episode_0209

[Episode 205] – Veronica

An emergency arose in the royal palace.

Although there was still about a week left until the expected due date, due to the amniotic fluid breaking earlier than anticipated, they had to hastily summon midwives and physicians to prepare for the birth of the child. It had already been three hours since the amniotic fluid broke.

They said the child had to be born within a day after the amniotic fluid broke. The physicians and maids who were on standby rushed in frantically, swiftly transforming the bedroom into a delivery room.

“Water, bring water! Warm water and towels! Quickly!”

“Wet blankets and towels should be sent straight to the laundry room!”

The maids hurriedly ran around, tending to the mother, while Titania watched the scene unfold helplessly. She wanted to approach her mother, but she was advised not to get too close by the physician.

Amidst the bustling sounds of the maids and physicians running around, Titania listened to her mother’s groans of pain. Although childbirth was known to be difficult, she had never heard her mother in such agony before.

“Did I take things too lightly?”

Even if it was at her sister’s request, should I have been the one to give birth? No, what good would it do to think about it now? Asking her mother to bear the child in the first place… Wasn’t that just my selfish desire?

Wasn’t it my own selfishness that impregnated my mother? Titania wiped her face with one hand as she listened to Vivian’s cries mixed with labor pains.

Lost in various thoughts while standing in front of the bedroom, she saw elderly officials rushing towards her from the end of the corridor, including Bangsho. Titania let out a small sigh as she observed the figures of several ministers approaching.

“Your Highness…! Cough, gasp, what has happened to the queen…?!”

“The child?! Is it a prince?! A princess?!”

“She is still in labor, so please keep quiet. The midwife said it shouldn’t take long since the amniotic fluid broke…”

After her mother entered the bedroom, time seemed to pass slowly minute by minute. It felt like a whole day had passed, yet only three hours had gone by. Frustrated, she could only sigh involuntarily.

Among the officials who were restless due to the sounds of labor coming from inside, Bangsho caught his breath and approached Titania. Then, with a smirk, he looked at Titania’s face and let out a chuckle.

“Why is your hair so disheveled?”

“…Just a little from Mother.”

“Haha, I thought as much.”

Chuckling, Bangsho straightened the strands of hair that had become unkempt with his finger, as Titania pursed her lips disapprovingly. She wasn’t alone in the corridor from the beginning.

Originally, she had gone into the delivery room to hold her mother’s hand, but her mother, who was not in her right mind due to the pain, eventually started pulling her hair in frustration, leading to her being kicked out by the physician.

“My wife also tore her hair out when she gave birth. ‘It’s all because of you!!’ she yelled in anger. Even after decades have passed, thinking about that time still makes my scalp ache.”

“Tore her hair out…?”

Titania looked at Bangsho’s scalp with a puzzled expression.

“…It was quite lush back then. Why are you like this now? Don’t you know? Even when the Queen was young, at least half of it remained.”

“I don’t know, I can’t remember.”

Bangsho looked at Titania incredulously. His gaze somehow amused her, and Titania chuckled softly, roughly finishing tidying up her hair with her fingers.

While there was a brief moment of laughter at Bangsho’s bald joke, Titania’s expression darkened once again upon hearing her mother’s cries and the urgent voices of the maids coming from the room.

…How nice would it be if I could bear the pain instead of my mother.

“…Do you ever think, ‘Wouldn’t it be nice if I could suffer in place of the Queen, or give birth in her stead?’”

“……”

Tatiana, whose heart was clearly understood by Bangsyo, nodded slightly. Since her mother’s labor had begun, that was the only thought on her mind. The guilt and helplessness of being unable to assist her mother.

As the intervals between contractions shortened, her mother’s cries echoed louder through the closed door. With each passing moment, her sense of helplessness grew, compounded by her own negligence and greed.

As Tatiana furrowed her brow in negative thoughts and let out a sigh, Bangsyo, watching her intently, let out a chuckle as if in disbelief, exhaling a laugh.

‘…I guess I have no choice but to acknowledge it now.’

This was not understanding but empathy.

If you’re a husband with a child, you must have felt that sentiment at least once. The guilt of desiring an heir causing hardship for one’s wife. The anxiety of what might happen if both the child and wife were in danger.

Yes, if you’re a husband with a child, you must have experienced that emotion at least once.

Seeing this, how could one not acknowledge it?

That the Queen’s companion is the Queen herself.

That the child the Queen is bearing is the Queen’s child.

“Haha…”

When the Queen mentioned that the Queen Consort had the Queen’s child, it was honestly incomprehensible. No, it was natural not to understand. How could a woman, especially a mother, bear her daughter’s child?

Morally, ethically, logically, it made no sense. She simply said she ‘understood’ vaguely because the Queen said so. So, she had been brushing it off until now.

But, upon witnessing this…

‘It reminds me of when I had my first son. I remember not knowing what to do and staying up all night guarding the birthing room. And then seeing the child born…’

This feeling wasn’t exclusive to Bangsyo alone. Other ministers who had been eavesdropping on Bangsyo and Tatiana’s conversation near the door were also filled with deep sighs, lost in old memories.

“…Soon, you won’t be able to entertain such sad thoughts anymore.”

With those words, Bangsyo remained silent, guarding the birthing room alongside Tatiana. No amount of consolation could erase that anxiety now. They simply stood quietly in front of the birthing room.

It was a harrowing time.

Every minute felt like an eternity, and as time passed, the sounds of labor from the birthing room grew louder. As the moans of her mother grew louder, turning into screams, all Tatiana could do was pace anxiously in front of the birthing room.

If only she could hold her hand, even just a small part of that pain shared.

If only she could alleviate a tiny fraction of that agony.

Hours passed as she anxiously circled the birthing room. Labor began in the afternoon and continued until the early hours of the morning when the sun had set. In the dimly lit corridor, as everyone wiped their tired faces from waiting.

Through the crack in the door, the faint cry of a newborn baby resonated.

For a moment, Tatiana turned her head to look at Bangsyo, wondering if she misheard due to exhaustion. Bangsyo, sharing the same sentiment, widened his eyes and looked back at Tatiana.

As the tightly closed door slowly creaked open, the faint cry of the baby that had barely reached their ears now resounded throughout the palace as if echoing loudly. The ministers’ faces were filled with smiles at the sound.

Once the door opened, permission was granted for the exhausted Sanpa, sweat dripping down his forehead, to enter the birthing room with a weary expression. Following Tatiana, the ministers entered the birthing room, and Sanpa smiled with joy.

“What a beautiful princess.”

Sanpa’s voice went unheard.

Just lying on the bed, Titania’s eyes fell upon the sight of a mother holding her newborn baby. The mother, who had been gazing down at the baby, lifted her head and smiled with a content expression.

“I was thinking, how much can a newborn baby resemble its parents… but…”

Tears welled up in the mother’s delicately creased eyes.

“But this child looks just like you. Truly, so much like you.”

With jet-black hair and crimson eyes that gleamed faintly, as if drawn to that sight, Titania approached Vivian’s shoulder and leaned her head against it by the bedside.

Honestly, she never imagined she would feel such overwhelming joy. It was none other than Veronica, her sister, who grew and was born inside their mother. Her very own sister, just like herself.

It was enough for her to give birth to a sister identical to herself. The thought of a child being born from her mother’s womb through an act involving herself, resulting in a child identical to both her and her sister, filled her with indescribable happiness.

“Surely, that alone should have sufficed.”

Swallowing back the tears threatening to spill, she lowered her head and looked at the baby cradled in her mother’s arms. While her mother claimed the baby resembled her, in Titania’s eyes, the baby seemed to resemble her mother closely.

Sharp features, a straight nose. Apart from the hair and eye colors, the baby appeared almost identical to her mother. To the extent that one might wonder if her mother had such a face when she was a newborn.

“…Do you think the baby looks exactly like me in my eyes? Look at this. Even though still young, with sharp features…”

“Of course, there must be some resemblance to me too. Whose baby do you think this is?”

Her mother chuckled wearily.

Titania embraced Vivian once again and gazed at her own child cradled in her mother’s arms. Despite being all red and squirming, the tiny hands seemed incredibly small.

A beloved person and a baby resembling each of them halfway.

Not just a child born from a fairy’s egg.

But the embodiment of love between her mother and herself.

The baby cradled in her mother’s arms exuded such a lovely presence.

—

I’m dying.

I’m truly at a loss as to how I gave birth to this child.

Clutching the blanket tightly, writhing in pain, before I knew it, the baby was born. When I came to my senses amidst the agony, the baby I had given birth to was in my arms. How did I give birth?

The baby in my arms wiggled its tiny fingers and cried loudly, not a whimper but more of a demanding cry, as if asking why it was being bothered. That’s how it sounded to me.

“So small…”

As I murmured while looking at the baby in my arms, Sanpha chuckled and replied, “Haha, how big could a newborn baby possibly be?”

“I thought it would be huge, considering how heavy it felt in my belly…”

As I stared intently at the squirming baby in my arms, I could clearly tell who impregnated me. Despite being short, the baby had thick, jet-black hair and crimson eyes like droplets of blood.

“I was thinking, how much can a newborn baby resemble its parents… but…”

I looked at Titania with a surprised expression as if to say, “Look at this,” while smiling. The hair I had torn out while waiting in front of the birthing room was roughly arranged.

“But this child looks just like you. Truly, so much like you.”

“…Do you think the baby looks exactly like me in my eyes? Look at this. Even though still young, with sharp features…”

“Of course, there must be some resemblance to me too. Whose baby do you think this is?”

With her head resting on my shoulder, Titania began to shed tears, and I gently held her hand, which had started to cry, offering a comforting smile. Perhaps Titania had been worrying a lot; her hand felt cold to the touch.

Stroking Titania’s back of the hand while gazing at the baby, the ministers chuckled and approached me. Then, as they looked at the baby nestled in my arms, they couldn’t hide their surprised expressions.

“Veronica.”

I raised my head to look at the ministers.

Honestly, I was confident.

Confident that this child was Titania’s baby.

No, it was practically proven.

With a baby so strikingly similar to Titania, there would be no one to deny it.

As the ministers hesitated in my gaze, they soon exchanged glances and nodded at each other. Then, slowly kneeling on one knee, they expressed respect, offering a kind smile and a greeting simultaneously.

“We greet Princess Veronica Snow White.”