After dinner, the table was cleared very clean.
The husband, Pod, and the wife, Homily, sat at either end, with Arrietty in the middle.
The old couple stared at their daughter with serious faces, trying their best to control their emotions and not let them spiral.
Pod's voice trembled slightly. "You mean? She found footprints after I left?"
The man wobbled as he braced himself against the corner of the table to stand up, but halfway up, he suddenly lost his strength and slumped back into the cushion, panting heavily.
His eyes were filled with terror.
Arrietty was happily munching on a large nut and gave her father a look. "Of course. She even placed two pieces of Sugar out in the open on the kitchen counter; I saw them both.
The Sugar... is very sweet.
Should I just move it back tomorrow?"
Homily wasn't at all surprised by her daughter's 'adventurous spirit.' She gently patted the back of her hand. "Listen, Arrietty."
"Borrowing is a job that requires skill, like an art."
"There used to be many families of borrowers living in this house; now, only we are left."
"Do you know why?"
"Your Papa is the best borrowing craftsman in this area."
"Oh... the best after your Grandpa."
"In those days, Aunt Lupy and the Spiller family were full of praise for your Grandpa and your father."
"And those nimble skills were just a game between father and son."
Homily's face was full of pride, but her tone quickly turned back to worry:
"Times have changed, Arrietty."
"We must be cautious, extremely cautious."
"The rats, the cats, and the dogs."
"Evil Exterminators will use pungent smoke to flush us out, and hounds will bite our bodies with long, sharp fangs—"
"Enough, Homily."
Pod interrupted his wife's bloody descriptions and said tiredly to his daughter, "In short, they disappeared."
"Your Aunt Lupy—well, perhaps you don't remember, she used to sing 'The Queen and the Coachman' to you when you were little."
"They disappeared after that day. Your mother and I could only watch from afar as the Exterminators entered one by one, carrying large boxes and long coiled hoses."
Pod was sorrowful and helpless, his round, fat face full of the bitterness of facing a difficult life.
"We could only move. Move to the sewers, move to the wild, to live with fleas, grasshoppers, rats, and stray cats. We might find a new home, but where are there good opportunities for us to move?"
"My brother, Cashel, that arrogant fellow lived between the lath and plaster behind the fireplace, looking down on the giants as if he were the Master of the house."
"But in the end? A fire from a child's play, and they... their whole family..."
Pod choked up, took the bandage handkerchief handed to him by his wife to blow his nose, and looked up to see his daughter's eyes sparkling.
Arrietty said eagerly, "Pain and hardship just prove that we shouldn't live like this! Don't they?"
She turned to look at her mother, seemingly wanting her support.
But Homily only looked at her with disappointment.
The girl didn't want to give up.
She stood up abruptly, stepping onto her chair.
Then, she stepped from the chair onto the tabletop.
Under her parents' surprised gazes, Arrietty drew the sewing needle from her waist—
With her red coral-like hair flowing behind her, the valiant girl looked like a Knight Commander leading thousands of troops in a charge!
She brandished the sewing needle, thrusting and slashing a few times, then recited in a high-pitched voice: "The sacred moment is approaching!"
"The Card Grass and Heart Flower Leaves have already bloomed; the Queen will cross dimensions at the sound of the bell before the war!"
Ignoring her furious mother, the girl swept her cloak, her eyes bright on her spirited face: "We should be her knights, her most loyal Guardians."
"We aren't just a 'Tontatta Tribe' that can only survive by relying on humans."
"We are Fairies!"
"We are extraordinary creations!"
"We should be her sharp blade and the deft whispers hidden in her hair!"
"We—"
"Enough!!" Pod's thick palm slammed the table with a jolt. He glared at his daughter: "Enough!! Arrietty!!"
"Since the Tontatta Tribe began, we have always lived by the rules passed down to us. You will not only harm yourself, but you will also harm all Tontatta!"
Homily pulled her daughter off the table and pushed her into her chair, the woman so angry her eyebrows were nearly vertical.
"Arrietty, my daughter, do you know what happens to us once we are exposed to human eyes?"
"Being put in a glass box for exhibition?"
"Or being dissected?"
"Being kept in captivity?"
"Being controlled by those giant fingers for the rest of your life?"
Arrietty nodded humbly, acknowledging her parents' words, but then rolled her eyes and brought the topic back:
"But, the prophecy and diary Grandpa left behind—"
That was back when Pod's father, Old Pod, was still alive.
At that time, the young Arrietty would often pull his hand and listen to the old man tell stories of his youthful adventures.
Back then, the old man had said this to the granddaughter on his lap:
"Arrietty, my stop ends here."
"But the Tontatta Tribe is not, and cannot be, here."
'The World is developing, and humanity is progressing at a speed we can never catch up to. Perhaps one day, we who emerge from the gaps in the floorboards will be completely unable to understand this World.'
Arrietty still vividly remembers the old man's dazed words to this day.
He was puffing on a long pipe, his cheeks bulging.
Thick smoke billowed from his nose, making Arrietty choke and grab his Whitebeard, giving it a good tug.
'Cough, cough. Anyway, little one, remember the things left for you in the diary.
The Queen who will save our race will eventually appear.
What the Planeswalker My Lord said has never been wrong.
What's more, that was the Fate Changer.'
'Fate Changer?' the young Arrietty asked weakly, the name feeling strange as it vibrated through her throat.
The old man snapped out of it, looking at the little granddaughter in his arms with a doting smile on his wrinkled face: 'Yes, Fate Changer. In the Multiverse, those who fear her call her that.'
'She governs fate and manipulates the direction of everything.'
'She knows the past, present, and future.'
'Time is laid out before her like butter sliced by a hot knife, ready for her to choose.'
'I even saw her destroy a Universe with my own eyes.'
'She once invited me to follow her as her subordinate and travel.'
'To see more Worlds and gain eternal life.'
Arrietty looked up blankly; the old man was immersed in his memories, his neck full of wrinkles, looking incredibly old.
'Unfortunately, I did not accept her invitation.'
'Eternal? Does it mean not getting old?'
Arrietty didn't understand why someone would be so foolish.
If he could stay young forever, why did Grandpa refuse?
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