The Perfect Knight and the Illusionist (BL)
Chapter 26: Cookies

Chapter 26: Cookies

LEO

I had never ridden in such a fancy carriage before. The ones I rode before were more like carts being pulled by horses that probably wouldn’t get invited to fancy horse parties in the capital, unlike me here, on my way to Mario’s house.

The carriage looked like a finely crafted piece of furniture that would belong in the ceremonial hall at the Academy, with decorative frames and even windows on each side. When I rode a carriage before, back home, I liked peeking out through a hole in the thick linen cover. Now, I could see the entire city pass by through the windows on each side.

Even the horses strolled gracefully. Their steps clacked on the stone-laid pavement, unlike the horses back home that kicked up dust and liked to gallop at random moments (and equally liked to stop at random moments too, which made all the kids in the carriage giggle).

Unfortunately, the ride didn’t last very long. I didn’t have a good sense of time here, but I thought it was maybe one hour at most. But distance-wise, the horses weren’t really galloping or anything, so it wouldn’t take more than two or three hours on foot, which made me wonder for a moment why we needed the carriage at all.

I could see Mario’s ’mansion’ from more than a thousand paces away. If Mario didn’t say, "There it is," pointing to it, and Alexis hadn’t dropped his jaw in awe (which was understandable), I wouldn’t have been able to imagine any normal person would live in such a place—unless they were the royal family or something.

The mansion looked incredibly big with a wonderful front yard once we entered through the gate (opened by two guards—why did they need guards?—pulling the heavy steel gates, which slid sideways). The grass was so green and looked so soft that I was tempted to jump out and have a roll-about, like I used to with Indi.

When we arrived at the front door of the mansion itself, which took a while because Mario’s front yard was so big, a man with a fancy coat with a funny split tail came to open the carriage door, accompanied by a very pretty lady in a black-and-white dress standing just behind him.

"Welcome back, young master," the man said as Mario got off the carriage first.

"Thank you, Albert."

Then we all got off the carriage, and the pretty lady in the dress gave us each a wet towel.

I’m not sure if I was the only one who didn’t know what to do with it, but seeing that Mario used the towel to wipe his hands and then handed it back to her, we all did the same.

Once I walked through the door, though, I almost turned and went back out after seeing a man standing inside right by the door, but invisible from outside before we entered.

He looked lean and mean, wore leather armor (inside a house!), and had two swords (which I felt were real. Although they were sheathed, I just had that feeling) hanging on each side of him from his belt. One short one and one longer one. It was odd, like really odd, but familiar. But my memory failed me.

After that, the gentleman called Albert led the way through what felt too big to be called a corridor. The walls were covered in red velvet (I was very tempted to touch them) and portraits that were taller than me, with candles that stayed still with no breeze in the house (unlike the candle we lit over our dinner table back home that danced every time the wind whistled outside).

The ’room’ we arrived in had a high ceiling, was oval-shaped, and had great couches that were bigger than the beds in the dormitory. I imagined it would be wonderful to stack them together and turn them into bunk beds, a suggestion which I thought I might make later. Just not now.

Then the pretty lady brought in some tea, and to my surprise, New Year’s Cookies.

As strange as it was to have them in summer, I wasn’t going to pass on this chance. The cookies were deliciously nutty with soft crumbs that melted in my mouth.

"This is so good," I said. Others agreed and seemed to be enjoying them too, and Mario in particular looked delighted.

"It’s a bit funny eating them in summer, though, heh," I added, unnecessarily.

"Oh? When do you normally eat them... in the South?" Mario asked me, leaning forward a little from his seat.

"Er... these are New Year’s Cookies, so we eat them on New Year’s Day..."

"Really?" Alexis asked me.

"Yeah, it doesn’t get too cold in winter in the South, but still, we don’t get many fresh vegetables or sweet fruits during winter. So these with nuts are like special treats," I explained the way of the South to the city boys.

"Nuts... are special treats?" Marius asked, as if this was the first time he’d heard this.

Then I realized—city boys... and we were in the capital. They probably could get anything at any time throughout the year.

"Never mind...," I said.

"Leo, we don’t eat them every day here either, haha," Thomas said, laughing, and continued,

"But we call them Welcome Cookies. We serve them when guests come to visit."

That explanation made me feel better, and also reminded me that I was a ’guest’ at a mansion.

’Mom, Dad—I’m not doing too bad here. My first day was a disaster, and I embarrassed myself in many ways, but some people here are rather nice, and I even got invited to hang out in this super fancy place...,’ I thought to myself, thinking that the next time I wrote them a letter, which I promised that I would once life at the Academy settled down, I would tell them about these cookies and the different ways people live here.

"Thanks for having us ALL here, Marius," Briant said, his voice warm and playful.

"It’s my pleasure, and of course, I wanted to invite everyone," Mario said somewhat eagerly.

Friends.

Yeah, Mario told Briant that he wanted to make friends.

Maybe he was an only child like I was? Judging by how big this mansion was**,** and how I saw no other houses around, it was also possible that he didn’t have any neighboring kids to play with.

I imagined little Mario sitting alone on this massive couch eating ’Welcome Cookies’ all alone because he had no one coming over to his place.

That was kind of sad.

Maybe Mario wasn’t too bad, but just a lonely child growing up alone.

Things started to make sense a little.