Violet Evergarden

Gaiden | Chapter 1

The ingredients that composed me were:
a teaspoon of selfishness, tears and white camellias;
a tablespoon of loneliness, irritation and Alberta;
a pinch of sadness from being treated as a tool;
and a dash of apprehension and hope towards the future as a finishing touch.

I was made of such things.

A teaspoon of artificiality, detachment and indifference;
a tablespoon of an emerald brooch, innocence and devotion;
a pinch of secrets from the past hidden within blue irises;
and a dash of a spirit bearing no fear towards a search for the unknown, along with an ability to take action, as a finishing touch.

Violet Evergarden was made of such things.

After falling in, coming to know about and receiving love, I changed. While staring outside in the depths of a forest, I suddenly found myself pondering over how much that eccentric Auto-Memories Doll might have changed by now.

The Princess and the Auto-Memories Doll

"This is a traditional event, so to speak." Alberta told the woman following her from behind as they stepped onto the carpet laid throughout the corridors, on which were drawn white camellias as the motif of her nation.

She occupied the number one seat of royal court lady in the Drossel Kingdom as its governess. Such was her role and profession.

A moderately frilly white apron was tied over her long black dress, which was perfectly buttoned-up to some extent. The distinctly dressed figure of Alberta, an elderly woman with white strands mixed in her hair, left a different impression on viewers in comparison to the other younger court ladies. The fact that the people who passed by her, enveloped as she was in a deep solemnity, maintained politeness and nodded on sight made known that her status in the palace was quite high.

"Our country of Drossel has since the old days been solving political issues and avoiding war through heightening marriage with the royal families of neighboring nations. Not a single princess born here has stayed in the country. They all marry into foreign ones. However, there exists a national sentiment of those who do not think well of this, and the event has its formalities, so there was a need to show that the princesses marrying out of the nest of their nation have been doing so in the name of full-fledged love for the foreign princes."

While speaking, Alberta had noticed that the one she was talking to walked in a disturbingly silent way. Regardless of how smooth the carpet they were stepping onto could be, she was unable even to feel the other's presence from her back. It was similar to the pacing of covert-action knights, which she had only had a few opportunities to witness during her long time working in the court.

Unlike ordinary knights, covert-action ones had their existence itself undisclosed and belonged to a secret organization of the king's personal use. In order to exterminate people and eavesdrop on conversations, they did not make sounds when walking.

Becoming slightly nervous and turning around, she found a woman not lesser than the gorgeous interior of the palace behind her properly standing there.

"That would be the Public Love Letters, right?" the words spewing from her rosy lips sounded as beautiful as the singing of birds.

Although Alberta was someone of the same gender as her, she was dumbfounded for an instant at such beauty. Her golden hair gleamed as it bathed in the sunlight pouring in brightly from the palace's windows. Framed by lashes of the same shade of gold, her eyes were blue gems. What encased her body was a Prussian-blue jacket over a snow-white ribbon-tie dress. Precisely on the middle of the ribbon-tie was a conspicuously outstanding emerald brooch. Black gloves covered the hands that held onto her trolley bag. Lastly, her feet were decorated with cocoa-brown knit-up boots. Said boots stepped steadily onto the carpet, so walking without producing any noise was probably the woman's technique.