Side Story:
The Man Fia’s Gunning for Becomes Her Caretaker
POPULARITY POLL: 2ND - SAVIZ NÁV
IT ALL BEGAN with something uttered during what should have been a completely serious meeting, attended only by my brigade captains.
“Heh heh… About that, I actually know someone who Fia won’t get angry at no matter what they ask. She told me herself which man she’s gunning for! And would you believe it, it’s Commander Saviz!” Clarissa boasted.
I doubted I was alone in thinking we would have been better off if she hadn’t shared such information. Everyone was lost for words.
We should have known Fia was unlikely to have feelings for me, as Clarissa claimed, or any ulterior motives for lying about it. She had never once shown that sort of affection for me, nor was she the type to flatter her superiors to curry favor.
She was, however, absurdly prone to causing misunderstandings despite her often-keen perception. That had to be the case here too.
Desmond grew frantic, trying to bury Clarissa’s accusations and prevent her from saying any more. Not a soul spoke up to argue against him, indirectly agreeing.
Interesting… It appeared they all objected to the idea of Fia being my life partner, but I suppose I could understand why.
I spared a moment to envision a life with her—and glimpsed a future full of hardship. The thought of trying to keep her, of all people, in check seemed like a greater undertaking than subduing the Black Dragon…which was under her thumb now, come to think of it.
“In other words, to spend my life with Fia would mean having to keep two walking calamities—her and the Black Dragon—in check…” I muttered to myself.
It was an absurd challenge. I kept that to myself, however, and listened without interrupting for the rest of the meeting.
“Commander Saviz!”
Several days later, after the sun had fully set, I encountered a rather jovial Fia Ruud in the royal castle garden.
“Are you on your way home from work? Hmmmm, but if you’re heading home at this hour, then you must have worked tons of overtime! Wait, but you still look so energetic and fresh, like you’ve only just popped out of bed. I guess you’re simply built different, huh?” She took me in in awe. Pink lit her cheeks, bright enough I could make it out even in the moonlight.
“I’d say you’re more energetic than I am. I take it you’ve been drinking?”
“Outstanding, Commander! You got it! Captain Desmond and his friends invited me out for drinks, so I had a few with them. Just a few.”
“I see.”
No one who described their consumption as “just a few” actually ever drank “just a few.”
I dismissed my guards, saying, “I’ll be heading straight to my room from here. There shouldn’t be any danger, and even if there is, your fellow knight from the First Knight Brigade will be enough to protect me.”
The knights hesitated but eventually swallowed their words, saluted, and left.
If Fia was worried about guarding me alone, she made no sign of it, smiling and giggling. “Five, six, seven… Heh heh heh. Seven knights swapped posts with me. I’m worth seven whole knights!”
“I suppose you could interpret things that way,” I said. “You must’ve drunk quite a lot tonight.” She was clearly in high spirits.
“Just a bit. Surprisingly, Captain Quentin didn’t have a single drop, so I tried to make up for him!”
“Was he feeling ill?” Quentin could usually hold his drink well, consuming large quantities with ease.
“No, but he arrived with his griffon egg on his stomach and said, ‘How could I possibly drink when I’m with child?!’ The other captains tried to argue his child was an egg, but he didn’t care.”
“Interesting…” I’d forgotten, but the captains’ get-togethers could get rather lively. “It sounds like you had fun. Incidentally, can I ask where you were headed?”
I figured she planned to see Cerulean since she was headed toward the castle.
She flashed a toothy grin and said, “I was on my way back to the knight dorms!”
“I do believe the dorms are in the opposite direction, are they not?”
“Huh? But I was told if I walked while looking at the moon, I’d reach the dorms.”
“I’m sure you already know this, but the moon’s position changes with time. It must have been quite a while since you were told that.”
“Outstanding, Commander! You got it! I was told last weekend, when I last went out drinking.”
“I see. I’ll walk you to the dorms then.”
“Heh heh heh. The great commander of the knight brigades is walking me back! I feel like I’m going to pass out from the overwhelming honor.”
“I think you’re just drowsy from drinking too much. Let’s get going before you fall asleep.”
To my surprise, Fia talked the whole way back to her dorm. Her indefatigable stream of words put me in mind of something Clarissa said.
“Oh, right. Am I correct to believe you’re ‘gunning for me,’ Fia?” I asked, curious to clear up the misunderstanding.
“Outstanding, Commander! You got it!” she said for the third time this night. Perhaps it was a new pet phrase she wanted to try out. She screwed up her face in concentration for a moment before proudly puffing out her chest. “Heh heh heh… So even the commander has finally recognized the extent of my loyalty, which is even greater than Blackpeak Mountain is tall! ‘Gunning for’ is special knight slang for who you think is the strongest in the knight brigades! A while back, Captain Clarissa asked me who I was ‘most invested in’ and ‘gunning for,’ but being such a loyal knight, I remembered I had promised not to leak the fact that Captain Cyril is stronger than you!”
“I see.”
“That’s why I named you the strongest knight in the brigades! Gosh, aren’t I so loyal? But y’know…” She glanced at my eyepatch. Without a hint of ulterior motive, she said, “I think you’d be the actual strongest if you healed your right eye.”
Such keen perception. She really did have the eyes of a ruler. However…
“I have no need for a right eye,” I said, repeating what I’d said a while back.
The wound was already more than a decade old. There was no hope of restoring the eye, and I wouldn’t wish to even if I could. I didn’t mind living with only one eye.
Fia nodded. “Your own feelings on the matter are the most important. There’s no need to heal it unless you want to.”
She really did hold saints in high regard. There wasn’t a saint alive who could heal the eye I lost, but she believed I was all that stood in the way of getting it back.
“Having only one eye is a big handicap when fighting,” she said. “You likely know that better than anybody, so I’m sure you must have strong reasons not to heal your eye. But you know…the world looks extra beautiful with two eyes.” She spoke softly, as though she truly understood the difficulties I faced with my impaired vision.
Every once in a while her words carried a resounding truth to them that stirred the heart. These in particular lingered in me well after she finished speaking.
“Indeed,” I said. “A day may come when I yearn for this world’s beauty and wish for the return of my right eye.” I didn’t make a habit of dreaming of the impossible but replied so anyway.
Fia smiled and nodded, and I was glad I’d responded the way I had.
We walked on in silence for some time. Spotting a light just ahead, Fia exclaimed, “Oh! Hey, that’s the dorm!”
She seemed to have forgotten that was our destination and treated this sight like the discovery of the century.
“Wow! I’ve finally managed to find the dorm even while drunk!” she said.
Well, that was worrying. This apparently wasn’t the first time she’d wandered around drunk at night.
Looking up at me, she said, “Wait, but the commander doesn’t live in the dorms! Oh no! I was supposed to escort you back to your room in the castle!”
“If you did that, I’d just have to escort you back here again.”
“Hwuh?”
“I can return to the castle on my own. Let’s just say I was acting as your caretaker for today. It’s the least I can do for the one ‘gunning for me,’ right?”
I’d dismissed those knights on the promise that Fia would be enough to escort me, but in the end I had escorted her. How comical.
She nodded deeply and repeated that new pet phrase of hers. “Outstanding, Commander! You got it!”
As I gazed at her bright eyes and rosy cheeks in the moonlight, I couldn’t help thinking that nights like this weren’t so bad.