Side Story:
Fia Goes on a Date with Cyril on Her Day Off
POPULARITY POLL: 3RD - CYRIL SUTHERLAND
“FIA, WILL YOU GO OUT with me for the day?”
Cyril, the dashing captain of the First Knight Brigade, paid me a visit at the women’s dormitory early in the morning.
“Oh my. You mean like out on a date?” I slapped my hands over my cheeks like a maiden in love.
“Pardon? Um… Is that what you want it to be?”
“Huh?”
If a man asked a woman out, what else could it be but a date? That had to be what he was doing, so why was he trying to make it sound like I wanted it to be a date?
“Wait, whoa, whoa, why are you flipping things around and making it sound like I’m the one who wants to go on a date with you? Aren’t you the one who…” I snapped to my senses. There was no possible way he, of all people, would actually come here to ask me out on a date. Shaking my head, I said, “Er, never mind. You just need me to keep you company for the day, right?”
I was still a fresh recruit in my first year with the brigades. It made sense for a captain like Cyril to call upon me to serve as extra protection or his bag mule or something.
“In a sense,” he said. “I was hoping we could enjoy an outing together. I have some shopping to do.”
Bag mule it is. I nodded and he told me to meet him in an hour so we could leave together.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Zavilia, I’ll be going to town with Captain Cyril later. Do you want anything?” I asked.
Zavilia lay curled up in a ball on the protruding bay window. He gestured at the item hidden under him. “Another one of these golden dragon statues would be nice.”
Tucked under his belly was the golden statue I had received from Cyril as a thank-you gift for the holy stones I’d given him. It was way too expensive for a gift, though, so I was hoping to find an opportunity to return it. Unfortunately, Zavilia found it and made it part of his nest.
I guess it was in a dragon’s nature to collect shiny things. He even put things like holy stones full of healing magic and magic stones with absurd enchantments in his nest.
I scowled at the dragon curled up atop his collection of rare items. My cute little Zavilia had no sense of how money worked. I couldn’t have bought that gold statue Cyril forced onto me even with a full year’s salary! How was I supposed to buy him another?
“Oho ho ho, you have quite fine taste, my dear Zavilia! But you’ll have to wait until I wed royalty or high nobility if that’s what you want.”
“You’ve been using that excuse a lot recently. Until this point, I’ve taken those words at face value, but now I see what you really mean to say. Since such a marriage is impossible for you, you’re telling me you’ll never buy me what I desire.”
“Zavilia! You can’t crush a young maiden’s dreams like that! You never know, a noble might come out of nowhere, find some hidden qualities in me, and decide to marry me.”
“Uh-huh… I had no idea you wished for such a thing, Fia. Why don’t you reveal that your familiar is this nation’s guardian beast then? You’d certainly have your pick of whatever noble you’d like if you did that,” he teased.
I grimaced. “No way! I love you too much to use you to make myself look better!”
“Heh heh. So I’m more important to you than marrying a noble, huh? But if that’s the case, then you’ll never marry one.”
That was fine by me. I didn’t want to marry royalty or nobility whatsoever. Zavilia had to know that already and was just teasing me for fun. Still, he seemed pretty pleased with himself when I left to meet Cyril, one of those high-ranking nobles I’d never marry.
“I’m just a bag carrier to him, after all.”
Or at least, that was what I thought…
“Fia, what do you think of this bathrobe? It seems quite absorbent and warm, but maybe it isn’t to your liking?”
Shopping with Cyril was not what I expected. It was more like shopping with a close friend than serving as a bag mule. He even asked my opinion.
Come to think of it, Cyril and I are friends, aren’t we? Maybe he invited me out as a friend? I cocked my head as I answered his question. “I think it looks good, but it isn’t for me. The baths in the women’s dormitory are communal, so I couldn’t wear such a glamorous bathrobe. I’m definitely not brave enough to walk the long corridor back to my room wearing this.”
Cyril’s expression soured for some reason, but I was only saying this would look out of place in the women’s dormitory! It’d look fine in a high-class duke’s home!
Pulling himself together, he moved on. “What do you think of this nightcap then? Apparently it helps curb bed head and can save you time fixing your hair in the morning.”
“Whoa, how useful! If I wore this, I’d be able to sleep an extra five minutes every night!”
“This’ll do then,” he said with a nod. With the nightcap in hand, he made for the cashier, leaving me to wonder why his whole shopping list was women’s items.
Oh, I hadn’t mentioned it yet, but Cyril was only buying women’s items on this shopping trip. Puzzled, I asked him about it, but he just said, “I’m buying these for myself.”
Yeah right, he was definitely buying them for someone else! And he kept asking what I thought of each item. I appreciated having someone recognize my good taste, but I could totally bomb the whole thing if the person receiving these gifts had different tastes than me.