Chapter 6: Test Flight

 

 

 

Chapter 6: Test Flight

 

EVERY time Amy saw the dresses lining her closet, the ones that softly flared out at the ends, she was reminded of the dress she had worn during the childhood coming-of-age festival in her past life.

At seven years old, Amy had picked out the bright mint-green dress herself. It had been beautiful, decorated with glittering rhinestones and with layer upon layer of organdy fabric stitched under the puffy skirt. She remembered how happy she’d been, feeling like a real princess…

Back in the present, Amy’s mother Isabelle wasn’t a fashionista per se, but she was reasonably attuned to the kingdom’s fashion trends. She also felt a sense of duty about fashion as a noblewoman, so she made frequent use of seamstresses. Amy’s full closet could be mostly attributed to this.

Ever since Amy began her mission to put on weight to avoid marrying the prince, her dresses started to be made from white or pale pastel fabrics—colors that had no slimming effects whatsoever.

She had one dress in the same shade of mint green as the one she had worn at that festival a lifetime ago… It was one of her favorites, of course.

Her wardrobe was a part of the desperate effort to make Amy appear even the slightest bit bigger. But recently, dresses of a slightly different type had been added to her collection…

There was, of course, her navy-blue riding dress. Amy had picked it out and it had been tailored for her to wear during her first visit to the royal riding grounds. But it was the riding dress hanging beside it—the one she wore just earlier that day—that was the problem.

It was an elegant wine-red color, which had a beautiful depth without feeling weighed down. Amy had nothing bad to say about the dye job, beautiful as could be expected from Maison, the seamstress to the royal family who specialized in fabric dyeing. The shape of the dress was simple but also beautifully accented around the hem with embroidery; the golden thread matched Amy’s eyes. There were no excessive frills, it was roomy enough to move in, and the dressmakers hadn’t skimped out on the cloth they used—to put it simply, it was incredibly comfortable to wear.

But Amy continued to frown at it. Because earlier that day…

“That looks very good on you, Amy,” the prince had said.

“Y-You think so?”

The truth was, Amy kind of thought it looked good on her, too. And she normally would have been thrilled at getting a compliment like that, but she had mixed emotions.

Amy’s mother stood beside her, smiling as serenely as ever.

“It seems you have an eye for fashion, Your Highness! It’s the perfect size, too.”

Yes, it’s shocking just how well it fit! Amy thought, fervently agreeing with her mother. The color and brilliance of the pattern make me look thinner, too… The royal seamstress must be really talented!

The only problem was…this incredibly wonderful dress had been a gift from Edward.

They were all standing together at the royal palace, Amy and her mother having been invited over, and it had been the first time in a while that she had seen Edward in person.

It was the day of Roodle’s test to determine whether he could be reinstated as a messenger bird, and the test flight would be conducted in the presence of the prince.

Although the event had been ruled an accident because he had been swept away by the air currents, he had still drifted from the flight path and gotten injured. Moreover, he likely had been attacked by a magical beast. His injuries had healed, but they needed to make sure that he could still fly the distances required to deliver messages and that he wouldn’t freeze in fear if he were to cross paths with a magical beast or another bird.

“You didn’t have to go to all this trouble for an apology…” Amy said.

“But you only ruined your dress because I let you go with us,” Edward parried.

Amy hadn’t been hurt as they rushed through the forest to save Roodle, but her navy riding dress did get quite a few tears and frays from getting caught on the undergrowth and branches along the way. Not to mention, Amy had sat on the ground to perform healing magic, so her dress had gotten pretty dirty.

The new dress was given to her as both an apology and a thank-you gift for healing Roodle.

The story went that he had initially intended to give her two or three other dresses in addition to the riding dress, but she frantically refused them.

“It was only a little frayed! I patched it up right away. I even cleaned the dirt off and made it as good as new!”

“I still couldn’t just let you go on empty-handed! It was also a thank-you present for saving Roodle, remember? Or do you not like the dress? I probably should have had those other dresses made after all… Given you more options…,” Edward muttered to himself, shoulders slumping apologetically.

She felt even worse. Realizing that, although she had sent him a note of gratitude, she had not yet thanked him in person for the gift, Amy panicked.

“Th-That’s not it! I, uh… Thank you, Edward. It’s a very beautiful dress. It made me happy.”

“Really?” Edward smiled. “I’m glad to hear that!”

Roodle was perched atop the thick hide glove on Edward’s arm. Given the bird’s large size, he was quite heavy, which Amy knew personally from when she healed him. It made sense that his wings were so large—he needed them to maneuver his five-pound body around the sky.

Edward, looking composed, used his other hand for support and secured Roodle at midchest height to keep from shaking.

The bird looked comfortable, too, as he cheerfully chirped, bobbed his head, and looked around with his huge eyes.

Given that Edward had found and raised him, it was clear they had formed a relationship bound by mutual trust and that Roodle felt at home with him.

Amy lightly patted his head as she continued the conversation, his soft plumage feeling smooth against her bare fingers.

“Anyway, you got me lots of other stuff, too.”

“Yeah. They were just little things, though.”

To compensate for the other dresses Amy had refused, Edward had given her a complete set of accessories (matching hat, shoes, and gloves), along with her own riding equipment, prepared for her at the castle riding grounds, and an arm cover so she could hold birds. He couldn’t have told her “Come see the animals whenever you want!” any clearer without actually saying the words.

Amy had visited the castle frequently since receiving the gifts to check how Roodle was doing, but Edward had been so busy that she didn’t get the chance to see him and thank him properly—although she had been very graciously allowed to use the gifts even before she had done so.

Roodle’s injury had been completely healed by her healing magic, but Amy had not been able to breathe freely until the veterinarian had finally given a seal of approval that the bird’s injured wing would be ready to fly again. During that time, she had also become better friends with Marvin and Derek, the caretaker in charge of the messenger birds.

Amy had been told that she was allowed to visit whenever she wanted, no appointment needed. Whenever she went, she was always given a warm, unpretentious welcome, and she sometimes even brought Tigger along with her. The first couple of times she brought her cat, he had been so shy that he never once strayed from her side. His head bobbed and weaved cutely as he looked around, interested in the horses and birds.

The royal birds had been trained to come at a whistle, but they were essentially allowed free range in their large enclosure and the outskirts of the forest beside it. They didn’t seem to be able to sense that Amy was coming if she was hidden from sight, but as soon as she’d get into hearing distance, Roodle would fly out to her without even being called.

His full wingspan looked to be about five feet, easily longer than Amy was tall. But despite his large size, like a true bird of prey, his wings were virtually silent in flight. She would never notice him approaching her until he had practically reached her already.

He was undeniably smart, too. Although he probably wasn’t as sharp as a cat or a dog, he seemed to understand what she would say, and they shared some simple communication. That intelligence was likely part of the reason he’d become a royal messenger bird.

To teach a messenger bird how to deliver letters, you had to first clearly show them the flight path. The caretaker Derek had been very excited to teach her how to do this. All you had to do, he explained, was place stones imbued with magic along the route for the birds to follow—although they could be placed several miles apart. The birds would use them as a guide, and it would only take a few round trips for them to memorize the route.

Amy was strongly reminded of the bird and the bread crumbs in Hansel and Gretel.

In her previous life, she only knew of owls acting as carrier pigeons in fantasy novels. She’d never actually heard of it happening in real life. She also remembered stories of owners training birds to return to them after going out hunting, but never of someone telling them to go somewhere, deliver something, and then return home.

This world was very similar to her old world in many respects, but some of the details were a little different. The animals were somehow smarter and even behaved a little differently.

But then…this is a world where magical beasts are commonplace. Of course it would be different.

It hadn’t been all that long since Amy had remembered the memories of her past life. She couldn’t help feeling like she had one foot in both worlds.

But her family, who were basically masters of being reincarnated at this point, had given her some advice. Amy would gradually get used to this way of life, so she shouldn’t force herself to dwell on the past…but neither should she put pressure on herself to forget it entirely.

…I’m so glad we all were reincarnated together.

The characters from the books she used to read almost always were reincarnated alone. In the rare case there was someone else, it was usually their rival or a character totally unrelated to them, so there was practically no one they could ask for help.

Regular life is confusing and distressing enough… I can’t imagine how lonely it would feel, being burdened with something as big as your own cosmic past, without having someone to talk to…

If Amy had been alone, with no real-life experience and memories only up until high school, she might have spiraled into a very dark place…

Everyone in the Northland family had remembered their past lives at around ten years old. Her mother had remembered under very cliché circumstances—she was with the man she’d been arranged to marry. She didn’t faint, like Amy did, but she started acting very strange and had requested they defer the engagement. While all that was going on, she happened to meet Amy’s father in this world. Which ended up being good timing, Isabelle added with a laugh.

“But your father’s realization was the best! He was disassembling a magical tool for fun, and then he suddenly remembered: This is a cog, not a circuit board!”

Amy and Harold had roared with laughter. They couldn’t imagine a more fitting story for their father.

Although it wasn’t a circuit board, their father had been working on something modern. After Isabelle’s many pleas, he had started trying to create a camera. Amy was almost as excited about it as her mother.

Quite a while after her parents had met, when the earl and countess had looked at their children, they had a hunch they were reincarnations, too. Their faces looked different, but there was just something about them that was eerily similar. Not that they were very concerned either way, of course. They loved their children, reincarnated or not, and nothing else mattered to them.

I’m not sure if being reincarnated makes things more peaceful or more chaotic… But sometimes it certainly comes in handy, Amy mused, absentmindedly brushing her fingers against the spot on Roodle’s hip that had been injured.

His stomach, with its white, fluffy, densely packed plumage, looked just like a cotton ball. There was only one spot where the feathers had been ripped off, exposing skin, although that was quickly being covered by downy, new feathers.

As she touched the now-invisible scars, Roodle tickled the back of her hand with his beak as if he were saying, “It doesn’t hurt anymore!”

“It looks like you’re all fixed up now, Roodle. I’m so glad!” she exclaimed.

“It’s all thanks to you, Amy,” Edward said. “If any more time had passed, that injury would have been very hard to heal. If you hadn’t been there—if you hadn’t healed him with your magic—he might never have flown again.”

“It’s because you were so strong and managed to fly almost all the way home,” she said to Roodle. “You’re very impressive!”

The bird hooted happily, and Amy became even more convinced he understood human words.

“Roodle likes being petted here, too.”

“On his forehead? All right, then…” Amy rubbed the middle of his forehead with a few fingers. The feathers were soft and light, but his head was rock-solid just below them.

His head bobbed, eyes half-closed, and he leaned forward, practically shouting, “More forehead pets, please!”

“Your face is just too cute…!”

“A lot of birds don’t like being petted,” commented Edward.

“But you do, don’t you, Roodle? And I’m glad you do, because that means I get to pet you!”

The world around them seemed to take on a rose-colored tint as the adorable, chubby girl stared at the white owl with a dreamy expression. Edward, Amy, and Roodle looked so sweet together, Marvin could almost smell sugar in the air.

He cleared his throat with a cough.

“Your Highness, Lady Amy. As much as I hate intruding on this delightful scene, it’s about time we got going.”

“Ah! You’re right,” said Edward. “I’m sure they’re waiting for us. Let’s get started.”

I-Intruding?! Y-You’re not intruding on anything! You’ve got it all wrong!

Then, with Amy blushing and her mind circling on that casually uttered word, they proceeded to set up Roodle’s flight test.

There were more caretakers around than usual today. She could also see several officials, who presumably had come down to observe.

Amy was able to hold it together around so many people because she was so close to Marvin, Roodle, and the horses, but if she had been all alone, she would definitely have slunk away from the crowds. She almost felt as if she were being observed, too, which always made her feel on edge.

Edward smiled at her reassuringly.

“Shall we go, then?”

“Yes. Good luck, Roodle. Derek will be waiting for you at the delivery destination.”

Amy gave his forehead one more pat for support.

Even if he couldn’t manage being a messenger anymore, Roodle would always be a special bird. But even if he could hunt his own food, you couldn’t just return a hand-raised bird to nature. And although, as a bird of the royal palace, he had been officially allowed to fly long distances, safety precautions were only taken for active messenger birds.

Retirees continued to live at the royal palace and weren’t neglected. However, they had fewer opportunities to fly long distances, and if they went out on their own and didn’t return, a search might not even be conducted for them.

Messenger birds have a set time frame for retirement to reduce the burden on any one bird. Roodle still had a little way to go until his retirement… Until that day came, Amy hoped he could stay here and continue to fly as much as he wanted with peace of mind.

Edward entered with Marvin onto the stage they had set up for the test. Two guards followed at a slight distance, flanking them. One of the guards was Darios. Seeing the worried look on Amy’s face, he gave her a nod. She felt a little more at ease after that.

Marvin looked over the observers and began the opening statement.

“We will now be conducting the messenger bird Roodle’s flight test. The pass criteria are as follows: the bird being tested shall arrive at the destination, receive a stamp on the letter, and return to this spot within the time limit. The time limit is thirty minutes. The destination is the Northland manor in the nearby castle town. The time starts…now.”

At the signal, Edward lifted his arm. Roodle lunged off it and spread his wings.

The bird soared high into the air and then stopped for a split second, as if to show the observers the small cylinder tied to his leg that held the letter. Then, in the blink of an eye, he became a black speck against the sky.

Cheers of praise rang throughout the grounds at his swiftness and the absence of any lingering ill effects of the injury.

The destination—the Northland manor—was Amy’s home in the royal capital. Edward had suggested it.

“It’s the perfect distance away for the flying test,” he had assured her. “Plus, if he memorizes the way to your house, Roodle can take you my letters, right?”

And that’s how the test destination was decided.

Amy had asked him why he wanted to send her letters all of a sudden. He explained that he’d be attending school and living in the school’s dormitories next year.

“Don’t you write letters to friends you don’t get to see very often?” he had asked so innocently.

And just like that, she had no reason to refuse.

But I had really only planned on being his friend until he started going to school… Friends with an expiration date…

The otome game was still in her mind, of course, and it naturally made her uneasy about continuing to associate with the prince. But it wasn’t all bad—because she had said yes, she was able to see how birds train to memorize flight paths, and when Roodle flew to the Northland house days before on a practice run, he had been able to play with Tigger, who had been in the garden at just the right time.

Although the cat had initially been surprised at the snowy owl’s sudden appearance, he didn’t look scared—perhaps because he had seen him before at the royal palace. It even seemed like they were becoming two birds—two animals—of a feather.

Amy’s and Isabelle’s eyes were glued to the interaction, watching how they slowly and imperceptibly got closer and closer to one another, until eventually, they started poking each other curiously. Amy was really pleased at that.

As long as it’s just letters, I’m sure it’ll be fine…probably.

The butler Claude, an administrative official from the royal palace, and Derek were all waiting for Roodle at the Northlands’ house.

Amy, proud and impressed with how the bird flew with such confidence, watched him in the sky until he disappeared from view.

It’ll be fine… Roodle will pass, no question about it!

Amy, Edward, and Marvin exchanged confident smiles.

🐾🐱🐾

ROODLE passed his test flight with flying colors and was reinstated as a messenger bird. From that day, the clever, talented owl began carrying letters between the Third Prince and Amy, not only when she stayed at the Northland manor but even when she visited her grandfather’s home in the distant border province by the sea.