Side Story:
A Dinner with Fia
IT ALL STARTED when I got curious about whether Cerulean had kept his promise to treat Fia to a meal. He owed it to her as an apology for his rudeness toward her, but I suspected she deserved it as a reward for the way she’d seen through his jester disguise and identified him as the true king.
When I checked up on the status of this meal, I was surprised to learn it hadn’t happened, so I invited her to have dinner with me instead.
Thinking back on it, while part of me did intend to see Cerulean’s obligation through myself, another part of me likely wanted to get my thoughts in order before the head saint selection.
“Wow! I didn’t know you wore anything other than your knight uniform!” Fia said, eyes wide with surprise.
I feared she’d see this dinner as work if I wore my uniform, so I changed into plain clothes.
Her comical expression prodded me to joke right back, though my words came out more stern than I intended. “But of course. Would you be surprised to hear I have nightwear as well?”
She didn’t laugh, instead apologizing for making assumptions. Belatedly, I realized my jokes were unlikely to land if I made them so infrequently—an obvious fact in hindsight.
I let her talk for a while, and she somehow started complimenting my physique. I caught myself smiling at that. She could be incredibly sharp at times and completely nonsensical at others. It seemed tonight she tended toward the latter; absurdities rolled out of her mouth one after the other.
“I may seem small now, but I plan on growing several inches soon!”
“What?! Meat can melt?!”
“I’ve filled my stomach without leaving a bit of space! I must be a food-packing genius!”
She seemed to say whatever came to mind. I pointed that out, thinking she might regret it in the morning, but she proudly replied, “Don’t worry, I won’t! I’ve drunk too much, so I definitely, definitely won’t remember a single thing from tonight! There’ll be nothing to regret!”
She had quite the positive mindset, to say the least.
She didn’t hesitate to blurt out whatever was on her mind. It made me wish I could be so unreserved. But I quickly realized that wasn’t my true wish. It wasn’t that I wanted to get something off my chest but rather that I wanted to know how she, specifically, would react to my full, honest opinions.
“If you won’t remember a single thing from tonight, then I might as well speak my true thoughts… The truth is, there’s not one thing worth celebrating about marrying someone as selfish, self-righteous, and attention-seeking as a saint. The thought alone curdles my blood.”
The liquor hadn’t hit me the way it hit her, yet I blurted out my true feelings about saints to somebody other than Cyril.
Fia responded by defending saints and going on about her ideals about them.
I understood she was young and could only speak from that limited experience. She had yet to witness the saints’ ugliness and get disillusioned, nor did she know what it was like to see your wishes unfulfilled and feel helpless in the face of reality.
She met my eyes as she said, “If you ever find yourself at the end of your rope and need a saint, come find me. I’ll show you what a proper saint looks like.”
Her words struck a chord with me. After dinner, I stepped outside to observe the night sky.
Fia said I mentioned saints a lot when I was with her. It had to be because I loathed them so much, but perhaps that wasn’t the whole truth. Perhaps I wished one would reach out and save me.
“It’s true that I’ve never met a proper saint, but does one even exist?”
A saint who put her all into supporting knights and who would heal anybody without hesitation. I’d always believed such a saint couldn’t possibly exist, but talking to Fia tempted me into believing she could be right and I just hadn’t met the right saint yet.
Thanks to her, belief in a proper saint existing somewhere out there stirred within me, a tentative ray of hope.
“To think a little hope can change how one sees everything.”
For the first time, when I thought about saints, antipathy didn’t well up inside me. Maybe the change would only last the night, or maybe she’d truly changed the way I would see saints from here on out. I had no answer.
For tonight, I basked in the moon’s gentle light, pondering what the future might bring.