“Ugh...hu..hu..”
Originally, she was Arbor's first child.
As a child, Leonie knew that she was different from others.
She watered the arbor just like everyone else, but somehow she was able to understand the thoughts of the tree, its heart.
Just as she reads people's emotions and guesses their true intentions by looking at their facial expressions, she could hear Arbor's whispers every day, even if she saw a tree rooted in the same place and in the same shape every day.
After she became an adult, she was given a mark on her arm signifying the fortune teller of Arbor.
The day she stamped her mark on her arm with a hot seal, the tree whispered to her as she groaned because it was quite painful.
He said he was glad she had her own mate.
Arbor's words rang clearly in her head.
She wasn't crazy or delusional. She was simply accessing a mysterious secret that only one person in a generation was allowed to access.
After becoming Arbor's fortune teller, she came to deal with the high-ranking people of each country that divided the continent.
Political disturbances and sometimes problems such as succession issues within the royal family could shake the fortunes of a country. Such things were not uncommon.
Countries that worship gods and have state religions also come to Trees when they have a really important or big event ahead of them.
Plogne Village was a hidden village that did not even appear on the map.
Even in the nearest neighboring village, people thought that there were people who lived in seclusion in the mountains, gathering herbs, but no one thought to go into the depths where they lived.
Nobles and Kings often visited such places. Sometimes, funny enough, high-ranking priests from other religions came to visit.
She asked Arbor what they asked, and relayed the tree's answer to the people.
Leonie was the spokesperson for the trees, and she was also a medium between humans and trees.
And a chance meeting with Evan.
The ten years she spent raising a normal family after giving birth to Claudel were the most beautiful and brilliant moments of her life. Leonie had no doubt that those days would continue for a long time until she took her last breath.
A life with Evan, Claudel, and a tree by her side.
Then one day, the tips of Arbor's leaves withered.
The sight of dark green tree branches turning yellow only at the tips and drying out to brown overnight was so unfamiliar that it felt bizarre.
The older adults in the village said that Arbor's misfortune meant some kind of ominous major event on the continent.
At that time, Leonie felt a little sick.
This is because the feeling of the tree being weak and suffering from body pain was conveyed vividly.
She then faced the day when disaster struck the village.
“...Queen Sylvia.”
It all started the day the Queen came to the village after receiving reports of Arbor's misfortune.
No, can we say that it is the beginning?
It might be better to call it the end of Flogne Village and Arbor.
“Ugh. Ugh. Okay.”
Leonie cried and cried as she couldn't breathe.
A vivid fragment of her memory appeared in her mind as if it had been cut and stuffed.
‘Arbor’s leaves are withering. This is my first time seeing something like this.'
Even though Queen Silvia was a woman, she was wearing hunting clothes rather than a dress. It was not a stylish outfit worn by noble ladies imitating men's clothing, but was practical and something knights would wear.
She wore a cape with spotted sable fur on the stiff collar and exuded an intimidating air, like a warrior who had appeared to draw the legendary holy sword.
The woman's blue eyes were sharp and cold as she tied her rich, lemon-colored blonde hair into a neat ponytail, revealing her beautiful face as smooth as a painting, from her forehead to the tip of her chin.
In her time, she had met many people, from elderly nobles to Kings of foreign countries, but Leonie had never once felt nervous. But at that time she felt weighed down by the dignity of the Queen, who still had years left to live.
‘Preach the divine tree’s words. Why are you making such a fuss?'
Leonie unconsciously lowered her head in front of the Queen, who treated even Arbor, the God of mystery on the continent, lightly.
‘Arbor said...'
And the seeds of trouble were thrown.
'...They say that if this happens, the whole country will be engulfed in war.'
'Yes?'
After hearing her words, or rather, Arbor's meaning through her mouth, the Queen did not react in any particular way.
'Right.'
That was it for her.
After Queen Sylvia returned, cold sweat broke out all over her body.
The tree shed its branches and leaves, giving off a gloomy energy.
So something was wrong with her, she knew something terrible was about to happen, but thr tree did not respond to Leonie calling for Arbor.
This was right before the fire broke out in the village of Plogne.
“If only I hadn’t told her that.”
It was her mission when she became Arbor's first child to convey the words of the tree to those who wanted Arbor's wisdom.
But she knew that that mission could sometimes be a terrible yoke that she could not shake off.
In just over a decade, there wasn't a single day that went by that she didn't think of that moment.
The Kingdom of Oberon fought a war in someone else's land.
Beyond the border, someone's blood soaked the ground every day, but within Oberon's kingdom, abundance and peace coexisted with crises happening far away.
But what did she see?
The moment she conveyed the will of the tree to the Queen, a terrible scene unfolded before her eyes: the wheat fields on the plain surrounding the royal palace were on fire and burning, and the people were crying and complaining of pain.
Her daily life with her beloved husband and child could not coexist with her mission.
The moment she completed her mission, she became a kindling fire along with the village and disappeared without even leaving behind ashes.
“Claudel.”
As she cried out her daughter's name, her tears fell and touched the dirty floor and it returned to her lips, tickling them.
“I will definitely protect you and that child.”
She failed once because it was her first time, but the second time will be different.
“That child is a miracle.”
Madame Cronach called the child, who Claudel thought was close to hope under the distant southern sky, a miracle.
Knock.
There was a knock on the door.
“Madame. What's going on? Madam?”
Madame Cronach, who had raised her body, responded casually.
“It’s nothing.”
"Yes, Madam. It’s ten minutes before the guests arrive.”
“I’ll be there soon.”
She looked in the mirror.
She burst out laughing at the very happy news.
“This is not the time. She has herzol, so she will need a lot.”
Thinking of all the good things she would say to Claudel, she hurried out of the room.
Rowen Castle seemed very peaceful these days on the outside.
Most of the family members in the castle enjoyed the leisurely days that had come after so many events.
But some were also very busy.
For example, Madame Marcel, is entrusted with a very important and secret mission.
The inside of her studio was busy with no space to step around. During the fall festival, 'I am the one who made Madam an amazing dress!' Because she shouted, many maidens came to the castle to learn sewing.
After conducting several tests, she hired them as assistants and taught them how to do the job. The sound of the sewing machine running constantly echoed in the studio.
A sewing machine was an expensive item, enough to buy several houses, but it was difficult to handle in the first place.
This was because it did not usually require skill to push the fabric in at a uniform speed by rotating the handle with the right hand and moving the needle up and down with the left hand.
There was already more than one person who broke needles that their salary could not cover, but all this investment was made only by the lord's will to see Claudel wearing an elegant and beautiful dress.
One of her assistants called out to her as she slowly hand-stitched the lace.
“Madame Marcel. Please look at this.”
“Let’s see. Oh. I see your skills have improved quickly.”
“Hehe, thank you."
She strung precious stones on the thin lace, making it sparkle like something an angel would wear when she just waved it with her hand.
“They say I have eyes for people. Pass! If you have this level of skill, you will pass!”
"Really? I can't believe you praised me. I’m so happy.”
That's right, praise is free.
Madame Marcel was so moved that she laid down an armful of lace in front of her assistant, whose eyes sparkled. Just then, the fabric she had requested from Madame Cronach from the capital yesterday had arrived.
“We have to make this all the same.”
"Ah..."
“I’ll do my best to pass everything.”
She patted the shoulder of the woman who seemed to have paused for a moment at the shocking amount of work she was doing and headed out of the studio.
Since Madame Marcel was born, she has never been so busy working these days.
Because she thought her dress was a work of art, she saw no reason to make and sell so many.
Surprisingly, she was a talented person who majored in sculpture at the Royal College of Art. One day, she felt more beautiful in the hem of her dress, which fluttered as it moved, than in a motionless stone. She had an unusual career and became a costume designer.
“Madam made me like this.”
Madame Marcel muttered self-deprecatingly.
When she applied to be the castle's seamstress, she had no idea she would work so hard.
When she heard that the capital's most powerful people had applied for a position that had been promised a large sum of money by the Duke of Temnes, but had all been rejected, she was half curious and half wanted to test her skills.
Indeed, the Duke of Temnes was as rumored. Should she say that he has no room to appeal to recognition to decide whether she wins or not?
But Madame Marcel did it. It was a rigorous and difficult test that made her feel proud of that fact.
A dress that would fit a Duchess she'd never seen before.
If she had made a saddle suitable for Pegasus, she would have been able to look at the constellations in the night sky.
When she knocked on Claudel's bedroom door, Hannah greeted her.
"Lady, Madame Marcel is here.”
Claudel, who had been sitting daintily by the window, fiddling with the needlework she had learned from her, raised her head.
“You’re here. Sit down here.”
Claudel wiggled her hands and placed something small that looked like a crumpled piece of cloth on the table.
'Ugh. My heart.'
The Duchess was truly lovely.
Her embarrassed and crude smile shone on her face.
“You tried hard,” she said. “I don’t think it’s that good.”
As a child, Leonie knew that she was different from others.
She watered the arbor just like everyone else, but somehow she was able to understand the thoughts of the tree, its heart.
Just as she reads people's emotions and guesses their true intentions by looking at their facial expressions, she could hear Arbor's whispers every day, even if she saw a tree rooted in the same place and in the same shape every day.
After she became an adult, she was given a mark on her arm signifying the fortune teller of Arbor.
The day she stamped her mark on her arm with a hot seal, the tree whispered to her as she groaned because it was quite painful.
He said he was glad she had her own mate.
Arbor's words rang clearly in her head.
She wasn't crazy or delusional. She was simply accessing a mysterious secret that only one person in a generation was allowed to access.
After becoming Arbor's fortune teller, she came to deal with the high-ranking people of each country that divided the continent.
Political disturbances and sometimes problems such as succession issues within the royal family could shake the fortunes of a country. Such things were not uncommon.
Countries that worship gods and have state religions also come to Trees when they have a really important or big event ahead of them.
Plogne Village was a hidden village that did not even appear on the map.
Even in the nearest neighboring village, people thought that there were people who lived in seclusion in the mountains, gathering herbs, but no one thought to go into the depths where they lived.
Nobles and Kings often visited such places. Sometimes, funny enough, high-ranking priests from other religions came to visit.
She asked Arbor what they asked, and relayed the tree's answer to the people.
Leonie was the spokesperson for the trees, and she was also a medium between humans and trees.
And a chance meeting with Evan.
The ten years she spent raising a normal family after giving birth to Claudel were the most beautiful and brilliant moments of her life. Leonie had no doubt that those days would continue for a long time until she took her last breath.
A life with Evan, Claudel, and a tree by her side.
Then one day, the tips of Arbor's leaves withered.
The sight of dark green tree branches turning yellow only at the tips and drying out to brown overnight was so unfamiliar that it felt bizarre.
The older adults in the village said that Arbor's misfortune meant some kind of ominous major event on the continent.
At that time, Leonie felt a little sick.
This is because the feeling of the tree being weak and suffering from body pain was conveyed vividly.
She then faced the day when disaster struck the village.
“...Queen Sylvia.”
It all started the day the Queen came to the village after receiving reports of Arbor's misfortune.
No, can we say that it is the beginning?
It might be better to call it the end of Flogne Village and Arbor.
“Ugh. Ugh. Okay.”
Leonie cried and cried as she couldn't breathe.
A vivid fragment of her memory appeared in her mind as if it had been cut and stuffed.
‘Arbor’s leaves are withering. This is my first time seeing something like this.'
Even though Queen Silvia was a woman, she was wearing hunting clothes rather than a dress. It was not a stylish outfit worn by noble ladies imitating men's clothing, but was practical and something knights would wear.
She wore a cape with spotted sable fur on the stiff collar and exuded an intimidating air, like a warrior who had appeared to draw the legendary holy sword.
The woman's blue eyes were sharp and cold as she tied her rich, lemon-colored blonde hair into a neat ponytail, revealing her beautiful face as smooth as a painting, from her forehead to the tip of her chin.
In her time, she had met many people, from elderly nobles to Kings of foreign countries, but Leonie had never once felt nervous. But at that time she felt weighed down by the dignity of the Queen, who still had years left to live.
‘Preach the divine tree’s words. Why are you making such a fuss?'
Leonie unconsciously lowered her head in front of the Queen, who treated even Arbor, the God of mystery on the continent, lightly.
‘Arbor said...'
And the seeds of trouble were thrown.
'...They say that if this happens, the whole country will be engulfed in war.'
'Yes?'
After hearing her words, or rather, Arbor's meaning through her mouth, the Queen did not react in any particular way.
'Right.'
That was it for her.
After Queen Sylvia returned, cold sweat broke out all over her body.
The tree shed its branches and leaves, giving off a gloomy energy.
So something was wrong with her, she knew something terrible was about to happen, but thr tree did not respond to Leonie calling for Arbor.
This was right before the fire broke out in the village of Plogne.
“If only I hadn’t told her that.”
It was her mission when she became Arbor's first child to convey the words of the tree to those who wanted Arbor's wisdom.
But she knew that that mission could sometimes be a terrible yoke that she could not shake off.
In just over a decade, there wasn't a single day that went by that she didn't think of that moment.
The Kingdom of Oberon fought a war in someone else's land.
Beyond the border, someone's blood soaked the ground every day, but within Oberon's kingdom, abundance and peace coexisted with crises happening far away.
But what did she see?
The moment she conveyed the will of the tree to the Queen, a terrible scene unfolded before her eyes: the wheat fields on the plain surrounding the royal palace were on fire and burning, and the people were crying and complaining of pain.
Her daily life with her beloved husband and child could not coexist with her mission.
The moment she completed her mission, she became a kindling fire along with the village and disappeared without even leaving behind ashes.
“Claudel.”
As she cried out her daughter's name, her tears fell and touched the dirty floor and it returned to her lips, tickling them.
“I will definitely protect you and that child.”
She failed once because it was her first time, but the second time will be different.
“That child is a miracle.”
Madame Cronach called the child, who Claudel thought was close to hope under the distant southern sky, a miracle.
Knock.
There was a knock on the door.
“Madame. What's going on? Madam?”
Madame Cronach, who had raised her body, responded casually.
“It’s nothing.”
"Yes, Madam. It’s ten minutes before the guests arrive.”
“I’ll be there soon.”
She looked in the mirror.
She burst out laughing at the very happy news.
“This is not the time. She has herzol, so she will need a lot.”
Thinking of all the good things she would say to Claudel, she hurried out of the room.
***
Rowen Castle seemed very peaceful these days on the outside.
Most of the family members in the castle enjoyed the leisurely days that had come after so many events.
But some were also very busy.
For example, Madame Marcel, is entrusted with a very important and secret mission.
The inside of her studio was busy with no space to step around. During the fall festival, 'I am the one who made Madam an amazing dress!' Because she shouted, many maidens came to the castle to learn sewing.
After conducting several tests, she hired them as assistants and taught them how to do the job. The sound of the sewing machine running constantly echoed in the studio.
A sewing machine was an expensive item, enough to buy several houses, but it was difficult to handle in the first place.
This was because it did not usually require skill to push the fabric in at a uniform speed by rotating the handle with the right hand and moving the needle up and down with the left hand.
There was already more than one person who broke needles that their salary could not cover, but all this investment was made only by the lord's will to see Claudel wearing an elegant and beautiful dress.
One of her assistants called out to her as she slowly hand-stitched the lace.
“Madame Marcel. Please look at this.”
“Let’s see. Oh. I see your skills have improved quickly.”
“Hehe, thank you."
She strung precious stones on the thin lace, making it sparkle like something an angel would wear when she just waved it with her hand.
“They say I have eyes for people. Pass! If you have this level of skill, you will pass!”
"Really? I can't believe you praised me. I’m so happy.”
That's right, praise is free.
Madame Marcel was so moved that she laid down an armful of lace in front of her assistant, whose eyes sparkled. Just then, the fabric she had requested from Madame Cronach from the capital yesterday had arrived.
“We have to make this all the same.”
"Ah..."
“I’ll do my best to pass everything.”
She patted the shoulder of the woman who seemed to have paused for a moment at the shocking amount of work she was doing and headed out of the studio.
Since Madame Marcel was born, she has never been so busy working these days.
Because she thought her dress was a work of art, she saw no reason to make and sell so many.
Surprisingly, she was a talented person who majored in sculpture at the Royal College of Art. One day, she felt more beautiful in the hem of her dress, which fluttered as it moved, than in a motionless stone. She had an unusual career and became a costume designer.
“Madam made me like this.”
Madame Marcel muttered self-deprecatingly.
When she applied to be the castle's seamstress, she had no idea she would work so hard.
When she heard that the capital's most powerful people had applied for a position that had been promised a large sum of money by the Duke of Temnes, but had all been rejected, she was half curious and half wanted to test her skills.
Indeed, the Duke of Temnes was as rumored. Should she say that he has no room to appeal to recognition to decide whether she wins or not?
But Madame Marcel did it. It was a rigorous and difficult test that made her feel proud of that fact.
A dress that would fit a Duchess she'd never seen before.
If she had made a saddle suitable for Pegasus, she would have been able to look at the constellations in the night sky.
When she knocked on Claudel's bedroom door, Hannah greeted her.
"Lady, Madame Marcel is here.”
Claudel, who had been sitting daintily by the window, fiddling with the needlework she had learned from her, raised her head.
“You’re here. Sit down here.”
Claudel wiggled her hands and placed something small that looked like a crumpled piece of cloth on the table.
'Ugh. My heart.'
The Duchess was truly lovely.
Her embarrassed and crude smile shone on her face.
“You tried hard,” she said. “I don’t think it’s that good.”
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