Farewell Gifts

Farewell Gifts

Farewell Gifts

“Was today’s farewell dinner satisfactory?” I asked.

Ferdinand nodded. “Yes, very much so.”

“Fran, could you bring the farewell gift? You may then leave to have your own dinner.”

Fran brought the box over at once and gave me its contents—a cute bag small enough for me to hold in the palm of my hand. I had tied it shut with some ribbon to make it look at least a little bit more like a present.

“Rozemyne, was this meal not your farewell gift?” Ferdinand asked.

“It was, but so is this. I never said there was only one.”

“I suppose not, but...” He gave me a weird look, then accepted the bag I was holding out to him. It was more customary to put things in boxes rather than bags in this world, so the small pouch in his hand must have looked truly bizarre to him. He blinked, not entirely sure what to do with it.

“Undo the ribbon,” I said. “The gift is inside.”

“Then what is this bag?”

“Well, the packaging. Isn’t it cute?”

“I am at a loss. Why in the world would you do something so unnecessary?” Ferdinand complained, furrowing his brow while undoing the ribbon. He peered inside the bag, then his expression froze as though he could not believe what he was seeing. “Rozemyne, this is...”

“A protective charm made from a regisch scale. Hartmut taught me how to make it.”

Hartmut had taught me everything I needed to know about the protective magic circles used on Schwartz’s and Weiss’s clothes—and to thank him for helping me through what had ended up being a very arduous process, I had given him one of the rainbow feystones to do with as he pleased.

“I’m sure it will protect you if you keep it on you at all times. So, what do you think? I’ve grown a lot too, haven’t I?” I said, confidently puffing out my chest.

Ferdinand flipped the bag upside down, allowing the five-centimeter-wide teardrop-shaped feystone to fall onto his hand. He channeled some mana into it and stared at it analytically. “It... seems to be functioning properly.”

“As I said, Hartmut showed me how to do everything. I would have liked to be able to make it on my own, though.”

“You were right to seek his help. If you had made it alone, I would have been concerned about it functioning at all,” Ferdinand said with a smirk. He then looked over at Justus, who promptly acknowledged the signal and presented a slender wooden box. “And this, from me to you.”

“I thank you ever so much. May I open it?”

I was so excited that I opened the box before he even replied and peered inside. Immediately, my eyes widened in surprise. It was a hair stick—not a hairpin decorated with flowers like the kind that Tuuli made, but a proper hair stick. It was slender and metal-clad, with five rainbow feystones decorating it and chains of slightly different lengths attached to the tip.

I had chosen my largest rainbow feystones when making my gift so that I could fit as many magic circles into it as possible, while Ferdinand had chosen his smallest ones. All of the feystones here were about two centimeters in diameter. I could already picture them glittering and swaying as I walked, making for a tremendously beautiful sight.

But, wait... Rainbow feystones... That means...

I gently touched the hair stick and channeled some of my mana into it. Just as expected, this was no ordinary ornament—there were protective magic circles inside the five rainbow feystones.

“Ferdinand, this is a charm, isn’t it?”

“You are the one who said you wished to turn these feystones into ornaments, no? That would, of course, be a waste, so I made this one into a charm.”

I could definitely remember saying that I wanted to make the rainbow feystones into an ornament, but I also seemed to recall him dismissing the idea entirely. It hadn’t even crossed my mind that he might go back on those words and do something like this for me. In truth, I was more shocked than I was overjoyed.

“I tried my best to surprise you, but you’ve completely turned the tables on me.”

How could I not be completely taken aback? I had given him a rainbow feystone charm with my chest puffed out, only for him to give me the same thing times five. What’s more, my farewell gift to him was only a raw feystone; his to me was an actual ornament.

I’ve been completely and utterly defeated...

“Do not think I was not surprised as well. I did not expect you to be able to create a charm of this level,” Ferdinand said with a thin smile as he looked at his present from me. Despite his words, he still didn’t look surprised in the slightest—though he did seem kind of pleased. Although I had been defeated, he was happy, and that was all that mattered.

“Eheheh. I sure have grown, haven’t I?”

“Though it was mostly Hartmut’s work...”

“Details! Just compliment me!”

My retainers laughed, but Ferdinand just scoffed. This wasn’t the first time he had refused to play nice. I pursed my lips in a show of dissatisfaction, then began to examine the hair stick. The rainbow feystones resembled opals, and when moved around, they seemed to change color depending on where the light hit them. There were thin metal wire frames around the feystones to keep them in place, and even these were engraved, making the hair stick look all the more fancy.

“It’s a simple but attractive design,” I said. “I always knew you could pick out ornaments for women.”

“I do not want anyone to think that I picked the hairpins Detlinde ordered myself. I needed to formulate some kind of excuse to avoid putting myself at risk,” Ferdinand explained. If she had gone around saying that her fiancé had given them to her, then most would have assumed that he had chosen them himself. He wanted to avoid that at any cost; this was a dire problem that risked calling his aesthetic sense into question.

“And as for your ornament,” he continued, “while others would start to notice you wearing the same flower every day, a more discreet piece like that hair stick should draw very little attention at all. I believe that you once put forward the idea of wearing two hair ornaments at once. Utilize this technique and strive to wear this gift at every opportunity, if you can.”

It seemed that he had deliberately made the design for my hair stick simple so that I could wear it alongside a flower hairpin. He sure had thought this through. Brunhilde and Lieseleta were both nodding along, impressed.

“Lady Rozemyne, would you like to wear your new hair ornament?” Brunhilde asked, standing up and coming over at once. She accepted the hair stick from me, examined my hair for a moment, then slid it into place right next to my hairpin.