Chapter 5: 05: The Villainess is Unfazed

House arrest blows.

Ecclesia spends the entirety of the next month cooped up indoors, watching the grounds wistfully as her father’s knights trained. It isn’t raining, but she pretends: she runs her fingers down her glass window as if she was tracing a raindrop, and sighs a lot: big, dramatic sighs of a troubled maiden in the depths of despair. Everyone, even her beloved maid Sally, ignores her.

Her father comes into the room at the tail end of her exile and eyes her with bemusement.

“Not now, father, I am wallowing.”

“You’re doing an exceptional job. Am I not going to get a proper greeting from my only daughter? The apple of my eye, the reason my heart keeps beating, the— oomph.”

He takes a step back as Ecclesia tackles him in a hug, hiding her grin in her stomach. Her father’s a busy man, and rarely joins them at meals—it had been a while since she saw him.

Once she has regulated her grin, she looks up at him. “What brings you to my humble abode?”

His expression sobers, and his hand comes to her hair, undoing all the hard work of her maids as he ruffles her curls into their natural, spiky mess.

“How was your punishment? I heard from the staff that you were being very well-behaved.”

“It was nothing, father! I will face much worse when I’m exiled in the good ending. Or if I die crushed by a dragon in the bad ending, but that’s neither here nor there. It was good practice! I worked on my knitting.”

Her father visibly decides not to ask. “I’m happy you were good, Ecclesia.” He pokes her cheeks. “But as you know, assaulting a prince is no small thing. We have been summoned for an audience with the king.”

Ecclesia balls her fists. “Father, do not worry, I have a plan. You see, Prince Dominion—”

He pinches her lips closed. His eyes are crinkled in a smile: he has the same pink hair and red eyes at her, and she hopes she will one day be as beautiful and kind as he is.

“I could never worry, with a daughter like you,” he says, and the conviction in his voice stills the beating wings in her chest. “Violent and rowdy but just and kind. Don’t let anyone make you feel like you should be lesser than you are.”

Ecclesia hides her face in his coat again. Her eyes burn.

“What if I got you in trouble,” she says, very quiet.

“You didn’t,” he says, and pats her hair. “Don’t worry. The king likes you. He said that Prince Cassius was getting too big for his britches anyways.”

“He did?”

“Yep.”

Ecclesia nods firmly. Her father’s an optimist: she can see why her mother picked him up like a stray and decided to adopt him. She swears to protect his innocence as well.

She reaches up on her tiptoes to pat his head. Looking slightly bewildered, he lowers his head to help her reach when he realizes what she’s doing.

“Don’t worry, father,” she says, with determination. “I’ll take care of everything.”

“O…kay? Um, I’m a respected peer of the realm, you know, Ecclesia, you don’t have to keep patting me—”

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“There, there,” she says. She wonders at her chances of borrowing knuckledusters before their castle visit. “It’s all going to be okay.”

*

The knuckledusters were a bad idea. She should have seen this coming.

“I’m sure they’re an accessory, as you say, my Lady,” says the guard at the castle gates, unsubtly trying to pry them from Ecclesia’s hot little hands. “But they could be misconstrued as a weapon, and that therefore wouldn’t be allowed—”

“But,” Ecclesia pants, tugging, “they’re so pretty! I could—”

Her father frowns. “They’re really not. Beloved daughter, your taste has deteriorated during your stint of staying indoors.”

“I agree, Ecclesia.”

The despicable figure of Leonard appears at the door of their carriage. He sidesteps Ecclesia’s little wrestling match entirely and climbs inside, dipping a neat bow to her father that’s smilingly returned.

“Ah, Prince Leonard,” says her father.

“Urk,” says Ecclesia, as the guard wrenches her knuckledusters away and holds it aloft triumphantly. To Leonard, she says, “this is all your fault.”

“Provably untrue,” he says. “You should have worn a different dress. You don’t look like a sad misunderstood.”

“That’s so boring. You’re such a boring little kid. It’s villainess chique.”

“You’re a boring kid.”

“Now, children,” says her father amiably. “Get along. Both of you used to play together so well, what happened?”

“Get along?” Leonard’s voice goes shrieky before he regulates himself, and says, “My first memory is Ecclesia forcing me to swallow worms.”

“Mine too,” Ecclesia says with satisfaction.

“Hm. I may have had a rose colored view of the proceedings,” the duke admits. “I was just glad she had a friend. She was so anti-social as a baby. Tried to bite everyone that came close.”

Ecclesia wishes she could remember that. Sounds like a grand old time.

“And anyway,” her father continues. “The two of you stand as allies today. I hear the crown prince accused you of some form of violence against his esteemed person as well. Don’t make that face, Ecclesia. He is a powerful force in the kingdom right now and it would do well for both of your futures to apologize to him first.”

Ecclesia and Leonard exchange glances. Blue eyes on red, black hair against pink as they both tilt their heads in the same manic angle.

“I’ll think about it,” they both say, and crack identical, evil grins.

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