The manor's gardener had laid small rocks in the meteor crater instead of filling it up.

"I have always wanted to make a pond. This will do," he said. His plan was to let nature take its course. Hopefully, rains would eventually fill up the hole in the ground. It had rained a couple of times meanwhile, and as the gardener had hoped the rocks bedding the crater kept or slowed down at least, the water from draining into the soil. Several more seasons like this, he said, we would see interesting things growing in and around the water. I eagerly looked forward to that day.

One day, I squatted down alone at the edge of the crater that was half-filled with the rainwater. It was late in the afternoon after I had had a hard day's work of running the Barony on behalf of its absent master. I was watching the bugs skimming across the stale water surface when Iris came to visit me. She had borrowed the body of a small magpie. I was a bit disappointed when the bird that had just landed on my shoulder began to talk; her landing on my shoulder had made me excited because I thought, 'Oh, wow!'

"So, what happened to Firis? Did she shrink, did she age backward, or what?"

"What? No, she can't do such things," Iris shook its small head. "We just ingrained her into that tiny little... thing."

I shooed the bird away, disgusted. Firis, a divine, a deity, a conceptual being, had manifested in a physical form riding a meteorite. Judging by how they had not minded causing my death, I feared the goddesses had done something horrible again to get their hands on that tiny wriggling flesh and bone.

"Don't tell me you've stolen a baby from somewhere-"

"What?!" Iris sounded offended, "listen, young man. We aren't monsters. Do you know what kind of effort it took me to breathe life from nothing into that lump of meat? There is a reason why the mortals were designed with a built-in reproductive function!"

I sat there and digested that information. It was true; life bred itself. But Anna... if Iris was telling the truth, that would mean they made baby Anna out of nothing. It must have been equivalent to putting the very first life in a newly created world. They did that for their friend on the verge of fading away. Why the heck couldn't they be as nice to me? And why all that trouble?

"Why not just... let her be born naturally?"

"Then it would have been someone else. Not Firis."

I shrugged. It was a bit too complicated for me to fully comprehend. I extended my palm out, and Iris flew over and gently landed on my hand.

"We have been watching from above. She seems to be in good hands."

"She is, indeed," I agreed. "But the way she came down? It's generally considered a bad omen among the folks here. My friend, an old priest, had sensed Firis, and he was very worried and vocal about it until the last moment." I recalled the priest collapsing dead from the overbearing sensation of divine.

"He's resting in peace," said Iris, implying my prayer had been heard. I gently patted on the small magpie head.

"He had the vision; of the sky burning, and dead bodies, and banners flying, and loud trumpets-"

"Yep, that's Firis alright."

"Fortunately, the Baron believes the vision is about the twin Princes. About the trouble they bring to the kingdom."

The magpie corked its head.

"There is indeed a trouble brewing," said Iris, "That's why she's here now. It's her chance."

###

Months had passed, and one of the servants who went with the Baron came back with a message, informing me of the Baron's return schedule. A week before he was expected to come back, I arrived at Chagneux, the westernmost town facing the swampland. The town acted as the gateway between the Roseland and whatever was on the other side of the swamp, mostly dealing with our good friends in Montclam.

Because I was technically still a child, a young maid accompanied me, for in this world looking after a kid was considered a woman's job. And, of course, a young woman and a child traveling required a guy to come along as an escort, so it was three of us. Chagneux's town official bowed before me upon my arrival and promptly arranged accommodation for us, three rooms on the upper floor of the large merchant station. As soon as I unpacked my things, I went down the stairs. I had a meeting with the master merchant, who was responsible for overseeing our imports and exports passing through Chagneux. We were joined by the mayor, who held the vital job of managing the town that interfaced the Roseland with the rest of the kingdom. We went over the dealings of past months, comparing what had been reported to the Baron's court and the actual in situ status. I got a pretty good picture of the current situation and the latest development. Once satisfied, I thanked the two officers and went out for a walk.

Chagneux was bustling with activities. The wide main road saw streams of carts going in both directions. People went in and out of the merchant station to report their dealings, to explore new opportunities, or to ask for grants in their new ventures. Many of those who came out of the merchant station went straight to the town's office; to have their taxes reported and tallied on records so the amount could be settled either in installments or lump sums later but in due time.

Lots of goods and money flowing through the town meant heavy security. Chagneux had a very well trained militia patrolling in and around the town enforcing the Baron's laws. I remembered the discussion I had had with my colleagues at the Baron's court. We had heard the members of Chagneux's militia were ditching their other jobs, which in return raised the question of whether the term 'militia' was appropriate. I watched a helmeted man in leather armor stand leaning against a tree, silently observing people with seasoned cop eyes. I made a mental note to look into the matter eventually. The kingdom still had no clear distinction between soldiering and policing. That, though, did not mean my Roseland should not be any different.

I walked some more and found myself nearing the plank-walk service compound on the outskirt of the town. A large brick and mortar building that housed the precious records archive of each and every plank of woods installed in the swamp stood overlooking a large clearing. Huge piles of lumbers filled the clearing, and I could hear the saws and hammers in work and men shouting to each other over the noise. The proud workers here were mostly from the village about a mile away from Chagneux, which reminded me of a geography class I had had in my previous life; Something about urban models of cities and suburbs and such. I was fascinated with the fact that I found a fitting example of the model here in another world.

After browsing through the records archive, which was a tranquil experience, I returned to the center of the town. It was getting dark. I tried to go into a very noisy tavern but was politely yet promptly kicked out, for there was a heavy drinking session going on, and they did not want a little kid amidst the chaos. I found that quite humiliating; Me, 'of the Tavern,' just got kicked out of a tavern!

I begrudgingly returned to the merchant station and went up to my room. The maid must have heard me come in. She brought in a tray with a bowl of hot stew and a basket of bread loaves and a wooden mug of warm honey water. I wondered where these came from and asked her thus. Instead of answering my question, she scolded me for having gone out by myself and coming back so late. After I was done and the tray was taken away, she returned and helped me get into my night attire, which I really did not need someone helping me with.

"Come, it is time for your sleep," she said, tucking me in.

"Sing me to sleep, please?" I decided I wanted to be spoiled.

The young maid sighed. She sat on the bed next to where I lay, and sang in a whispered voice, gently patting on my blanketed chest to the rhythm, occasionally brushing aside hairs on my forehead, and it was beautiful and soothing. Her simple magic worked perfectly, and I fell asleep in no time.

###

A few days after my arrival at Chagneux, the Baron emerged from the swampland and returned to the Roseland. He had a grim face, but it soon brightened up, seeing the mayor and me waiting at the town's edge. We had a chat and some teas at the mayor's office. We then spent a day touring and inspecting the town's various functions, which he had also done when he was passing through six months ago. Satisfied with the state of Chagneux, we set off towards the heart of the Roseland. Home.

When he had left, the Baron and his two trusted men rode in a carriage while accompanying servants followed in the other. Since I, too, had come with a carriage, we were now a column of three horse-driven carriages; I joined in the Baron's carriage with the majordome and the solicitor.

We stopped by at every town and village we came across on the way but did not spend more than a few hours at each stop, just long enough to have a brief chat with the officials and the townsfolk. Still, it took us some days on the road. It would have taken longer had the Baron not been in a hurry. He could not wait to see his baby girl. Our last carriage was filled to the brim with various stuff the Baron had picked up in his voyage. Cute dolls and pretty toddler dresses and lots and lots of ribbons.

While on the road, I briefed him of the current state of the Barony, what I had been working on, and such. Overall, nothing significantly bad had happened during his absence, and the Baron was quite pleased with how I had handled things.

"I believe the boy is born for this," half-joked the majordome with a wide smile, and the solicitor put his arm around my shoulder and squeezed me like a proud uncle.

We were generally in a good mood, but from time to time, the Baron had that worried expression on his face. When asked what was bothering him, he just shook his head.

"We shall discuss with everyone when we get back."

And so, upon our arrival, everyone in the Baron's Council gathered at my father's tavern. Yes, of course. Where else? That was where the Baroness and baby Anna were. Hence where the Baron would be. Everyone just gathered there as if it was the natural thing to do. The Baron went up the stairs first, and after a while, he called us in. We shuffled into a room on the upper floor, the largest in the tavern. The Baron and the Baroness were sitting at the edge of the bed with Anna in her mother's arms. The baby girl was awake and watched us with curious eyes. We filled the room and settled in, some leaning against the wooden wall and some taking seats on stools and such.

"There is a trouble brewing," announced the Baron. "The noble houses are already lining up where their interests lay."

The Baron told us what he had observed. At first, people talked in hushed voices. In shadows. Among the closest acquaintances. But as soon as the funeral for Her Majesty had ended, and the celebration for the Royal twin sons began, things started to take shapes. Friends were invited for teas, or picnics, or even hunting trips. Old enemies either shook hands or resented each other even more. All the while, everyone maintained their polite demeanors and neutral faces in the Royal Court, but everyone knew. One had to eventually pick a side. There were two massive blackholes on both sides of His Majesty the King, each glutinously pulling every noble house of the kingdom to it.

Having lost the mother to His sons, His Majesty had appointed the two second-most powerful men of the kingdom as the guardians of the twins. His Majesty gave them the job of providing proper guidance and upbringing to the royal bloodline as befitting les Fils du Roi. Prince Charles was entrusted in the blessed hands of Archbishop Thoumas, whereas High Chancellor Julius of Boisvert graciously took the job of looking after Prince Louis.

"Oh, my!" the Baroness gasped, "but do they not hate each other, the Archbishop and the Chancellor?"

"Indeed! But they are noble enough to put personal sentiment aside," said the Baron, and then faced the room, "they, though, have very conflicting views on how our kingdom shall be. They are already trying to make their Prince the next king!"

According to him, the Baron was cautiously approached by the representatives of both the Archbishop and the High Chancellor. As soon as he passed the gate of the walled capital city, heads turned his way, and he could see people whispering. Within hours of his arrival, there were discrete knocks on the door where he was staying.

"My banner is cursed by the blood of Dumas," the Baron lamented, "Each wants me on his side, for the loyal La Rose name carries the weight of a hundred baronies and a dozen marquisats."

He buried his head in his hands, and the Baroness gently rubbed her man's back. For a while, we remained silent, each thinking what it meant for the Roseland. Our silence must have bored Anna, and she started to fuss.

"Milord," the treasurer broke the silence, "where does the honorable general Guillaume stand? After all, the princes are his nephews."

The Baron raised his head.

"I met him briefly. The General of the Royal Guard is the noblest of them all," there was the look of admiration on the Baron's face. Apparently, General Guillaume did not wish to stain his late sister's honor by descending to the levels of bickering men and meddle with the royal succession that was so distant in the future. As the uncle to the twin Princes, the general vowed to be their shield no matter what. For both Charles and Louis.

"The General's loyalty is to the throne, and so is mine; We have agreed who next sits on it shall be decided solely by His Majesty and no one else."

"My dear, my Baron, my love. I shall stand by your side and your resolve," the Baroness declared while gently rocking fussing Anna. The baby girl flailed her thin limbs. "Look, my lord, the gift of our Roseland agrees."

The Baron got on his knees before his loving wife and the daughter.

"The noble houses of the kingdom will come knock on the doors to the Roseland. They will come trying to persuade me or even threaten me. I shall turn them away. Yet, years from now, as soon as there is the first sign of trouble in His Majesty's health, a fierce storm will ravage across the kingdom, for both the Archbishop and the High Chancellor are men of immense determination and cunning manipulation. But I promise you I will keep you safe. I will keep our precious Anna safe," he stood up and faced us.

"I will keep all of us safe. We shall weather the storm and come out unscathed. We shall show to the kingdom that the Roseland indeed can hold its integrity. I, a La Rose, shall not side with the dubious ambitions of power-hungry men!"

It was, overall, quite inspiring, although I still had no idea what we should do. The whole thing... the worries and the power struggle between the Archbishop and the High Chancellor, both of whom I had never even heard of until today... it all sounded so distant. As far as I could tell, the worst thing that could come our way in the near future was a stream of eager messengers coming to bug the Baron. Sure, we could turn them away, alright, but what else could we do? Raise an army? For what? I doubted either of the Archbishop or the High Chancellor would come with armed soldiers and threaten, "Hey, you support my Prince, or else!" That would be laughable. If it came to that, we could just either remove, or even better, rearrange some select few plank-woods laid across the swamp, and voila! the Roseland would be inaccessible.

I tried to imagine what would be the realistic outlook of the conflict between the Archbishop and the High Chancellor. An all-out civil war was a possibility, although it would require sudden and absolute chaos in the Royal Palace to trigger that event route, very unlikely. The more realistic and probable scenario would be one that involved both factions employing dirty political tricks, blackmailing, defaming, throwing false accusations and framing, and at the worst case, a few lynching or even assassinations here and there... all in the attempts to 'convince' people to vocally support their Prince, all the while trying to make the other Prince look bad in His Majesty's eyes. Because the Roseland was so far from the capital, I was sure none of those actions would take place anywhere remotely close to us. But then again, I was basing my thoughts on the few boring period dramas and movies I had watched in my previous life. Those shows had been set in a completely different cultural and historical settings than this world now, so there was also a fair chance that I was looking up wrong reference materials.

'Hmm... but still, we should keep our eyes and ears on the other side of the swamp," I thought. That, for now, would be an appropriate action matching the imagined scale of the trouble that would come in... how many years? I felt the Baron was blowing things out of proportion. For crying out loud, His Majesty was still alive and well! It would be many many years until the royal succession, and by then, His Majesty would have already decided on and declared his successor.

In general, I wasn't that worried, but one little thought in the back of my head kept bugging me, though. It was what Iris had said. There was trouble brewing, and that was why Firis was here. How? Did Firis come down to dabble in the political power game in the capital?

'Nah~ it can't be,' I thought. Maybe there really was a war coming, or at least some battles to be fought. I had heard we were in good terms with our neighboring kingdoms and duchies to our three sides. So, the nomads of the desert to our east came to my mind. For centuries they had been fighting among themselves, tribes against tribes, alliances against alliances. Enough friendships and betrayals had been made and amended and avenged again and again over multiple generations such that the desert was, in all practical sense, a battlefield of a free-for-all fight. Having learned some history in my previous life, I suspected the desert nomads maybe could pull off what the Mongols did. Why not? Then they would be an immense threat, and Firis could have the chance to rebuilt her legacy fighting them off.

'Yeah, that must be it,' I convinced myself. Welp, it would later turn out I wasn't all that wrong.

###

As I had expected, nothing really changed in our daily lives. The life went on, and the Baron had more smiles on his face than worries, thanks to his little angel.

When Anna started to crawl on her belly and sit up by herself, the Baroness returned to the manor. Anna's diet had transitioned from sucking on nipples to pieces of soft bread soaked in milk. She was small. Thinner and smaller than other babies around her age, such as my own baby brother. Even while staying in the town, and thus close to the breasts that provided, the Baroness had still insisted on feeding Anna with only the left-over milk once the mother of the day had first filled her child of own. Anna had been receiving just enough, and I feared it hurt her growth. I became quite worried, and so when the Baroness returned to the manor, I convinced her to add thinly diluted wheat porridge to Anna's diet. Finely ground vegetables and beef in small quantities were added to the porridge upon my insistence.

Baby Anna clung to me. Everyone thought it was because I was the only other child in the manor, but I suspected it was because she knew who I was. When the Baroness and her maids took their eyes off of the baby for a moment, Anna would crawl out of the room and venture around in the manor in search of me. We had some panic moments; the Baroness freaking out because Anna disappeared, or a maid catching the crawling baby about to tumble down the stairs, or an unsuspecting servant almost stepping on the precious little thing.

"Ha! I see she is quite adventurous!" the Baron laughed heartedly and was promptly scolded by the Baroness. In the end, we made a small wristband with an even smaller bell attached to it. Wherever Anna crawled to, we could hear the periodic 'Triring, triring, triring,' as she pulled herself on the floor.

Sometimes I lied on my side next to her and studied her face or tickled her tender belly or poked her mochi cheeks. I liked running my fingers on her toes that were so small like corn kernels yet so precious. Her eyes fascinated me. Especially the iris. The way it reflected the light was as if there was a thin film of a soap bubble, or as if it was filled with dark and thick swirling oil. Oddly, nobody, even the Baroness, commented on this striking feature of her eyes; they just went 'Oh, my, how beautiful!' Maybe it wasn't really that special to the people of this world, I thought.

The winter came, and one night it snowed very hard. I woke up in the morning and found the world in white, coated thick with powdery sugar glistening under the sun. I was excited; I had been looking forward to this day because I had begged the young ones of the Baron's servants to make me a sled. They had also made a smaller one for Anna because... heck, why not?

I put two layers of cotton-padded clothing on Anna and wrapped a thick muffler around her neck. I also put a small fur cap on her little head and warm knitted mittens on the baby hands. I then put two layers of wool socks on her feet and guided them into a pair of fur-lined leather boots that were so small and cute they looked like toys. The Baroness caught me just as I was heading out the door, carrying Anna under my right arm and my left hand pulling by ropes the two wooden sleds behind me; Anna's small sled stacked on top of my larger one, which was almost as long as my height.

"Oh, no. You are not going out like that!" said the Baroness and put another layer of fur-lined coat on her daughter. And me, too. By this point, we were so wrapped I was sweating, and we were like two balls of cloth rolling around.

"Now, that should keep you and your sister warm," the Baroness slipped the word in and hugged us and hurried to her room to get herself changed into something warm.

At first, I sat Anna on her little sled and walked around the garden pulling by the rope. My plan was to let her enjoy for a bit before I go have fun of my own with my awesome sled on the low hill not too far away from the manor. I thought maybe I also take her along and let her ride on my lap or something.

The snow was deep and came up to my knees. So my walk was more of wading through the snow, and the visible mark of my progression was rewarding in its own way. I could not stop, for Anna was having so much fun. She let out delighted shrieks as the white world slid past her, and her breath froze in the cold, dry air before her face, her cheeks pink and rosy. Anna flailed her arms in excitement, and the tiny bell on her wrist, despite being under all that clothing, still managed to make dampened 'triring, triring.' As I pulled her smoothly sailing on the snow, Anna reached out and scooped up a little and tossed the crystal powders in the air, and they sparkled.

"You are really enjoying this, aren't you?" I said.

Anna went silent and watched me intently. I turned my body around and started pulling the rope of the sled with backward steps, my eyes meeting hers. We didn't talk. In silence, I kept wading backward, and she watched me but had a hand extended out, and she let it glide over the snow as I pulled, leaving a long thin line along with her sled's. Her mitten was getting wet. It eventually froze in contact with the snow and came off her hand. I stopped. She looked at her bare hand with a curious expression, then burst out laughing, and I laughed, too. I rushed over and picked up the mitten. Before putting it back on, I wrapped my hands around her cold reddened tiny hand to warm it up.

"Oh, how adorable!"

It was the Baron's voice. He and his wife had just come out the door and were wading through the snow towards us. They, too, wore multiple layers of warm clothing, most likely on Her Ladyship's insistence. Seeing her mom and dad, Anna joyfully shrieked and bounced her hands on the snow and jerked her body back and forth, wanting to show them the incredible feat of sitting on the sled pulled by someone else. I obliged and started pulling the sled again. I turned my head and could see the joy on her parents' faces.

"Pascal! I need Pascal on this!" The Baron shouted, his mouth quivering, and his eyes taking in the scene, engraving the image onto the fabric of his soul.

"Hya!"

The Baroness playfully tossed a small snowball at her husband, and soon, the two grown-up nobles were playing and laughing like little kids, all the while Anna and I went around them round and round.

A couple of months later, Master Pascal delivered his new painting. It was of the snow-covered garden of the manor. A little boy with a big grin on his face was pulling a sled, on which an excited baby girl was sitting. The painting went up on a wall in the Baron's court, next to the one showing a large rose blossom birthing Anna. I was thus forever embedded in the La Rose family's history.