The Winter Baptism and debut ceremony had come and gone, with Angelica getting her eggy-vomit yellow cap which was Ehrenfest's color, and a brooch to get into the dorms at the Academy. Lieseleta had also had her big day, going up and playing the harspiel in front of a crowd, showing off her talent.
Rin was told that she did amazingly. …She was TOLD because she hadn't been allowed to be there herself, being too young, much to her annoyance.
But she couldn't care too badly, because while all of the other children went to the playroom, and Brigitte left with the other fifteen-year-olds to go and set up at the academy dorms, Rin would go back to the Temple, only to sneak off to deal with the Lord of Winter herself along with Angelica.
With Ferdinand assuming she was at the castle and Sylvester believing her to be at the Temple, it would be days before anyone realized she was gone.
…Only, before she was given the chance to sneak away, she was called to her current adopted father's office.
Rin was annoyed, but her openly ignoring Sylvester's summons would draw too much attention, so she headed towards his office with Rihyarda, Angelica, Lieseleta and the castle guards assigned to her while Brigitte was out, in order to see what the Archduke wanted.
She was surprised though when she got to his office to find five strangers there. Three of them were knights, two women and a man, wearing black cloaks that marked them as being from the Sovereignty, a woman who was clearly an attendant of some kind, and an older Blue Priest, whose formal robes marked him as a High Priest from another Temple.
Looking closer, one of the knights, the male one, was familiar, being the Sovereignty's Knight Commander, who had been present when Rin had met with the King.
"Good day, Knight Commander. To what do we owe this visit?" Rin said, acknowledging the man as being the highest rank among their guests, even though he was technically being rude by not immediately introducing himself to her, as even before her adopting into royalty, she outranked him.
"I am here to introduce you to your new royal guard knights and attendant. They will be watching over you for the remainder of your stay in Ehrenfest." The man said, gesturing to the three ladies that were with him, not mentioning why the Priest was there.
"Is that so? I'm surprised. It must not have been easy to find such high quality people willing to follow me into the Temple." Rin said, hiding her annoyance and hoping that the women would have second thoughts upon hearing that they would be expected to follow her into the Temple.
"That will not be a problem, as you will remain at the castle until your adoption by his Majesty." The Knight Commander said.
"Excuse me?" Rin said in disbelief. "I am sorry, sir, but that is not going to happen. I have duties that I must fulfill and I can't do them while locked up in the castle."
"Your duties are now to the country, not to Ehrenfest. Because of this, you will be assigned new guards and attendants." The Knight Commander said sternly. "These are His Majesty's wishes."
"I'm sorry, did you just claim to speak for His Majesty at the same breath as dismissing Ehrenfest as not a part of the country?" Rin said in an equally stern voice, causing the man to blink in confusion. "Aub Ehrenfest, have these men provided any documentation showing them to be messengers of the King? Falsely claiming to speak for the King is an act of treason is it not."
"I… That isn't…" The Knight Commander was speechless.
Because he had said 'these are His Majesty's wishes' instead of 'these are His Majesty's orders', that had implied that he was in the position to speak for the King, which if not explicitly granted, was a huge crime, especially if something controversial was said, like that Ehrenfest was too lowly to be considered part of the country. After the Purge, it started to be heavily cracked down on.
The accusations probably wouldn't hold up when they returned to the King, but it would give Rin all the reason she needed to formally refuse the new guards and attendant.
Unfortunately, Sylvester intervened. "Tohsaka, I know you are used to having the freedom to go wherever you want and choose your own retainers, but His Majesty did send these people to become your guards." The Aub said, trying to mediate. "Though there was nothing said about restricting your movements and stopping you from going to the Temple or Lower City if you want to. So until I receive a message with the King's seal on it, you will still be allowed to go wherever you please, as long as you are properly guarded."
Rin bit her lip to stop herself from shouting.
Even being forced to take in people she could not trust was unreasonable.
"Angelica and Brigitte are going to be out of the Duchy until the end of the Academy season. So until then, I was going to assign Eckhart and Karstedt to guard you. Having two more wouldn't hurt any." Sylvester said, causing Rin's eyebrow to twitch.
Eckhart had sworn his life to Ferdinand, and Karstedt was Sylvester's personal guard, as well as the captain of Ehrenfest's Knights Order. They would squeal the moment Rin did anything.
"It is highly inappropriate for a Princess to be going to a Temple." The Knight Commander said flatly.
"How is that? The Royals used to go to the Temple all of the time." The Blue Priest said, glaring at the man as he spoke for the first time. "If anything, the girl's diligence and respect towards the Gods should be praised."
The pair seemed to hate each other, not even bothering to hide it, much to Rin's confusion.
Sylvester didn't seem to have any more idea of what is going on than Rin did, but they both recognized that with was probably some form of political battlefield that neither had any prior knowledge about.
And since Rin was now going to be a Royal, each wanted to use her on that battlefield. Great.
"Like all the other Duchies, Ehrenfest's Temple is seriously understaffed. Because of this, Tohsaka and Ferdinand have been assisting in the Winter Dedication Ritual as part of the Temple in order to substitute the mana of all of the missing Blue Priests and Priestesses with their own." Sylvester said, trying to explain that this wasn't a political move, but one made out of necessity. "At the moment, a majority of the mana that is provided to the Duchy's farmlands comes from these two, and they are also filling even more chalices to assist with Frenbeltag's dedications. Suddenly removing her from the Temple without us having a chance to prepare a substitute and warn Frenbeltag would be disastrous."
"Would it not be safer for her to simply perform the Dedication Ritual at the castle instead?" The Knight Commander asked, seeming to want any excuse to keep Rin out of the Temple.
"The barriers places over my Orphanage Director's chambers and the Orphanage Workshop surpass even those around the castle." Rin said with confidence, getting a look of surprise from Sylvester.
"...That is true. No one with ill intent, or magic over a certain threshold who hasn't been registered by the girl herself is capable of entering that part of the Temple." Ferdinand himself admitted. "That said, it would be better for her to get some more experience in socializing among the nobility. I would suggest she remain outside of the Temple before and after the Dedication Ritual. Having her learn to work while under the scrutiny of people she can't trust would also be an experience she needs for the future."
"...You have a good point." Sylvester admitted. Rin gave him a look of betrayal, but he pushed through. "Tohsaka, I know I had promised you all the freedom I could give you, but this is about your future. If you can't learn to deal with unknowns without publicly pushing them away, you will have a hard time in the Royal Family. So until the end of Winter, I want you to stay at the castle under guard."
Rin didn't respond as she debated the merits of just ignoring the order or running away. Maybe she could make herself look less appealing for adoption by being an absolute brat and the King would just give up on the idea.
But before she could throw her fit, Angelica spoke up. "But what about the Winter Lord?" She said, her face full of concern as she realized that if they weren't allowed to leave the castle, then they couldn't sneak off to hunt the Lord of Winter themselves.
"What about the Lord of Winter?" Ferdinand asked, glancing towards Rin with a raised eyebrow.
'...Dammit Angelica!' Rin cursed inwardly, though she understood she wasn't getting to go hunting anymore.
"I have been doing research that I believe will let me predict the place where the next Lord of Winter will appear. And if I am correct and we get to it before its final ascension, then we can prevent the blizzards that usually plague Ehrenfest." Rin stated without revealing just how angry she was to lose the opportunity to go herself.
Sylvester and Ferdinand, as well as all of the other Ehrenfest nobles who were familiar with Rin, visibly straightened. "How sure are you?" Sylvester asked with urgency in his voice.
Ehrenfest was a large Duchy, so finding the Lord of Winter before its ascension was like finding a needle in a haystack. They had roughly a hundred knights searching for it on High Beasts from the moment Winter started, but without direction, finding it before it became a true Lord of Winter and started to affect the entire Duchy was something that only happened once every hundred years, and those years were thought to be blessed.
"About 95% sure, based on my data." Rin admitted.
"Why haven't you reported this sooner?" Ferdinand asked.
"I was preparing to, as I only recently finished running the numbers." Rin lied. "I'd be willing to share my results, but if I am right, I want to be allowed to purchase the beast's Feystone."
The nobles in the room paused. "Tohsaka, if you take the Feystone, all the other materials usually provided by the hunt will disappear." Sylvester said with a small frown at his adopted daughter's selfish request. "Selling those materials usually nets the Duchy 500 large gold coins."
Rin bit her lip, knowing that had been coming.
It was the reason she had wanted to go and handle the Lord of Winter herself, rather than letting the Knights deal with it. Because even if she was allowed to purchase the stone, it would be damn expensive, as much as a thousand normal high quality Feystones.
The Lord of Winter was no normal Feybeast.
While other Feybeasts were normal Magic Creatures, a Lord of Winter was empowered by the nature of Winter itself, a true Phantasmal Creature. Its power was on a completely different level, like the difference between a normal enchanted dagger and Caliburn.
"I'll take out a loan for it. It will be two months before I can fully pay for it, but you know that I can get the money." For her research, she HAD to have that stone.
With all her expenses, Rin only personally had forty-six large gold coins in the bank, as magical research was expensive. She also couldn't ask Benno to spot her the money at the moment. Not with their current expansion with introducing bamboo clothes to Frenbeltag to make up for the gap made when their cotton industry went to shit, as bamboo was a resilient plant, bordering on being a weed, that no one knew what to do with, and required far less mana to grow. There were also the plans for Benno to follow Rin to the Sovereignty after her adoption into the Royal Family.
Five hundred large gold coins was enough money to open up a hundred workshops, providing much needed jobs for those who lost theirs in the industrial boom, paying them well enough to prevent any hard feelings. So even if the Gilberta Company had the money thanks to the railroad, they shouldn't be using it for her personal projects nor could they be the source of her loan at the moment.
Those from outside the Duchy looked shocked when Rin stated that she would be buying the stone.
"I'll pay for it." Ferdinand said, shocking them all again. "In exchange for the research that led to this discovery."
"Are you mad!? Do you think you can buy my magic research for just a few gold coins!?" Rin fummed, as the amount of magical theory, magic tool development and mathematical knowhow that had gone into calculating the Lord of Winter's emergence point had cost Rin a small fortune, and was worth far more.
"What is your price then?" Ferdinand responded with all seriousness.
"Isn't everyone taking this too seriously?" The attendant from the Sovereignty said, reminding everyone that they were still in the room. "You don't honestly believe she found a way to predict where the Lord of Winter will appear, do you?"
"...You have absolutely no idea what you are dealing with, do you?" Sylvester said, too dumbfounded to pay respect to someone with connections to the Royal Family. "Did His Majesty not tell you just how valuable Tohsaka is for her research?"
"I'm having second thoughts about entrusting her safety to those who can't understand something so simple." Ferdinand said, agreeing with Sylvester's sentiment and causing the woman to blush at his stern stare. "Tohsaka is responsible for the development of more technologies than the country has produced in the last three hundred years. She raised a company from worth fifty large gold coins to being worth over a hundred thousand in just a single year. If she says she believes she discovered something, it must be taken seriously."
Everyone from Ehrenfest nodded knowingly, while the outsiders stared dumbly at them, feeling like they had stumbled upon some kind of weird cult.
They wouldn't exactly be wrong.
Abigail and Sylphina both didn't know what to say after they finally left with their new lady only to be taken to a different room, had sheets of parchment shoved in front of them and were told to write down all of their information.
Who they worked for in the past, who they had engagements with, their family and their family's connections, their faction affiliations, their personal baggage, everything.
They were told that everything they wrote would be double checked and that they would be dismissed and shamed if they were caught lying or withholding important information.
It was a bit of extra stress and annoyance added to an already uncomfortable assignment for them, as they had no interest in becoming the retainers of a noble child not only raised by merchants, but also a Temple girl. If it wasn't for the fact that their families were preparing to abandon them, they would have never agreed to it.
Having only just graduated from the academy, they had seen what kinds of people Temple raised nobles were, since many of them had returned after the Purge. They were horrible, rude, arrogant and talentless, with only one notable exception, though even she had screws loose and was overly obsessed with music.
"The Royalists Faction. What is it? Who are the leaders and what does it stand for?" Tohsaka asked them after reading over their answers. She had separated them from Theresia, who was in her late forties and much more experienced.
'She doesn't even know the country's factions?'
"I am six years old and live in a Duchy that hasn't have the political influence necessary to act on the larger stage. Why in the world would I know about the factions in the Sovereignty." Tohsaka said, glaring at them for their unspoken comment. "If you are going to think poorly of me, at least school your faces."
The pair winced, being told that they were easy to read by a child.
"The Royalists Faction is primarily led by the Knight Commander, and is based around assisting the Royal Family in regaining its power after the civil war, regardless which Royal ends up inheriting the throne." Abigail stated, for the girl's sake.
"I see. So in the political climate of the King's three wives competing for influence, you are trying to declare yourselves as neutral, supporting whomever is convenient at the moment. I bet you profit very well from their internal conflicts. You get stronger as they buy temporary favors while each of them gets weaker." Tohsaka summarized with a small huff.
"...It's really more of our fathers' factions than ours. We only identify as part of them because we don't have the influence to stand alone." Sylphina said, knowing that Tohsaka wasn't wrong, and their faction really were just people trying to make small temporary alliances for profit without being made to commit.
Many of their members were connected to Klassenberg and were hoping to weaken the influence of all of the other factions connected to the King's wives so that they could stay on top in the next generation.
"You both used to be engaged to the same man. Abigail was to be the first wife and Sylphina the second, but the engagement fell through. You didn't specify the reason." Tohsaka said, looking up at them. Sylphina couldn't help but to wince and Abigail looked away from the young girl. They had figured this question was coming, but didn't know how to respond. It wasn't exactly something that people were openly talking about. "...I see. So did you find him with another man or did he find the two of you together?"
"W…What making you think it was something like that?" Abigail stammered, blushing red.
"It was just a shot in the dark. But you don't seem to be denying it, and given your blush I'm going to guess it was you two that were caught." Tohsaka said, seeming hardly interested. "Well, that's fine. As long as you don't listen if he tries to claim to want to mend your honor or something. I'm guessing your family relations are strained after that."
"You… You don't care that we are…?" Sylphina stammered, not finishing the sentence.
Homosexuality was taboo among nobles, and when their family's found out, they had canceled their engagements and had tried their best to hide them, preventing them from getting any normal jobs in the Sovereignty. It was because they had been shamed that they took on the job when the Knight Commander offered it, to spy on the new Princess for him.
They were also aware that he wanted to use their status as homosexuals to shame their new Master if necessary. A dirty trick that would ruin their lives even further, but they didn't have the option to object.
"Why would I care about that? Love is love. It's none of my business if the two of you screw." Tohsaka said.
"Princess!" Rihyarda said in disbelief, her face a bright red at her Master's language.
Abigail and Sylphina were also pink to their ears.
"Did the Knight Commander officially endorse you or were you taken from a list that was prepared by a fall guy?" Tohsaka asked.
"...We were not officially endorsed by him." Sylphina admitted.
"People are already trying to sabotage my reputation before I'm even in the Sovereignty." Tohsaka chuckled. "Well, whatever. I don't particularly care about my reputation anyways, as long as people will not hinder my research."
The knights were surprised by her declaration that she would just let her reputation be ruined, rather than outing them and dismissing them immediately.
"Princess, are you sure." Rihyarda asked in a worried tone of voice.
"It's fine. As long as they agree to never attempt to steal my research, they can do whatever they want. In fact, them being estranged by their families is beneficial to me." Tohsaka replied with a shrug.
…What kind of child was this?
"On to more important topics. The Knight Commander and the Sovereignty's High Priest didn't seem to get along. Is that for personal or political reasons?" Tohsaka asked.
"Political." Sylphina replied. "While they aren't an open faction, the members of the Sovereignty Temple are of the opinion that the current Zent is a False King, because he doesn't have the Grutrissheit. There have been some whispers of rebellion against the Royal Family under that logic."
"That's stupid. With the country weakened as much as it is, causing another civil war like that would be disastrous. Are there really people dumb enough to want to overthrow the Royal Family at a time like this?" Tohsaka said with genuine surprise on her face. "I mean, if they are rejecting the Royal Family, they don't even have a figure to rally behind."
The two knights exchanged glances.
"...Don't tell me that is why he is here." Tohsaka said, palming her face.
"Given that you have lived in the Temple and are hailed as a Saint who brings Spring… kind of." Abigail admitted.
"Dammit. Gods dammit."
She hadn't even been adopted yet and there was already a faction of extremists who wanted to force her to become the next Zent.
Fucking politics.
According to canon, there are actually very few 'laws' in their country, because laws are inherently hard to make. As such, it is highly unlikely that homosexuality would be 'illegal' (as even murder doesn't seem to be considered illegal) and it isn't the kind of thing that a King or Archduke would drag you out and call you a criminal in front of everyone for, but society would probably kick the shit out of you for it. Especially noble society.
Remember, the Church in this world is actually very weak, so accusations of blasphemy would probably be ignored. Which is weird when you think about it, since the Royal Family ruled by divine right granted by the Gods.
Someone has commented that Rin's father actually did love his children, which is true, but I like what another writer has said about Rin's perspective of things.
The man never showed his emotions, so even if he loved his children, they would have a hard time telling. Rin also canonically believes that her father's actions drove her mother to suicide. Not to mention the natural abandonment issues that any orphan would have, and emotional damage from Sakura being taken away.
I'd like to think that Rin admired her father, and loved her father, but also hates him and cannot forgive him for the things that he did.