Many years ago, a Seer warned that a star of disaster had escaped its heavenly prison and fallen to Earth. He prophesied that, should the fell beast survive to maturity, it would bring doom upon the Empire.
The star of disaster in question covered up a delicate yawn with her hand, and then went back to staring out the rainswept windows.
While the more superstitious portion of Cydonia’s population was waiting for her to start raining destruction upon them any day now, she herself was busy with far more important things.
At the moment, she was thinking about a girl.
It was two hours past dawn on Aegis’ campus, and Chione and her two imperial knights were the only ones in the administration building. They’d broken in, since the building itself wasn’t scheduled to open for another hour, but one of the perks about being a princess was that most people were afraid to complain about that sort of thing.
By the hall’s entrance stood Sir Soteria of Ephyra, or more accurately, the greater spirit currently possessing her body. She was a short, scowling middle-aged woman whose black and gold uniform struggled to contain her considerable muscle. Her pale skin and a good portion of her scalp were heavily scarred, and what was left of her thick auburn hair was pulled up into a high tail left to cascade carelessly down her back. She stared out the window by the stairs with a bored expression, keeping one hand on the battered and grubby sword hilt at her waist and using the other to doodle faces in the fog on the glass.
Closer to the President’s office stood the second possessed knight, Sir Aidos of Palea, and the body she wore was that of a slightly tanned, whiplike woman in her fifties. Like Soteria, her skin was covered in scars, but one of hers pulled directly on the corner of her mouth, giving her a perpetual sneer. Unlike her counterpart, her mint green hair was styled in a tidy braid secured with a cheerful pink ribbon, and even the twin shotels strapped to her belt were oiled to a shine.
Despite her villainous appearance, the way she was standing with her brows furrowed, her shoulders miserably hunched, and her hands helplessly fidgeting made her seem rather pitiful. Her pale golden eyes were focused on the source of her anxiety, her boss.
Lazing indolently in a chair, one leg hooked over the armrest as she twirled a lock of white hair around her finger, sat Princess Chione. Unlike her uniformed knights, she was dressed simply in a dark blouse and pants, a black coat, and leather boots so polished that the dim light in the hall glinted off them as she flexed her foot. Her red eyes were emitting a soft glow, and as it steadily grew in intensity the knight watching her began unhappily shifting from foot to foot, as though preparing to run away.
“Um… Princess?” Sir Aidos asked, hesitantly waving a hand in front of Chione, “I think you’re doing the thing again…”
Chione didn't look away from the rain as she made a sharp gesture to silence Aidos.
The greater spirit let out a soft, inhuman whine in response, and backed a few steps away.
Unfortunately for Aidos, Chione didn’t have any attention to spare. Even though she’d come here specifically to resolve last night’s events, she was still too conflicted to come to a conclusion on how she should do that.
It wasn’t that she didn’t appreciate being rescued, but there was a big difference between being seen as weak because that was what she wanted people to see, and being caught in an actual moment of vulnerability. The latter made her feel embarrassed and exposed, like she’d accidentally revealed the best place to stick a knife in, and it was only a matter of time before someone tried it.
Clearly, the best course of action would be to resolve things as fast as possible and move on as though it had never happened.
However, underneath her wounded pride, smoldering like the last hot coal in a dark hearth, was an undeniable and lingering warmth.
Unlike her knight companions, who were spirits wearing people temporarily, the body she was in was her own, which made Chione at least somewhat human.
It was just that she rarely felt like it.
Humans did not like her. Even if being close to her meant privileges and rewards, even if they were experienced scammers or greedy opportunists, none of them could stand her for long.
This was not a belief born of low self esteem because Chione did not have that. It was a measurable phenomenon she and her mother, the Imperial Consort, actively had to plan around. Humans were best kept at a distance, and any direct interaction with her had to be minimal, because otherwise they’d grow afraid, and fear turned very easily into hate.
Of course, it didn’t help that the Empress and her followers spent all their time telling anyone who’d listen that Chione was the evil star mentioned in a prophecy, that she was only disguised as a princess so she could one day devour her family and her country.
The problem was, as much as all of this infuriated Chione, as much as she would have liked to simply reject her human half like amputating a rotten limb, she couldn’t seem to do it.
She wanted them as much as they didn’t want her, and even though she knew that desire was futile, every time someone gave her the faintest glimmer of hope she’d latch onto it and chase after them like a fool.
So in that regard, last night was a serious problem.
Euphy stood up for her, not out of duty or for a reward, but because that girl believed people shouldn’t be treated the way Damon was treating Chione.
In that moment, Chione felt like a person.
Like she deserved to be safe and respected just by virtue of existing.
It was overwhelming, and lovely, and just remembering how it felt made her eyes burn and choked her throat with intense emotion, but…
From a logical standpoint, Chione doubted Euphy meant anything by it.
Someone like her probably would have done the same for anyone else. It did not mean that she cared about Chione, or that she wouldn’t get frightened away just like all the others.
Chione knew that, she really did, and yet…
Fuck.
She couldn’t stop herself from thinking, What if this time it’s different?
It hadn’t been the time before that, or the time before that, and so on and so forth but maybe if she worked harder and changed whatever about her repulsed people so much then this time it would finally stick.
Even if she felt humiliated, even if the rescue didn’t mean anything to the other girl, wouldn’t ignoring that be worth it if it meant she got to feel that way again?
These thoughts went around in agonizing circles again and again until she finally brought her fingertip to her mouth and bit down, cracking the nail bed and puncturing the pad of her finger between her teeth. Luminescent blood dripped down her chin and pooled in her mouth, the pain focusing her mind like a crisp drink of water on a summer’s day.
Soon that blood turned into shimmering dust and vanished into the air. She released the pressure on her finger, allowed it to heal, and repeated the same process all over again as she thought,
What if this time isn’t different, but the person is?
That’s what Damon was supposed to be. His status and background were about the same as hers, they were from the same part of the world, and they were both the black sheep of their respective families. He hadn’t been kind, or attentive, or willing to communicate, but in light of his qualifications and the fact that he had to marry her or risk war with her country, she’d been willing to overlook that.
In retrospect, that had been a mistake.
No amount of similarities between the two of them could make up for her affect on people or his wretched personality. She was a hard person to accept, and he was not an accepting person, so they’d basically been doomed from the beginning.
At the same time, for a while now she’d been unconsciously thinking of him as her very last chance at human connection, and it was hard not to blame herself for that failure. That thought made her eyes grow hot and itchy, and she viciously bit down on another finger to distract herself.
Anyway, it wasn’t fair to compare them, because Euphy wasn’t anything like Damon.
Euphy wasn’t like anyone Chione had ever met at all.
A long time ago, back when Chione was still naive enough to think there was some kind of love between her parents, she’d asked her mother, the Imperial Consort, why he’d chosen the Emperor.
He’d said it was because the moment he laid eyes on her father, he just knew he had to have him.
Chione always thought that answer was bullshit. She wasn’t sure if her mother believed in love at all, much less love at first sight. Yet, at the same time, she couldn’t deny the fact that he could have had anyone, but he still picked one man and stayed faithful to him.
Now that she’d met Euphy, she thought she was beginning to get it.
What she felt wasn’t love, it was territorial instinct.
People who were kind, brave, and genuine like her must be incredibly rare.
If Chione didn’t get a hold of her first, someone else would take Euphy for themselves.
In light of that, winning the girl over shouldn’t have been a huge challenge. Everything last night, from the rescue to their near-escape together, was the ideal set-up to get permanently entangled.
Or it would have been, if Chione hadn’t fucked everything up by losing control and nearly killing her right after.
A sharp pain throbbed through her chest, and a high pitched ringing sound began to fill her ears. Surprised, Chione squeezed her eyes shut and doubled over, wincing.
“Your Royal Highness? Princess? Boss!?” Aidos cried out, having backed up until she’d plastered herself against the far wall.
Chione could vaguely hear Aidos, but soon the ringing increased in pitch and intensity until she couldn’t hear anything at all, until her head felt so full of noise that she feared it would burst out of her skull and flood the hallway with its awful clamor.
However, what emerged from her was not sound, but mana.
It poured out of her like water from a burst pipe, and no matter how tightly she gripped her head or gritted her teeth, she couldn’t stop it. The temperature around her plummeted, and ice began to bloom in harsh fractals across the floors, walls, and furniture.
“Oh fuck!” Aidos yelped, summoning a pale golden barrier which she threw haphazardly across the nearest windows. “No no, come on come on—“
Unfortunately, the knight was a little too slow. The barrier didn’t reach the window closest to Chione fast enough, and its glass, already warmed by the summer storm outside, couldn’t withstand the sudden sub-zero temperature within. The panes cracked violently one by one, and if not for the pale golden magic that covered them at the last second, they would have shattered entirely.
The loss of mana eased some of the pressure, and the ringing and pain began to fade. Opening her eyes and looking up, Chione took in the ice-coated hallway and broken window and muttered, “Again? Really?”
It used to be she’d go years or months between this sort of thing, but that time had slowly shortened until it was weeks. Now it’d happened last night, only for her to do it again today, even though she’d been careful to waste plenty of mana before she’d gone out.
Even worse, while in the past these episodes caused her to just leak mana itself, more and more lately it was slipping out as fully formed spells, like the ice she’d created in the hall, and the attack she’d thrown last night...
She sighed and pinched her forehead.
This issue had always been embarrassing, but now it was becoming deadly.
Fuck, she was going to have to go visit her mother, wasn’t she?
Her already foul mood sank lower.
Really, what kind of irresponsible person looks at the fact that having children with his husband of another species is impossible and then just does it anyway? As far as Chione could tell, the only consistent result of defying the laws of nature to make her was that anything easy for humans or spirits respectively was twice as hard for her.
“I can't tell if it’s me you have a grudge against, or the windows,” Aidos grumbled, her gravelly voice full of grievance.
“Oh, don’t fuss. You got to most of them in time, didn’t you?” Chione countered, gesturing at the rest of the hall.
“So? What were you gonna do if I didn't and you broke all of them, huh? Kick the glass under a chair and run away?”
This statement and the petulance in Aidos’ voice wasn’t something a normal knight could have gotten away with, but there were two reasons why these knights could.
The first was because spirits powerful enough to control a human they possessed were incredibly rare, and spirits actually willing to do so were even rarer.
These two had been hired not because they were qualified, but because they were the only applicants.
The second was that neither of her knights considered themselves human like Chione did.
The Princess’ unnatural birth aside, all spirits came into existence spontaneously, without any helpful genetic instructions with which to build themselves. They made up for this by absorbing mana processed by living beings and using it to experiment with forms until they found one they liked, at which point they’d live almost as though they really were that being.
For example, while Aidos might currently look human, she was actually highly condensed mana that’d spent a few centuries in the shape of a jackal, and that jackal was now wearing a human like a coat.
Expecting a dog in a coat to behave exactly like a human wasn’t realistic. That Chione had gotten them this far was nothing short of a miracle already, and every day was a struggle to keep them behaving just human enough to avoid getting caught. In the end, she’d found that trying to be as strict with her spirits as she would have been with humans only made them more likely to act out in weird and embarrassing ways.
As though to illustrate this, Aidos let out a dog-like whine and unhappily hugged a glowing bushy golden tail she hadn’t had a second ago.
“Aidos, put that away!” Chione ordered, snapping her fingers for emphasis. “Quit whining and come fix the window.”
It was very difficult for spirits to manifest flesh, which meant that whenever these two forgot themselves and accidentally grew a part of their true forms, they could only make it out of mana.
Which would have been fine, if not for the fact that walking around with extra glowing limbs was akin to shouting to the world that they were possessed.
As frustrating as it was to constantly remind them of this, Chione sympathized.
Even though she had a human father, and therefore should have directly taken that form upon birth, she’d gotten a little confused during the process and accidentally turned herself into a type of leopard monster.
And then got stuck that way.
For twelve years.
She’d eventually figured things out, but the transition from leopard to human hadn’t been an easy one. Not being able to have movable ears, or whiskers, or a tail felt a lot like a self-imposed impediment, and even she sometimes slipped up and manifested them unintentionally.
Unhappily dispersing her tail, Aidos wrung her hands and kicked at the floor as she muttered, “But, Boss… I already made a barrier, and not all of us have mana to spare…”
Oh?
Chione lifted a white eyebrow and fixed Aidos with a shrewd stare the knight immediately tried to avoid.
She could practically see the sweat beading on Aidos’ brow.
“Aidos… Do you need some help with your host?”
“N-no, of course not, Boss, I’m just… um… sleepy?”
“First of all, stop calling me ‘Boss,’ I’m not one of your pet bandits,” Chione said, then extended one elegant hand to crook her finger at the knight, “Now come here and let me give you some mana.”
“But… but Soteria hasn’t used any magic today, so can’t we just switch positions?” Aidos begged, darting nervous glances at Chione’s hand like it was a snake about to bite.
Hosts had an innate advantage when it came to controlling their own bodies, so the majority of Aidos and Soteria’s mana usually went to keeping them suppressed. Chione, who always had far more mana than she knew what to do with, was responsible for donating to them whenever they needed it.
The only issue with this was that it terrified them.
While spirits were happy to take mana from living beings, they usually only absorbed mana from another spirit if they were trying to eat them, and regardless of who consumed whom, the new spirit that resulted would be dominated by the more powerful of the two.
Chione, despite her relative youth, was unquestionably the strongest of the three.
To make matters worse, both of the creatures they mimicked were sometimes preyed on by big cats.
Between their instincts as spirits and their instincts as animals, they were fully convinced that while the chances of being eaten by Cydonia’s First Crown Princess were low, they were never zero.
“Soteria,” Chione called out, “do you want to switch?”
“Sorry, I'm busy,” Soteria drawled, her deeper voice ringing from down the hall.
“You’re just standing there!” Aidos yelled back.
“Yes, on lookout.”
“I can see you doodling on the windows!”
“While looking out of them.”
“Oh come on, just switch with me, damn it!”
Since she wasn’t in a rush, Chione rested her chin on her hand and watched this back and forth. She wasn’t sure why these two hated each other so much, but she found it mildly entertaining, so she’d never made any real attempt to resolve things.
“Well, maybe if…” Soteria replied, sounding thoughtful.
“If what!? What the fuck do you want!?”
“Maybe… Uh….”
Soteria’s voice dragged out, and silent anticipation filled the hall. Then, she said,
“Nah, nevermind, I’m good.”
“You lazy bitch!” Aidos cried out, grabbing a shotel from her belt and pulling her arm back to throw it, “Would it kill you to be helpful for once!?”
In response, Soteria smiled and posed like she planned to try and catch it.
Watching their bickering was one thing, but there was a good chance they’d end up breaking something if this went on, and Chione only tolerated property damage if she was the one causing it. She snapped her fingers and, instead of saying anything, simply expanded her aura, filling the hallway with a heavy, menacing pressure.
Both knights staggered under it and sheepishly turned their attention back to her.
“Kill each other on your own time, you’re working for me right now,” Chione declared, reeling her aura back in once she was sure they’d given up, “And Sir Aidos, you know you’ll need the mana eventually, so let’s just get it over with.”
Soteria snickered, and Aidos looked at Chione with what she thought were tragic puppy-dog eyes.
However, since she was currently possessing the body of a cruel-faced older woman who looked like she only became a knight because working as a highwayman didn’t come with a salary or benefits, the effect was chilling.
“Aidos, do me a favor and make that face at yourself in a mirror when we get back, and then never make it again,” Chione said with disgust, “Now get over here, I won't ask again.”
“But…”
Chione felt a vein in her forehead throb.
She tried to be patient with these two, she really did. As pathetic as it was, they were the closest thing she currently had to friends.
Alas, that didn’t change the fact that they only served her because they were spies sent by her uncles.
As short on mercy as they were on loyalty, she raised a hand, summoned her claws, and offered in a sweet voice, “Aidos, if you’re not comfortable working for me, why don’t I finish off that body and let you go home?”
The jackal spirit stiffened, and a pair of pointy golden ears poofed to life on top of her head. She immediately flattened them in apology and cringed. “Sorry Boss, I was wrong, don’t hurt her!”
Unfortunately for both the real and fake Aidos, death was the only way to free a spirit entangled with a human.
Both spirits had grown fond of their hosts, and this fact was the biggest advantage Chione had over them. She wasn’t sure what they saw in those cold-blooded killers, but then again, one of them collected bandits and the other was worshiped by a pack of cannibals.
Clearly their standards were a little strange.
Having made her point, she politely sheathed her claws and extended her hand with a smile.
Aidos shuffled towards her like a prisoner sent to the execution block, and reluctantly offered one gauntleted hand. Chione took it in her own, admiring Aidos’ miserable expression while she channeled mana into her.
If she was being honest, doing this did make her a little tempted to eat them.
However, since she already had more mana than she knew what to do with, the urge was easy to resist.
Judging that she’d donated enough, she let go and said, “There, that wasn’t so bad, was it?”
Aidos nodded, looking pale and lifeless despite the infusion she’d been given.
“Now get going,” Chione said, standing up and shooing Aidos towards the window, “And get rid of those ears or I’ll tear them off.”
The knight let out a little ‘eep’ and obediently vanished the extra pair of ears in a puff of mana, then hurried to finally start fixing the glass.
Leaving Aidos to it, Chione headed towards Soteria, who tensed up and threw a longing look at the hall’s exit the moment she noticed. The brown-eyed woman was shorter than Chione, but she looked so much stronger that it was a little funny to see how the closer Chione got, the more desperately Soteria tried to subtly inch away.
“Your turn,” Chione declared with a bright, fanged smile, extending her hand.
“I… I’m good on mana, my host has been quiet,” Soteria protested, her stoic expression on the verge of collapse.
“Oh? But I can’t have my dear uncles thinking I treat one of you better than the other, can I?” Chione asked, tilting her head with a regretful frown.
Soteria, to her credit, knew better than to waste time arguing and reluctantly took Chione’s hand. After a few seconds, Chione let go and said, “Thank you Soteria, I always appreciate how reasonable you are.”
“… I should be the one thanking you, Princess,” the spirit knight replied, not sounding grateful at all.
Now that she was on this side of the room, Chione saw the doodles Soteria had drawn on the windows. The stick-like images, while not very good from a skill standpoint, were nevertheless cheerful in comparison to the gloom outside.
Pointing at one of the drawings, a face with fluffy hair, sharp teeth, and angry eyes, Chione asked, “Is that one me?”
Caught but unwilling to admit it, the knight mumbled, “No, I was just thinking of a monster from back home…”
Chione patted her on the shoulder and said, “I see. I thought the hair looked a little like mine, my mistake. I do like that the skinny one you drew is crying, it reminds me of Aidos.”
The best-looking and most muscular of the doodles was probably meant to be Soteria, but before Chione could comment on it, she noticed a flash of color beyond the window.
Heedless of the drawings, Chione wiped her palm across the glass and nearly pressed her face against it as she hissed, “What is she doing here!?”
Seeing the evidence of her crime conveniently erased by its target, Soteria let out a sigh of relief and joined the Princess.
“Is that pink one your new friend? It looks like she’s with the Provost.”
Below, two people were currently approaching the administration building. Despite the storm raging around them, neither the wind nor the rain seemed to touch them, and it wouldn’t be long before they reached the front doors.
“Damn! Damn damn damn!” Chione cursed, then whirled and pointed a finger at Soteria. “You, act dignified!”
“When don’t I?” Soteria said, only to sputter as her auburn hair was tossed into her face by the gust of wind Chione vanished into.
Seeing this, Aidos grabbed the ribbon on her braid, getting a hold of it just in time to prevent it from flying away when Chione reappeared in another burst of wind by her.
Without any regard for the second hairdo she’d almost ruined, Chione hissed, “What are you doing? Stop playing with your ribbon and finish the window!”
“I—I am!” Aidos replied, tears in her eyes as she let go of her braid and pressed her hands back against the glass. She frantically massaged at the cracks, smoothing the solid glass like wet clay as she whimpered, “I’m almost done, I swear!”
Ignoring her, Chione slapped her hand to the wall and furiously repaired the wards she’d broken earlier.
A few minutes later, when the Provost and Euphy exited the stairwell, the scene that greeted them betrayed no hint of its previous chaos.
They were stopped from going any further by Sir Soteria, whose face was pulled into a hard grimace.
Down the hall, Sir Aidos now stood at attention by Princess Chione, her reddened eyes the only hint that she was anything other than a stern, humorless guard.
The Princess, who was back to sitting in her chair, now did so with perfect posture. When Euphrosyne and the Provost looked her way, she nodded back with an appropriately surprised but amiable expression.
However, inside she was thinking, What the fuck are you doing here, they can’t have caught you already!
Last night Chione had personally broken into the registrar’s office and gone through their student records to find information on Euphy. She’d noticed the divinity on the girl when they met, so she’d hoped that Euphy would at least have a title, but the truth she discovered was far worse:
Not only was Euphy still registered as a commoner, but the information on her family and contacts listed her as an orphan with no patron or sponsor. She was paying her tuition via a top scorer scholarship, which meant the Temple must not be funding her, which meant she probably hadn’t had that blessing of hers for very long.
In other words, compared to holding two members of royalty accountable for an illegal midnight duel that destroyed half a famous garden, Euphy was a much more reasonable scapegoat. If she was blamed, that blessing of hers would protect her from the worst consequences, but it might not be enough to keep her from losing her scholarship or being expelled.
With this in mind, Chione had come here to get a hold of the President first thing so she could take responsibility for the matter and insist that Euphy’s involvement was entirely on her orders.
While doing things this way would mean opening herself up to a lot of humiliation, Euphy would be marked as her person from the beginning and become far harder to target. Chione had also been hoping, just a little bit, that this sacrifice would be enough to convince Euphy to forgive Chione for nearly blasting her to pieces yesterday.
Only now it looked like her plan might be ruined before she’d even gotten started. If they already had evidence on Euphy, or worse, if she’d already confessed…
Chione clenched her teeth and bit back an aggravated growl. If she’d known this would happen, she’d never have waited until morning to address the issue. She’d only done so out of respect for human sleep cycles, but clearly that was a mistake, and she quietly vowed never to bother with that sort of thing ever again.
Down the hall, Soteria and the Provost exchanged a few words, but they were too quiet for Chione to overhear. It wasn’t until Soteria turned to her and gestured that she realized the Provost wanted to approach her alone. Suspicious, she nevertheless nodded her permission, and the man headed towards her.
She’d seen him briefly upon her initial enrollment, but since then she hadn’t had any reason to interact with the Provost.
He looked the same now as he did back then, with an average height and a cold, delicate face, but by far the most striking thing about him was how pale he was. His skin, his blue eyes, and even his long white-blonde hair were all incredibly light. This, combined with his aloof expression, gave him an ethereal air, like he might fade away at any moment.
Or, no… Was that really all it was?
She altered her vision to look at his mana and immediately squinted in discomfort. The molten divinity dripping from his body was so bright it hurt to look at, and it took her a few tries to adjust her sight in order to see past it. Once she did, she noticed a thin, sinister coil of dark mana wrapped around his neck and winding its way down Into his chest like a centipede…
Huh.
She’d never seen someone being directly punished by a god before.
As she stood to greet him, he paused a few feet away from her, the lenses of his gold-framed glasses flickering white as a strike of lightning outside reflected off them. With a leather folio tucked under one arm, he adjusted his dark green, fur-lined coat and said in a raspy voice,
“Sir Knight. Princess.”
Chione smiled, while beside her Aidos stiffened in anger.
There was no way the Provost didn’t know how insulting his greeting was.
That meant he was probably here to start some shit.
“I don’t think we’ve had the chance to speak before,” he continued in an almost-whisper.
Keeping in mind that Euphy was watching from down the hall, Chione kept her face and voice pleasant as she lied,
“Indeed. It’s good to see you again.”
“Is it?” he asked, slightly lifting one eyebrow and tilting his head like he didn’t quite believe her. “That reminds me, there’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you…”
He trailed off and stared at her.
And then just… kept staring.
“Please, go ahead,” she encouraged, folding her hands behind herself so she could resist the temptation to slap that blank look off his face.
“Alright… Are you aware that, when you first enrolled here, your representatives made everyone… faculty and staff, no matter their position… take lessons on imperial etiquette? Anyone who could not pass perfectly in one go… was fired.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” she replied automatically, infusing regret into her voice despite the fact that she didn’t care in the slightest. “You must have lost some good people.”
“We did,” he agreed, nodding, “Though, more importantly, their livelihoods were impacted… all over a few rather ridiculous rules.”
Sir Aidos, who was already offended by the first slight, interpreted this as a challenge and bared her teeth at the man. She might be a cowardly thing when it came to stronger spirits, but she had no such compunctions towards humans, so she placed a hand on the hilt of one of her shotels and warned, “Watch what you say to the Princess, you miserable little worm.”
Despite the rising tension, Chione was thrilled by this development.
Aidos had called the Provost a ‘worm’ without adding ‘human’ in front of it! It’d taken her ages to convince her spirits that referring to other people as ‘humans’ made them seem less human, and it looked like her lectures were finally getting through.
The Provost, apparently unconcerned by this threat, blinked at Aidos and asked, “What kind?”
“… What?” the knight replied, confused.
“What kind of worm?”
Aidos, whose knowledge of fauna was mostly desert-oriented, hesitantly replied, “… Sandworm?”
“Ah,” the Provost nodded, appearing pleased by this answer.
Aidos, still confused but vaguely aware she’d done something good, happily nodded back, all earlier aggression forgotten.
The brief pride Chione had felt for her knight gone, she frowned at the pale man before her.
What was wrong with him? He wasn’t secretly a spirit as well, was he? Chione checked his mana again, just to be sure, but couldn’t find any signs of entanglement.
Nevermind. Maybe he was just weird.
“Provost,” Chione said, interrupting the strange wavelength these two seemed to be on, “If there’s something you want to say, then I ask you to speak freely. I have no intention of holding your honest opinions against you.”
“Ah… I apologize, I haven’t been clear enough. What I mean to say is… most people here are willing to put aside status, but the same doesn’t apply to royal children. That I cannot approach or contact you uninvited, or speak until spoken to, or… even call you into my office, if I suspect you’ve committed an infract—infrac—khk—heugh—”
He gasped painfully and broke into a coughing fit. Thankfully, he turned his head and pulled out a handkerchief before he did so, because if he’d actually coughed on her, she probably would have thrown him across the hall, and that wouldn’t have looked good in front of Euphy.
As she waited, she tried to figure out exactly what his problem with her was.
His appearance was distinctive, so she’d noticed him before during sessions of parliament, but she couldn’t recall him mingling with or voting for the Empress’ faction.
He didn’t actually blame her for those employees getting fired, did he? It wasn’t like she had any say in that.
“Pardon me,” he apologized, a painful rattle lingering in his breath as he wiped a few specks of blood off his lips and put away the handkerchief. “As I was saying… ‘infraction.’ Those rules make it hard to treat you like a student, but… you are a student, aren’t you?”
She blinked at him, still unable to figure out what he was getting at.
It wasn’t uncommon for her to be confronted in this fashion, but usually the accusation was that she didn’t belong. This sounded like he was trying to imply she was a normal student despite her status, which was surprisingly inclusive even if it could still be taken as an insult.
“Indeed… I am?” she hesitantly agreed, wondering if this question was some kind of pit he’d dug for her, and if he was about to verbally entrap her somehow.
“Then… does that mean you don’t mind if I just ignore all that… stupid fucking bullshit?”
She and Aidos froze at the same time, too surprised to react.
“I’m just… too tired to give a damn that you’re a Princess…” he wheezed, the bruise-like circles under his eyes stark against his paper-white skin. “Your brother already threatened to throw me in jail last night… If you have similar inclinations, could you at least wait until after our meeting to arrest me?”
Chione was not often left for words.
Usually she had too many words, and they were all mean and threatening so she had to carefully hide them away.
However, in this moment, she honestly had no idea how to respond to that.
She wasn’t sure if he was trying to insult her, or make a fool of her, or just confuse her, but either way talking to him was so bafflingly indirect and painful that she was tempted to agree with whatever he wanted just so he’d leave her alone.
“Provost, I… whether or not you’re willing to stand on ceremony, I have no plans to arrest you,” she said, deciding to address the biggest red flag.
“Not yet, anyway…”
He sighed and looked out the window at the storm with a mournful expression, as though no matter what she said, that outcome was inevitable.
Actually, maybe he was right. She really would love nothing more than an excuse to lock him up so he couldn't bug her anymore.
“Still, I’ll hold you to that… Ah, and about the incident in the maze last night…”
“Provost,” Chione interrupted, afraid his train of thought would start meandering again, “I’ve come here to take responsibility for that. Where is President Ianthe?”
The man blinked slowly at her, then said, “Indisposed… you’ll be speaking with me instead.”
No! Chione thought, clenching her jaw so hard her teeth squeaked.
President Ianthe might be cold and intimidating, but at least she could get to the point! If she had to spend much more time with this annoying man she might just grab him by the collar and shake him to death!
“Oh, that reminds me.” He gestured to Euphy, who’d been standing down the hall next to Soteria this whole time.
The two of them had been watching in silence while sharing some sort of snack from a small bag, and paused with guilty expressions when everyone’s attention suddenly came their way.
When had they started eating? Chione had been so distracted she hadn’t even noticed, and she wasn’t pleased that Soteria had gotten to share something with Euphy and she hadn’t.
“She didn’t say it, but I think she wants some time to talk to you alone. I’ll make myself busy for the next… oh, twenty, thirty minutes? Feel free to get your stories straight, and… play nice.”
He nodded to both her and Aidos and, apparently serious about ignoring imperial etiquette, walked past them without being dismissed and vanished into Ianthe’s office.