I called the children down from the second floor. We had dinner, then split up again. Sylphie, Roxy, Eris, and I decided to talk together in the living room.
Sylphie had noticed what was happening a few years ago. She often did chores with Aisha around the house, so she’d realized that Aisha and Arus had feelings for one another. She’d figured that this would eventually come to pass.
Eris was similar, except… Rather than noticing their specific relationship, she’d noticed that Arus had been a little restless as of late, so she’d thought that he’d found someone he had feelings for. She never imagined it would be Aisha. What concerned her most was that Arus had hidden behind Aisha throughout the entire family meeting.
Roxy had not suspected any of this, which weighed on her heavily. She proposed accompanying Arus to Asura, where she could continue to instruct him while looking out for him from the shadows. I could tell how strongly she felt about this, so I agreed. Roxy would ensure Arus didn’t become dependent on her.
I also told my wives about how I felt about Aisha and Arus’s future. I was going to have him drop out of the magic university and attend the royal academy in Asura, where he would live life far away from Aisha’s protection. I wanted him to think and act on his own so he could deal with the consequences of his choices as much as possible. By doing that, he could escape his reliance on Aisha. He’d come of age by the time he returned home.
If he still loved Aisha at that point, if he’d thought about his future and wanted to be with her, if all of this wasn’t just some fit of passion, then I would allow their marriage.
Honestly, I still was highly resistant to the idea. It repulsed me. Even now, I thought I was going to vomit. But it wasn’t for me to decide. They were my blood relatives, and I was Arus’s guardian, yes. That didn’t mean they belonged to me. Aisha in particular was an adult who could strike out on her own. Once Arus came of age, he’d be old enough to step away from my protection too.
Given the threat of the Man God, there was a part of me that wanted to control their lives. Nevertheless, it wasn’t right for me to dictate their futures.
“Mm, okay. That’s a very Rudy answer, I think.”
“If you say so, it’s fine.”
“All right. I understand.”
My three wives nodded. They didn’t have the same repulsion to the idea that I did, it seemed. Eris was against all of this, but that was because she felt Arus was acting pathetic.
In this world, marriage between blood-related relatives was commonplace, especially among Asuran nobility, and I’d heard some demon tribes did it as well. Maybe that was why none of them were that resistant to the idea. I felt like the odd one out. I’d gotten used to most of the ways of this world, but at the end of the day, I was still from somewhere else. No matter how many years went by, there were some feelings that hadn’t left me. It wasn’t like I cared that much about incest as a taboo in my original world, though.
“They’re like we used to be,” Sylphie said.
“You think…?”
I tilted my head. I personally felt our relationship was very different from Arus and Aisha’s, but…
No, that wasn’t what she meant. She was talking about how my father split us apart. If Paul hadn’t separated us that day, our lives would’ve been very different. I met Eris, and I was separated from Sylphie by both distance and time. Ultimately, I ended up with both of them, but had the Displacement Incident never happened, I might’ve gotten married to Eris alone. I didn’t know if Arus was going to meet his own Eris at the royal academy, but either way, things like the Displacement Incident didn’t happen every day.
Some time would do wonders to get them both to cool their heads, though I didn’t know if that’d actually be a good thing. I wanted to believe that this was just a one-time burst of passion. That was the best-case scenario.
“I have to say, it wasn’t very like you to just say no without giving an explanation or talking things out,” Sylphie continued.
“Yeah,” I said after a pause.
“If you have a proper reason, please tell them before you split them apart. It’s pretty painful being pulled away from someone you love without ever being told why.”
Sylphie’s tone was just a little critical. She might have intended on allowing their relationship from the start. Unlike me, she seemed ready for this. She showed no signs of reluctance.
“All right,” I said.
Maybe I had been too forceful about this. In the end, pulling Sylphie and me apart had worked out for both of us, but that didn’t mean it was right to force the same situation on Aisha and Arus. They were their own people.
Regardless of how willing they seemed to be to obey me, that didn’t mean I could do whatever I wanted with them. What was the right answer?
What should I do?
Our conversation came to a close while I thought about it.
We returned to our room and went to bed.
✦ ✦ ✦
The next day Aisha and Arus had vanished, leaving only a single note behind: We’re going to be together.
They had eloped.