Chapter 4: Fishing for tea

Waking up was supposed to be one of her best moments in the day.

That's what Emilia always felt like in the mornings. The time of preparation for another day with her knight, her sweat, caring, idiot boy knight.

But this notion instantly changed as the days went by. Right up to that moment, things had been just like a fairy tale. She was spending time with a boy so loyal and generous that it made her heart beat faster every time she called him her knight. This was supposed to be her road towards understanding love and seeing it first hand. She truthfully wouldn't want anyone else in this world to teach her this amazing feeling…

But now…

He appeared.

An evil, vile little devil spawn that she couldn't wait to get rid of! Away from her mansion, from her village, her life!

Up ending everything she had been thinking about the innocence of children and kids. Emilia is now more than terrified of the thought of a small child coming near her or else they might be just like that little gremlin! He was so rude to her all the time! So disparaging and hurtful. Disgusting with his stupid unfunny pranks!

The sliver-haired lady couldn't do anything but hug her blanket tightly while wrapping it around her frame.

"Stupid!"

The muffled out voice of Emilia was heard from beneath the covers she was hiding in.

Waking up was supposed to be one of her day's best moments because it meant she would see her knight and spend time with him. But now… after a simple week with this newly integrated boy inside of the mansion… things changed, heavily.

The silver-haired half-elf was border on afraid of leaving her bed now. She wasn't ready to face another cold empty day of no Subaru to make her laugh and feel loved. Not to mention all of the nasty traps that this new gremlin boy called 'pranks' that she would surely be victim too across her day. She was supposed to study for her royal duties without break all day according to her schedule, the only moments of relief were the ones she had spent with her knight. And now he was gone. Her mornings are no longer bright and knowing the exact pattern of the last few days this week, she might wake up to either a stupid trick, like having her face drawn on, or having some of her carpets soaked with water that was generally nasty to walk on barefoot.

Small things, yes. But she hated how smug that little devil was about them. It grinded her the bad way every time she saw him satisfied with her unhappiness. He was supposed to be the smaller version of Subaru. He was supposed to be her Subaru. Yet, this was no Subaru in Emilia's eyes. This was an imposter that temporarily swapped with her knight and she could not wait for him to go.

Stuck in her sanctuary of bless beneath her blankets, the lean girl was more than willing to let sleep overtake her again. She didn't care about her busy study schedule or her duties. Just her own fluffy world of blackness beneath the covers. She was whole and safe. She wasn't reminded how much she missed her knight here because she can easily picture him laying beside her. She had him right here. No small devils to ruin her mood, no nasty glares from Beako.

Just her and her knight in the darkness.

"Emilia-sama… Pardon me, but you need to get ready for breakfast."

"Go away!"

After what had seemed a strong commanding yell from the half-elf turned into a muffled noise because the princess was clearly yelling through her blanket, the blonde maid couldn't help but ask again, "Pardon? Emilia-sama, please get up. You need to get ready for your scheduled sessions."

Frederica only received a long drawn out groan from the humped blankets as a response.

Unraveling the world of fluffiness around her, the groggy beautiful half-elf rose with the most pitiful pout on her face.

"It seems… you didn't have the best sleep, Emilia-sama." Frederica nervously pointed out after observing the look of the half-elf before her. She wasn't really expecting the royal princess to be this untidy and groggy in the morning since the princess always seemed to take be waking up with a shining smile every day.

"Mhm…" Emilia's mouth was itched into a deep uncomfortable frown, her brows were shaped in a way that made her look like she was almost glaring at the floor.

The princess wasn't really in the best of moods.

"Emilia-sama, your morning shower has been prepared for you. Maybe that would help lighten your mood a bit?"

"My mood is just fine, Frederica-chan… I'm just tired from a late night's sleep is all. I apologize for my rudeness."

Seemingly more awake, Emilia dismissed the maid with a curt smile and a tired nod before standing out of her bed to begin her normal routine.

"If you need me to help with anything, I will be right by the door to the bathes."

"Thank you, Frederica."

The blonde maid bowed her head to the groggy Emilia and left the room with the door closing behind her.

:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

After a good shower, the now refreshed Emilia looked much more happy and less tired. She stepped inside the placate room where everyone in the mansion is supposed to eat together. She said her greetings although uncomfortable as it made her feel. She noticed that the usual crowd that was named her camp was missing a few individuals from the count.

Looking around, Emilia turned to a certain rough blonde that was face-planted on the luxurious wooden table before him.

"Um, Garfiel-kun? Where are Roswaal and Beako-chan? Why aren't they here with us?" Emilia asked, noticing that since she was always the one to wake up last and find that everybody was at the table everyday, there must be something happening for them to be more late than she was to the breakfast.

"Tis not ma fault…. I'm jus' playin' all around you… *snore * I'mma whip…. The na-"

"He's been up late last night trying to memorize some of Natsuki-san's musical… 'lyrics' as he called it."

Turning her head, Emilia faced a tired looking Otto that was sitting down on the opposite side of Garfiel. The merchant shook his head at the knocked out snot dweller he called friend and glanced back to the princess with a welcoming smile.

"Lyrics? Did Subaru teach him those phrases he keeps saying in his sleep?" Emilia inquired and took a seat at the head of the table.

The merchant boy sighed with slumped shoulders and explained in a suffering tone, "It was one of Natsuki-san's 'fun' events he used to do all the time. He taught Garf some songs and poetry from his home town and they seemed good enough for him to be obsessed with them."

"Are they fun songs?" Emilia inquired while taking a bite of her bread.

Otto simply shook his head with a sour look of regret on his face, as if he saw the entire world crash and burn before him once.

Emilia's eyes reverted upwards from the sitting merchant boy to the two maids standing at the other end of the room.

They seemed to have heard this conversation and both have taken different reactions.

Frederica seemed to slowly grow expressionless with now hint of emotion showing on her at all. Emilia dared to think that the demi-human was dead inside as her pretty emerald pupils lost all will to live.

Ram simply embraced her new found will to die and inched closer to the fire place propped beside her.

"Were they that bad?!" Emilia asked, shocked that everyone in the room was depressed by just the memory of Subaru's singing.

"It wasn't that they weren't bad… they just didn't make any sense!" Otto refuted while trying to drink some water.

"He just repeated the same three phrases a lot without a rhythm or flow." Frederica naturally cut in, voice monotone as her colorlessness reached the deepest parts of her soul.

"That nasty man wasn't even compassionate enough to warn us of the vulgar words he would spew. Disgusting Barusu." Ram appeared to be struggling to calm down as she remembered some very unpleasant memories about her experience hearing Subaru sing.

'Sing'… Now that's a kind word to call it.

"W-When did you hear him sing those things? I only heard good things from Subaru's musical talents and I don't know if you heard something else."

"It was the day before he went to meet with Sir Marcus in the capital to officiate his name as a knight. Barusu wanted to leave us with some of his home's music to not mess him. I have to say… we did not."

"O-Okay… but why is Garfiel singing in his sleep now?" Emilia asked, baffled.

At this, the pink-haired maid standing at the end of the table smirked smugly. "Because Ram took it upon herself to teach Barusu some actual musical lessons with appropriate songs."

Finding herself at a loss, Emilia turned to Otto again, making the gray-haired boy sigh before answering her.

"Ram-san cough sorry. Ram-sama is teaching Natsuki-san a formal education for whatever she sees him fit in. Yesterday, she wanted to see if she could actually improve Natsuki-san's musical abilities."

With her head held high, Ram's asserted how proud she was of the results, "Hmph! I managed to overturn the previous disgusting displays that Barusu had been used too. Now he's a competent singer thanks to Ram's dutiful teachings."

Suddenly, a face of disappointment showed on Emilia. "Ah," the silver-haired girl looked dimly uninterested with the topic suddenly, "I guess you were referring to that little moron."

Emilia ignored everyone's confused expressions and started eating her food with a small glare present on her features.

Otto and Ram glanced with confused expressions.

Frederica simply frowned at the princess.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Roswaal had always missed out on most of the fun. He had to pick up the slack without his beloved book telling him every step to world domination so he had to actually do a lot of work to still keep up with the randoms of this world. Luckily he had a big mansion to hide in.

But sometimes, his stay inside of the same office everyday filled his already dystopian soul with dust and despair.

So this is why he was more than delighted to be rowing a boat in the middle of a lake at this moment in time.

"You are really dramatic mister!" A person grumbled in front of him. Roswaal stopped looking up towards the beautiful trees that surrounded him and his boat and glanced to the second occupant on the floating wood.

"Hm~? What would you mean by thaaaat, dear Subaru-kun~?" The high lord asked his 'surprise' companion that had chosen to accompany him on this trip.

"Why would you still have weird make-up and stupid looking clothes on? Aren't they going to get wet?"

Roswaal's company was none other than a small aloof looking boy with really hardened looking eyes and neatly done black-hair. Looking up at the weird man, the newly de-aged Subaru was staring with puzzlement at the man's attire. The clown guy had always been a weird person to the boy. He could not help but feel a strong air of distrust coming out of the lord, which made Subaru not want to interact with this guy at all.

"That is quiiiite the harsh thing to say to your lord, Subaru-kuuun~." Roswaal's face held a smile of amusement at the youngling beside him.

"The way you talk is weird too!"

Now that the boy was alone with the guy, his instinct to fulfill his curiousness weren't being held back by anyone. He would always just keep away from the man because he found him generally uncomfortable and because Ram-sama would always warn him about disrespecting the clown lord.

Subaru would never disobey his Sensei-Onee-san!

But now that the boy was left alone with the lord of the big mansion, his childish curiosity took a hold of him and so he was asking the lord of every conceivable query his head can come up with.

"Haha!" The lord found himself unable to hold back a genuine laugh as the boy's adorable interruptions were filled with nothing but childlike innocence and wonder. It was refreshing as it is depressing to him.

Wasn't this little one the same boy that Roswaal had set on breaking to fulfill his own goals?

…

"Ah…"

The nasty-eyed little one looked up at the man in confusion, "Did ya say something, mister?" his voice, filled with innocence and wonder, only seemed to dampen the clown's mood even more.

Roswaal's fingers held the trim of his fishing rod tight. He trembled in place for a moment.

The boy stared at him with curiosity, fascinated by the range of emotion ranging across Roswaal's face. Even though the lord tried to hide it best he could, Subaru still noticed the dark haunted stare in his eyes. Maybe this was the reason why Subaru held an apprehensive feeling towards the man in the first place? Maybe because he was the only one that saw the darkness laying behind the clown's creepy smile every time.

Confused, worried, yet more so curious… The boy whispered softly to his companion on this trip… "Mister… Why do you look so sad?"

"..."

The man kept his silence… His thoughts and emotions placed in a lockdown of hardened stone cold rejection that seemed to be usual for him and him alone. Roswaal hid away his greatest emotion, guilt, behind another cold yet charming smile, as he spoke once again in a smoothed out, trustworthy tone.

"I'm not sad, Subaru-kun. I was just thinking of ways to make this trip more fun for us both." The lord's attitude reserved a place in the best acting ever done. He was surely dealing with a lot of explosive emotions but his mask was quite containing and he was sure the boy would be deceive-

"You didn't talk weirdly that time too…"

"What?" Roswaal asked, baffled for a moment.

Subaru's innocent eyes kept staring right at him, "You didn't say the weird aaaaah thing you always do, mister."

The clown couldn't handle the boy's kindness. He did not deserve such a pure soul to worry about him. He wasn't worthy of this child's sympathy, not after what Roswaal had done to his grown up counterpart. Not after he followed his teacher's ways to the max just to achieve his own dream.

So, when faced with this version of Subaru, a child that didn't hold any hostility or malice in his gaze when he looked at the Margrave, Roswaal could only do the simplest thing.

Roswaal was compelled to do the right thing.

He would do it because he had to.

"Subaru-kun." Roswaal called with his gloved hand placed softly on the little one's shoulder, eyeing the boy with a distant gaze.

"Yes, mister?" The sharp yet innocent looking eyes of the 8-year-old stared up at the clown man Ram had told him so much about Subaru couldn't help but admire. He was a real life super hero that dressed weird and had some creepy vibes.

Ram-sama wasn't a lair.

Roswaal is supposed to be cool!

The clown lord smiled fondly at the boy and did what he needed to do a long time ago…

"Forgive mee~".

"Wha-…*SPLASH* ?!"

And as Subaru was pushed into the dirty lake by a giddy clown costumed man, he couldn't help but feel betrayed.

Ram-sama was full of shit.

"I'm not going to her lessons anymore."

Subaru thought as he struggled to swim back up to the surface, he was lucky that his dad taught him about swimming in public pools the year before. But before Subaru could reach the surface, a bubble magically covered him, seemingly airing out all of the water inside and letting the boy breath inside of it.

Gasping for air, Subaru helplessly watched as the bubble rose from the depth of the lake and up above the boat he'd just been thrown off from. On the boat, a scheming devil smirked at the trapped kid.

The 8-year-old could only shout with tears in his eyes at the man he once admired and trusted.

"Screw you! Y-You stupid clown! I hate you I hate you I hate you! Why would you do tha- -t?!" The boy's angry cries ended with a sniffle of sadness as tears began replacing the lake water on his cheeks.

Despite earning a glare from a boy that used to be fond of him, Roswaal couldn't help but feel relieved in his heart that the boy hated him now.

"That's more like it, Subaru-kun. Don't ever change on me."

"Sorry, not sorry, Subaru-kuuun~~ I had to give you a lesson today and this is the best way to start it, I suppooose." The adult clown shrugged his shoulders as the boy's bubble centered over the boat, floating in the air.

The boy looked at the clown with malice and hatred, outraged by the guy's nonchalant way of almost murdering him!

"Why'd you do that?! I didn't do anything to you! Y-You are a bully! You're a bad person and I wish you get hurt!"

"... That's exactly it, Subaru-kun~"

Staring at each other, the sniffling, frustrated boy yelled at the smirking Margrave in a clown costume.

"WHAT IS IT?!"

Without further angering the boy, Roswaal's smirk grew wide as he finally got to the true reason this entire trip was planned.

"This is exactly how Emilia-sama feels like when you torture her, Subaru-kuuuuun~~"

"..."

The boy's eyes widened in shock.

:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

"So what if he's not around anymore? It doesn't mean there couldn't be traps hidden all over the room!"

Frederica sighed in frustration, her last attempt at getting Emilia away from her little side argument with the minor shining spirits around her failed again.

"Emilia-sama, you need to stop wasting so much time worrying over nonsensical things like this. He's just a bo-"

"No! I won't get into my office until every thing has been checked and blessed by the spirits around us! You never know what he could be hiding in there." Emilia seemed to growl at the last of her sentence while frowning deeply towards her quarter's doors.

At the look of the half-elf and the dimming of the bright blue colored orbs that represented a spirit's od around them, Frederica couldn't help but notice the slight hint of bangs under the beautiful princess's eyes.

"It seems you really have run yourself rugged flocking to this boy's level, Emilia-sama." the blonde maid sounded smoothly without restraint, making the royal with silver-hair glance at her with surprise.

Emilia wasn't expecting those words from the maid. And she sure as heck didn't expect the next ones.

"Emilia-sama, please come with me." The maid sounded in a commanding tone. One Emilia wasn't used too from the usually polite and serious demi-woman.

"F-Frederica-san!" Emilia pleaded but the blonde maid had already held the half-elf's wrist and pulled Emilia with her into the lavish comfortable office.

Emilia squeaked and closed her eyes, afraid of all of the nasty things she could find thrown at her face at any moments time. Or the wave of unnatural smells left undoubtedly by the nasty boy's newst prank.

But… Nothing had happened.

"Wha…?"

Emilia opened her eyes to the standard polished floor and furniture, the smell of leather and husks of paper filling her nose instead of the horrible, terrible, nightmares that constantly invaded her imagination.

Everything was fine.

It was so anit-climactic.

"See?" Frederica pointed with crossed arms beside Emilia's desk, "Nothing has happened, Emilia-sama. Please stop letting this child overwhelm you in such a manner."

"Heh… I've been a lot more… unfocused lately. Please forgive my frustrating worry, Frederica-san."

"That's not it at all, Emilia-sama."

"Hm…?"

The blonde maid sighed with a look of determination dawning her face, making Emilia fall into a nervous flinch once the emerald eyes sternly glanced towards her.

"Emilia-sama, please sit down. We must talk about your way of handling the young master Subaru."

Emilia gulped and strutted towards her seat with quick boot falls.

She really wished her knight was here.

Can't be asked to continue the chapter lol. Next chapter is where Emilia and Little Baru sit down and genuinely have a discussion about themselves. We'll see if they remain rivals or become true siblings by the end.

Yes, this chapter was uninspired. I only write this story fro stress relief lmao.

Also, yeah, whdaaa is still being reworked and I WILL be doing season 2 and the what ifs