Loving The Cursed Werewolf King-Chapter 223: Playing In The Lake

The horse-drawn carriage rested near a food stall. The coachman and the guard rested in the tavern. Sasha held his dress nervously when a girl saw him from a distance. He immediately pressed his body against Arielle to avoid the little girl’s sharp gaze.

Tania and Arielle took their picnic bags for a hike up the hill. The location of the lake they were heading to was on a hill with a small waterfall and river of rocks flowing directly. The atmosphere of the hill was quite shady so that the hot sun did not make them sweat.

"Princess, is the lake we are going to still far away from here?" asked Sasha impatiently for a splash in the water.

"No. We will arrive there soon," Arielle answered briefly.

"I don’t see many men here," said Sasha, feeling strange because the area was quite quiet and all she saw were women.

"Because all the men here work outside the village."

"Why is that?"

Tania muttered while thinking. "I don’t know. It’s always been like that. The men here only return home at night. Boys who have reached adulthood will also definitely leave home and look for work outside the village and will not return, leaving the girls from babies to the elderly to be here."

She added, "They grow their own crops, catch their own fish, and take care of village administration on their own without the help of men."

"But there’s no ban on men visiting right?"

"There is no such ban. Every guest will definitely be received with wide-open arms," answered Tania.

Tania was quite familiar with this village. This village became the place of her first meeting with Matthew. Then, after her relationship with the man was detected by Queen Rosalie, Tania also cut off all communication with Matthew.

The last news she heard, Matthew married a woman here but his wife died while giving birth to their daughter and after that, she did not know where Matthew went.

"Oh! I think I start to hear the sound of water!" cried Arielle enthusiastically.

Sasha who wanted to ask again chose to stop to sharpen his sense of hearing. He perked up his ears to listen properly. Arielle was right, he could faintly hear the sound of running water. After climbing several times and passing through the thick forest, they arrived at a simple lake.

The lake is medium in size. At the end, there was a small waterfall. There were large rocks in the middle of the lake which showed that the lake was not too deep.

Sasha was mesmerized by the scene before him. He had never seen a large pond filled with water. He had also never seen a waterfall before. Sasha grabbed Tania’s hand to immediately enter the water.

Tania chuckled and suggested Sasha take off his outer dress leaving a thin t-shirt and shorts. Tania did the same except for Arielle.

"You’re not going into the lake?" asked Sasha.

"I’ll just wait here. I missed this place and wanted to take a look around for a bit."

Sasha immediately grabbed her clothes back. "Then I will accompany you."

"You don’t have to worry about me. This place is very safe. There will be no bad people or wild animals on this hill," said Arielle trying to calm Sasha.

She didn’t really want to swim now. Even though she had accepted and tried to be strong about the problems of Olin and the other servants, she still felt like there was a stone that stuck in her heart.

Arielle wanted to calm down first. She wanted to erase the memory of her confrontation this morning by looking at the scenery around there.

Sasha hesitated and took Tania’s hand for an opinion.

"It’s true what Princess Arielle said. This hill is very safe, so you can enjoy your time here first," said Tania as she pulled Sasha’s hand into the water.

Sasha grabbed his clothes and placed them near a big tree.

"I’ll sit here for a bit. You said you wanted to learn to swim, didn’t you? Tania is the perfect teacher for that," said Arielle, pushing Sasha to leave her alone.

Arielle grabbed the picnic basket that Tania had brought and then took out her old piece of canvas and a pencil. First, she drew a sketch of the view of the lake and the waterfall there. The tip of the pencil continued to shade the rough surface of the canvas to form a simple image.

From where she rested, Arielle could see Tania holding Sasha’s hand while walking backward. The boy tried his best to flap his legs so he could swim forward. Every now and then he poked his head out of the water to take a breath. Arielle remembered how Tania used to teach her to swim.

To be honest, up until now, Arielle wasn’t very good at swimming but at least she could float on the surface. Thinking of her old memories of struggling to swim also made Arielle chuckle. 𝒇𝓻𝓮𝓮𝙬𝙚𝒃𝒏𝓸𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝓬𝓸𝒎

The wind blew hard, bringing fresh air to Arielle’s body. The girl put down her drawing tools and went for a walk. She looked back for a moment and saw Sasha climbing a big rock then plunging into the water making Tania scold her for being so reckless.

"It’s okay Tania! Don’t scold him too much! Let Sasha play as he pleases!" shouted Arielle from her place. Sasha who heard it smiled broadly at the princess.

"Where are you going, Princess?" asked Sasha.

"I told you, I will just be wandering around for a bit!" Arielle replied.

Arielle told Sasha to go back to playing in the water and she went to the forest. She could vaguely remember the road she had walked before.

Arielle walked through the small trees and reached the end of the hill. The valley of the hill led to the North. She sat on the edge of the cliff while imagining Ronan who suddenly appeared in front of her.

She only stayed two nights in Nieverdell, but a lot had happened. She wanted to tell Ronan about her days here. She missed Ronan so much. No matter how far Arielle looked, she couldn’t see Northendell and that made her sad.

About her siblings, Olin, and her other friends, Arielle hoped she could leave all those bad memories behind soon. The quiet place slowly made Arielle calm down again.

Her face was flushed by the sun and Arielle didn’t want to leave her place. It’s the perfect place to cool off.