My confusion must have shown on my face, because Sirius smiled awkwardly. “I’m told I ask for the impossible,” he answered. “My top priority as a knight is defeating the enemy quickly and making sure as many people survive as possible. I tend to tell the saints what they could do better, and they typically don’t agree.”
“They don’t like your advice?” I asked, thinking that his priorities were pretty reasonable.
Sirius shook his head. “No, we’re all on the same page. It’s just that my expectations are unrealistic, they say. I’m a knight, not a saint. I don’t understand what they have to go through, but here I am telling them how to do their job. That’s why they’re mad, they tell me.”
I cocked my head, not really understanding what Sirius was getting at.
“For example,” he explained, “I’d say something like, ‘Why don’t you take two more steps forward so you can use your magic on all the knights?’ and they’d reply, ‘We don’t need to cast magic on all the knights.’ They have their own way of doing things that’s tried and true. They learn all the tricks of their trade in a unit called the Fourth Saint Knight Brigade… My suggestions would go against what they learned there, apparently.”
“Oh, I see.”
Judging by what Sirius said, I still thought he was right, but I guess the saints had their own way of going about things too.
When I fell quiet, Sirius took my hand. Maybe he thought my silence meant I was feeling down. “Serafina, I’m sure you’ll find a role that suits you perfectly,” he insisted. “Your blindness might limit your options, but there are still many things you can do.”
When I realized that he was comforting me, I turned my head in his direction. “Sirius,” I said, my voice firm and clear. “I’m not upset about not being able to see.”
“Oh?”
“I think my blindness is a blessing. Blocking my eyes is what makes me able to see the important things.”
I was certain that I was able to sense the young spirits because of my blindness.
“Huh. You’re a wise one.”
That was all Sirius said as he stroked my head with his large hand. It felt nice, so I stayed quiet and let him keep doing it to me. Sirius stopped speaking too, and for a while we listened to the sounds of the gentle breeze. It reminded me of how we were silent like this on the day we met as well. Back then, I thought the silence was uncomfortable, but it felt completely different now. Now I knew that doing anything with Sirius was fun.
We enjoyed the comfortable silence for a while after that, taking in the sounds of the wind…
“Princess Serafina, we found some rare fruit in the forest! This is called the ‘Sweet Red Fruit.’ Usually it’s bitter, but sometimes it can be unbelievably sweet,” said a knight as he placed five pieces of fruit into my palm.
“Hey, quit it! You’ll traumatize Princess Serafina if you give her a bad one.” Another knight snatched away all the fruit I’d been given.
“Okay, then how about this scone? They’re going to be today’s snacks, but I was able to pinch one from the food tasters.”
“Hold up! That was meant to be tested for poison! Why are you serving it to the princess?!”
“Ack! You’re right!”
The knights kept handing me food and taking it away, squabbling all the while. I could feel my cheeks about to burst from grinning. The knights were always cheerful and trying to make things fun for me—it made me really happy. Some of the ladies-in-waiting disapproved and thought they were being too casual with me, but I was just a kid, so of course people wouldn’t be overly formal.
After chatting happily for a while about food, the knights started talking about Sirius.
“Vice-Commander Sirius is vital to the knight brigade. Without him, the knights would just be a disorderly rabble since we’re all prone to doing our own thing. We need a person with a strong presence to keep us in line and tell us what to do.”
“But his standards are way too high for the rest of us. He makes the right calls, but nobody can live up to his demands.”
“If nobody can meet his standards then his idealism is merely wishful thinking. Oh, I’m just talking about the knights and the saints here. Although it might also apply to his love life, given his looks.”
This reminded me of how the spirits only lit up Sirius’ mouth. But his looks didn’t matter to me at all because he was so kind and well respected by the other knights.
“I think Sirius is wonderful. I’d love to be able to fight with him,” I muttered.
The other day, when Sirius encouraged me to become a saint, he mentioned that saints and knights fought together on the battlefield. If I ever became able to see and trained to become a good saint, then I might be able to fight alongside him one day.
Maybe I was attached to that possibility because I was looking for ways to keep Sirius in my life in the future since he was going back to the capital soon. He never directly mentioned it, but I sensed that we would soon be saying goodbye. He was an important person who juggled so many different jobs, but he’d been staying with me for nearly ten days now. Any longer and he would be letting down all the people who relied on him.
Ah, I really am blessed to have met Sirius, I thought as I walked through the forest.
Seven and a bunch of other spirits joined me, and I chatted with them as we took a nice walk to the lake. Whenever I spoke with them, the others thought that the “blessings” were communicating with me, so they gave me some space.
My guards for today were a couple of knights who came with Sirius from the capital. They made sure to keep their distance as they watched over me.