CHAPTER 295: TAKE YOU WITH ME

"What is this?" Aristia asked with wide eyes, staring dumbly at the piece of paper.

"Ah! Princess. It’s nothing." Heidi said, running over to collect it from her.

"Yes, it’s nothing." Penelope seconded.

"This is nothing?" Aristia asked, staring at them with disbelief.

"It’s just something I and Penny thought of. It’s really nothing much. It’s useless." Heidi said. Her voice at the end was sharp, as if offended by something, but then became reserved as if she gave in to something.

"This is genius! Are you kidding me?!" Aristia asked.

The twins head snapped up in surprise as if they hadn’t expected her to say that.

"You— You really think so?" They asked in unison, the same expression on their faces.

"It’s obvious." Aristia nodded.

Owen was curious when he heard her words. Ever since she had taken a glance at the sheet of paper and reacted that way, he had been dying to see what it was.

He couldn’t hold it in any longer, so he got up and went to see. "What’s that?" He asked.

Aristia wordlessly handed the paper to him.

[I don’t think he’d understand.] She thought as he scanned the paper.

But to her surprise, Owen nodded carefully before looking at her and returning the paper sheet.

"This is... a food masher?" He said after a pause, trying to think of the perfect word. He felt a word was on the tip of his tongue, but he didn’t know what it was.

"You know what it is?" Aristia was surprised.

It wasn’t only her. Even the twins were surprised too.

Owen hesitated but nodded. ’I feel like I’ve seen something like this before... but where?’ He thought.

Aristia turned away, her gaze returning to the paper.

[That’s a blender.]

"We designed it." Heidi said. "We call it a food blender... or masher like you just said, since it blends or mashes food."

"This is different from the grinders. This one grinds liquid food. Or will, since we’ve not actually made it." Penelope said.

But Aristia’s response was,

"You really drew this?"

The twins exchanged perplexed glances before looking at her and nodding. "We did." They said firmly.

Inwardly, they were feeling nervous. Did the princess doubt their words? Did she think they could have stolen it?

But Aristia nodded, deep in thought. Once again, the cogs in her head kept turning.

She suddenly looked up and asked. "How did you think of this?"

"The food grinders grinds dry food. We thought it would be good to have something that mashes food that has water in it." Heidi began.

"So we decided to design something." Penelope continued.

"And we came up with this." Heidi finished.

[Wow!] Aristia thought, partly impressed and partly creeped out. [Do they finish off each other’s sentences like that? And that saying the same thing at the same time thing. Or having the same expressions... Nope.]

Now that she thought of all this, she was slightly impressed, and more creeped out.

From the corner of her eyes, she could have sworn she saw Owen shiver while watching the twins.

[Okay, focus.] She shook the thoughts out of her head then handed the paper back to the girls and took her seat.

The twins stared at her, curious about what she had to say.

"Do you have any other drawings I can see?" Aristia asked.

The twins nodded apprehensively. "You want to see our drawings?"

"Of course. They’re amazing." Aristia said.

The sisters took out a small stack of papers from a small bok under the bed.

Most of the papers had something written on it. The drawings were on the other side of the paper that either had nothing written on it, or little written on it.

Aristia could tell that they had picked the papers up from somewhere. Nevertheless, the drawings were genius.

Some of them were similar to modern inventions, and others, she hadn’t seen before but we’re nonetheless genius inventions.

The girls fixed their eyes on her face, watching her every expression, trying to see her reaction. But they couldn’t catch anything, only seeing that she approved from the occasional nods and hums.

After looking at each one, she would hand it to Owen who would also look at it.

Aristia watched his expression curiously, but Owen didn’t seem to know what these ones were.

[Hmm. So how he knew it was a good mashed...? Maybe the drawing gave it away. Owen’s smart, so he can be able to figure out what it is for by studying the design.]

Once Aristia and Owen were done, they returned the papers to the twins who quickly put them back before sitting down in their original positions.

"Heidi, Penelope." Aristia called.

The girls subconsciously sat up straight and their hearts skipped a beat at the serious expression on the princess’s face.

"How would you like to work for me?" Aristia proposed.

"Eh?" The girls were shocked out of their minds, wondering whether they had heard right.

They repeated dumbly, stuttering a bit. "W-Work for you?"

"You heard correctly." Aristia nodded.

"You like our drawings that much?" Heidi asked.

Aristia nodded. "Why do you look so surprised?"

The twins exchanged glances again before Penelope spoke up.

"No one likes our drawings."

[That’s understandable. These people don’t know the value of these inventions. Thank God I found these talents. I can poach them.] Aristia thought.

"We had a few more, but our... uncle burnt them in the fire." Heidi said.

"They said our drawings were useless." Penelope said with an angry, aggrieved expression.

Looking at Aristia, she blushed with embarrassment.

The princess acted and spoke so maturely that she had somehow forgotten that she was older than the princess.

[How dare that ignorant uncle!] Aristia cursed in her mind.

But she looked at the twins with a serious expression on her face. "These drawings aren’t useless."

Her face morphed into a smile. "And I like your drawings, which is why I asked you both to work for me. So what do you say?"

The twins were stunned.

’The princess is so adorable!’ They thought.

"If you work for me, you will be able to design as much as you can, and I will provide you with the materials you need to actually make one." Aristia said.

"Well... the sisters trailed off.

With what the princess had just said, if they worked for her, they wouldn’t be treated badly.

She would also provide for them the materials they would use to being their drawings to reality.

They had actually produced a few, but it didn’t work well because they had to piece scraps together.

If they refused the princess’s offer, they would end up dropping inventing.

Thinking of all this, they nodded at each other, coming to a decision.

Then they turned to Aristia, got up and bowed deeply. "We would love to work for you, your highness. Thank you for asking us to work for you."

"Great." Aristia said, getting up from her seat immediately. "Then get ready. In three days, I will return to take you with me."

The twins nodded, feeling like what just happened was a dream.

[Do they appear in the same dream?] Aristia thought curiously.

The thought that it could possibly sent a shiver up her spine.

She left the room with Owen.

Since the twins were now a part of Willows Haven, she had to tell Dahlia as the orphanage’s director of the new arrangement.

Coincidentally, she met Dahlia coming to call the twins for lunch.

"You’re done, princess?" Dahlia asked.

"Yes." Aristia nodded. "I was just about to see you."

Dahlia looked curious.

"I will be taking the twins with me."

"When?" Dahlia asked.

"In three days." Aristia said.

"I see. Then I will make the arrangements." Dahlia nodded. She didn’t ask any questions and she felt that she didn’t have to.

For whatever reason Aristia had decided to take Heidi and Penelope with her, Dahlia knew that the twins had something that could help her.

Dahlia knew that Aristia wasn’t a bad person. She cared about the wellbeing of the Kingdom’s people, but she would only keep close to her those who would be useful to her.

For example, take a look at the children in Willows Haven.

Aristia had helped them by building an orphanage and providing them with everything they needed, but she didn’t just bring them to her home.

She would help people, but she would also look out for her own interests.

She knew that Heidi and Penelope would be in good hands directly under Aristia’s care.

She could remember the first time she had met Aristia. It was also the first time she had seen Owen.

But after that day, the thin boy dressed in old, patched clothes had changed and it was all thanks to being taken in by the princess.

Dahlia continued on her way to the twins’ room, remembering that she had been about to call them for lunch.