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Marquis Riefenstahl quickly scooped up his hysterical daughter. Lieselotte clung to him, repeating, “No, no! I didn’t mean it!” over and over again. After a feverish apology, the man swept his daughter away from the scene.
“Mother,” Siegwald asked, “did I do something wrong?”
Tiana couldn’t help but giggle from seeing her son look so forlorn.
“Liking someone as a friend and liking someone that you’re going to marry is different. You might like someone a lot as a friend, but then feel very differently if they asked to marry you. I think Lieselotte suddenly started thinking about that and got a little shy, is all.”
Tiana continued giggling, but Siegwald didn’t seem to understand. He tilted his head and looked at her blankly.
“Basically,” she went on, “you were just a teensy bit too forward for your second time meeting, Sieg. Trust me, I promise she’s not upset with you.”
“Really?”
“Really! Think about it: the marquis would never have agreed to let you two marry if Lieselotte didn’t like you. He might be the loyal blade of the kingdom, but the best of swords will point straight at the crown should we ever stray from a just path. Anyway, you two are going to be together for years and years. Don’t worry and get along little by little.”
Hearing his mother speak with such confidence slowly put a smile back on Siegwald’s face.
“You’re right, that makes sense! Now that I think about it, it’s rude to grab a lady’s hand without saying anything!”
“Mm-hm,” Tiana said with a smile. “Do your best, my little prince.”
By this point, the sagacious queen had already figured out Lieselotte’s true feelings, and thought that her childish bashfulness was simply adorable.
Little did Tiana know, the two would fail to close the distance for years to come...and she would never have imagined the convoluted mess their relationship would slowly morph into.
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Three years had passed, and Lieselotte Riefenstahl was nine years of age. It was early autumn, and her hair was far longer than it had once been.
It was considered fashionable among the women of upper nobility to grow one’s hair out to their hips. Some did so because it signified that they were wealthy enough to employ a stylist exclusively for hair care. Others followed the age-old tradition that said long hair warded off evil spirits. While there were many different explanations, the simplest and most influential one was that long hair was in vogue.
Tiana had recently ascended from the position of crown princess to that of queen consort, and she was now at the center of the kingdom. Those around her enjoyed themselves by styling her voluptuous hair in all sorts of beautiful ways. Naturally, the rest of high society followed suit.
Lieselotte’s mother was not one for trends or fashion. To her, hair was nothing more than a nuisance that got in the way of painting. Lieselotte had long followed suit and kept her own hair at shoulder length, but the sight of Tiana’s elegant locks had stolen her heart. Ever since their first meeting, the girl had been growing out her hair; it now sat right around her waist.
“Lieselotte, dear, I see you’ve curled your hair today,” Tiana said with a smile. Her student had entered her room today with long, curly rolls.
“Um, well...” Lieselotte’s cheeks grew pink and she averted her gaze ever so slightly. “His Highness said you looked pretty when you wore your hair like this the other day, so I tried copying you.”
Tiana squinted. She could hardly bear the girl’s adorable shyness. However, that begged the question: why was she so sincere when Sieg wasn’t around, yet so untrue to herself when he was?
The two children were on the cusp of puberty, and their relationship was beginning to show its quirks. Siegwald was steadily beginning to understand the difference between sexes, and Lieselotte was mentally twisting her first love at every turn. Tiana couldn’t help but worry as she watched the pair drift further into the realm of distant politeness.
“You look absolutely precious,” the queen said. “You’re incredibly cute, but...” Why don’t you show my son how cute you are? Unable to put this question to words, Tiana sighed.
“Is there something wrong with my hair?” Lieselotte asked, fretful.
“Um...” Tiana stared at the girl in deep thought. Eventually, she decided to smile her worries away. “No, dear, I just thought that your head seemed a little lonely. Let me see—how about something like this?”
The queen was struck with a wonderful idea. She plucked a single flower out of a vase decorating her room.
“What’s that?” Lieselotte eyed the blossom curiously.
Tiana snipped the stem short with a playful grin. Then, she stuck it straight into the girl’s hair.
“It’s a present! Think of this flower as a good luck charm to make you and Sieg get along.”
Lieselotte tilted her head. She had no idea what the queen was talking about.
“Okay, quiz time!” Tiana said. “We here in the royal family are bestowed something to symbolize ourselves. We put this symbol on all of our favorite things to show that they are ours. What do we call this symbol?”
“I know! It’s a seal!”
Lieselotte answered right away and the queen showered her with applause.
“Correct! Then do you know what Sieg’s seal is?”
“I do! It’s a lirene! Even though boys usually don’t use flowers as their seal, Prince Siegwald was born with the same hair and eyes as the Goddess Lirenna who gave birth to our world, so he was given her favorite flower!”
“Correct again! That was a perfect textbook answer, Lieselotte! Okay, last question: what kind of flower is a lirene?”
This time around, the answer did not immediately spring to Lieselotte’s mind. Slowly, she began to speak while she dove into her memory.
“Um, it’s really rare in the kingdom, and I haven’t seen one yet. I heard that they’re really common in the eastern countries, and that they can dispel magic. They’re supposed to be white, with five petals arranged like a pointy star, and...? Wait!” All of a sudden, Lieselotte realized that the description she was dragging out of her recollection matched the flower that had been poked into her hair.
“Hee hee, that’s right! This is a lirene. They’re supposed to be difficult to grow in this climate, but for some reason you can find them all over the palace gardens. I’m sure it has something to do with our royal family being blessed by the Goddess herself.”
“This is a lirene? So this is His Highness’s...”
Lieselotte blissfully traced the snowy petals.
Tiana was overjoyed that the girl liked it so much. “People do say that it repels magic, but that isn’t why I want you to have it. This is a blessing so you and Sieg will be able to get along.”
If she can’t express herself with words, actions will do, the queen thought.
Seeing a girl decorate herself with her fiancé’s royal seal was sure to get one hundred out of one hundred people to think the same thing: she must really love her fiancé. Whether Lieselotte understood that or not, her rosy cheeks were tugging up in a wide grin.