the mouth of a young lady of an aristocratic family.

Although most of her trips to other nations were via horse carriage, there were a few days where she had to ride on horseback. Although it was said that riding horses for a long period of time was physically demanding, Sophie inherited the sturdiness of her father’s physique and felt well overall. She even surprised the people around her as they saw she was more capable than they expected.

“Sophie will ride on this black horse. Its coat has a beautiful color, just like your hair, doesn’t it?”

Since Christina rode on a horse with a white coat, they emphasized each other’s beauty when they lined up next to each other, which made them both look graceful.

“It truly is a beautiful horse.”

“Its name is Gale. The name means a gust of wind.”

“Oh my, this horse sounds pretty fast. Nice to meet you, Gale. Please let me ride on your back.”

Gale’s big eyes looked at Sophie. As Sophie patted its nose with her finger, Gale closed its eyes in comfort. They didn’t seem to have a bad compatibility.

Sophie then stood on the left of Gale, put her left foot on the stirrup and straddled the saddle with her right foot. Gale let Sophie on its back without any fuss.

“Oh, so you can mount it alone without needing assistance.”

People who weren’t familiar with horse riding wouldn’t be able to mount one without assistance, but Sophie sat comfortably on Gale’s back. Christina muttered a bit with an impressed tone, and went toward her horse.

The higher the horse’s back was, the more things were visible to the rider there, and it made the sky feel a little closer.

The sun shone and the trees swayed in the wind.

All of those were natural things, but it felt more beautiful than usual.

“Sophie sure likes horses.”

“Yes!”

“Gale also seems to like you as well.”

The black horse trampled on the ground and carried Sophie with firm footsteps. Its eyes seemed to be proud of what it did.

“…Now that I think about it, I don’t know what Sophie likes at all.”

Christina muttered while looking straight ahead.

“Even though Sophie knows what I like, I don’t know what you like.”

“That’s, you don’t have to…”

“Whether they are things you like, things you hate, problems you may have, things you are curious about, what you really think of me… I don’t know many things about you.”

“Christina onee-sama?”

“Why haven’t you asked me the reason I chose you to be my ‘little sister’?”

As Christina asked that, Sophie was unable to respond immediately.

Sophie was indeed curious why Christina chose her to be her “little sister.” However, not even once had Sophie asked Christina about it.