Alice in the Land of Steam

Chapter 375: Just want to care about you?
When this mighty team stopped outside the white windmill tower, Yieta was also frightened. She shrank behind the door and asked tremblingly, "What are you going to do?"

"Please don't be so surprised, Miss Yieta." Shesta gently raised the food box in her hand and said with a smile, "We are just here to bring you breakfast and decorate your room."

Yieta looked confused: "Decorate my room?"

"That's right. Don't you think the place you live in now is a bit too... monotonous?"

The proprietress said as she walked to the door naturally, ignoring the owner's nervous and somewhat tense expression, and looked around the empty windmill tower room. All she saw was a monotonous and dull pale color, with nothing but cold stones and bricks. The cold and lonely atmosphere lingered in the corners of the wall soaked by rain. It felt like even her bones would mold and rot if she stayed there for too long. I really didn't know how this angel lady could endure for so long.

She shook her head and sighed, "That won't do, Miss Yieta. Have you ever heard of this saying?"

"Eh!?" Yieta, who was hiding in a corner and wrapped tightly in feathers, was startled and shook her head repeatedly to deny: "W-what? I haven't heard of it! Absolutely not!"

This terrified expression, which shows that "if she knows something terrible, she will be killed to silence her", is so pitiful that people want to protect her. The proprietress is no exception. She slowed down her tone and spoke in a gentle voice: "The book says that beautiful girls are made of all the beautiful things in the world: flowers, gems, chocolate, dolls, dreams and sugar; they are simple, cute, kind and fragile, and need careful care to bloom into a dreamy brilliance."

"The place where you live now is not a suitable environment for a girl to grow up in, right?"

She showed Yieta a soft crescent-like smile: "So, we have to decorate it to suit your style. For example, as described in the book, we will build a house made of candies and snacks, with ice cream as the roof, freshly baked cookies as the walls, chocolate as the door, milk pudding as the chandelier, frosted sugar donuts as the windows... Finally, we will use caramel jelly as the chimney, and the smoke from it will smell like hot cocoa. What do you think?"

Yieta huddled in the corner, staring blankly at these uninvited guests busying themselves in her house, arranging the furniture. They assembled the new bed, put on the pillows and bedding, and the clean sheets were lingering with the fragrance of primroses; they arranged the cupboards and wardrobes, stuffed the cupboards with all kinds of snacks and toys, and hung all kinds of dresses in the wardrobes. On the wall hung a row of hooks were women's hats of more than a dozen colors. Although Yieta didn't recognize them, they were actually the most popular styles at the time; they nailed several rows of simple display shelves to the wall, on which were placed books, clockwork alarm clocks and several potted plants that were lush and green. ; There is also a dressing table, which is indispensable for a girl's room, a large oval mirror, various cosmetics, hair accessories, laces, silver combs and golden scissors, etc.; they even opened a few more windows on the wall to allow more light, and hung off-white curtains by the windows, put vases on the windowsill, and small flower beds hung under the window frames. Tender green branches and bright flowers poked their heads out, and the leaves and petals were dotted with last night's dew, which had not yet completely dried, revealing a vigorous vitality.

"Eh?" Yieta felt something was wrong when she heard this: "Excuse me, which book are you talking about?"

"It's a fairy tale written by a man named Andersen. It's called "The Candy House in the Forest". If you want to read it, I can lend it to you~"

Yieta shrank her head, looked at the stone guards surrounding the door and the various furniture they were carrying, and muttered, "I don't have any money."

really.

No wonder the "beautiful girl" she mentioned sounded so much like a princess in a fairy tale.

But I am not a princess, just an ordinary farm girl.

Shesta was amused by her words. She shook her head gently: "No money, this is our thank you gift, Miss Yieta, thank you for allowing us to move to this island to live, and also--"

Then the stone guards rushed into the windmill tower room carrying all kinds of furniture and decorations. They were so large that they quickly filled the house, but their movements were orderly and they cooperated with each other tacitly, so it didn't feel crowded or messy at all.

She suddenly stopped talking here and waved to the door, "Okay, everyone, bring everything in! Remember to handle it with care and don't break anything, okay?"

"puff!"

Several stone guards went up the spiral staircase to the second floor, carrying furniture such as bathtubs, apparently intending to convert the second floor into a bathroom.

In just a dozen minutes, my room was completely transformed. The previous coldness and loneliness were gone. It was similar to the room I first lived in in Avignon Village. For example, the furniture was simple but clean; the space was not big, but it gave people a sense of compact layout and fullness; and the air was filled with a familiar and warm atmosphere, which made people more clearly aware that they were living, not just existing.

Yieta stared at all this in a daze, strange or similar. She didn't notice that a figure had walked up to her side, frowning slightly, looking at the silver chain on her ankle, the end of which was wrapped around the window grille. "This chain--" she suddenly said, "I heard from Shemi and Metien that it is actually no longer needed. Have you ever thought about untying it? I think the feather elves should not be a race that would be bound by such a thing."

"Eh?"

Yieta turned around in a panic, only to find that it was Shelia, the second of the three traveler fairy sisters, who was talking to her. This girl with short silver hair and side bangs, handsome appearance and calm temperament, gave her an indescribable sense of oppression, just like facing Maria when she was angry. She subconsciously straightened her back, tried to act well-behaved, and whispered: "I, I don't want to untie them. I want to keep them to remind myself not to forget the past."

What happened in the past? Xie Liya knew a little bit after listening to her sister's story, so she didn't force it and nodded to let it go.

Just as Yieta was quietly relieved, the bartender suddenly picked up one of her wings and carefully examined the gray-white feathers that were stained with the shadow of time and looked a little dull. Then, her brows, which had not yet relaxed, frowned even deeper: "How did you do this? These feathers are all dirty. Have you not maintained them for a long time?"

Yieta lowered her head guiltily: "Yes, I'm sorry."

"It's okay. I'm not blaming you. It's just that the cleanliness of feathers is very important to feather elves, especially feather elves like you—" She paused for a moment and didn't continue. Instead, she turned back and said to a stone elf guarding the door: "Go to the hotel and boil a bucket of water, then bring it over. Remember to sprinkle rose petals in it. I remember that this kind of flower is the best for maintaining feather elves' wings. Also, bring perfume, hair cleanser and fairy dew... Uh, you said fairy dew is the bath product collected by the eldest sister? It's okay, she will agree. Go quickly, and remember not to let Alice see it."

The silly-looking stone spirit cried out, then turned and left.

Yieta asked nervously, "Excuse me, what are you doing, Miss Shelia?"

"What? Of course I'm helping you take a bath. Your wings are very dirty. They need a good wash." Xie Liya looked at her with strange eyes, unable to understand why she asked such an obvious question.

"Eh?"

Yieta opened her mouth wide. She knew that Shelia wanted to help her take a bath, but the problem was not that. It was -

"Why are you so nice to me?" Miss Angel couldn't understand.

He helped me decorate my room, brought me so many furniture, decorations and clothes, and even gave me a bath and cared about whether my wings were dirty... This level of help obviously cannot be explained by just the two words "thank you", right?

"Well."

Faced with this question, Xie Liya thought for a while, and finally said slowly: "This question is more complicated to explain, just simply understand that we just want to care about you."

"Care about me?"

"That's right. Xiao Xia and Aoweila are your sisters, so they care about you very much. Shemi and Metien are your friends, so they also care about you. As for Lingge, although Lingge looks cold, he is actually a good person and he cares about you a lot. You know all this very well, so you didn't ask them: Why are they so nice to me? In this case, it's the same for me and my elder sister. Whether you regard us as sisters, friends or ordinary residents, at least, as long as we live on this island, we want to care about you, take care of you, and make you live a happier life. That's all."

The bartender's tone was sincere, without a trace of falsehood, and even Yieta could feel the sincerity in it.

She was silent for a moment and didn't answer, perhaps because she didn't know how to answer. Shelia didn't care. After explaining her reason, she continued to observe the maintenance of her feathers, thinking about what method to use to help her clean them so that they would be cleaner. At this moment, she heard a very soft and thin thank you, "Thank you."

She lowered her head and met the angel's gaze, which was as clear and clean as the blue sky. So, a smile appeared on her usually calm face, and she slowed down the intensity of stroking the wings:
"You're welcome."

　Give me some meow
　　
　
(End of this chapter)