The Fall

"How could he do such a thing to me!? How?!" Rozemyne raged when she reached the sanctuary of her room, barely registering the shock and confusion on the faces of her attendants and guard knights there.

"Milady, what's wrong?" Brunhilda asked, sounding confused and perhaps a bit fearful.

"Don't worry about it, just leave me be," Rozemyne told her in as consoling tone as she could manage at the moment. When nobody moved but just remained staring at her, Rozemyne's temper started to boil again as she yelled, "Didn't you hear me? I said get out of my room now! All of you, get out of here before I have you released from my service!" With a great deal of fearful whimpering Rozemynes attendants quickly filed out of the room. Her eyes then fell upon Angelica and the guard knights, who looked uncertain what to do. "If you wish to remain guarding you can station a post outside my door, but right now I need the room cleared."

"A-as you wish, milady," Angelica stammered. Her manablade Steinluke remained silent, apparently having no faults with her decision, as Angelica led the other guard knights out of the room in a dignified manner, leaving only Rihyarda and Rozemyne the only ones still in the room.

"Milady, if I may..." Rihyarda began, but Rozemyne held up a hand to silence her as she said, "Rihyarda, I have a great amount of respect and admiration for you, please don't make me lose that by making me repeat myself now. I will hear what you have to say later, but for now if you could please...?"

"Of course, milady," Rhiyarda said with a respectful bow, "Don't hesitate to summon me should you need anything at all."

"Thank you," Rozemyne said with a grateful smile, which Rhiyarda returned. For a moment Rhiyarda had a conflicted look in her eyes, like she wanted to give Rozemyne a hug or something (which she would have accepted), but then she turned around and, with the dignified air of someone who had been serving the archduke family for generations, walked calmly out of the bedroom, shutting the door behind her.

The moment that Rozemyne confirmed that she was indeed alone in her room her gaze locked onto a nightstand on the right side of her bed (though if she was lying in it properly it would be the left.) Opening it she found that the drawer was occupied solely by a beautifully bound book of paper that she was using as a diary as well as a self-inking pen of her own design. It was once she lifted up the false bottom of the drawer that she found what she came over for: a pair of identical magic tools.

These tools, very much like the sound-blocking tools of Ferdinand's, were among the first magic tools Rozemyne had herself made in the Academy. Even though the function of them was similar to Ferdinand's anti-eavesdropping tools, there were a couple of notable differences between them. The first was that, unlike those Ferdinand made, her sound-blocking tools were made to take a licking and keep on ticking. Because the situations in which she would want to use them were likely to be ones in which she would be getting a bit emotional, Rozemyne made sure that they could withstand what mana she would release until she was able to get herself under control, a design point that her professors applauded.

The only other thing about her tools wasn't something that she could definitely say for sure that Ferdinand's couldn't do but rather that she discovered that hers could. To put it simply, her tools didn't require multiple users to prevent others from hearing those using them: so long as one person was holding a tool and touching it with their mana they were unhearable except for those wielding similar devices. It was this other functionality that Rozemyne put though its paces, belting out a primal scream of rage, frustration and pain that left her throat feeling raw and might have rattled her windows were it not for the magic tool held in her white-knuckle grip. After a few minutes (or was it longer, she wasn't sure) her screams of rage devolved into wails of despair, and again from there into gentle sobs of loss.

As Rozemyne rode this emotional rollercoaster two thoughts stood out in her mind. First was that she was glad that she cleared out her room before having this breakdown. Even though she had started growing again since her 2 year sleep recovering from the poison, and everyone said that she was growing up so fast, the fact is that she still looked much younger than what most people thought she was, which itself was even younger than what she actually was in this world. However, while she didn't want to look like a loli forever, and while she did want to finally clear up the remaining hardened mana within her and get truly healthy, Rozemyne was afraid of losing any more time by gathering ingredients for another potion to immerse herself in. As it was, if she had let anyone remain in here it would have looked to them like a little girl throwing a tantrum, and that's not what this was about.

The other thing that was on Rozemyne's mind was the thing that set her off tonight: Aub Ehrenfest's announcement during her coming of age ceremony. Ever since she was practically railroaded into this life as a noble Rozemyne knew that the day would come when she would have to be married. She had even accepted that there would likely be political motivations involved in those prospective partners that was presented to her. When it came right down to it, however, Rozemyne always thought that she would have a say in the matter. She never once thought that Sylvester would go and make the choice on his own without even consulting her! Even worse he chose Mitchell of all people to be her future fiancée, someone she would never have chosen for herself in a million years! Of course since Mitchell was an archduke candidate from a higher raked duchy it would improve Ehrenfest's standing politically speaking, but he couldn't be a worse match for her than oil and water. True he had a fairly large library, comparable in size to the one at the Academy, but he's made it clear from what talks she was practically forced to have with him do to the gap in their statuses that those books are strictly for show and are not to be handled under any conditions much less read. He also frowns upon interactions with commoners of any kind, relying on his retainers to deal with any merchants and craftsmen for anything they needed, which meant that she couldn't meet with her real family under the guise of conducting business anymore. Either one of those alone would have been dealbreakers, but the guy was conceited, arrogant, utterly convinced that he was the world's gift to women and that she was lucky to be spending time with him.

If things were different she would have turned his advances down flat and told him exactly what she thought of him, but even though she had managed to increase Ehrenfest's ranking in the time she was at the Academy it turned out that Mitchell's dutchy was ranked still higher. That meant that she had to be more tactful and polite in her missives with him, and unfortunately that wasn't enough to get across just how much she didn't want to be with him. With every meeting that she was practically forced to endure she couldn't help comparing him in her mind with Lutz. Mitchell had a huge library that he wouldn't let anyone touch, but while Lutz came from a poor family (like her own real one) he worked hard every day bringing each of her ideas to life, bringing her closer every day to her dream of building her very own library. Mitchell views commoners as specks of dust that are luke he allows them to exist beneath his feet, and while in public Lutz now treats Rozemyne with the respect and distance that this society expects commoners to treat nobles with, in private he acts like nothing has changed between them, that they're still the friends who had grown up together in the lower city. Mitchell was arrogant and abrasive where Lutz was understanding and kind. Mitchell acts like she she should be grateful he took notice of her, and while it's obviously awkward for him Lutz still lets her hug him to assuage her own loneliness at not being able to meet with her family as often as she liked, the magical contract prohibiting her treating them like her family, and his hugs always made her feel warm enough to chase that darkness away and make her heart race...

Rozemyne's breathing stilled and her crying stopped with a hiccup as she came to a realization: she loved Lutz, different from the way she loved her family or the way that she cared about the kids in the temple's orphanage that she watched over as its director and later as the High Bishop. It was more like the way she'd seen in those sappy soap operas her mom would watch back in her previous life in Japan or even in the books she herself read back then. Rosemyne then remembered that this wasn't the first time she felt like this: back when she first met Lutz and he complimented her on her hair (which was washed with the newly-invented but not-yet-named rinsham) she realized then that she had a bit of a crush on him. She had wrote it off back then on account of how she was 22 years old when she died as Urano and was reborn as Myne, accepting the feelings as inappropriate and accepting him as a friend and confidant instead.

This revelation did nothing to comfort her, however, as it just made her current situation that much more painful. Not only would Lutz not be accepted as a prospective fiancée what with his being a a commoner merchant with no mana capacity even close to hers (not that she wanted to curse her children with the mana density that made her sick all of this life, but that's what this society demanded), but also her engagement was arranged by the Aub Ehrenfest himself, and she has no way of telling him no despite how much she wants to. She supposed that she could just grab Lutz and make a run for it, on the way out introducing this world to a crude bit of sign language that no one would likely understand save perhaps Ferdinand (who might have seen it in her memories) but then Sylvester may well turn his fury on her family. Even if she could possibly find a way to take them all into hiding she would no doubt find that there was something nasty in that magical contract she signed, something Sylvester could use against her even if he couldn't find her in the event she did something like that and broke it. No matter where she looked she couldn't find a way out of this miserable situation.

Then Rozemyne almost forgot to breathe as she realized that there was a way. Just one way: she could leave this word much like the way she arrived into it. Of course it couldn't be exactly the same way she got here, as someone might get of a mind to check on her and would likely put a stop to it. Thinking back to her kidnapping back then, to what nearly happened to Charlotte, Rozemyne thought it was rather crude but effective, and if she planned it out right it would happen too quick for her to feel anything. Of course there might be some who wouldn't like what she had planned, but those who care about her wouldn't want her to be forced to live a miserable life with that chauvinistic noble, and as long as the magical contract remained unbroken they should be safe from any reprisals Sylvester might be inclined to take against them. Of course she would have to let someone know what was going on, so that her actions aren't misinterpreted in a way that leads to war or something else that might result in her friends and family getting harmed anyway, and considering his emotional detachment to most everything there was only one that she trusted to get the message across to everyone in a way that wouldn't be misinterpreted. So after steeling her resolve and getting her thoughts in order, Rozemyne summoned her ordonnanz and began to speak...

As he stalked out into the empty courtyard Ferdinand felt his fury at the one following right behind him threatening to disrupt his much vaunted control over his emotions. His actions tonight? Unbelievable! Never before, not even when he had found out how badly he failed to educate his son William in preparation for the Academy, had he been this disappointed in his brother. When he turned around he saw that Sylvester was looking rather irritated himself as he said, "Just what's the deal of dragging me all the way out here for?"

Taking a second to get his anger under control, Ferdinand shoved one of his sound-blocking tools into Sylvester's hand (perhaps a bit too forcefully) before he said, "You're lucky I didn't grab you by the ear and do it literally, fool!"

Sylvester looked rather gobsmacked at this remark, and so it was a moment before he was able to recover and say, "Just who do you think that you're talking to, Ferdinand!?"

"My brother, for whom I apparently shouldn't have stepped aside and left the dutchy to you if the way you're managing your family is anything to go by!" Ferdinand answered just as heatedly.

Sylvester was dumbfounded again by his brother's remarks, and so he once again and paused before he was able to say in a calmer tone, "In case you haven't noticed William was doing very well in the Academy. I mean his scores weren't anything like yours when you attended, obviously, but he's been passing his classes by a good margin, not to mention he's been impeccable at tea parties..."

"That wasn't you, you fool!" Ferdinand interrupted, resisting the urge to pull out that paper fan thing of Rozemyne's and smack his brother in the head with it, "That was Rozemyne! In fact everything that has been going well for Ehrenfest, from our duchy rising in the ranks to all the new products that have been attracting the attention of the other duchies, all of that is due to Rozemyne!"

"And I am ever so grateful to her for that," Sylvester said soothingly.

"Then why in the name of the gods did you undermine all of that by having her engaged to that whelp!?" Ferdinand yelled at him, "You couldn't have picked a worse match for her if you tried, and because you yourself did it she has no recourse to refuse! You might as well have told her 'Strap yourself to a post and have Rhiyarda give you 40 lashes' as that would have been less painful!"

"What are you talking about, Sylvester?" Sylvester retorted, his face showing his confusion, "Mitchell is first in line to be the Archduke of the 2nd highest ranked duchies next to the Sovereignty itself, not to mention that he's in possession of quite a large library of books..."

"Of which she wouldn't have any access to!" Ferdinand interrupted him again, his patience wearing dangerously thin, "That library might as well be a sealed tomb to her! Honestly, didn't you read that report on him I presented to you before forging ahead with your decision?"

"It was a bit wordy, but I skimmed it," Sylvester said defensively, earning him a sigh of frustration from Ferdinand, "Honestly I let you sort out the more complicated stuff for me."

"And that's my fault, isn't it?" Ferdinand growled, pinching the bridge of his nose as he squeezed his eyes shut, "Rozemyne tried to get me to take it easier, to focus on my own work at the Temple and tolet you take care of your own paperwork that you are more than capable of dealing with. However, when she was sleeping in the jureve I let myself fall back into bad habits and allowed you to talk me into taking work off your hands again."

"I really did need the help. Ferdinand," Sylvester said meekly.

"You were quite capable of handling that on your own, not to mention you have your own retainers to delegate to," Ferdinand retorted, then he felt a smile come to his face (which Rozemyne once called it 'malicious'), "but if that was truly too much for you then perhaps I should take the title of Aub off your hands as well."

Sylvester gasped loudly, his eyes wide as saucers as he clutched his free hand to his chest and said, "You wouldn't...!?

"It wouldn't be my first choice, no," Ferdinand said as he let his smile fall, letting Sylvester know that he was serious, "As you should know I like my life in the Temple, serving Rozemyne as her Head Priest, keeping the Temple in order, and during what free time I can find engaging in a bit of research. However, if it means protecting Rozemyne and Ehrenfest as a whole, then that's a sacrifice I'm willing to make."

This seemed to leave Sylvester at a loss of words. As his brother stood there floundering, Ferdinand saw Rihyarda approaching from the castle, looking rather irate, so Ferdinand collected his sound-silencing tool from Sylvester and put them both in his pouch so that they could hear what she had to say. Ferdinand had to make a conscious effort to not laugh when Sylvester turned pale as Rihyarda went up to him and pointed a finger in his face as she loudly said, "Sylvester! What in the world did you do to Rozemyne!?"

"Rihyarda?" Sylvester said, looking utterly baffled, "What do you mean? What happened with Rozemyne?"

"She came back from her coming-of-age ceremony in a rage, demanding that we all clear out of her room!" Rihyarda told Sylvester in a tone that gave even Ferdinand the chills, "I have never seen her like that, not even when we visited the Academy's library to get registered and I wouldn't let her tour it. Now tell me what you did to upset Rozemyne like that!"

"What make you think that it was me?" Sylvester said defensively.

"Because one of the first things she said upon getting to her room is 'How could he do such a thing to me!?', and at the top of the list of 'he's that could possibly upset our girl on a day like this is you. Now are you going to tell me...?"

"Sylvester 'announced' Rozemyne's engagement to a most unsuitable sutor," Ferdinand told her.

"Ferdinand!?" Sylvester protested, to which Ferdinand said unsympathetically, "You were taking too long."

"What do you mean by 'an unsuitable sutor' my boy?" Rihyarda asked as she turned her attention to Ferdinand.

"Well, among other things, he has a large library of books that absolutely nobody is allowed access to, much less to read anything from," Ferdinand explained.

"Are you out of your mind!?" Rihyarda yelled at Sylvester, who backed up and held his hands up defensively as he said, "I only knew that he had a large library and that he was interested in Rozemyne, it's not like I knew that his library would be off-limits!"

"You would have if you had bothered to read my report on him all the way through," Ferdinand reprimanded him.

"I can not believe you, Sylvester!" Rihyarda exclaimed, "You...!"

The rest of Rihyarda's admonishment was lost as the otherwise peaceful night was shattered by the sounds of exploding glass, bringing the guard knights on the ground floor rushing out as Ferdinand summoned a shield of wind to protect the three of them from the broken glass falling from above. Straining his eyes in the dark, Ferdinand saw a white streak emerge from the broken window followed shortly by the sound of splintering wood and three of Rozemyne's knight guards poking their heads out of the broken window. "Is that...?" Sylvester asked aghast.

"The fruits of your labors, dear brother," Ferdinand answered him as he pulled his highbeast's feystone from the cage on his belt, watching the distinctive shape of Rozemyne's "pandabus" highbeast climb ever higher into the sky, then he turned his head towards the guards behind him as he said, "Tighten the castle's security and see to the safety of the archducal family while I go after Rozemyne! I don't want to see a repeat of Charlotte's baptism ceremony, am I understood?"

"Yes sir!" the guard knights called out in confirmation before quickly moving to carry out his orders.

As Ferdinand climbed aboard his newly formed highbeast he heard Sylvester tell Rihyarda, "You go on inside too while I help Ferdinand..."

"You have done far more than enough tonight already, dear brother!" Ferdinand snammed at Sylvester, his narrowed eyes boring holes into his brother's widened ones, "I am going after Rozemyne, you will stay here and think of the apology you're going to give her when I bring her back! Got it!?" Without waiting for his brother's response, Ferdinand snapped the reins of his highbeast and, with a mighty flap of its huge wings, took off after the shrinking pandabus highbeast.

As he flew after Rozemyne's Highbeast, which for some reason seemed to keep climbing higher, Ferdinand could not help but admire her highbeast itself. While he still thought it looked weird and would never think of redesigning his own highbeast in a similar manner, he still couldn't help silently compliment its performance: he was having his highbeast moving at near its top speed and yet he was only slowly closing the distance between them. He did notice that they were not headed in the direction back to the town, nor did they seem to be heading towards any place in particular. While it was possible that she was kinda lost due to being night blind (doubtful considering her excellent marks at the Academy) he knew that there was no way she didn't know how to get to where her birth family lived.

So intent was he in catching up to Rozemyne that Ferdinand was a bit slow to realize that he himself was being followed. His initial thought was that Sylvester had ignored him and came flying after them regardless, so he was surprised when he glanced back and found that it was an ordonnanz. slowing down just enough that it can catch up and land on his shoulder, Ferdinand was shocked when it opened its beak and spoke with Rozemyne's voice, saying, "Evening, Ferdinand. Apologizing somewhat in advance if my sudden departure had startled you, and I don't know how much of what happened tonight you know about (it wouldn't surprise me if you found out everything), but I just can not remain in this world any longer. I was fine back when I was living a simple life with the people that I'm bound by this magical contract to no longer refer to as my family, and if I knew that this is where it would all lead to I would have never approached the Temple about becoming a blue shrine maiden. Regardless I did my best to live as good a life as was possible in this world, and I do think that I was making good progress, but now I've hit a brick wall. Everything that I care about in this world is about to be stripped away from me, and since there's nothing left for me in this world my only recourse is to leave it. Unfortunately since nothing I have learned about teleportation magic has led me to any breakthroughs on how to use it to go to other worlds the only other means I know of is the way I arrived here in the first place. Since you've seen my memories I know that you're aware of that that is."

"I know that this may come as a bit of an inconvenience to you, but could you please explain to Gunther and the others what happened here tonight. They may well be upset by this, but I need them to know that this was the only way out left to me that would possibly keep them safe as it doesn't violate the terms of my contract with the Aub. As long as the magical contract remains intact they will remain protected by it from any reprisals he may feel compelled to dole out. That is my hope at least. And could you give William and Charlotte my best? I know that William has what it takes to use what I left behind to make Ehrenfest a shining example for all to follow, and Charlotte..." Rozemyne's voice continued to come from the ordonnaz up until the point where he reached over to grab and crush it in his hand, sending a mana pulse through it to ensure that it was destroyed. Ordinarily, under normal conditions, Ferdinand would have been loathed to destroy a magical tool like this, but this was far from a normal situation as he had no desire to hear any more of that message, let alone to sit through two repeats of the same message. Though the format was obviously different, the tone and the content of the message she sent to him left him no doubt that this was what they in her old world referred to as a suicide letter. Of course no such thing existed in this world (yet) as the common folk are largely illiterate while the nobility, as befitting their station, generally kept such nasty business to themselves. The only way Ferdinand knew about it was through Rozemyne's memories as that was one of the many varied things she studied in Japan as Urano. Of course from her message it seemed that she viewed this as not the end but rather a new beginning, but he knew that she was intelligent enough to know that this might not work out the way she was hoping, and yet she was still willing to go through with it. Tightening his grip on the reins until his knuckles turned white, he urged his highbeast to go even faster. He could feel it heating up from the strain as he pushed it beyond its limits, but he absolutely had to catch up to Rozemyne before it was too late!

"Almost there...just a little...further!" Rozemyne gasped, the air in Lessy's cab getting a little thin. Almost immediately Lessy's cabin sealed air-tight, the compact cab becoming even more compact, and Rozemyne felt that she could breathe easier. It wasn't that there was suddenly more air to breathe but rather that the air in the cab was put under greater pressure due to it being confined within a smaller space. It was at times like these that almost convinced her that Lessy, her highbeast, was sentient not unlike that Herbie character from the movies back on her Japan's Earth, and it would make more sense with a magical highbeast than a Volkswagen Beetle. Of course Rozemyne's sensible mind reasoned that it was more likely ther her Lessy was responding to subconscious commands rather than acting on her own, but her heart rejected it as she felt that she needed a friend with her right now. That just made what she was needing to do that much harder however.

Rozemyne had tried to think back on what she learned about in Japan, things like wind resistance and terminal velocity, but that turned out to be a fruitless effort as they didn't study such things in this world. One thing that she hoped was consistent between these two worlds, however, was that it was easier to achieve terminal velocity where the air was thinner. Hence once she found it more challenging to breathe she realized that she was almost where she wanted to be, but she felt that a little higher couldn't hurt her chances either, both to achieve her goals as well as to prevent whoever was chasing her from stopping her. She hadn't looked back to see who it was as she was afraid that she would lose her nerve, but since they were likely using a traditional highbeast rather than an enclosed model like her Lessy she figured that they would have to fall back once they found that they couldn't breathe.

Once she was above the highest and had an unobstructed view of the stars above (which were quite dazzling) Rozemyne felt that they had gotten high enough. That left just one thing to do, and that gave Rozemyne's already broken heart another painful twinge. "Well, this is it Lessy," Rozemyne said softly, "time for me to go."

She was fairly sure that her Lessy didn't make any sound, but in her mind she heard a questioning honk like Herbie's, to which she responded, "Sorry, I can't exactly take you with me, and I wouldn't want to leave you around for just anyone to find and pick up for themselves. You realize what that means, right?"

Rozemyne heard a honk that was a bit sad and scared at the same time, to which she gave a sad little smile and said, "I know, but you wouldn't want to end up with someone like Uncle Ferdinand or Professor Hirschur or worse, right?"

Rozemyne surmised that the shaking she felt could have been her driving into a bit of turbulence, but to her it seemed like Lessy was shaking in fear at the conjured mental image, which gave her a small chuckle through her watery smile as she said, "So this way is better, but I promise that if the place I end up next is similar enough to this one I will rebuild you there."

At the questioning honk Rozemyne smiled and said, "Yes, I promise." She then reached out and stroked the bump in the middle of Lessy's steering wheel, much like a horn on a car back in Japan. On Lessy, however, pressing this while channeling a bit of her mana would cause Lessy to reveal her defensive modifications, namely baring her fangs and retractable claws that can cut through anything. Upon retrospect she wished that she had these back during Charlotte's baptism ceremony, then she wouldn't have to gone through being poisoned, kidnapped, then sleeping away two years of her life. She wished that she could have installed a flux capacitor on Lessy too, and thus avoided any of this unpleasantness altogether, but unfortunately some dreams are meant to remain dreams. Shedding a single tear Rozemyne said, "Until we meet again," then she pressed the button, but instead of a little mana she channeled into it the entire ammount she had stored within her and she squeezed her eyes shut at what was coming.

Once they had broken out above the cloudline Rozemyne's highbeast ceased climbing and leveled out in its flightpath, and despite how hard he was pushing his own highbeast Ferdinand doubted that he was close enough for her to hear him even if he had enough air to call out to her. As it was the modified wind shield that he'd formed over his head barely provided enough breathable air for him to continue his pursuit. Still he needed to get her attention somehow before she carried out her foolish plan. Whipping out his schtappe Ferdinand shot out a couple of low-level air blasts at her highbeast. it wouldn't be enough to cause any arm to it, but at least the rattling it did to the windows should get her attention. However, even though he could see the highbeast visibly shake there was no response as far as he could tell.

Damn it, Rozemyne! What are you doing!? Ferdinand thought to himself. Just as he was bracing himself to push his highbeast even harder, however, he saw that Rozemyne's highbeast started to glow brightly from within, followed shortly by even brighter cracks appearing in it. Having born witness to the first time Rozemyne attempted to create this highbeast Ferdinand knew what was coming up, and since his own highbeast was already unstable due to how hard he'd been pushing it he allowed them to fall back just moments before a mana explosion obliterated Rozemyne's Lessy. For a moment he couldn't see anything through the cloud of feystone particles, then he saw the unconscious form of Rozemyne emerge from the bottom as she fell limply towards the ground far below. Thankfully she looked unharmed, likely shielded from the blast due to the unusual design of her highbeast and how she rode it, but with how high they were she wouldn't remain unharmed if nothing was done.

"Yaah!" Ferdinand cried out as he urged his highbeast to dive down after her. Once again he felt like he was back at the start of the chase as he was barely closing in on her, only this time it was worse as the ground was closing in at an alarming rate. Unless he caught up to her soon she would be dead the moment she hit the ground, and if he didn't pull up he'd be just as dead right next to her. Yet in spite of the logic of the situation he wouldn't let himself give up on her, he just couldn't...

The first sensation Rozemyne had become aware of was that of pain. It wasn't the level of pain that she would have expected from a fatal or near-fatal impact with the ground that she was unfortunate enough to survive, but at the same time it was enough for her to realize that she hadn't woken up in the afterlife. The fact that she hurt all over vaguely reminded her of when she first woke up in Myne's body, but again it was different enough for her to feel that wasn't what she was experiencing either.

The next thing that she noticed was that she felt like she was being held in what would be best as a bridal carry position by a pair of what felt like rather toned and warm arms above something that was radiating even greater heat. That itself was rather strange, but then she became aware of someone frantically calling her name.

"Rozemyne, can you hear me?" a male voice was calling out, one which was almost familiar but for the emotions coloring it, "Are you okay? Say something!"

The anxiety and desperation in the voice compelled Rozemyne to open her eyes, and when she got them to focus she felt shocked as Ferdinand's face was the last one she expected to see. "What!?" Rozemyne exclaimed as she struggled to get out of his grasp, Ferdinand's face (which was starting to look irritated) much too close for her comfort.

"Stop squirming, you fool!" Ferdinand barked at her, "We're still high enough that you might break something if you fell."

Looking over the side, Rozemyne saw that they were hovering just over the treetops, that if she was to fall from here that she might indeed break something, but unless she was lucky enough to land exactly wrong that would be the worst of her injuries. While looking over she also happened to notice that Ferdinand's highbeast was glowing, likely the source of the extra heat she felt. Just what did he put the poor thing through for it to get like this?

"Just what are you doing here, Ferdinand?" Rozemyne asked him, frustrated about having been stopped here in spite of her efforts to prevent exactly that from happening.

"Saving your life," Ferdinand said simply, his jaw set and his eyes hard.

"Nobody asked you to!" Rozemyne retorted, "Didn't you get my message?"

As Ferdinand gently set her on his highbeast (which thankfully had cooled down somewhat and was now merely very warm) to extract an arm he reached into his pouch and pulled out the crumbled remains of what Rozemyne guess was her ordonnanz. "I got your message, all right," Ferdinand confirmed as he placed the fragments into her hands, "What I don't get is what you were trying to accomplish by this."

"It's like I said in that message," Rozemyne responded, "I can't stay in this world any longer!"

"Do you think that it's really that easy to hop between worlds?" Ferdinand asked her, a noticeable harsh edge to his tone "It's not like you would get a do-over if it didn't work, you know?"

"I had to take that chance!" Rozemyne said defensively, "Don't you see? I had nothing left to lose!"

"I see how it is. You had nothing left to lose, huh?" Ferdinand said in a flat voice that showed his disappointment in her, "Well what about your sister Charlotte? Do you know what she went through after you got kidnapped and poisoned while you were rescuing her, how hard she worked to ensure that next time she would be able to protect you? What do you think that this would do to her? And what of your brother William? You stood up for him twice when everyone else was ready to write him off as a failure and a disgrace to the family and dutchy. You pushed him to try harder and not give up, so what do you think he'd think of your actions tonight?"

"They'd be fine," Rozemyne told him with a confidence shen didn't entirely feel.

"Would they?" Ferdinand asked in an incredulous voice, "Because whether or not you had succeeded in your goals or failed in the worst way the result would be the same for those here who were left behind, like Lutz and the Gutenbergs. Do you think that they could carry on making your ideas come to life if you weren't around to offer them up to them and to encourage them, that they'd even want to? Or Delilah and the others at the temple orphanages, who would protect them when you're gone? Then there's Gunther and the rest of your family in the lower city..."

"Ferdinand," Rozemyne said nervously, "The magical cont...?"

"My name's not on that contract, so I will say what I want!" Ferdinand interrupted her loudly, startling her into squeezing her eyes shut, "Even if you had managed to protect them with your actions, which I may remind you that the Aub has the ability to nullify magical contracts as he chooses so that's not as much of a shield as you think, do you think that your family would think that it's that good a blessing? Do you think that they could have sacrificed so much, holding a funeral for you and giving up any chance of telling you how much they truly care for you even now, and still stand having to lose you for a second time?"

For a moment Ferdinand was silent, but Rozemyne didn't dare to open her eyes. Then she felt a wet drop hit her arm, and when she snuck a peek she was so shocked at what she saw her eyes went wide. Though his face was the impassive mask that he usually wore Ferdinand had streams of tears coming from both eyes that he didn't bother to wipe away. Likewise his throat looked tight but his voice betrayed no emotion as he said, "Do you know how hard it was to keep you alive for those two years in the juivre? How often I had to look in on you to make sure you were still breathing? How frequently I had to refresh the ingredients and to swap in fresh feystones to absorb your dissolved mana? Were those two years a waste, or the time spent before that protecting you from the High Bishop and those who wanted revenge against you for the trombre incident? Did Sylvester and I lock up our own mother for nothing?"

Rozemyne truly didn't know what to say. She had truly had thought that she was taking the most thoughtful and logical way out of what was an impossible situation. However, hearing how those closest to her would have been affected had she managed to do what she set out to, how even Ferdinand was affected, it was too much. Ferdinand's words broke through the walls Rozemyne hadn't even realized she'd erected around her heard, and before she knew it she was clinging tightly to him and burying her face in her robes as a stream of tears erupted from her eyes. "You fool," she heard Ferdinand say as she cried noisily, but the way he stroked her head and patted her back, as well as the warm tone of his voice, belied his words, "You poor, simple fool."

Rozemyne didn't know how long they were like that before she was able to get herself under control, but by the time her tears dried up and she was able to pull away she noticed that the front of Ferdinand's robes were soaked with them and his highbeast had cooled completely and was back to normal save for a few stress cracks. "Sorry about that," Rozemyne apologized sheepishly, "Been a while since I did that, huh?"

"I'd be more worried if you didn't react like that," Ferdinand replied with a sardonic half-smile, "You always were a bit of a hugger."

"What am I going to do, Ferdinand?" Rozemyne asked, worry heavy in her voice, "I can't marry that guy, I just can't!"

"And you won't have to," Ferdinand assured her, "I already gave Sylvester a talking to, and I'm sure that Riharda is still giving him quite the earful." Rozemyne chuckled at the mental image as Ferdinand continued, "I promise you that you will never be put in a position like that again, even if it means I have to challenge my brother for the title of Aub to do so."

Rozemyne gasped in shock as she asked, "You'd do that?"

"Well, you know I prefer my life at the temple, as well as my studies and my research," Ferdinand told her, "But if Sylvester doesn't take the steps to make this right then that's a sacrifice I'm willing to make to keep you safe."

"So what is Sylvester doing right now?" Rozemyne asked him, curious as to what he's doing out here all alone.

"He's back there," Ferdinand gestured back at the castle, "going over what he's going to say to you when you get back, possibly also wondering how he misread the room so badly about you and that boy."

"He sure did that, all right," Rozemyne agreed, her irritation with Sylvester starting to resurface.

Ferdinand, noticing her reaction, got a knowing smile as he asked, "Well, if you have no intentions on marrying that young man then is there someone else you've taken a fancy to?"

This question made Rozemyne more nervous than any other, partly as she didn't know what he was planning to do with that information, so rather than lying outright she instead evasively answered, "There is, but it's not exactly an appropriate match so there's no point in pursuing it."

"I see," Ferdinand said, his smile widened into the Cheshire-like grin that frightened her so much when she was younger and still found a way to affect her even now as he continued, "I can't help but wonder if Lutz is lucky or unlucky here."

"W-wh-wh-what?" Rozemyne said flustered as she turned several shades of red, "What would make you think that I was talking about Lutz?"

"Come now, after all the time we've worked together you've become easier for me to read than one of your books, though I regret not getting to this previous chapter faster," Ferdinand said matter-of-factly to her, "Besides, as he's perhaps the one you known the longest in this world, not to mention that you always go to hug him when you're feeling lonely, it would be natural for you to fall for him."

Rozemyne hid her face in her hands as she asked him, "Please don't tell anyone, especially not Sylvester."

Ferdinand nodded as he said, "Until it becomes an issue, this can remain just between us."

Rozemyne smiled, then she recalled something that had her frowning again, causing Ferdinand to ask, "What is it?"

"It's Lessy," Rozemyne explained, "i destroyed her."

"Ah, yes. I saw," Ferdinand acknowledged, "I suppose that we'll have to get you another highbeast feystone so you can make her all over again."

"You think I can?" Rozemyne said, brightening a little.

"Yes, and I'm sure that she'll be just as unusual looking, yest strangely functional, as she ever was," Ferdinand answered her, "Though I would think that your time at the Academy would improve your sense of aesthetics just a bit for this time around."

Rozemyne nodded in agreement, then she asked, "Then, for now, would you minf taking me back? I have some people to make apologies to."

Ferdinand nodded in return as he said, "Not to mention that you're likely rather tired after tonight."

"I am," Rozemyne agreed, "I used up quite a bit of my mana just a bit ago."

Ferdinand then reached into his pouch and pulled out one of his wretched potions, holding it out to her as he said, "Then drink this and I will bring you back home."

Though his potions had improved in taste somewhat she still found them rather disgusting. Regardless she held her breath as she gulped it down, then she handed the empty vial back to Ferdinand as she said, "Home." She still did not know whether she could fell like this place was home to her, what with all the problems it had, its culture that was so unlike where she came from, and those who stil lwished her ill here. But she recalled that in one of the books she read in her old life that it said "home is not a place, but rather the people in it that accept you." Tonight she was reminded that there was people in this world that cared about her and would help her out should she encounter something that was beyond her ability to handle herself. As Ferdinand took off towards the castle Rozemyne made a vow to herself that she would never let herself forget that ever again.

I hope that you enjoyed my story. If you find yourself troubled by thoughts of hurting yourself, or you know of someone who might be feeling like they're backed into a corner with no way out, then please know that you're not alone. You can call the Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255 or visit them at their website (the full name with no caps or spaces followed by .org) for free and confidential support 24/7, because there is only one you in this world, and you're just as deserving of life and love as anyone else in this world. Please never forget that, and I hope to be able to share more stories with you soon.