Seraphine confidently crossed the threshold into the Great Hall of the fortress, her hand firmly clasping Rosalie von Rosenfeld’s. The young girl’s cheeks had been burning a violent, brilliant crimson in sweet, agonizing embarrassment for the entire walk up the hill.
The young aristocrat unconsciously shrank back slightly, hiding half her body behind the taller futa, stealing dreamy, infatuated upward glances at her companion. She absolutely hadn't anticipated the day violently twisting in this direction, but deep in her heart, she felt an overwhelming, crushing wave of relief.
She would have been utterly devastated if Seraphine had truly turned out to be the pathetic, repulsive creature the court rumors so viciously painted her to be.
Seated upon the raised dais, occupying the heavy throne of Karsfeld's warlord, was Adelgarde Karsfeld. The Baroness was clad in a tightly tailored leather and velvet tunic, cut deliberately low to flaunt the thick, powerful cleavage of a battle-hardened veteran.
A mask of absolute, freezing ice covered her severe features. She absolutely hadn't expected her niece to breach the gates before tomorrow morning, and yet here the girl was, standing directly before her throne.
This radically complicated the logistics - an appropriately lavish evening feast had to be immediately mobilized to properly honor a young lady carrying such a terrifyingly high pedigree.
Adelgarde understood perfectly well exactly why her sister, the terrifyingly powerful Countess Margarethe von Rosenfeld, had orchestrated this marriage. Despite fully grasping the Greifenmark’s ulterior motives regarding Karsfeld's rich iron and coal veins, the Baroness saw immediately that the poised, breathtakingly alluring Rosalie would make an absolute powerhouse of a match for her firstborn.
As the Baroness's freezing gaze violently locked onto the girl, Rosalie visibly flinched. But feeling the firm, anchoring grip of Seraphine’s hand wrapped around hers, she managed to forcibly rein in her trembling nerves.
She took a measured step forward, elegantly pinched the hem of her blue silk gown, and dropped into a flawlessly executed, deeply respectful court curtsy:
"Rosalie von Rosenfeld offers her deepest, most profound gratitude for the hospitality of your halls, my lady."
Seraphine smoothly matched her gesture, bowing with flawless courtly grace before her Sire.
Seated in a plush chair just beside Adelgarde’s throne was Isolde Karsfeld. The mother watched her future daughter-in-law with a vastly warmer smile, maternal affection swimming warmly in her sapphire eyes.
While she privately considered Rosalie a bit too incredibly young right now, she saw an absolutely flawless match for Seraphine in the making. Deep down, Isolde felt a sharp, genuine pang of pity for Cordelia, whose betrothed from House Falkenrath was notorious across the courts for being a violently spoiled, sadistic little terror who derived sick satisfaction from publicly humiliating others.
For Cordelia, that marriage was mathematically guaranteed to be a living hell. But observing the sheer refinement and grace radiating from Rosalie, the mother felt completely at peace regarding her elder daughter’s future happiness.
Seraphine vastly would have preferred to be down in the mud right now, obsessively overseeing the blast furnaces with Sabine Keller, but executing flawless diplomatic maneuvering was the absolute bedrock of her survival. Within the borders of the valley, she was heavily shielded by the fanatical devotion of the commoners, but outside Karsfeld, she remained dangerously exposed to the treasonous plots woven by Cordelia’s highborn allies.
Securing the absolute, terrifying military backing of the mighty House von Rosenfeld would forge a political shield that her enemies simply wouldn't dare attempt to shatter.
Adelgarde closely scrutinized the two girls. They had blatantly spent the entire afternoon fraternizing alone. While this was a massive, brazen violation of strict court protocol, the Baroness was highly inclined to overlook the transgression.
A terrifying, magnetic charisma had violently awakened within Seraphine - a dominating aura she had completely lacked in the past. But before formally letting the slight slide, Adelgarde decided to ruthlessly test the mettle of her niece.
She cleared her throat with a low rumble, narrowed her eyes into freezing slits, rose slowly from the throne, and barked in a deep, unforgiving bass:
"It appears you have already managed to thoroughly acquaint yourself with my heir. Tell me, girl, is that the reason you failed to immediately present yourself before my throne to pay proper homage to the sovereign lord of these lands?!"
Rosalie violently physically recoiled beneath the booming voice, her eyes frantically darting toward Seraphine in a desperate plea for rescue. In that exact fraction of a second, Adelgarde’s heavy fist slammed down onto the carved oak armrest with a deafening crack:
"Do not avert your eyes when I am speaking to you! Answer the question!"
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Tears instantly welled up in the young girl’s massive sapphire eyes. She sniffled softly, stammering out in pure, unadulterated terror:
"I... I am so terribly s-sorry... I did not mean to..."
Seeing genuine tears threatening to spill down her fiancée’s face, Seraphine decided this theatrical bullying had gone on long enough. She smoothly stepped forward, wrapped a protective arm firmly around Rosalie’s waist, violently pulling the trembling girl tight against her own hip, and ruthlessly dressed down her Sire with an incredibly brazen tone:
"Sire, do you not think that tone is violently unwarranted? If anyone is to shoulder the blame here, it is exclusively me. I am the one who hijacked her for a meal in the settlement before she could formally present herself before your throne."
Rosalie looked up at Seraphine’s sharp profile, a massive wave of scalding heat washing over her rapidly beating heart.
Tears were still actively tracking down her flushed cheeks, but the sheer, overwhelming sense of absolute safety radiating from the taller futa’s embrace was paralyzing. The girl had been terrified just moments ago that the heir was merely faking her impeccable manners; now, she had absolute, ironclad proof that Seraphine was completely genuine, willing to literally throw herself into the line of fire to shield her from the Baroness's terrifying wrath.
Seeing her firstborn aggressively form a shield wall to defend her chosen bride, the freezing mask on Adelgarde’s face instantly melted away, replaced by a wide, fiercely proud grin.
"Forgive me, little Rosalie," the Baroness rumbled in a vastly gentler tone. "I was excessively harsh. I merely wished to violently test exactly what kind of iron you are forged from. I deeply hope you do not harbor any resentment."
Rosalie aggressively wiped her tears away with the back of her delicate hand, the tactical reality of the theatrical test slowly clicking into place in her mind. Adelgarde had deliberately tried to terrify her into throwing her daughter under the carriage to save her own skin. The young girl straightened her spine and answered with flawless, aristocratic dignity:
"There is absolutely nothing to forgive, dear Aunt. You were merely defending the absolute majesty of your house and your heir."
Hearing that flawless diplomatic parry, the smiles on both Adelgarde and Isolde’s faces widened even further. This girl was absolutely exceptional material for a sovereign wife.
Adelgarde stepped down from the dais and threw her arms wide to formally welcome her niece:
"Welcome to my humble fortress. I trust your stay will be exceptionally pleasant."
For the remainder of the afternoon, the family engaged in highly relaxed, unguarded conversation. Rosalie listened with flushed cheeks to the tales of Seraphine’s violent physical metamorphosis, her mind still desperately struggling to compute how it was biologically possible for this stunning futa to have risen from her absolute deathbed barely a month ago.
That evening, a wildly lavish feast erupted in the Great Hall. The heavy oak tables visibly groaned beneath the weight of massive silver platters, and the air was thick with the rich, aggressive aromas of dishes the Karsfeld court had never witnessed before.
Rosalie was seated right at Seraphine’s side. She quickly noticed Cordelia’s glaring absence, and upon discovering that the younger sister was currently holding court in Arnsbruck with her fiancée, Rosalie merely dismissed it as a highly amusing coincidence. She instantly forgot the girl existed the second the servants began hauling out the food.
Seraphine had aggressively ordered the castle cooks to violently push the limits of their culinary mastery. Crispy, golden-fried veal schnitzels, delicate buttered spaetzle, heavy roasted sausages bursting with fresh herbs, tightly rolled stuffed beef roulades, and massive cuts of sauerbraten slowly braised in dark wine blanketed the tables.
There was only one absolute, glaring omission - the one thing Seraphine desperately craved above all else to complete her Jägerschnitzel: crispy potato pancakes!
Internally, she was violently cursing whatever cruel deity had dumped her into this timeline a full century before the potato was formally introduced to the continent. She swore a blood oath that the absolute second she amassed a fortune in steel, she would personally finance a massive oceanic fleet strictly to haul those damn tubers back from the New World.
To hell with pillaging native gold - I want my damn potatoes!
While the rest of the household had slowly grown accustomed to these aggressive flavor profiles, Rosalie ate with absolute, undisguised awe shining in her sapphire eyes. Every single bite literally melted on her tongue.
She swore to herself that the second she returned to the Greifenmark, she was going to ruthlessly force her mother's cooks to master every single one of these recipes!
After the heavy feast finally concluded, Marielle eagerly volunteered to escort her future sister-in-law to the lavish guest chambers. The little girl, armed with that terrifyingly stubborn Karsfeld determination, aggressively bullied Rosalie into sharing a steaming hot bath before bed.
Though the young aristocrat initially balked at such a bizarre, obsessive hygienic whim, she eventually crumbled under the ten-year-old’s relentless pleading. Following their ablutions, smelling sharply of wild herbs and pristine cleanliness, Rosalie collapsed onto the massive, plush mattress draped in a flowing, diaphanous blue nightgown. She hugged a heavy silk pillow tightly against her breasts, giggling softly as she obsessively replayed every single one of Seraphine’s devastatingly smooth gestures in her mind, before finally drifting into a sweet, profoundly peaceful sleep.
Meanwhile, locked inside her own bedchamber, Seraphine was still hunched over her desk by the flickering light of an oil lamp. Clad in nothing but a loose linen nightshirt completely unlaced at the collar - the fabric slipping dangerously off her slender shoulders to expose the firm, heavy swell of her breasts - she aggressively drafted yet another stack of technical blueprints.
She was mathematically plotting the logistics for massively expanding the deep mine shafts, alongside drafting the foundational schematics for violently revolutionizing the textile industry: mechanized power looms. Unlike Rosalie, her hyper-active mind absolutely refused to linger on romantic fantasies; it was entirely consumed by cold, ruthless, industrial calculus.
It wasn't until the absolute dead of night that she finally pinched out the flame and collapsed heavily onto her pillows. Her absolute last coherent thought before plunging into sleep was a fond recollection of the spectacular feast... immediately followed by a wave of crushing, agonizing regret over the blatant lack of crispy potato pancakes.
She was completely, utterly oblivious to the fact that the young Lady von Rosenfeld had fallen catastrophically, hopelessly in love with her.