“Yaawn…” I slowly opened up my eyelids.

“Good morning.”

“Morning, dea…” I jolted back, “Hold on, you’re not Anna!”

“Teehee, did I surprise you?” Vivia giggled to herself after a successful prank, “It took a lot of convincing on my end, but thankfully your fiancée didn’t mind me doing this.”

“My ass she didn’t mind!” I looked around the room, “Where is everyone, anyways? And seriously, next time you sneak into a bed with me, I’ll sock you in the face!”

“Ooh, so scary~!” She teased as she hopped out of bed, “Don’t worry, it won’t happen again. Oh, and the others already got up way before you did. They’re just outside.”

“You damned Princess!” Anna’s angry yelling could be heard from a mile away, “Get away from Ed this instant! When you said you’d do a simple prank, I didn’t think you’d jump in bed with him!”

“Eek! Sir Edward, protect me!” She hid behind my back, only further agitating Anna in the process.

“Why you….!” She slapped me in the face.

“Ow! Why am I the one getting hit?!”

“Because!” She sounded both angry and unsure all at the same time, “I-I just can’t bring myself to hit a Princess…”

“But you don’t mind hitting your fiancée?!”

Geez, what a way to start the day off. And to think, I didn’t even do anything that deserved punishment. Well, if Anna’s just gonna hit me either way, maybe I might just up and try something with Vivia the next time she does something like this… Heh, just kidding.

“Never mind your petty disputes!” Vivia suddenly raised a point, “My tummy’s rumbling! You promised we’d be getting food today, so hop to it!”

“Y’know, Princess, I’m not your gopher.” I replied before realizing something, “Wait a second, that’s it!”

“A gopher?” Anna tilted her head.

“No! I mean, yes! I mean, kind of!” I tried my best to explain my idea before just giving up and showing it off, “Everyone, we might not need to sail to Cardina for food after all!”

This promise made them all visibly excited, seeing as they all silently stood around me and waited for me to finish explaining. Basically, my idea is to wait for some nearby birds to fly over the island, then using my basic knowledge of the Animal’s language I studied a while back, I could ask them to send us some food over on their next visit.

“Alright, there they are!”

“Who are? Birds?” Arthur was quite confused by my words.

“Yep! And with that, ahem!” I cleared my throat as I shouted to the birds, “Salve, aves!”

“Hm?” The birds took notice of my shouting, before turning to one another, “Loquitur nobis?”

“Ita, sum!” I replied back.

“Edward…” Miss Harper grabbed me by the shoulder, with tears in her eyes, “To think you were this starved that you’ve gone crazy… Sniff, I’m so sorry for not noticing.”

“What? No, don’t worry, they can understand me.” I reassured her while turning back to the birds circling over us, “Visne nobis cibum dare?”

“Hm?” The birds looked at each other in confusion before cackling amongst themselves, “Quad stultus!”

And with that, the birds flew away, leaving me with no way of explaining my sudden and odd behavior to the rest of the gang. Chuckling anxiously, I finally sighed and gave in.

“Alright, I’ll go to Cardina…”

“Okay?” The girls sat back down on the benches.

They were all pretty hungry. Well, not that hungry, but you get the point. Since it takes about a full day of sailing to get to Cardina, they’ll have to wait at least two days for me to come back with the food. This means that no matter how much I hurry, they’ll still be starving by the time I get back. I should probably bring them a lot of food that’s not perishable. That way we could stockpile it.

“Oi, Ed.” Arthur beckoned me over to a secluded spot, “Before you go, I’d like to uhh… apologize.”

“Whoa, what’s this?” I teased him a bit, but stopped after realizing he was being serious, “I-It’s alright.”

“No, it’s not.” He said as a single tear fell from his eye, “I’ve been… treating you so badly ever since you got together with Anna.”

“Seriously, don’t worry about it.” I chuckled, “I’m sure that thing I said in Harper’s clinic back when we first met left a bad impression on you. Honestly, I’m glad you’re allowing us to stay together in the first place.”

“You’re way too earnest, dammit…” He chuckled bitterly, “No, it’s not that. It’s just this Old Man being horrible.”

“…?”

“It’s about Lune.” He replied, “I had always sort of wished Lune would be the one to take Anna as his lover.”

“Eh?” I stood at a loss for words, “What? But I mean, Grim never looked at her like that?”

“I… I know, and I know how this is gonna sound, but that was kind of half the fun of hoping.” He couldn’t even look at me anymore, “I’m sorry, I know how bad this way of thinking is. You’re my grandson-in-law, Anna cherishes you just as much as you do her, and to top it all off, you’re way more responsible than anyone I’ve ever met.”

“Oh, thank you…”

“But I never did like responsible people.” He interrupted me, “Responsible people are… boring, I guess. They feel the need to fill out paperwork for every single thing they do, or to go to court for every little injustice they face in their lives. I know you’re not like them, but I can’t help but think she’d do better with a wildcard like Lune.”

Responsible is… no good? What the hell is he talking about? I’ve been busting my ass this entire time, trying desperately to make Anna’s life as secure and stable as possible, to hopefully find a way to make everyone happy in the best way I can! I’m not strong like Grim, and I’m not spontaneous like him either! I’m me! Why am I no good?!

“It’s…” I glared back at him, before sighing as if to let all the rage go, “It’s okay. Thank you for telling me this.”

“Why?” He shouted back at me as I boarded one of the docked boats, “Why aren’t you getting angry at me?! I said such horrible things to you?!”

“Hey Gramps!” I stuck my tongue out at him with a smile, “Don’t regret a single word you said! Take care of yourself, and take care of Anna while I’m gone! If you can promise me that, then I’d say you’ve redeemed yourself!”

***

Well, that was certainly something. After sailing far enough away that we couldn’t see each other clearly anymore, I could faintly see Arthur finally turning back and walking to where the girls were. Seriously, what the heck kind of backwards logic is that even? He wants Anna to marry some crazy idiot like Grim instead of me? I think he’s just pulling at straws at this point…

“Well then, maybe if it’s a wildcard he wants, then it’s a wildcard he’ll get!” I couldn’t help it, “I was planning on returning to Trivis Numerica eventually anyways, so why not just go there right now, huh?”

Of course, doing something on the spur of the moment is way more difficult than I had first thought it to be. I’m just so used to thinking my actions through before acting, so I immediately realized several issues with that plan. First of all, I’d be abandoning these guys on the island without any food, so I at least need to do that first. Then there’s the fact that I still can’t do anything alone. I need some allies if I am to make a difference in the war.

“Argh!” I shouted at the top of my lungs, “I can’t take it anymore! Why must everything be so goddamn difficult?!”

The rest of the boat ride was pretty boring, seeing as I was all alone. I really didn’t have anything to do, so I ended up talking to myself a lot, which only lead to me feeling even worse about my current situation. That being said, some birds did come by, so at least I had someone to talk to, if in a different language. Sadly, it seems that seagulls are pretty cocky, given they’re “above” everyone else, so conversations with them would usually be unpleasant.

“Phew, made it.” I said as I munched on the bird that had been annoying me the entire boat ride to here, “Heh, not so cocky now, are you? You used to be a majestic soaring being, and look at you now? I think you’re way better as a simple meal.”

Walking around the city of Seils, I felt a bit of nostalgia as I recalled mine and Anna’s time in here back when we were looking for a cure to Arthur’s illness.

“Hold on, that’s it!” I got a bright idea, “We set up a couple of Arthur’s chains here!”

With that, I immediately recalled one of my dear friends from the past, Carl, who is still working somewhere near here. That being said, I didn’t go to the restaurant chain to look for him blindly, as I instead waltzed over to the post office to send two letters. One was addressed to Carl, telling him where the others are, and to go check up on them and regularly send them food over. And the other letter…

“Grim…” I was about to put pen to paper before backing off, “Hold on, what do I even write? Like, what’d be the best way to convey the proper emotions I’m feeling, not to mention have him take it seriously enough to actually come over and help me? I don’t know if he’s still mad at me for what I did back then, so…”

Thinking long and hard for what felt like hours, the person manning the booth in the post office grew more and more antsy before just telling me to hurry it up already. I got kind of mad at him for rushing me, so I just gave up and wrote “HELP” in hold letters and handed it over to him. Thinking back, this letter will probably give Grim a heart attack or something…

After that was done, I walked to a store and bought a ton of canned foods before making my way back to the dock. It’s a shame I had to make such a long trip over to here only to stay for an hour or so, but the guys over at the island are starving, so there’s no helping it. Sailing back, I thought about my next course of action.

“By the time I arrive at the island, it’ll be the middle of the night.” I reasoned, “Alright. I’ll put the food at the entrance of the prison where they’ll be sleeping, then quietly make my exit with them being none the wiser. It’s a foolproof plan! Well, Anna’s gonna be a bit mad at me, but there’s just no other way to go about this.”

Docking at Lichtenstelle, taking the hundreds of cans over to the door and barely opening it to check if everyone’s still there, the only person that was missing was Vivia, oddly enough. I mean, her sleeping spot was supposed to be right next to Miss Harper, but looking at it, the spot’s empty. Who knows, maybe she just got bored and went to sleep in my bed again or something. Not like I care, since it’s not mine anymore.

“Goodbye everyone.” I whispered as I closed the door, “Wish me luck.”

The walk to the boat was a bit nauseating, since I kind of felt like I was walking towards my own death. Wait, is this how Grim feels like every time he has to leave for another country? That’s… too much.