Coldsnap: The Billionaire Alpha's Fated Pregnant Princess (GL)

Chapter 480 - If It’s Hard To Choose... Just Do It All?

"So these spider shifters. Eight legs, weaving silk, and they willingly made clothing for the foxes?"

"They were usually happy to make clothes for anyone. They loved the challenge of measuring and architecting perfection draped over all forms... with an absurd amount of pride in their craft."

Edgar’s laugh was warm. The sort that made the room feel smaller - or your distance to the person closer - in the way that good company often does. He’d taken to asking about my world with an unhurried and genuinely interested sort of curiosity.

"I remember one time the royal tailor even asked me if I would consider starting some business just so he had access to a new set of requests for uniforms. A spider silk garment from him was considered one of the highest honors you could be gifted, but well, he was reaching out to everyone just so he had more and varied work."

"Sounds like a person who really loved what they did."

Meanwhile, Zoé had not moved from the corner of the room for nearly an hour. Her knees were still drawn up in the chair she’d taken after I insisted I would be fine on the floor.

She hadn’t interrupted once with her chin just resting there. But I think she’d stopped breathing a few times at my descriptions. Especially the size of our snakes.

"Perhaps. I think it was just someone being frustrated that they weren’t getting what they wanted."

Asha chose that moment to stir in his lap, with a small mewling sound that notified of his hunger. That rapidly increased because he seemed to realize he was not with me. Considerably less patient than any clock, even if his timing is as reliable.

"Sounds like a cue to attend to your little prince."

"Oh, we are not calling him that. Out loud. But thank you for saying it so that I know to ban my pyārī from doing so."

Holding him myself does lower the volume of the next sounds, but he starts to try and make it to the ’food’. I’m forced to stuff him in the carrying pouch and endure the sounds.

> Perhaps I should have requested Kyrie empty her Stash slot so I could summon him a freshly prepared meal no matter where I am. It feels like there is always a better, more timely use for such a limited ability. <

"Alright. This is it for me today, I probably won’t come back down. But it was a pleasure to talk to you and I’ll try to swing by as long as I do not find reasons to be so busy tomorrow."

Despite announcing that, I paused instead of retreating - because Edgar’s face had taken on that expression. The one old people get when they are about to say something they’d been holding onto.

"Citra."

"Yes?"

"Can I tell you something that I learned through my wife? Taught to me in how she lived."

"...Of course."

I hadn’t thought I’d genuinely be able to leave a visit with him without receiving some kind of boon of wisdom. At least, beyond calling me a foolish girl for insinuating that taking his key to the cabin was wrong.

"My Medha was a linguist. A volunteer. A daughter who’d been disowned. A veteran’s wife. A woman who loved even the terrible Bollywood films with a passion that I found baffling and wonderful."

His hands folded over the spot where Asha had been laying. Clouded eyes aimed somewhere past me, toward whatever version of Her that still lived in his memory. No doubt something like my mindscape, formed so clearly that blindness couldn’t ever touch it.

"None of those things were roles she put on and took off so cleanly. She didn’t stop being a scholar when she was being a wife. Didn’t stop being someone’s forsaken daughter when she was laughing at our children’s antics."

"You seem like you are attempting to make a point to me. What is it?"

"No, I’m just talking about her. How she was all of it at once, always. The burden of it and the joy of it, all tangled up together. I learned that you can choose what you put into a role, but that a role doesn’t choose what you are."

Despite his dismissal, I can tell that he meant it as advice in his own way. Because it clicked and splashed within me like the best of all guidance. A tossed stone finding its place in a lazy, stuck river’s bed... and somehow making the entire damned current flow quicker.

Sitting on this often useless slab of Composure, my mindscape still looks like an everblooming field of flowers. Like a little hideaway that refuses to acknowledge the truth of the winter outside.

> All of it at once. Not choosing between aspects of what I can be. Not considering myself defined by the labels. <

A royal who commands from on high, a Chosen who walks alongside the masses with her own divine story, and the simple mother who feeds her son and cares about nothing else.

I was really concerned with picking just one for everyone to view me as. But that’s silly, isn’t it? That’s a viewpoint enforced in me because I had to portray myself as Princess Citra Lomdi at almost all times.

Citra... Citra Voss is...

"Edgar. I had honestly been thinking about returning Medha’s dupatta to you."

"Had you been?"

"Yes. I was afraid I might ruin it and that something so precious to your memory of her deserves better than what it looks like my life might put it through. I’ve changed my mind. I’ll keep it. And I’ll wear it when it matters that I do."

Asha’s patience ran out entirely as I clasped my hands together and bowed - the mewling became a proper tiny growling demand. Zoé scrambled to her feet as if the sound was causing her distress and went ahead to the door.

> Or maybe the silly girl is trying to act as a shield again... <

"I have to go attend to this small tyrant. Zoé, you can stay here on this floor if you’d like. Or find your own way back down. You know the building now and have my full permission to explore it."

I wanted to tell her to just bring her family members up here. But whatever their issues are, I don’t think they would be solved by that alone. Besides, I’m sure Claire offered and there were reasons that someone refused it.

"I think I’ll... stay here a little while? If that’s okay, Mr. Miles."

"I’d welcome the company. And I’m curious what it’s like."

"...What *what* is like?"

"Well, I just heard about another world. But I haven’t heard a lot about being a young werewolf in this one. If you’d like to talk about it."

Zoé’s dark brown eyes glowed strongly before they softened into something close to relief. Likely at the presence of another adult who knew what she was - and simply didn’t care. This one being a human surely makes all the difference.

"Well, as much as I hate to say it I think I’m not needed here. Enjoy your chatting but don’t lose track of time, hm? And message your mother back already."

"Wait, how did you know-"

I stepped out and closed the door behind me with my heel. Smiling as lightly and freely as any moment all day. At least so far.

> Upset children avoiding the parent that upset them. How did I know? Like I don’t have the memories of two lives, pfah! <