The Sand Bride - Side Story 2.24

“Ugh, uuu…….”

“Since you’re not answering, it must hurt a lot. I’m sorry. But if you do that again, I’ll hit you one more time. Do you understand?”

Rima clearly said those words with a kind face to Brum, whose mind was hazy with pain as he clutched the top of his head. Nair rubbed her eyes a couple of times and looked forward again, but it was indeed Brum who had collapsed on the ground while bleeding.

Rima innocently wiped the blood off the stone slate and went back to drawing the cactus. It was a level of composure as if she were merely brushing off dust. Nair was plunged into chaos and shock, unable to move from the spot.

A few days later, when the Iphir couple demanded to know why Brum was injured, Nair reported the fact to Karzhen and Iphir.

For a moment, both of them looked at Nair with disbelief, and Nair, with an aggrieved expression, even had to swear that she would hang herself if there was a single lie in this. Fortunately, however, Nair didn’t need to prove her testimony by hanging herself.

As time passed—that is, as Rima grew—she acted in a way that allowed her father, Karzhen himself, to know his daughter well. The only ones who didn’t know Rima’s other face were Esther and Esther’s parents.

It was true. Rima liked flowers instead of blood, but she was a child who did not hesitate to see the blood of anyone who touched the flowers she liked. She liked drawing, but if someone interfered with her drawing, she retaliated against them.

She had even blackmailed Karzhen while pretending otherwise. It was a demand for him to dig up and bring back the flowers she liked when he went hunting. Karzhen had looked at Rima then with an absurd expression.

Before much longer, not only Karzhen, but also Greta, Hakan, and even the servants fell into confusion over this bizarre personality. Someone who was strong but hid their strength and pretended to be weak was hard to find in the long history of Gharyam.

So, while Esther wept with worry about Rima’s loneliness, alienation, and how she would survive in Gharyam after she was gone, Karzhen was plunged into pain in a different sense.

“But Mother likes me more than Father. She trusts my words more than Father’s.”

This was what Rima said when Karzhen refused her demand to put some flower in a pot during a hunt.

“So, if I tell Mother that Father hit me, then it means Father is the one who hit me.”

Karzhen looked down at his small daughter with an absurd face, but he ultimately had no choice but to grant Rima’s request. If Esther were to think he had laid a hand on Rima, the consequences would be horrific.

“You must pack it well! If you bring it back with damaged roots, I will tell her I was scolded by Father!”

However, seeing Rima earnestly reminding him as he set off for the hunt, he turned around, swept by a sincere urge to give his daughter a flick on the forehead. But the moment he saw that face, Karzhen had to give up and head back to the hunting grounds.

Because the face of the girl who dared to blackmail him, unfortunately, resembled Esther far too much.

In this way, Karzhen also initially harbored somewhat soft feelings for Rima because she looked like Esther, but the moment he realized Rima’s internal contents were far removed from Esther’s, he fell into a cycle of pain.

Rima’s face was Esther’s face. Since she turned Karzhen’s insides out with that innocent face, he was on the verge of developing a sickness of the heart.

The most regrettable fact was that Rima felt the same way.

To her, a father was simply that kind of existence. To be honest, Rima felt sorry for Karzhen, who was not loved by the strongest person in the family, Esther, yet found him pathetic at the same time.

At least in Rima’s world, Esther was the strongest person on earth. This was because she had grown up watching everyone in this vast palace find her mother difficult to deal with while serving her with the utmost devotion.

Not only the food, but the decorations of the palace, the garden, and even the color of the cushions were all moved according to her mother’s taste.

In comparison, her father, Karzhen, looked so weak to Rima. Of course, he was stronger than others, but to Rima, he was always nothing more than second-in-command. Her father, the second-in-command, always struggled desperately to please her mother, the one in charge.

But her mother, the one in charge, was truly the best and had such picky tastes that she was never satisfied with the things her father gave her.

Of course, there were moments she liked them—when he gave her Bibi, when he gave Rima a pretty pony, and when he healed Bibi, the dog her mother raised, when she was sick.

So Rima considered her mother Esther’s words to be right and obeyed her. It was the same in the case of the white puppy that Esther began to raise, who was given the name Bibi.

In truth, Rima didn’t particularly like dogs. However, because Bibi was a dog her mother cherished, Rima felt the need to respect Bibi.

As proof of this, unlike her father’s other dogs, Bibi didn’t have to go hunting and drank goat’s milk as well as delicious meat, and had soft silk cushions and a large canopy where he could rest.

“Treat Bibi well.”

Rima remembered those words Esther had said.

“Mom wants the two of you to be good friends.”

“Yes, Mom.”

How can a dog be a friend? Dogs are too stupid and weak compared to humans to be friends; they are merely loyal subordinates. Rima thought so inwardly, but since her mother said so, she nodded and answered.