Gift.

“That man was the type to just copy whatever was in fashion, and Miss Seven was the type to be delighted when you copied whatever was in fashion in the books — so, you see, it all worked out.”

“Let’s consider them one by one.”

Aspara picked up her pen and drew a series of horizontal lines across the back of a blank sheet of paper.

Once the page was divided into as many rows as there were options, she began working through the gift candidates one at a time.

“Flowers…”

“Moss-flowers can’t be made into a bouquet, so as far as flowers go, it’d have to be those purple ones. As luck would have it, there’s a whole clump of them right over there — that’d be the quickest option.”

“Those can’t really be bundled into a bouquet either, I don’t think.”

“What if you put them in a bowl? Close enough, right?”

“It’d be different.”

Aspara wrote “bouquet” in the second row from the bottom and turned to the next option.

“Next candidate…”

“Dress.”

“It’s a bit awkward to gift clothing to someone whose size you don’t know.”

“Which ranks higher — this, or flowers?”

“Still, a dress is probably better than flowers.”

“D, r, e, s, s…” Aspara murmured, writing it in above “bouquet.”

The next item:

“Gangster.”

“Gangster?”

“You know — the one we kept back at the estate. The hamster.”

“Ah, that fur-rat. Was that one a gift too?”

Gangster had been a pet rat from Aspara’s previous marriage, a sand-colored creature with a pure-white belly and chin and a stumpy little tail.

Even Jack, a country boy who had never understood the concept of deliberately keeping a rat as a pet, had found it so cute he would save fruit from his meals to feed it — so cute that, at one point, it had grown bigger and rounder than a man’s fist.

“There are silk-furred rats around these parts too, apparently. Not quite as cute as Gangster, though.”

The wild rodents of this land were thicker all around than their southern counterparts, thicker in fur and tougher in temperament too.

Quick and cunning but with little meat on them, they had managed to multiply and thrive even in this barren land.

“I had no idea he was a gift. Where did he come from, originally?”

“Ah, Miss Sebinya had begged to have one, so he was originally given to her as a present. But she tired of taking care of him almost immediately, and at some point I ended up being the one looking after him.”

“Well, either way, good thing he wasn’t ours — thanks to that, he won’t have had to come all the way out here. He’s probably living well back in the capital.”

“Apparently they threw him out when the baby was born this time around.”

Aspara went on in a tone even more studiously casual than usual.

“They said the fur wasn’t good for the child.”

“…Shall we move on to the next item? How about a necklace?”

“A necklace, hm — well, considering the budget…”

A fur-rat.

Gus happened to turn his head and found himself locking eyes with a silver-furred rodent on the other side of the window. It was scrabbling at the glass with a cute little expression, as if envious of the warm interior.

[Skweek.]

Gus cracked the window open just enough to keep the cold wind out and stroked the little creature’s rump with a single finger.

[Squeak.]

“Hm.”

As he touched the warm skin beneath the cold outer fur, something floated up into his mind.

It was the lingering residue of a stray thought from that morning.

A reason to love.

He still hadn’t found the reason why he ought to love his wife.

But was that really such a bad thing.

Couldn’t one love a creature simply because it was warm and adorable, simply because looking at it made one happy?

Stroking the rat’s soft body, the thought came to him unbidden.

At some point the fur-rat had climbed up his finger and into the room, and now that it had found a warm place and decided it was safe, it pulled a foxtail seed from its cheek pouch and began to eat.

The bright, chillingly vivid green of the seed caught his eye.

“A warm front is coming down.”

The season of the Festival of the God of Love was drawing near.

The thought of the holiday’s signature tingling air stirred a foolish little smile.

A festival, hm.

Ah, but then…

Shouldn’t I be preparing a gift too?

The realization struck him as if he had just jolted awake from a dream.

Gus had already spent a considerable sum of his private funds on the gift he had given her not long ago. No — “not long ago” wasn’t even the issue. Ever since his wife’s arrival, the state of his personal finances had been growing decidedly thin.

Damn it.

The castle lord, his work now well and truly pushed to the back burner, rapped the butt of his pen against the desk: tap, tap.

Gus let out a sigh. The option of not giving a gift did not exist.

Asking her directly what she wants might not be the most elegant approach, but…

Normally he would have barreled straight ahead, whatever the budget allowed, the best and most precious item available, but this time, unusually, he paused to consider what his wife actually needed.

There was the matter of the budget, but more than anything, what Star had said that morning kept nagging at him.

[The reason my lady was angry, you see, wasn’t because she didn’t want to go to the banquet — it was because you went and made the plans all on your own!]

Conversation and consultation. Subjects that were absolutely not Gus’s strong suit.

He drew in one long breath and steeled himself.

“Guess I’ve no choice but to ask that fellow.”

“All right.”

Jack and Aspara checked over the list they had already reviewed any number of times.

The paper with the gift options was packed full, every line crossed through with slash marks.

“Are you sure this is really going to be fine?”

“It looks thoughtful, and I was going to give it to him eventually anyway — it’s just right.”

“There’s no romance to it… no romance at all…”

“The purpose of this event isn’t that.”

Aspara tapped the papers into a neat stack as she spoke.

“Pressing me to produce a gift all of a sudden at a time like this — this has to be a political gesture. They’re probing my position… And a gift like this is perfect for showing that I harbor neither ambitions nor personal sentiment.”

“I really don’t think that was the nuance of it, though…”

Jack pored over the memory of his conversation with Ugli.

He was fairly sure Ugli had said something simple would do, but listening to his mistress now, he began to worry that he had missed some subtle implication.

“If we’re going to have it ready by the waning moon, there’s a lot to do.”

Pleased that one problem had been resolved, Aspara stretched and smiled.

“Hmm. I think I’ll head out and catch a few rats nearby.”

“No need — there’s a lot to do, but the odds we won’t have it ready in time are slim. No need for that.”

“No, not one to give to the castle lord.”

Jack fumbled at the outing gloves tucked at his waist as he spoke.

“It’s for you, my lady.”

“That’s quite enough. Why would you be getting me a gift?”

“You want to see him, don’t you? Gangster.”

Aspara stared at Jack for a moment, as though taking time to digest what she had just heard.

Then at last she shook her head.

“Why on earth would I want to see him, that little rat.”

“Oh? Is that not it? You know I’m not always great at reading the mood.”

Aspara’s knight cocked his head and laughed, but he didn’t stop his preparations as he went on.

“Still, let me get you a gift too, would you? I love you too, my lady.”

Gus took the potato sandwich an attendant had brought him, wrapped it in paper, and slipped it into his pocket. There was something urgent he needed to do during the midday break.

I really hate this…

It wasn’t that he hated spending the time on his wife’s gift. The problem was that he had to ask someone else what to give her.

On a normal day he would have asked Ugli, who was well-versed in romance, or Star, who spoke her mind without ornament. But today was different.

This wasn’t just a matter of finding a good gift. He had to listen to his wife’s position. And there was only one person who could help him with that problem.

That idiot…

Jack.

The thought of having to bow his head to him made his whole body shrivel up as though he had swallowed bitter medicine, but soon enough he gave his head a firm shake.

My pride isn’t the issue. What I’m about to do isn’t a request — it’s an order.

Having steeled his heart, Gus left the room. On the way to his destination, something caught his eye.

A rounded object sticking up out of the pure-white snowfield.

“What is that.”

A backside.

Someone lay sprawled face-down in the drift, upper body plunged into the snow and rear end thrust up toward the sky.

At the end of that someone’s line of sight was a chestnut-brown tuft of fur.

A silk-furred rat.

“Hunting?”

Gus made no effort to disguise his footsteps as he approached. This pathetic excuse for an escort knight didn’t even notice the crunch, crunch of snow being trodden underfoot.

“Knight.”

The young man who had been hunched over leapt up with a start, like a rabbit jolted awake from sleep.

“— –…!”

Jack jumped in alarm.

A disaster. Out in the wide rear courtyard, with no one to pass the conversation off to and no way to change the subject, the castle lord had come up and started speaking to him.

The words he could say amounted to various basic greetings and “Yes.”, “No.”, “It is none of your business.”, “Thank you.”, “I am sorry.”, “I love you.”, “Please call a doctor.”, “I like you.”, and “I have an incredibly strong and sexy sweetheart.”

No matter how he sized up the inventory, it was hardly a vocabulary list suited to holding a conversation with the king of the barbarians.

Remembering what, not long ago, had set the man off, he was all the more certain of this.

Even Jack had enough sense to know that, here of all places, he must not trot out that line again.

“What are you doing.”

[…That.]

Jack stretched out his hand to point at the silk-furred rat on the far side of the snowfield. He had been sprawled in the snow for who knew how long; the wrist exposed beneath his glove and his face were both flushed bright red.

His oversized, loose-fitting sleeve had let the snow pour in.

Is he trying to catch and eat that thing…