[A/N: My two year old keyboard is showing signs of aging... it’s time to hold it’s funeral.]
Aria and Serena quietly sat across from each other inside their carriage.
Unlike when they had first started moving out of Oresfall days ago, Adrian wasn’t in this carriage anymore. He had barely stayed with them for half a day before he had just jumped over to the carriage where Wang Lei was sitting in.
And he had stayed there.
He had stayed in that other carriage for almost four whole days by now. And now that they were getting pretty close to their destination, Aria was already getting impatient.
She hoped that after one full week of isolated, non-stop training for both of them back home, that maybe he would enthusiastically spend some time with her while travelling.
But this man had become no different than the other busy lords. He had begun to show much more importance to his role as the leader of a territory, as the Baron of Oresfall, and had begun unintentionally neglecting her just a tiny bit.
She just looked outside the window at the marching army and pouted slightly.
’Okay. Let’s have some patience,’ she thought to herself reasonably, crossing her arms.
’Maybe he’s just trying to learn about how this new beast guy can help us in the war. And wars are definitely important. I shouldn’t really be complaining like a spoiled child. He does spend a lot of quality time with me after all when we are home. So I shouldn’t be expecting too much from him while we march into a warzone.’
But even with all of this logical internal dialogue, it didn’t change the simple fact that she felt a little neglected right now.
He had spent a massive amount of time with her in the past. A lot of time in fact. To the point where even though she loved it, at times she felt like her personal freedom was being restricted by his overprotectiveness.
There was a massive difference between her lonely past life and this new life. Of course, she loved a lot of the things that came with this new life. A loving, doting father and everything warm that came with him. All of the normal privileges of being a proper child and not being neglected or starved.
But there was one thing that just couldn’t freely come to a child under a parent, and that was the freedom to do whatever she wanted. Adrian did give her a lot of freedom, but it was nothing compared to when she was a lone, wandering adult in her past life.
But even with that slight restriction, she didn’t really complain much since this safe life was something that she had always been dreaming of for years.
Aria just let out a soft sigh and looked away from the window.
She looked directly at Serena and just stared at her.
It took Serena a while to actually notice Aria intensely staring at her. When she did, she immediately straightened her back against the cushions. She looked visibly nervous for a few seconds under the gaze of the six year old.
"Is there... is there something you’re thinking about, Aria?" Serena asked softly. "You can tell me about it if you want."
Aria just continued staring at her instead of replying.
She didn’t open her mouth for almost five whole seconds.
And these five seconds of silence felt really heavy. These five seconds made Serena incredibly anxious in a way, and nervous at the same time.
After five seconds, Aria finally responded.
"You like Papa, don’t you? Do you want to be my stepmother?"
Serena had never expected anyone to know about her secret crush for Adrian. Let alone being bluntly asked by his own daughter if she wanted to formally become a stepmother.
She just completely froze where she was sitting. Her face instantly turned as red as a tomato and her mouth opened and closed multiple times.
Aria didn’t even wait for an answer. She just looked outside the open carriage window, and right there riding alongside the carriage, she saw a person she had already been watching. A person who was always there riding right beside their carriage.
It was none other than Claire.
The C Rank knight had stiffened up in her saddle too, even more than Serena did. Her grip on the reins was so tight her knuckles were white.
Aria looked straight out the window at her.
"What about you, Big Sis Claire? You like my Papa too, don’t you? Do you want to be my stepmother as well?"
The way she casually spoke the words, there was literally no emotion at all, which just confused both of the older girls.
They both knew exactly what they wanted deep down, but even though they knew what they wanted, they just didn’t know how to answer this question from his beloved daughter.
Claire slowly turned her head to look inside the carriage through the window which was open.
She saw Aria’s deadpan face. And she saw Serena sitting there blushing furiously too.
And Serena was looking straight back at her.
The two of them locked eyes in that moment, and both of them instantly knew. They just inherently knew that the person on the opposite side shared their exact same secret crush.
Just one single look between them was more than enough to reveal a secret that both of them thought that the other didn’t know about. And it was only possible because Aria had bluntly asked two simple questions that they never expected to face.
The first to actually speak wasn’t the confident and brave military commander Claire. But in fact, it was the cowardly and soft spoken Serena instead.
She looked nervously at Aria and hesitated for a second, fidgeting with her dress before she finally opened her mouth.
"Well... Adrian is a great man," Serena started softly. "He is handsome, yes, but he’s also someone who cares about his people. He loves his daughter more than anything in this world, and he doesn’t ever mistreat the people who are close to him."