Chapter 5: Princess Mia... Is in Tiptop Form!

While Mia was busy rehabilitating herself from her traumatic experience in the library, the season changed, and winter gave way to spring. School started anew, and Mia was now a second-year student. She'd turn fourteen the next winter.

"I'm done being scared of nonexistent things like ghosts! It's time for me to start sleeping by myself again!"

Her declaration was followed by her self-proclaimed graduation from Anne's bed, which she'd been sleeping in throughout the entirety of the spring break. As a proud alumnus of tandem sleeping, she was now inducting herself into the world of solo slumber. For the sake of her reputation, it should be made clear that her decision was made entirely arbitrarily. It was definitely not because her friends coming back for the new school term made everything feel a little less scary. That would be juvenile, and Mia did not operate by juvenile principles.

With that thought out of the way, Mia proceeded to greet her friends with all the enthusiasm of an excited child.

"Now then. Can anyone decipher this emblem for me? Princess Mia, would you like to try?"

On a large whiteboard at the front of the classroom was an emblem drawn in a special red-colored sap-based paint. Mia took a quick glance at it before rising confidently to her feet.

"Hmhmm. That's a piece of cake!" she said as she strolled up to the whiteboard, gathering the gazes of all her peers in the process.

Her class was currently learning heraldry, which was the study of crests and the meanings inscribed in them. For noble children in particular, the ability to decipher and recognize individuals and lineages from their emblems was a necessary skill.

"Let's see..."

She stopped in front of the emblem and studied its components. There were strict rules dictating how emblems were to be constructed. If a noble man married a noble woman, they would generally each take half of their own emblem and combine them into a new one. For example, if Mia were to marry Abel, their new emblem would be a fusion of their existing ones, created using elements from both Tearmoon's emblem — the crescent moon — and the Remno royal family's emblem — the wolf of war. In other words, knowing the emblems of all the nobility would make it possible to identify the familial make up of any individual noble.

Also, just to be clear, the example was just that — an example. It definitely did not mean that Mia would sometimes spend her free time doodling on the mirror in her room, dreamily mumbling things like, "Ahhh, if I marry Prince Abel, our emblem might look like this... The wolf howling at the moon... How poetic! We're a perfect match!" Implying anything of the sort would be nothing short of libel.

Equally slanderous would be the assumption that in the previous timeline, she'd doodle emblems combining Sunkland's sun and Tearmoon's moon as she dreamily mumbled things like, "Ahhh, if I marry Prince Sion, [et cetera]." Any mention of such possibilities was undoubtedly fake news!

"Hm, the right side of this emblem is Count Garlant's family. To the bottom left is one of Sunkland's eminent nobles, Marquess Wesley. As for the top right..."

When she'd finished identifying all the families in the emblem, the aging female teacher nodded with satisfaction.

"Correct. Very well done, Princess Mia. I see you've been doing your homework."

The teacher was known to be a stern sort, so such earnest praise from her was rare. Mia couldn't help but present her peers with a smug grin.

"Hmhmm, like I said, a piece of cake!"

Thus, Mia started off her new school term in tiptop form, which was a fact that should come as a surprise to pretty much anyone who had been paying attention to her grades. There was, of course, a good reason for her performance in class — Anne had worked her butt off to make it happen.

After being thoroughly traumatized by her experience in the library, Mia could no longer sleep by herself. Once Anne started sleeping together with her, things improved to the point where she managed to fall asleep, but even then it took her a long time each night to do so. Seeing her mistress's nightly struggles, Anne came up with a plan to help.

"Milady, since you're having trouble falling asleep, why don't we do a bit of studying? We can go over everything you learned this year."

After obtaining consent, she proceeded to recite from the first year's learning materials in the soothing tone of a lullaby. She'd seen how badly Mia had struggled to pass her tests, so she slowly read through the passages line by line, hoping to jog Mia's memory and lessen the poor girl's academic burden in the future. To her great surprise, this proved brilliantly effective.

Every time she started reading, Mia would fall asleep within minutes. Whenever she looked up from her book, she'd find Mia snoozing peacefully in her bed. The strange thing, however, was that Mia somehow remembered everything she heard while she was asleep, leading to the birth of Anne's patented method of sleep-studying. Thanks to this incredible innovation, Mia could now behave in a fashion befitting her title of the Great Sage of the Empire. It was truly a miracle!

So, she beamed like the morning sun and basked in the admiring gazes of her fellow classmates.

Ahh, what a marvelous feeling. Finally, I've hit my stride. This is how I should be.

She was on cloud nine. More specifically, her head was, and when you have your head in the clouds, it's obvious what comes next...

Little did she know that by lunchtime, she would be reacquainted with the source of her debilitating trauma.

That day, Mia was having lunch in the courtyard with her usual entourage of girls. Having asked for some freshly-made sandwiches from the cafeteria, they were currently enjoying a little picnic under a clear blue sky and the tender warmth of the spring sun.

My, if this isn't the perfect day for a picnic. And the salted meat in this sandwich, mmm! Absolutely delicious! I'll just help myself to another one...

As she cheerfully bantered with her classmates and gobbled up what was clearly too many sandwiches to be entirely healthy, the end of her carefree mirth was slowly creeping up on her. Halfway through lunch break, one of her entourage — Count Greilich's daughter, Dora — asked her a question.

"By the way, Princess Mia, have you heard?"

Mia glanced up as she reached for another sandwich.

"Hm? About what?"

Her fixation on the sandwiches blinded her to the ominous expression on Dora's face.

"Apparently... there was a sighting," the girl said in a whisper.

Mia gave her a blank look.

"A sighting? Of what?"

"Well, a sighting of..." said Dora, theatrically lowering her tone and drawing out her sentence. "A ghost, of course..."

"Huh?"

Paying no mind to Mia's open-mouthed shock, Dora proceeded to tell the story.