Chapter 599: Anastasia, the "Tree Girl"
On the other side, Aiwas and Grace were teleported directly and landed in a wheat field where few people went.
After Grace landed, her first reaction was to see how Aiwas was doing.
After checking and finding that he was indeed intact, the elf girl said half-jokingly, "Her Majesty Titania has a pretty cute personality, right?"
"really."
Aiwass nodded in agreement.
Although calling a celestial being "cute" was a bit strange no matter how you thought about it, it was just right for Titania.
"Come with me first," Grace said casually, "anywhere is fine. If Your Majesty is willing, we will definitely find Anastasia."
Is it so magical?
Aiwass thought about it and followed Grace.
After walking for a while, Grace, feeling somewhat bored, fell two steps behind Aiwass and started chatting with him: "Did you know that Her Majesty Titania of this generation is actually only over 200 years old, even younger than me."
Grace's first words were unexpected.
Aiwass was a little surprised: "This generation...?"
"Don't you know? The Fairy Queen is called Titania, and the Fairy King is called Oberon. For us lovely and well-meaning neighbors, they may change their names at any time. But only the name of 'Your Majesty' is fixed."
Grace felt nostalgic: "When I was a child, I was learning how to brew 'moonshine wine'. I licked my fingers because I was greedy. As a result, I fell asleep and my soul floated into the fairy kingdom.
"I happened to meet a little girl at the time. She was a half-elf... Using your human age, she was probably only eleven or twelve years old. I was a little older than her at the time, so I played with her for a long time until my mother caught me. When I got home that day, my mother scolded me for a long time, and I never made that mistake again.
"After I truly mastered the inheritance, I relied on my own strength to enter the Fairy Kingdom again. That's when I saw her again.
"—By then, she had already become a fairy, completely forgetting her own spirit name. The bud she hatched from was a lily, hence her white dress. Meanwhile, I hadn't yet condensed my wings, leaving my back bare. And because my body glows green when we resonate with the Path of Beauty... so I called her Little Lily, and she called me Little Leaf.
"Not long afterward, I heard there was a new queen. So my mother took me to meet her... That's when I learned that Sayuri had become the new Titania."
Grace said this with a nostalgic tone as she and Aiwass walked through the wheat fields.
Unlike the distant and polite behavior outside, she immediately became much more lively after entering the fairy kingdom.
At this moment, Aiwass's expression was a little strange: "Speaking of which...how old is Anastasia?"
"Eighty-seven."
Grace answered immediately.
——Very good, a little bigger than Her Majesty Queen Sofia.
Aiwass complained in his heart.
"And you?"
"I have more than 200."
"Sounds like she's younger than Her Highness the Saint?"
"Well, that's about right. I should be smaller." Mrs. Grace said lightly.
That means she is younger than both Chunbai and Janice.
Aiwass asked, "How old were you when you met Mr. Maxim?"
"About a hundred and thirty, when I was just a little girl."
Mrs. Grace put her hands behind her back and said with a smile, "I know what you're thinking, Mr. Aiwass. Indeed, Maxim was over three hundred years old at the time... In our appearance, he looked like my father.
"But we're different from humans. We generally reach adulthood at 100 years old, so I've already reached adulthood. That's the moment when the 'double digits' break through to the 'triple digits'. It signifies the transition from the beauty of 'innocence', the second, to the dedication of 'responsibility', the third.
"Also, the 'one' in 'one hundred years old' is the sacred number of love. Therefore, starting at the age of one hundred, elves are allowed to reproduce. Their bodies also begin to develop from then on... Before that, both men and women appear very thin."
It wasn't an illusion—Evans had always felt that Mrs. Grace looked quite young. Unlike the calm and steady Master Maxim. Previously, Evans had thought it was Grace's heritage, but now it seemed she was indeed very young. When she gave birth to Anastasia, she must have been less than half Pure White's age.
No wonder her children, even though they are so grown up, still have the childlike innocence to use fairy magic.
"That's why I hope Anastasia can live a few more years..."
At this point, the smile on her face faded considerably, and her voice became softer. "When she was in her thirties, she began to show signs of tree transformation. Even by your human standards, thirty is considered young for a terminal illness, right?"
"……really."
"For us elves, that's only the first third of adulthood. By the time she was in her fifties, her tree-like condition had already entered the second stage. Once it reaches the third stage, it's basically impossible to awaken.
“—I just hope she can live to adulthood.
"I just wish I could give her a hundredth birthday... to celebrate her coming of age."
Grace was feeling a little melancholy: “When you see her later, please don’t show surprise, fear or pity...that child is very sensitive.
"I lied about something earlier. You guessed correctly, she did use 'True Illusion'. That is also a key part of the 'Moonlight' lineage of illusion techniques.
"And the reason she used 'True Illusion'... was because she felt she had become very ugly. Mr. Yunus said that he met an 'elf girl.' That means what he saw was definitely not the real Anastasia..."
Grace's words stopped abruptly.
Because they had seen a girl from a distance.
——Or, it “maybe” is a girl.
She was wearing a long, pale gold skirt that was long enough to cover her legs, but it had been dragging on the ground for a long time, the ends of which were frayed, white, and ragged.
She did not have the graceful and slender figure of a girl, but looked like a hunched and skinny old woman.
Just like a leafless tree wearing a skirt under the moonlight.
She raised her hands like a tree raising its branches - her arms were completely covered with a layer of dry white bark, and the joints between her left arm and right wrist were bent backwards, with branches extending from them.
But there was no butterfly-like fairy perched on the raised branch.
She looked at her hand with melancholy - there was a flower in her palm.
It was obviously not a flower that grew on her body, but was taken away by a fairy.
At this moment, she was already half asleep, bathed in the sunlight, quietly drowsy.
"Aya."
Grace whispered her daughter's nickname.
This young mother finally exuded a distinct gentleness. Only then could Aiwass truly feel that she was indeed a mother worried about her daughter's health, not a naive, carefree girl.
"Mother!"
Anastasia jumped at the call.
She wanted to turn back, but it was difficult for her.
As she turned, there was a creaking, stiffening sound. As her skirt swayed, Aiwass could see that her legs had transformed into tree trunks. Her face was almost completely covered by bark. Only a palm-sized area in the center of her face still showed the soft, bloodless skin, and the faint outline of her childish, beautiful face.
It was like a petrified person, starting from the ends of the limbs and gradually spreading to the face... At this point, the petrification had spread to the very end, leaving only the face filled with fear.
She looked up, half at space, half at her raised hands, staring at the sky like this, as if trying to break free from it.
Just trying to lower your head will make a terrifying creaking sound from the tree trunk.
Rather than saying that she transformed into a tree, it would be more accurate to say that a girl was trapped in a twisted and terrifying tree.
The moment she saw Aiwass, she was startled.
In an instant, Aiwas saw that the "tree girl" suddenly became blurry and hazy.
The next moment, a little girl in a light golden dress ran over in a panic: "Mom! Why... didn't you tell me in advance that you brought your friends here..."
She looks at least 80% similar to Grace, like Grace's sister.
Aiwass moved closer in surprise, only to find that she was warm and had a fragrance in her hair.
Everything seems real.
Update completed meow
(End of this chapter)
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