“...What?”
Eris had never expected her usually oblivious father to make such an astute guess about her. Perhaps because it was the first time in her life that her father had ever successfully called her out on something she was keeping hidden, or anyone for that matter, Eris had no idea how to properly conceal how flustered she was. The way that her usually sharp eyes widened, and how obviously stricken she looked, gave everything away to her carefully watching father.
“I see. So I was right! Care to explain yourself, dear daughter?”
Though her father was still smiling and clearly jovial, Eris felt a great sense of alarm, as if she’d been caught doing something wrong. For one of the rare times in her life, Eris’s face tightened with fear for a moment, before her rational mind once again took over. There was absolutely nothing wrong with someone spending time with their ‘friend’. No crime had been committed, and nothing offensive said.
It was just that her father had annoyingly guessed that there was more to it that had upset her.
Eris, proud as she was, would never so shamelessly lie in the face of her father who had already called her out. Though she didn’t want to, she would just have to honestly explain that her ‘friendship’ with Siffia was a convenient means to an end, and not really the whole truth behind her persistent actions.
However, for some reason, as she opened her mouth with the intention to tell him the simple truth, she was unable to find quite the right words to explain with.
Saying that she had gotten close to Siffia just because she was curious about her didn’t feel like it was enough, and yet trying to explain every single thing that had led her to this point felt like it would take too long. Would her father even understand the burning need she felt to comprehend Siffia? Eris was well aware that she’d always been a bit different than others in her motivations and likes. But for some reason, the idea of trying to explain what was driving her now to her father and possibly failing felt like it might just hurt her in some way.
In the end, after getting much too flustered while searching for the right words and eventually sighing and realizing that she was taking this far too seriously, Eris finally gave up and decided to just give her father his own words back.
“...Yes, Lady Siffia is indeed quite special.”
Eris’s father, to his credit, had quietly watched her through this entire process. He’d noted every detail of his usually sharp and aloof daughter’s face, as well as how long it had taken her to finally come up with such a lackluster answer. And so, it was quite easy for him to make a guess at just what might be happening.
“Oho. I see.”
Eris flicked her previously clouded gaze onto her father’s face, swiftly becoming irritated once more by the smug upturned corners of his mouth, as well as the scheming way he seemed to be stroking his chin. She couldn’t help but narrow her eyes and scowl, knowing that he must have misunderstood something somewhere. It was hardly the first time that such a greasy look from him had caused her or her brothers some kind of trouble.
“Stop. Whatever it is you’re thinking now is surely incorrect. If you misguidedly choose to stick your hand into any more of my affairs, then the Mescal family will no longer have a daughter.”
“What? No!!!”
Her father immediately flinched, raising his hands as if trying to stop her.
“Of course, I have no plans of trying to interfere with my daughter’s precious person!”
Eris once more crossed her arms and glared at him, silently expressing her disbelief. Her father, feeling as if the room were heating up, pulled out his handkerchief and began dabbing himself, looking like a stressed politician.
“W-well, but, I am more than willing to help my clumsy daughter with her first relationship, if needed. I doubt that anyone in their right mind would ever object to someone as capable and beautiful as you, especially not with the backing of house Mescal behind you… But should things progress any further, discussion between both houses would… Erm…”
“...What? Father, what nonsense are you even trying to-”
Flabbergasted by where her father’s misunderstanding of her words had taken him, Eris sighed and opened her mouth to correct him, but was suddenly stopped dead in her tracks. For some reason, his implications brought forth image after image of Siffia from the past few days. The amazing smiles that Siffia had shown her, the way she’d shyly blushed at her at the tea party, the almost electric closeness that they’d shared during the previous day, and that oddly entrancing hint of a smell that had come off of her while the two of them had danced. Time and time again, Eris had been pulled in as if hypnotized, acting unlike herself next to Siffia.
It was almost enough to make her second guess what these feelings might just really be.
Eris couldn’t help the rare blush that spread over her face from all of the inexplicable, unbidden memories that flooded into her mind. It was all she could do to quickly look away in alarm from her father in the hopes that he wouldn’t notice it, although from the irritating chuckles that soon followed, she knew she’d already thoroughly been caught. She couldn’t bear to look his way again and see what kind of annoying face he must have been making at her. Though she knew it wouldn’t help her case, Eris couldn’t stop the way her voice raised slightly in embarrassment as she tried to defend herself.
“...It’s not what you’re thinking. There’s no such relationship! The two of us are simply just friends, no more, no less!”
“Oh my, is that so? My darling daughter has no reason to bristle so~! This old man already knows everything!”
“No, you’re wrong!!!”
Eris was yelling now, something that she found quite undignified to do during an argument, and yet she couldn’t stop herself. Her face could only flush redder and redder, and her voice could only get louder and louder.
“You’re wrong, you’re completely wrong!!! The two of us are certainly not a pair! An alpha such as myself ending up with a beta like Lady Siffia is… is… it’s unbefitting! It’s unbefitting of the great house of Mescal!!!”
“Hmm...?”
Her father, completely unfazed from all of the yelling, tilted his head as if he’d heard something strange, and mumbled to himself in confusion.
“Hmm, my oh my, is that true? A beta? Well, I do agree that she had quite the muted looks, but I’m sure the report had said… Ah, oh well. I suppose it doesn’t matter.”
He stroked his chin for a few seconds in thought, but soon a calculating smile spread across his countenance, causing the already flustered Eris to flinch as if she were about to be attacked.
“Now tell me, my dear Eris, why should such a thing matter to my daughter that has no plans to return to her place as heir? No one would bat an eye at an alpha marrying a beta woman otherwise; True, it may not be common, but it’s not as if it were without proper precedent.”
“Ah, that’s-”
Eris immediately sprung up, trying to deny his words, but for some reason she couldn’t seem to think of a single logical rebuttal. Her mouth could only flap dumbly as she desperately tried to think up even a single thing to say back, only to become more and more stumped.
So dumbfounded was Eris, in fact, that she completely missed the way her father narrowed his eyes and smiled once more at yet another rare sight.
“Hmm~!”
Her gaze finally snapped back to him when he stood up and hummed a small jaunty tune as he made his way out of her room in victory. She made an almost hissing noise in frustration, picking up a fistful of cookies from her far too laden table and hurling them in his direction. Her father was too fast for her however, as the cookies simply clanked feebly against the already closing door, crumbling to pieces.
“Grrr!!!”
Eris couldn’t help but jump up, filled with anger and indignity. But with nowhere to let it out, and unwilling to throw a tantrum like a child, all that she could do was march herself over to her bed and flop down onto it, letting out an angry scream into the pillow.
Never before had she left an opening to be exposed like that.
Never before had she felt what being ‘teased’ in such a way was like.
-And Eris was certain that this was an emotion that she never wanted to feel again.
Certainly, having the woman named Siffia in her life had brought forth all kinds of new experiences and emotions… But compared to most of the others, this one was almost unpleasant enough for her to rethink the entire affair.
Laying there writhing for a while longer and unable to work her way through these foreign feelings roiling inside of her, Eris sprung up and made her way to the door to speak with the maid waiting outside.
“Change me into something more practical. I need to go to my training room.”