THE PROMISED CAMPANELLA
Putting on her hair clips.
That was the one form of resistance permitted to her.
In this isolated realm of Freya’s creation, Hestia was not allowed to make contact with Bell. She even had to lie and act like he wasn’t a member of her familia. Freya’s loyal followers had made sure to erase any and all evidence that might connect Hestia to the boy.
Everything…except this.
“Erm…excuse me!”
One evening, a boy on the street called out to her. His hair was the color of fresh snow, and his eyes were like rubellite, but he possessed the air of a wizened man, worn beyond his years, lost and alone. When he first noticed Hestia, he cast his gaze downward, determined to walk by without speaking a word.
But in the end, just as they were passing, the boy stopped and turned.
“Erm…your hair clips…”
The decoration adorning them looked like blue petals cradling a silver bell. They were a present from the boy to Hestia, back when the two first founded Hestia Familia all those months ago. A campanella for the goddess.
It was one memory Freya knew nothing about. After all, Hestia had already been wearing it regularly by the time Bell met Syr.
“It looks good on me, right? These are very important to me, you know.”
A half-prum walking alongside Bell glared, and so did the members of Freya Familia observing the interaction from the shadows.
If Hestia told Bell about his true past, Lilly and the others would be harmed.
So Hestia limited herself to what she could get away with.
“Someone very special gave these to me.”
Bell was shocked. After much hesitation, he asked her something else.
“That someone…where are they now?”
Who was it?
That was what the boy wanted to ask. It was written all over his face.
“It was you,” Hestia longed to reply, but she couldn’t.
With trembling lips, she said the only thing she could.
“I can’t see them now. They’re somewhere far away.”
“…Oh.”
Bell’s downcast look pained the goddess deeply.
“But,” she said, “I’m always thinking of them. And someday, we’ll be together again. I promise.”
Bell lifted his head, his eyes wide.
Bathed in the light of the setting sun, Hestia smiled and silently took her leave.
That was it for Hestia’s resistance. She knew she would never get through to Bell with his mind as worn down as it was now. All she had done was make Freya Familia more suspicious of her.
But even so, there was a promise she had to fulfill.
Hestia bounced down the street, letting the bells in her hair ring—a campanella for the young boy.
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