“Right! I understand!” Arus nodded with an expression that greatly resembled his mother’s. I was a bit worried, but I knew he’d try his best.
I told Aisha to be truthful about what the two of us had discussed and the feelings that had led to her running away. She knew what to say to get her mom to quiet down, and she knew what lies to tell in order to convince her to go along with things. I told Aisha not to resort to any of that. Lilia was going to be furious, almost certainly, but Aisha needed to accept that and speak to her from the heart. That was what it meant to shoot straight with someone.
“I understand.” Like Arus before her, Aisha nodded with a serious look on her face.
I whispered good luck to them as I watched them leave the room.
I don’t know what Aisha, Arus, and Lilia talked about after that. Their conversation was a long one—five hours, six hours? Maybe more. At multiple points, I heard Lilia shouting. At other times, it was Aisha shouting. As time passed, those moments became sparser until they stopped entirely, and then their conversation came to an end at last.
When Lilia came back downstairs, she looked dead tired, but also like a great weight had been taken off of her shoulders. I didn’t expect her to be completely free of reservations, but I was sure that she’d been convinced.
After that, Aisha and Arus apologized to the family:
“We’re sorry for worrying everyone. We’re sorry for causing so much trouble. We’re sorry for betraying your trust.”
They said all of this with their heads lowered.
First and foremost, no one in the family attacked them for their actions. Lucie glared at Arus, and Norn scolded Aisha, but that was the extent of it. If anything, it seemed like everyone was relieved.
We discussed Aisha and Arus’s respective punishments next. That was a bit more complicated.
First, Aisha was going to be expelled from the family. Her name was going to be wiped from the Greyrat family registry for now.
Aisha was the one that proposed this. We were going to punish the traitor. This kind of thing was necessary, no matter where you went in this world. It was meant to protect the Greyrat family’s dignity. To make sure we wouldn’t be underestimated by outsiders.
That said, I had no desire to punish Aisha that severely. Her expulsion from the family was little more than a public-facing arrangement. By showing the world how we’d punished her, we would avoid hurting our good name or whatever. I didn’t like it, but we had to do it.
Despite that, it was actually pretty pointless in the long run. In a few years, she would marry Arus and reenter the family.
So, once Aisha birthed her child, she would throw away her name and be banished from the house.
Banished was a dramatic word. What she was actually going to do was enroll at the royal academy in the Asura Kingdom. The events that’d transpired had helped her realize she was still immature. By attending school, she could become a perfect person!
Obviously not, but she wanted to start fresh with her education. Aisha said that she wanted to learn to be more tolerant of others’ failures. This would separate her from Arus for more than a few years.
That left her true punishment: I would be taking her child from her. Aisha wouldn’t be able to see them until Arus became a man and married her. Once she gave birth and was with the baby for a short time, they would be separated. That was Aisha’s punishment. I didn’t know if it really counted as one, but I knew how painful it was to be kept away from your child, so I thought this was enough.
While Aisha might’ve agreed to it, I couldn’t help but hesitate. Taking a blameless child away from their mother was a difficult decision. I felt bad for the baby. We were going to take responsibility and look after them in her stead, but it was possible that this would leave a deep scar on the child’s heart.
When I considered that, part of me wanted to say, Isn’t this enough? Just let Aisha stay. She and Arus can be all lovey-dovey together.
But Aisha needed to be punished for what she’d done, and she needed to experience the consequences of her failures. With that in mind, all I could really do was show her child more love than she could.
After being pulled away from Arus, would Aisha grow up on her own? Whatever happened, I—no, we—planned on watching over her on her journey.
As for Arus, he was to return home and resume his schooling. He was too immature to bear the burden of a similar level of punishment. Both physically and mentally, he was incapable of protecting Aisha. His responsibility now was to reflect on his actions and put his all into maturing.
Once he came of age, graduated from school, and was recognized as a man by me and his mother, he could do as he pleased. Which basically meant that we were fine with him going to the Asura Kingdom and taking Aisha as his wife. In other words: Go take responsibility and get your woman.
Arus obviously wasn’t happy with losing Aisha, but after he took in the dark circles under Aisha’s eyes and thought about the results of his battle with Eris, he nodded seriously. He still had plenty of growing to do, physically and mentally, but he had the drive that he needed.
He really was Eris’s son, which meant we had nothing to worry about on that end. Arus would turn out just fine, and when he did, he could go to Aisha.
The world at large would eventually learn that Arus had taken Aisha as his wife. People would probably be confused and wonder, Was she banished or married off?
That was fine. Muddying the waters would make the truth harder to grasp. We weren’t in the business of making the details of our personal affairs known to strangers.