He only encountered Duke Taevas during supper time. Belladonna was right, he did look much older even when only 2 years have passed.
His hair was almost fully gray now, and wrinkles overrode his face.
Other than that, he was the same stern and hot-blooded Duke Taevas. He didn’t greeted Ronin as warmly as his sister did, and only said.
“You are back.”
He was wearing gloves and was holding a pumpkin in his hand. Both of which were dirty, and he headed for the sink to wash it.
“Where have you been, Father?” Ronin asked him.
“Garden.” He said. “Grab the knife over there for me.”
“What about the cook?” He asked.
“I dismissed them all a year ago. Mavretri is perfectly capable of cooking, and I’m capable of handling a knife.”
So they really have degraded to what this kind of aristocratic setting would think of as ‘poverty’.
Which Ronin merely found funny, as at least they have a roof over their heads and food to eat, just not as much as before and had to be self-prepared.
He thought he must have been impoverished in the past life, as nothing of this that scares that usual rich boy can faze him.
“I’ll go cut it myself.” He took on an apron that used to belong to their cooks. “You can go change from those dirty boots, Father. They’re making a trail on the floor..
Duke Taevas did not expect him to take up the job, but eventually shrugged.
“Good, good.”
Belladonna peered behind him. “Can I also help preparing, Brother?”
“No!” Duke Taevas exclaimed. “You better not let Bella touch that knife, she might cut herself.”
Belladonna rolled her eyes. “Father, I’m not a child anymore to get cut by a tiny knife. Also, it’s Donna, when will you ever get it right?”
“You are a noble lady, not the help.” Duke Taevas countered. “That is the only remaining dignity I have left as a noble.”
“That my daughter’s hands are still smooth and soft, not roughened by washing clothes or cleaning the house or cooking for a whole family.”
Belladonna was exasperated. “Ah, this nonsense again about maintaining my delicate feature as a lady! So what? So I would be palatable to suitors???”
“Yes!” Duke Taevas exclaimed. “How else could we bring back the House Zafeiri to its former glory???”
“Father, we have dismissed almost all of our servants already. You are planting pumpkins in the garden….. And yet you still seek glory!?”
“I could have avoided this. If you have listened to all my suggestions, and my ideas on how to handle our finances…. None of this would have happened!”
But Duke Taevas shook his head. “And what’s next? You will be like a lordling to this house, and do the work that men were supposed to carry?”
“Bella, no man would like a woman that acts like a brutish man! A woman so headstrong and too willful would not appeal to any of them—“
“And what if I do not want to appeal to any of these men!? What if I want to be brutish, all men are brutish so why could I not be!? At least I will make things right!”
Ronin just calmly chopped the pumpkin while listening to the father and daughter fight. The golden color fo the pumpkin reminded him of a certain golden boy.
This made him slice the pumpkin into even smaller pieces, and they weren’t able to notice because they kept on arguing.
“Look at what you are saying! It’s all that training that’s getting into your head, I’m telling you!” Duke Taevas exclaimed.
“You can’t be a Warrior, simply trying to do so would ruin all your potential in marriage! They would see you as a freakish girl, someone who is too abnormally unwomanly!”
“Being good at combat is not ‘unwomanly’! I told you before that my patron was a war goddess, yet you would not believe it! She—“
She faltered, almost saying something she had kept from her father a long time.
“She what?” Duke Taevas furrowed his brows. “Goddess Freja is far from this brutish behavior, she is the Goddess of Beauty and Womanhood, the true snowflake lady—“
“She is the one training me! This snowflake lady you speak of!” She couldn’t take it anymore and revealed it.
“Father, I am her Heroine! The first one in a hundred years!”
Duke Taevas was dumbfounded by this, and his eyes became as wide as saucers.
“You….. That cannot be true….” He mumbled. “I have wished for it my whole life, but that cannot be true. You were behaving more like a Clairo mage….”
“But it is true, Father.”
She inhaled deeply, and said:
“Blessed Freja, grant me the Hiemal Morningstar!”
In a burst of snowdrops came a morningstar in her hand, the round, spiky tip made of ice. Her weapon had a menacing yet also deceptively beautiful appearance.
Mavretri suddenly appeared. When he saw this large weapon in the tiny girl’s hand, and almost had a heart attack.
“I… Is there something wrong, Your Grace?” He mumbled. “Or should I come inside the kitchen later—-“
“No.” Duke Taevas went over to his daughter’s side, and placed a hand on her shoulder.
“Take the chopped up pumpkin from Ronin, and prepare a roasted peafowl tonight.”
Mavretri blinked. “But I thought we were saving that for when the Week’s End—“
“There’s something worth celebrating tonight. And to discuss.” His usually grumpy face now bore a smile that can reach the stratosphere.
Ronin turned to Belladonna, who looked so confused.
She made the Morningstar disappear at the snap of her fingers and said: “What was that supposed to mean, I do not have any appetite for dinner anymore so—“
He whispered some bit of brotherly advice to her.
“Father may very well give what you always wanted, Donna. Entertain his antics for tonight, always nod your head, and only say a word when voicing out what you want.”
Her eyes widened in realization.
And so, that night, a major decision had been made.
“Bella…. Donna. You are my only daughter. You must understand why I am so against your ambition to be a fighter, it is and will always be a man’s duty.”
“But if you must insist, then I shall allow it. I will allow you to take that Triannum test, under one condition.” He said.
“What is it, Father?” She asked.
“From now on, you chose to be a brutish man. You chose to be the next lordling of this house. If you want this path, you must continue forward that way with no regrets.”
“And as a man, you must never fall for any boy. Only pay attention to the task of becoming the greatest Warrior, enough to be a Knight by the King’s side.”
Her eyes widened in excitement at this, but then again…
“I would have to pretend, Father?” She asked.
“If you want to survive, yes.”
He turned to Ronin. “Your brother understand that very well when he did not take the surname Willowe.”
Ronin drank the soup, but he was wearing a wide sneer as he did. What stroke of luck for things to develop this way.
It would be harder to pull Belladonna into the harem if she was to pretend to be a man.
He turned to her. “I can teach you a thing or two about pretending. But first, you need a new name and identity.”
Duke Taevas nodded. “Yes. You are now the son of my distant cousin, who I have adopted after losing my daughter to a disease.”
“And what shall be my name?” Belladonna asked.
She was still a little uncomfortable for pretending to be the very men he despised, but remembering Ronin’s advice, had to agree.
Ronin came up with the name for her. “You are Don. It won’t be hard to adjust to that name, wouldn’t it?”
“Don…..”
She liked how he considered she would want something close to her name and smiled.
“I don’t dislike it.”
Their father stood up and raised his glass for a toast over the feast of peafowl.
“We shall celebrate this night. For this is the night that Don Asuli of Hose Zafeiri was born!”
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