"Father, please teach me the trade." It was an awkward silence between Valeria and her father. They were in his Victorian-style office this time. Engravings were among the walls, a finer embroidered room than what Valeria's father had the angry talk with her in. Kimiko can understand why.
"You...want to learn the trade?" He was agaped with shock and awe, not much to Kimiko's surprise. All Valeria seem to ever have done with her time was buy useless dresses and complain about the pettiest things, including boy troubles. Kimiko blinked, did the protagonist even know how the empire ran either?
It was never mentioned, Kimiko grimly thought. It had to be a flimsy romance novel for teenage girls. It wouldn't surprise Kimiko if even the author didn't know themselves.
"It's time for me to change my ways, father. Mother would've wanted that." It was a good enough excuse for Valeria's sudden change of heart. Kimiko's words were confirmed when she saw Valeria's father flinched in reaction. "I...I shouldn't have brought up your mother the other day, my starlight." He swallowed down the nervous saliva he was making. "I know she's still a painful topic for both of us."
Yes, a painful topic for both Valeria and her father. Kimiko made a frown at the thought of her own mother. Would she had gave a damn after not seeing her daughter all these years in her lowly apartment, bleeding and drowning in her own pool of blood?
"Father, you made me realize that my errors are enough."
Probably not.
Kimiko moved Valeria over to the desk her father resigned to. His count work stacked in mounds of parchment paper left u0ntouched until later in the day. "I wish to become honorable and fit for rule of our household from now on." Whether or not Kimiko will admit it, but the prince denouncing Valeria's household name was offensive on its own. But she saw where he was coming from in doing so.
Valeria would've been a god awful countess, and an even worse empress. She didn't know anything besides what dress is coming out next week and to buy it up for her next weekend out.
Always bothered the protagonist for not wearing the best outfits only to rip up to shreds what she finally decided to get for a sleazy ball party.
"If you want to learn the trade, how will I know you won't back out when you get bored of it?" Kimiko knew Valeria's father would say this. His strict eyes watched her with a lacking sense of amusement as the feather pen between his fingers tapped the desk in a timely fashion, measuring the seconds going by for Kimiko's answer.
Without warning, Valeria was on the ground, bowing her whole body onto the soft carpet made from some foreign country. Valeria's father's eyes widen once more as he had to look over his desk to find his only heir to his household begging on her hands and knees. "Please father, I know I am unworthy after all I've done. You must regret not raising a son to take the seat!" "Valeria-" He was cut off cleanly, just as Kimiko planned. "I want to prove I have some form of competent to hold the seat and the throne itself one day. Please, teach me the trade so I can one day be worthy enough to be called your daughter!"
Perfect, playing the shameful daughter. Valeria's father shifted in his seat, moving from it to hurry to Valeria's side and pull her up from her spot. "Valeria! Its unwitting for a noble to be begging like a poor begger out on the streets!" Valeria gotten up from the floor when her father commanded it. Her dress of midnight black was now covered slightly in some form of dust, proving that the beastmen were yet to clean the room that day, if Valeria's father even lets them.
"Please answer my plea, father. I will only ask of this one last thing from you." His mouth twitched as he stared down at her smaller form. His voice was hesitant, yet clear. "I will teach you the trade, but you can not leave behind your duties. Keep this promise well, my starlight." Valeria nodded and on that note, they began to work on setting Valeria's new meaning to life.
~|~
"Lady Valeria, are you sure you wish to write a letter to the prince right now? He might still be upset?" "He'll be upset anyway when he gets his letter anyway."
Kimiko knew the ball was coming up soon. And she knew the outcome of it isn't going to go in her favor. She also knew that when the prince annul their engagement, whatever power is left of the Donovan house would be gone, and the house in shatters.
How could Valeria do what she did without thinking? To think a simple woman could do so much damage is unsettling to Kimiko, but there was nothing she could do now but fix whatever was salvageable to survive.
In all honesty, Kimiko didn't know what happens to Valeria after her banishment. But she didn't want to find out either. Valeria's whereabouts in the novel weren't clear. Kimiko assumed it was the cliche of turning into a nun or thrown into some poor house no longer seen again by the kingdom's people.
What all cliche fantasy-romance novels did.
But Kimiko wasn't going to simply take the vile punishment, especially now since she's a completely different person in the woman's body. She can't go through what she had in her first life ever again.
With a quick sign from Valeria's hand, Kimiko pulled the parchment paper up to ensure her handwriting wasn't as poor as she hoped due to the availability of office pens to that of feather pens. She carefully read her handwritten paper among the crumpled up ones on her tableset in her room.
"Prince Ares, in due respect to how our relationship as turned, I request to annul our engagement. I do not require any compensation. I wish you well in your inheritance of the royal throne. May the prince brask his sun onto his people. Blessed by your aura, Valeria Donovan"
It was good enough to Kimiko. She had a plan. If she was the one to annul the engagement, then the prince couldn't destroy her house's power completely. If she did it, she loses the right to being empress, but she keeps her house intact and the prince couldn't destroy the house by sheer right due to being her fiance and supreme ruler.
The laws were complicated in this world from a book to simple. Kimiko read a law book last night completely just to find laws about engagements and rights among annulment. Kimiko made a deep sigh of relief at finding out a way to escape the banishment.
Her reputation, always ruined by her truly, will go down more but her house and Valeria's father, was safe. The man, bless him, wasn't a awful man. He looked out for Valeria the whole time she was born.
He already lost his wife. How much could a man go through by losing his daughter and his own pride?
Without another second, Kimiko asked Sol to send the letter to the royal palace of the rising sun.
~|~
It would be at least a week until Kimiko heard a response about her annulment with the prince. By then, from all her strict training by Valeria's father in a week time, she already was working on re-working her merchant books. Valeria's father couldn't believe how determined Valeria was on standing her own ground.
It wasn't even a letter back in response to her own as she expected, it was the prince himself who bolted in without so much as a knock.
Beastmen followed behind him with nervous eyes, watching the scene. "M-My lady, our apologies! We didn't-!" Valeria's hand went up. "It's fine, you may all take a break." The prince's face was horribly distorted with anger, that even his natural beauty was slightly damaged from the deranged look. "Your highness, to what do I owe-" "You dare embarass me with this foolish parchment?!" He threw an open letter onto Valeria's new desk that was placed recently by her father.
The beastmen watched in fear as they hurried out of the room. Kimiko didn't blame them. Why would they stay to watch their dangerous lady squall with the prince?
The only one to stay, was Sol at her side oddly enough.
Kimiko blinked and looked down to the crinkled letter. It was her handwriting about the annulment. Why would he be against this? Unless he planned on embarrassing her and destroying Valeria's household at the ball.
Valeria's eyebrows crinkled in disgust at the thought. But, Valeria was a scumbag. She deserved the things she was getting, but Kimiko was here now.
She wasn't going down without a fight.
"I dare not to humilate you, your highness. I completed it in thought of the kingdom. For the prince's fiancée to be the way she is would bring shame and danger to it. Surely you believed this too when you took yourself a commoner mistress." Valeria finished writing her page of accounting as the prince shivered in anger in front of her.
"You...you were a thorn in my side since Allya came into the picture." Kimiko let him continue as she went to the next page of work. Sol's nose twitched and held a frown as she watched Valeria simply brushed off the prince's anger. This was dangerous, but Kimiko kept her ground.
"How dare you annul our engagement like it was nothing!" "Isn't this far better for the kingdom, your highness? I am sure you took in Allya for she fairs better for our sun lit kingdom. Her skills on the kingdom duties must come naturally to her compared to mine." The prince flinched, and not soon after his hands turn into fists.
Allya didn't know anything about how a kingdom works, Kimiko knew that. She was a simple commoner with no adheres to noble laws. The novel mentioned that clearly at least. Kimiko thought about it and realized that the kingdom more than likely fell apart soon after the marriage and the curse came through the kingdom once again.
Many died, but at least the couple lived happily ever after, Kimiko grimly thought.
"You mock her...while you act like a child!" Valeria looked up, "Mock her? I believe in the prince's mindset to find a worthy empress for the throne by his side." A sudden bang of the desk overhead the room with sound. "...But it is very questionable how a man would be so eager to burst into a woman's chambers without warning, especially when he has a woman by his side already."
The room was silent and filled with tension.
"If this is about a silly dress, I will replace it at an earnest time before the ball. I will not be going anyway." "You're...not going to the ball?" "I have duties I need to catch up on. Does this not please you?" It should actually, but Kimiko knew the prince wanted her there to rule it all out himself.
Kimiko won't give him the pleasure.
The prince clenched his fists on the desk and shivered with bottled rage that no human should be able to withhold. It actually made Kimiko stop the work she was doing. "You...were even thinking of standing me up at the royal ball...!" Kimiko try to stop her snort. This man was full of himself. But to be fair, Valeria was a scumbag. The odds of Valeria maltreating her own fiancé, specifically the crown prince himself, were not far-fetched.
"Standing up the crown prince himself, is something not even I would do. However, it seems the prince is far more willing to do the same to me at the same ball with his new mistress." It was almost unnoticeable, seeing the prince flinched from where he stood. His nervous sweat on his hands confirmed as much. He made a dry, weak chuckle. "To think, that I was actually once in love with you." "No."
Kimiko was quick. She made her own definition of love in her past life. She wasn't going to let a man dictate her on what love is, not anymore.
"You never were, my prince. Besides, it's foolish to rely on love to spread the security of a rising sun to the people." "You dare question my words?" The prince hissed. Without even a hesitation, "Yes, as a former upcoming queen would do. For the good of the people."
Kimiko wanted a break already from dealing with the man, even if his face was a pleasure to look at in all shallowness. Now, he will want to leave her out of lacking patience now-
"I'm not breaking the engagement off."
Huh?!
Kimiko felt a vein ready to pop in her head. "My prince-!" "And I will not call it off at the ball either. We'll do it properly if necessary. For now, you're obliged to come to the ball. And I swear as a oath that I will go to the ball with you by my side." What is with the sudden change? This didn't make sense!
Kimiko was speechless. The silence returned so quiet a pin could be heard dropping. "I...what of your mistress? The people will talk!" Kimiko had to find a way to keep Valeria from going to the ball. She was not having her plans ruined for the sake of a bratty crown prince. "She would understand. She always did." "Why would you do this?! You gain no benefit from this!" Ares moved to sit down at a nearby chair. "Allya's not ready. She needs training, and she would want the people to consider her truly there for them. Until then, I should keep you logically. It doesn't mean I have to like it, though."
The man was a god damn fool. And Kimiko will have her way to escape from his clutches. "I am evoking my right as your fiancée to refuse the marriage then. My father will not take to this matter well." Honestly, Kimiko didn't know how Valeria's father would cope with the news of the annulment. She hoped the remaining power of the household would be enough to send the other nobles a wakeup call about the situation if the Duke speaks out.
The faction war between nobles and monarchy would be easy to tip. A mutiny is not hard to achieve in such times when the ruling family is seen no longer able to lead the throne. But...
Was Kimiko willing to cause mayhem in the court and risk lives? She'd never forgive herself.
She made a small frown, "I want a contract for the annulment when Allya is considered ready." The prince paused, "Why would you be deserving of a deal? With what little rights your household has left to use?" Kimiko swallowed, "When Allya is prepared, I want to keep certain assets and a testimony from the prince to clear my name of wrongdoings." They stared at each other for a long period of time.
Only Sol's eyes were widen in horror at the scene in the background.
"There's witnesses to your wrongdoings, Valeria." "Who? You mean those who already were in favor of Allya and wished to remove me from my seat?" Sol's whiskers twitched nervously. "That's..." "To think you were so quick to defend a common woman and fiddle with her behind your fiancée back. Do you not think it is my justified right to defend what honor I had? How do you think you look among the nobles, walking into the chambers of a mistress while your fiancée is forced into a corner for defending the law of rising sun?"
That was perfect! Almost too perfect! Kimiko was happy to switch the topic against him now.
He'll have to listen now.
Ares made a twitch of his own mouth. "Very well, what assets do you acquire?" "My household, my status as a seated nobleman at the table, and citizenship status in the kingdom until the day I cease existence." Not bad, Kimiko. He may not like it, but his hands are now tied. She may not have asked for anything via letter, but she might as well use this chance to keep herself a solid position in the kingdom without danger of exile.
The people who were on Allya's side were commoners. No matter how many were with her, its the nobles who hold the power and they sided with Valeria.
"Also, I am not going to the ball. I have no more will to deal with you." Valeria stood up in her elegant gown and beckoned him to leave, "Go play with your common toy," Kimiko thought about her next words, just to anger the man. "I have a upstanding man coming in soon to take me out to tea. It'll be messy if he thinks I'm still seeing you."
The prince's eyes turned pale and his mouth slightly ajawed from the shock of what he was told. "B...But you always follow me around, and annoyed me with your clingy...when?!" Valeria picked at her ear. "Leave, my prince." Her expression changed, showing her confidence.
Without missing another few seconds, the prince left with a slam of a door. Valeria kept standing as she heard the feet hurrying away. She let out a breath, not knowing how much she was holding it for as she sat back down. "M-My lady, how are you feeling?" "Very annoyed." Kimiko admitted in a grumble. "I...Is there truly a man coming? I shall ready your outside clothes-" "I lied. Take the day off, Sol. I can handle it from here." Sol perked up, "T-Thank you, my lady! I'll be in my chambers then!" The beastwoman left without much questioning.
Kimiko wouldn't blame her, dealing with Valeria back then must've been a pain, and terrifying. But Kimiko never understood one thing:
The beastmen are strong, capable people. Even better than humans. How can they be enslaved by the weaker race? Kimiko will have to look it up. She couldn't ask the beastmen. It would look like mockery and bigot if she went up to them.
For now, Kimiko just wanted to finish up the last paperwork and take a hard nap.
~|~
"Huh? She actually said that to you?" A man roared out in laughter. It was a knight captain, a secondary love interest in accordance to the novel. Sir Thorne von Blaise, coming from an upstanding noble house that was always in support of the royal family since their inauguration as the head family.
His black hair kept in proper order via knight law. His father was a knight captain, and his father before him was as well. It was his destiny to become a knight captain, whether or not he was truly fit for it. The kingdom hasn't been in a war for some years yet he and the prince has been considered two of the best fighters alive. Blessed by divine right from the official kingdom religion.
"And she figured out what you planned to do at the ball? Damn, someone must've told her." "No." Ares was still at a lost from what occurred earlier that week. It shouldn't have affected him that much, but it was like something was eating him alive by how the woman who was always following him around now deciding to throw him away for another man.
Ares toyed with the food in front of him, a dish considered refined and worthy for his mouth. A dish from the seafood conquering town of Alston. According to what his butler told him, it was a town held by commoners who loved the prince and only ever made his dishes and nobody else.
"There was something different about her. Her posture was different, her eyes..." Ares stopped himself from going further. Thorne blinked in the midst of the silence that his long time friend created. "Wh...You mean she changed or something? You must be exhausted, awaiting for the ball, your highness." Thorne was never the one to keep his thoughts to himself. He always told Ares his mind. Sometimes, it did get him in trouble every now and again. "You think of me as a fool, Thorne?"
Ares' eyes changed, holding a void of malicious intent next to him. It was like all the time spent together over the years didn't matter in Ares' conquest to prove he was far higher than the noble knight could ever hope to possibly achieve.
"Of course not, your highness! It's just..." Thorne had a kink to know when to be careful with his next words. He knew Ares, and how easy he was to outbursts and temper tantrums. He didn't know exactly why, but the prince always been an angry man on the inside, one day hoping to lash it out on the right person.
Valeria was supposed to be that person.
"A woman like that wouldn't ever change so easily. You know how she is. Scum through and through. She ripped that dress of Allya's in front of my own eyes. Even..." Thorne stopped for a moment, a frown overtaking his usual confident appearance. "Well, its in discussion of her rumored treason against our beloved prince as well."
"Don't you dare speak of such a filthy rumor!" Ares blew out, hitting the seafood dish with his silverware that he ended up breaking his dishware into pieces with his raw strength. He panted lightly as Thorne kept a look of distain to his best friend. "...To think that woman would dare side with those disgusting, filthy elves is laughable! She must be seeing an elf man by that logic! She can live in their soggy filth and pagan, cannibalistic religion for all I care!"
When the temper was over, Ares cleaned his face. "I'll send a spy to overwatch her habits. If she is seeing a dirty, damning elf, I'll have her head on a block immediately." Ares stood up and left without a second thought. Thorne would've been speechless if he wasn't used to the prince's attitude.
He picked at his own plate of food as a maid hurried to clean up after the prince. Thorne likes to think he was a forgiving man.
But he didn't think he'll forget the prince's actions he saw that day.