Even as Winter turned to Spring, Rin was still busy.
She'd long since learned the ancient language and was now having to be bribed by Ferdinand to help using some of his notes from his time in school. Granted, they were on things like history and geography, but Rin would take them to the bank, knowing that, sooner or later, the Fake Priest would need to pay her in magic books or research materials.
The orphanage was going well, with the new looms and spinning wheels being introduced there, resulting in a good deal of fabric production at speeds the world had never seen before. Rin was also considering building the first printing press there, since bibles were the first printed material in her old world. She already started to use her magecraft to produce the movable text pieces.
With the coming of Spring came the Spring baptism ceremony, with a few of the orphans being baptized and becoming official gray priests and priestesses, something that Delia seemed unnecessarily proud of.
It was then when Rin found out that girls at their baptism were told to do their best to become a mistress, which she quickly put a stop to. What the hell, telling a seven-year-old girl to do her best to try to get a man to take her to bed, what was wrong with these people?
Even among commoners, the law was fifteen and with consent. Though the definition of consent was a little iffy.
Everything was going well, but shortly after the baptism, the Blue Priests started to head out little-by-little to go and take care of their assigned Spring Prayers.
Rin met with Ferdinand in the back of the Temple, seeing that the man had neither his attendants with him or any supplies for the journey, besides spare clothes and the chalices for the Spring Prayer. "Aren't we going to need food for the trip?" Rin asked, wondering why the man was so ill prepared when he said to leave it up to him.
"No. We'll be eating at our destinations." Ferdinand replied simply.
Rin raised an eyebrow, because she had taken a look at the map and their first destination was three days away by carriage.
That is, until he pulled a large Feystone out of nowhere and tossed it into an open space in the yard. Rin watched as the stone rapidly grew and changed shape until she was looking at a massive white statue of a lion with wings, which moved as if it was a real creature.
"...So that's what a Highbeast is." Rin said, looking at it curiously. It was an irrational shape, since it couldn't possibly be getting enough lift from those wings to support its weight, but Rin figured it was supported by magic energy rather than the wings serving any practical function. Did beg the question of what the wings were for though. Maybe it helped with visualization, or just because they looked cool. The Fake Priest did strike her as the kind of person to waste energy on something like that, even if he would deny it. "So where is mine?"
Ferdinand didn't answer the question. He just scooped Rin up and climbed up onto the Highbeast with her in front of him, struggling with her robes that were definitely not made for this.
"Hey! How about a little warning next…?" Rin started to shout, but Ferdinand cut her off.
"Keep your mouth shut, unless you wish to bite off your tongue." He said, before with a pull on the reins caused the Highbeast to start moving and take to the sky.
Within moments, they were far up in the sky and as Rin blinked against the wind, the city was already being left behind them.
"So, this is how we are going to be traveling." Rin said as the ride straightened out, sounding none too happy.
"Are you afraid?" Ferdinand asked, expecting the child to be looking down at the several hundred foot drop in fear.
"No. But if I feel anything pressing up against my ass, it will be the last boner you ever have." She replied in a threatening voice.
"You certainly wasted no time dropping that lady-like facade." Ferdinand said flatly, realizing that this was going to be a long week.
"I see no reason to be gracious to a Fake Priest like you." Rin snapped back with a huff. "So why are you bringing me along anyways? What am I supposed to do while you are doing the Spring Prayer ritual?"
"I won't be doing the ritual. You will."
"Huh?"
"I am expanding magic power in order to get us where we need to go. It is only natural that you use yours to complete the ritual." Ferdinand reasoned.
"I see. So you are trying to show me off in front of your friends hoping that someone will take me and get me out of your hair, is that it?" Rin said, not buying his excuse for a moment.
"Yes." Ferdinand readily admitted, a slight smile entering his expression.
"Ha! If you're going to lie, at least come up with a good one." Rin snorted at him. "Everyone knows you don't have any friends."
His slight smile disappeared into a scowl.
This was going to be a long week.
"Are you prepared for the Spring Prayer, Hartmut?" Count Leisegang asked his nephew as they ate breakfast, his attempt to make idle conversation met with barely a disinterested shrug. His golden eyes were dull as ever, giving him the look of a doll, with his short red hair expertly parted by his attendant.
The Count let out a sigh, giving up on the attempt. It wasn't like it was going to go anywhere and he didn't know what his half-brother expected him to do about the boy's behavior.
Hartmut was smart for his age, that was for sure, but he was completely apathetic towards the world around him. He just didn't care and he was stubborn whenever anyone tried to force him to do something.
His mother had a heart attack when the boy openly stated that the Archduke was a worthless slacker directly to his wife's face.
His mother was worried about his bad behavior to the point of removing him from the Winter Playroom and sending him to stay with his uncle, but with him scheduled to start school the year after next, they were starting to worry more and more.
In all honesty, they should send the boy to the Temple before he brings shame on the family.
It would be a waste, considering his ample magic power, his intelligence and his good looks, in which he surpasses his elder brothers in all three categories. Even though he was only eight years old, he could be trusted to do the work of an adult scholar, and the Count often did give him such tasks. But his behavior was too poor for him to ever find a master who would be willing to take him, even if he could find a master who he would willingly be loyal to.
Even finding him a proper bride was going to be difficult, despite his high status, connections and good looks. His attitude was just that rotten.
As they finished their meal, a white bird, an ordonnanz, flew into the room and landed on the table, before Ferdinand's voice was heard, informing the count of his arrival. "Come, Hartmut. We should go and greet him."
"Why?" Hartmut replied. "He's nothing more than a Blue Priest. Moving for him is beneath us."
The Count frowned. "He is the brother of the Archduke."
"He's just a Blue Priest." Hartmut repeated, not moving from his seat as he rested one of his elbows on the table.
The Count was going to scold his nephew, before thinking better of it, sighing and heading out of the room by himself. Even if Ferdinand was a more relaxed sort about ceremony, and used to infinite disrespect, it was probably better if Hartmut wasn't there.
He headed to the Winter House, where every Winter the commoners of his town would gather together in one place to share food and firewood, making the Winter months easier to prepare for. It had an old stage next to it which was the traditional sight of the Spring Prayer.
Once he got there, he found Ferdinand organizing the commoners to finish the final preparations, the chalice that would be given to the Leisegang territory at his feet, and a very small apprentice Blue Priestess who was crouched over the stage with one hand pressed against its surface, a very serious look on her little face. She looked like she could be around four years old, based on her height, with long black hair pulled up into twintails and bright blue eyes.
Though once Ferdinand saw Leisegang coming, he pulled the girl up by her collar and hissed something at her, probably to greet the land's lord. The child gave him a withering look unfit for such a small child, before kneeling and preparing to give her greeting.
"Ferdinand, it is good to see you still in good health." Leisegang said, ignoring the child at first.
"It is good to see that you as well. I hear your grandfather managed to make it through yet another harsh Winter." Ferdinand said as a form of idle greeting between two acquainted equals.
"Yes, the old man's stubborn spirit won't allow Ewigeliebe to take him yet." Leisegang said, not saying that he very much wished that his grandfather would simply pass away and leave them in peace, because the stubborn old man clinging to old grudges was what was keeping all of his children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren in such an uncomfortable position.
Having bad blood after losing an attempt to get in bed with the Archduke's family was a given, but then refusing to acknowledge the winning party and declaring at every opportunity that your Archduke betrayed you and that you will never forget the grudge was just not good politics.
If Hartmut was bad, his great-grandfather was horrendous. But he still held too much sway over his faction, even after stepping down and retiring from his position as Count of Leisegang.
"Thank you for performing the Spring Prayer for us. It truly helps with our current circumstances." Count Leisegang said, showing his gratitude.
"I will not be the one performing the ceremony. She will." Ferdinand said, confusing the Count as he looked down at the child who was still kneeling, arms crossed over her chest, waiting to be acknowledged long enough to give her greeting.
To her credit, her annoyance at the middle aged man for simply leaving her like that didn't show on her face. But once he looked at her, she took her chance and greeted him.
"Greetings, Count Leisegang. My name is Tohsaka. May I pray for a blessing in appreciation of this serendipitous meeting, ordained by the pure rivers flowing from Flutrane the Goddess of Water?" The child asked in the standard form of a noble who is meeting their superior for the first time.
"...You may." Leisegang replied, confused as to why an apprentice Blue Priestess would be giving a proper noble greeting, until he noticed the ring on her finger.
"O Flutrane, Goddess of Water. May you grant this new meeting your blessing." The child said, sending off the usually green blessing of the spring goddesses.
Leisegang glanced towards Ferdinand for an explanation as to who the girl was, but the man was not forthcoming. "We have three more towns to hit today before we can sleep. So we would appreciate it if we could hurry this up."
"...Of course." Leisegang said before going and getting everyone ready to witness the ceremony.
Hartmut walked out with his cousins and his great-grandfather to witness the Spring Prayer.
It was to be his first time seeing one, given that his parents worked at the castle and he wasn't often in a location where one would be held, but he honestly didn't care. He didn't particularly care about any of this.
But even so, he stood with his Uncle's family to watch the ceremony without much complaint. Not until he saw that the one giving the ceremony was not to be the High Priest, but the Apprentice Blue Priestess.
"Are they insulting us?" Hartmut said with a scowl, being shushed by his Aunt as the ceremony began and the tiny child raised her voice as high as it would go in order to tell the story of Spring to the three thousand commoners and nobles who had gathered to witness the event.
It was a little impressive that such a small girl could have memorized it all.
As she reached the end of the story, Count Leisegang walked up to the stage with the chalice that the High Priest had brought, ready to have it activated so that they could use the mana water within it to fertilize the land.
The child placed her hand on the chalice and started to recite the Spring Prayer.
"O Goddess of Water Flutrane, bringer of healing and change. O twelve goddesses who serve by her side. The Goddess of Earth Geduldh has been freed from the God of Life Ewigeliebe. I pray that you grant your younger sister the power to birth new life. I offer to you our joy and songs of glee. I offer to you our prayers and gratitude, so that we may be blessed by your purifying protection. I ask that you fill the thousand lives upon the wide mortal realm with your divine colour."
Gasps of amazement filled the air and even Hartmut stood up straighter as a giant wave of green light came from the girl, sweeping over the entire crowd of three thousand people who had come to witness the event in the largest blessing that Hartmut had ever heard of. He stared in disbelief at the ribbons of green light as they twisted through the air, making beautiful patterns.
And as the lights came down on them, warming their bodies and healing their spirits, Hartmut looked up at the tiny girl who wore the slightest of smug smiles.
How could an Apprentice Blue Priestess have so much power?
"...Who is she?" Hartmut said his usually dead eyes suddenly filled with wonder. A wonder that he would not soon forget.
Look, Just because Hartmut has red hair and golden eyes, doesn't mean he's Shirou. Shirou's more of a Dunkelfelger kind of guy.
So is Illya, honestly, considering a girl from Dunkelfelger's idea of how to get a man is the threaten away all of the competition and then pin the guy to the ground with a knife to his throat and demand he marry you, then forcibly kiss him with a lot of tongue and exchanging of mana. That strikes me as a very Illya method of courtship.
Now for a basic summery of Ehrenfest politics in terms that you can understand.
You have your Florencia Faction that is led by Elvira, which are your Progressive Libertarians, or as close to that as you can get in a feudal government system. They want to improve Ehrenfest's workforce, creating jobs and a demand for their exports in order to improve their Duchy's situation. While originally lacking momentum because of the Veronica Faction, they are definitely the best driving force in Ehrenfest towards becoming economically stable.
Being the most moderate of the factions, it ended up the smallest.
Then there is the Veronica Faction, which are your foreign invaders. They are from a high rank Duchy which forced there way into Ehrenfest and performed something akin to a hostile take over by marrying into a large number of family, using political pressure to be named first wives and replacing the people who were already there. There main goal is to improve their ties with their Duchy of origin, turning Ehrenfest into basically a colony of the Ahrensbach, which given their current economic and political situation is actually a very smart move both economically and politically.
Or it would be, if said Greater Duchy wasn't ran by idiots. Seriously, Ahrensbach would be stupid powerful, given all of their natural advantages, if they weren't constantly shooting themselves in the foot and being assholes.
Finally, there is the Leisegang Faction, which are your stereotypical Trumpians. They are ultra conservatives farmers (or owners of farmland) who only ever blame all their problems on the Veronica Faction and are fictionally led by a cult leader who all of their more rational members (who are actually competent people) want to die so that he can stop forcibly leading them off cliffs. They have no actually plans of any kind and just loudly trumpet about wanting to return Ehrenfest to its glory days, despite its glory days being when they were literally ranked last out of all the Duchies.
The Leisegang Faction is so stupid that they throw everything behind supporting Rozemyne in canon, never stopping to think about the fact that she is starting an industrial revolution and that it would seriously damage their identity as an agricultural Duchy once they could afford to import food and had better uses for their workers. She had to literally explain to them that everything that made them powerful would be rendered unnecessary under her rule.
Florencia's faction could best be described as Lawful Neutral leaning towards Lawful Good, with Veronica's Faction being Lawful Neutral leaning Lawful Evil, and the Leisegang Faction being Lawful Retarded leaning Fascist Cult.
The Leisegang Faction WOULD be the bad guys based purely on political agendas, if it weren't for the fact that ten or so people in the Veronica Faction were just cartoonishly evil, and they didn't think that Rozemyne was the second coming of Christ. Some of their members are also evil, but more in a stupid, unorganized way, making it less impactful than the Veronica Faction's evil.