"Oh?" Harny tilted her head, still smiling through a suspiciously quivering lower lip. "So… you're saying you're not interested in me?"
Marcellus flinched. "Wait—n-no, that's not what I—"
But Harny had already turned away. Her voice softened. Quivered.
"I see… maybe it's because I'm not pretty anymore... or because I'm just the mother who raised Lithia alone after her father passed… when she was still just a baby…"
"M-Mother—" Lithia whispered, her voice thin.
"Eh?? Wait, wait!!" Marcellus started panicking, looking at Lithia like do something!!
But Harny wasn't done.
"I raised Lithia alone after her father passed away…" she continued, tone now heavy with forced melancholy. "She was just a tiny little baby… I didn't remarry, I didn't even date… because Lithia said she didn't want any strange man in our home."
She pressed the back of her hand to her forehead. "So I rejected every elf, every dark elf… even the village chief…"
