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Side View: Scarlanette
SELENA VIOLETTE, the only child of Duke Violette.
The Violettes don’t actively engage with the social scene and don’t serve in court, meaning they’re not the highest-ranking of the ducal families. But it was no exaggeration to say their economic power was the economic power of Astra with as many industries as they were involved in.
I’ve met Duke and Duchess Violette several times. The duke has a gentle smile and mild manner, but he also seems cunning, like a successful merchant would be. His wife is a real-life good person. I had no trouble believing she would adopt a commoner girl who wandered into their mansion.
I never expected much from the daughter of someone like that, even if she was the daughter of a duke.
But I was wrong. How could someone that kind give birth to someone so cold? Lady Selena Violette is so much the opposite of Duchess Violette that it makes me realize some mysteries in this world can never be explained. She cares so little about other people to the point of being cruel.
But I had to revise that opinion, too, after the Festival of Hunting.
Monsters were rushing right at me. My knees went out beneath me. I’d never seen a monster before, and I couldn’t move.
All my friends who were always with me ran, abandoning me. I learned popularity showed its true colors in times like that and expected to die.
But I was saved by none other than Selena Violette. She couldn’t have done that if she truly didn’t care about others. Especially for someone hostile towards her like I had been.
I adjusted my opinion of her to that of someone who is easily misunderstood but actually deeply caring.
But today, the same girl who saved my life ignored Prince Shaghad as he was being attacked. She said she wasn’t required to save him with a coldness that said she’d already tossed him aside.
I tried arguing back, not understanding her, but she cut the conversation with two knife-like words: “Be quiet.”
She looked away, her expression as blank as always, but I saw what looked like unease and fear in her eyes. Does she not even know the reason behind her actions?
“Selena Violette, what sort of environment were you raised in?” I murmured.
She would have grown up surrounded by love, living with those kind parents. Why does she seem so abnormal, so twisted?
I think there’s a darkness I can’t even fathom deep within Selena Violette.
✦ ✦ ✦
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“THEY did a good job,” I said. I was with Tiegel atop a tree, looking down at the work below us.
Just like the day before, Ismail and his thugs attacked Shaghad Rienbul. He never once resisted. He just curled up and protected himself.
There’s nothing you can protect without resisting, though.
“The members of Ismail Alaban’s entourage are Astra nobles, yes?” asked Tiegel.
“Yes. It seems low-ranking nobles are more fixated on the draw of the feast they can have today rather than the suffering that awaits them in the future.”
“Is this for the best? Our mission is to protect Prince Shaghad.”
“They’re not threatening his life. And protecting him isn’t our only mission.”
“You mean having the Alaban twins cause a problem?”
“Yes.”
“They’ll drag down our own nobles with them.”
He must mean the low-ranking nobles attacking a valued guest from another country right in front of our eyes. “No one will complain if we throw away things we don’t need.”
I don’t like it.
Unlike Ismail, Shaghad did notice Tiegel and me watching. As a royal, he would have learned self-defense. He should be decently strong. Proof of that was that he moved to soften the blows from Ismail and his thugs in a way they never noticed, making it so he got out with nothing more than minor injuries.
And yet, he allowed those weaklings to entirely dominate him.
It looked in every way like he’d given up, and that was unpleasant to see.
Just like yesterday, Ismail and his group left after satisfying themselves with a certain amount of beating.
“I’m struggling to understand,” I said after dropping down from the tree once I was sure there was absolutely no one else in the area. Shaghad wasn’t surprised. He already knew that I knew that he’d noticed me. “Why don’t you resist? What reason do you have for resigning yourself to being weak?”
“What do you mean?”
“You’re strong.”
“Not as strong as you.”
“Maybe not. I have more experience in actual combat.” Especially considering my previous life experience. “But you have more potential than Ismail. If you really tried, forcing him under your control would be easy. Why haven’t you worked to make that happen?”
He sat up at my question and looked at me with a self-denigrating smile. “And what then? What do I do once he’s under my control?”
What an odd question. He’s a prince. His path is laid out for him, paved and made safe, with not a stone to stumble on. He just needs to walk it. It’ll probably continue all the way to the end of his life.
“No one needs me,” he said.
Ah, I forgot that. Unlike me, people who live on the light side of society are a certain breed that can’t live without a place or purpose. I heard in my past life about them in a different part of society, but it never had anything to do with me, and I didn’t care, so I forgot about it up until this moment. I had the vague thought of how inconvenient it was for one of those light-dwellers if they needed more than just food and shelter to survive.
“Even my mother abandoned me,” continued Shaghad.
If I remembered correctly, Princess Consort Shahrnaz left the royal palace when Shaghad was six. It made perfect sense that she would leave him if she were escaping. The royalty and other nobles wouldn’t allow her to run with a child with royal blood. They might even kill the mother to bring the son back.
It’s standard practice for survival to eliminate whatever puts you in danger.
Even if she were a commoner, it’d be a toss of a coin on whether or not she’d take her child with her. There were only so many places a woman could work, and it would be hard to raise a child alone. That’s why many children were thrown into the slums in my previous world.
“Do you hate your mother for abandoning you?” I asked.
“…I don’t know.”
Maybe his feelings didn’t go all the way to hatred, but there was anger.
“I just wanted her to take me with her.”
“Meaning, you wanted her to sacrifice herself for you?”
He frowned, not understanding what I meant. He might be stronger than Ismail, but he was still weak from an adult’s perspective.
“Only those with strength and luck can choose a future of happiness,” I said. “So, your mother chose. For a future of her own happiness. You think that was wrong? You’re saying a mother should sacrifice herself for her child, choosing an unhappy future for herself if it’s better for her child? You would force that decision on her? That’s arrogant.”
“I would never want her to be unhappy!”
Now you’re actually coming at me with your real feelings. “So, what did you plan to do if your mother took you with her? What can you do? Could you work as a child? It’d be fine if you could just exist with her, but you’re alive, meaning you’d need food. You would sponge money she didn’t have off her even though you couldn’t work?”
“I…”
There were no words he could continue with. He was prioritizing his own feelings, unable to see anything of the situation his mother was forced into.
“Your mother just made her decision to leave you behind.”
“Urk.”
“You just need to make your decision.”
“What?”
“What are you going to do about your mother who abandoned you? Will you leave her be? Will you find her and repay her for the unhappiness she put on you? It’s the prerogative of the strong to interfere with other’s lives and decide what happens next for them.”
Shaghad didn’t respond. But, unlike before, he seemed to be thinking about something.