Celestine turned from Padparadscha to Arman, glaring angrily as she scolded him. “Master Arman! You know that you’re ridiculously strong, so please try to hold back! What if something happens to your wife and child?! She is about to enter her final month, so being overly cautious is a must!”
“Sorry!” Arman replied, flinching at Celestine’s intensity despite his station. When it came to the Nation of the Beast King, where the king had more authority than in the Nation of the Dragon King, the only one who could tell off the Beast King was a Beloved like Celestine.
Rebuking Arman had inevitably turned into Celestine’s role. Despite the fact that he had never been seriously involved with anyone else before, he had been doting on Padparadscha as if he had lost all self-control. And since he would very often dote so much that he couldn’t hold back, he needed someone to stop him.
“Um...Lady Beloved, please don’t scold Master Arman too harshly,” Padparadscha pleaded sympathetically, warming Arman’s heart.
Celestine shot a cold sideways glance at Arman, crossed her arms, and said, “Lady Padparadscha, you mustn’t coddle him. You’re in the midst of an important time, so unless I discipline him, he will end up crushing you and the baby.”
“Celestine, what do you take me for?” Arman asked with a puzzled expression. “As rash as I am, I wouldn’t be that damn thoughtless.”
“I certainly hope not, though I would like to ask what deep thought went into bringing Lady Padparadscha here,” Celestine shot back with an icy stare in his direction.
“Urk...” Arman choked on his words. He had married a multitude of wives ever since ascending the throne as Beast King, but had never decided upon a proper queen.
Despite that, one day, when coming back from a tour, he’d brought Padparadscha back with him and declared on the spot that he would make her his proper queen. The uproar that had ensued had been akin to poking a beehive. Apparently, he had met Padparadscha in the location he toured in and fallen in love with her at first sight.
Celestine had suspected that the tour was taking longer than usual, but after learning that Arman had neglected the tour in favor of courting Padparadscha, she was left exasperated and questioning his actions.
Normally, accepting a marriage proposal from the Beast King would be a no-brainer, but Padparadscha was a very modest and reserved person and had been put off by how many queens he had and rejected him. Arman’s queens weren’t women that he ushered in of his own volition; they were women who had wished to become his wife out of the pool of women suggested by his retainers while trying to maintain a balance between different tribes and factions in the nation. Arman treated all of his wives equally, but it was an undeniable fact that he was a lusty womanizer.
Celestine had repeatedly admonished him, telling him that if he didn’t get his relationships with women in order, he would lose the trust of whoever he decided was his main object of affection, but he had always turned a deaf ear to the advice. Much to Arman’s chagrin, her worries became a reality.
However, he had finally found true love, so he was not going to gracefully bow out just because he’d been turned down. In the end, he’d won through persistence, and although she had not accepted his marriage proposal, she had somehow allowed him to bring her to the palace.
Arman had explained the situation to Celestine, bemoaning the fact that Padparadscha still did not trust him even though she had agreed to come to the palace. Upon hearing that, Celestine had coldly replied that it was karma for all of his bad deeds up until then. Still, Arman simply couldn’t ignore the woman he had fallen in love with. With Padparadscha having earned a place as Celestine’s caretaker, he had continued to approach her, undeterred, until he’d eventually succeeded in having her agree to his advances. That was one of the few times he had expressed childlike glee. However, it was then that a problem arose.
Arman had naturally intended to make her his proper queen, but more retainers had expressed disapproval than he’d imagined. One of the reasons raised was that Padparadscha was an immigrant. It wouldn’t have been a problem if she’d been an ordinary immigrant, but her being from the neighboring nation, Furgal, was considered a big issue.
The country of Furgal had been created by the siblings of the Beast King and their supporting factions, who had been exiled following their defeat in the strife for the Beast King throne. While they shared the same blood, one was known as a minuscule nation and the other was known as a powerhouse. From the Nation of the Beast King’s perspective, the people of Furgal were lucky they had managed to skate by with exile rather than being permanently purged, but from Furgal’s point of view, the Nation of the Beast King was a hated foe that had run them out of their homeland.
That was why Furgal had repeated skirmishes with the Nation of the Beast King in order to reclaim their land. Because of this history, it was a well-known fact that the Nation of the Beast King and Furgal were on bad terms, and Arman was flooded with dissenting opinions on making Padparadscha his proper queen, since that was where she came from. The situation was so tense between the Nation of the Beast King and Furgal that Arman’s retainers had flat-out decried his actions despite the fact that the Beast King was a figure with a lot of sway in the kingdom. Some had even unjustly suspected Padparadscha of being an assassin from Furgal.
Padparadscha herself had felt in her bones that she wasn’t welcome and expressed a desire to back out of the role because she wasn’t fit for it, which had caused Arman to panic. Unable to watch any more of that, Celestine had decided to persuade the retainers to change their minds. She had asked the spirits to investigate and prove that Padparadscha was not an assassin, explaining how serious Arman was and supporting their relationship. She was skirting the rule that Beloveds were not to get involved in politics, but thanks to her persuasion, Padparadscha had been safely recognized as Arman’s proper queen.
This had naturally led to a formal announcement, but it had also been revealed that Padparadscha was pregnant with child at the same time—Arman’s child, of course. Celestine had scolded him for his lack of planning, getting her pregnant before the official announcement, but since Arman had never had a child before, the retainers had done a complete about-face and become far more welcoming. Celestine had been a tad angry with their good mood, questioning if she had even needed to convince them in the first place given their behavior now.