No matter how much I struggle, how much I resist, how fiercely I cling to a righteous life…someday, I’m going to “go back” to myself. And yet… Aaaaahhh! How…how did I forget that?!
“Please wake up, Princess Pride!”
“Pride! Pride! Hey, stay back! This isn’t some spectacle!”
“Why?! Why won’t she wake up, damn it?!”
Questions swirled through my mind.
Why did I feel the need to form my fealty contract with Val as “the future queen,” even when I knew during his trial that Tiara was this country’s true queen? When did I decide not to entrust anyone with my ultimate punishment? Why did I desire that Val “survive” if he lost a place to belong? Why did I tell Mother we still had time?!
Something about it had always felt strange. Over and over and over again, I knew something was wrong!
So why did I end up selecting my marriage candidates?
Oh, that’s right. It wasn’t as if I’d forgotten entirely.
Captain Callum and Arthur… They were proud of being knights. Stale spent his days working hard, training to one day serve the people as seneschal. None of them would ever want to abandon those lives to become the prince consort. But when Mother presented me with that list of candidates, I didn’t hesitate for a moment.
I chose all three of them without a single thought.
“Please allow me to confirm one thing. Are these marriage candidates to be announced two years from now, and never before?”
As long as their candidacy remained secret, I wanted it to be them. As long as they wouldn’t be punished or treated coldly by the public for being my marriage candidates…they were my first choices.
After all…I wanted to spend my final days with the people I loved, if only to be with them a second longer.
I would get to spend more time with them once they became marriage candidates, just like I had during my engagement to Leon. They would take priority in every single matter. That was why I chose them as my candidates, and no one else. They were three of the people who’d treated me so kindly throughout the entire time we’d known each other.
It was like I knew my life was drawing to a close.
Here I’d been operating under the assumption I was the crown princess, slated to become the next queen, but a deeper part of me always knew the truth: I would never be queen. My happy days would end. My life would play out exactly as it had in the game.
I hadn’t forgotten…yet the memories faded away over time. With each passing year, I believed more in the future laid out for me as crown princess until eventually, I stopped questioning it.
What a fool I’ve been.
I’d entrusted things to Stale and Arthur. I’d taught Tiara the things she would need to know as queen. I’d dodged every bullet using my power of precognition.
Over the past ten years, no one knew more about the experience, the sensation of precognition than I did.
“Pride… Pride! Wake up!”
“Princess Pride! Please…open your eyes!”
May I never open my eyes again.
The next time I woke up, I would hurt everyone around me. I prayed that these would be my final moments in this world.
If that’s too much to ask for…then at the very least, may this world have the same happy ending that the game did.
“Princess Pride!”
“Pride! It…it can’t be! How could this happen?!”
“Pride! Pride! What’s going on?!”
May they kill me once and for all…
“Pride!”
“Princess Pride!”
…before I destroy the country I love.
“Big Sister!”