I'm giving up the ghost of love
And a shadow is cast on devotion
She's the one that I adore
Queen of my silent suffocation
Break this bittersweet spell on me
Lost in the arms of destiny
Bittersweet
I won't give up, I'm possessed by her
I'm bearing a cross, she's turned into my curse

"Milord? Are you in there?" Justus' voice called from the hidden room's communication device.

Ferdinand raised his head from his task, wondering why his aide was calling him in the dead of night. Hadn't he ordered him to sleep? Worried that there may be some emergency, he hastily finished fastening his trousers and went to open the door.

"I'm here." He answered. "Did something happen? Is Rozemyne safe?"

Justus instinctively took a step back as he found himself face to face with his master. He wasn't expecting him to leave his safe haven so quickly, nor he was expecting him to have such heavy bags under his eyes. "As far as I know, she is, Milord. It's morning."

"It's morning already?" Ferdinand took a look around the room, and was surprised to notice light coming from the windows. He wasn't expecting the night to already be over. After flunking many ideas, he had just barely finished brewing the prototype for a vaguely promising magic tool, that he had been about to test.

"Yes, Milord. The bath is ready." Justus replied, moving to the side to allow his master to exit the hidden room.

Ferdinand quickly went back into the hidden room, emerging a moment later with the blanket he had brought with him the night before. He handed it to Justus and made his way to the bathroom.

"What are your plans for today, Milord?" the aide asked while quickly folding and putting away the blanket. "All previous appointments have been canceled until further notice, so this gives us a little time to catch up with the state of things... Do you wish to have a meeting with Aub before resuming the meetings and socialization?" Saying 'Aub' instead of 'Lady Rozemyne' was a deliberate move on his part, a way to appeal to his sense of duty so he wouldn't avoid speaking with her.

Ferdinand thought about it. A part of him, the one that was still licking its wounds from the night before, wanted to avoid speaking to her at all costs. Facing her came with the risk of being rejected again, and he really wasn't ready to experience that again so soon. On the other hand, though, if he could present a working magic tool to her, he might be able to regain a little bit of her trust. If only he could have a little more time to carry out the tests...

"Did Rozemyne tell you her plans for today?"

"She said she wants to head back to the Royal Academy right after resupplying the foundation." Justus paused shortly, then added, "May I ask Milord to join her? As you have yet to test your magic power after your... disappearance, it would be too dangerous for you to enter the supply room when both Lady Rozemyne and Lady Letizia are away from Alexandria."

This was something Justus was saying out of genuine concern for him, after all if he were to collapse in the supply room, they would have to wait for either Rozemyne or Letizia to come back from the Royal Academy to enter and help him, but at the same time it was also another way to push his master to talk with his goddess.

Ferdinand stopped in front of the bathtub, letting Justus undress him. He didn't answer immediately, unable to choose between the two evils, and ultimately decided to leave the decision to chance. "I will head to the supply room and just see if I'll meet her there." he said eventually.

"That is... unexpected, Milord. Normally you would seize any chance to be alone with Lady Rozemyne. Is this change of heart dictated by what happened yesterday?" Justus asked the question in a low voice, before moving to the side to hang his charge's bedchamber gown and shirt. He didn't bother trying to observe his master's expression, he knew very well that he was averting his eyes.

"She must have missed a lot of lessons already... I do not wish to keep her away from her studies any further." Ferdinand said, not believing for even a moment that his exceedingly perceptive aide would buy the lie.

Justus kneeled down to remove his master's trousers. "Lessons at the Royal Academy won't start befo-" he froze, his eyes fixed on the magic tool secured around his master's sword. It looked like one of those springs the Gutenbergs had created under Lady Rozemyne's instructions and, coiled as tightly around the sword as it was, it had to be past the verge of uncomfortableness... it would surely become painful if his master were to experience even the slightest swelling. Despite his noble upbringing, Justus failed to hide his bewilderment at the sight of something clearly meant to suppress his master's natural body functions.

"Milord..." He started, without knowing what to say next. That level of self-punishment was something he had already seen in the darkest times of Veronica's oppression, when his master had resorted to repress each and every desire so that woman could not use them against him. What could have gone so wrong between him and Lady Rozemyne for him to do the same thing?

Ferdinand listened closely to his aide's stunned silence. He could tell he disapproved of his choice, most likely thinking he was overreacting, but he was not going to risk angering Rozemyne again to get Justus' approval. "Leave it be." He said, trying to sound dismissive, but sounding more discouraged than anything.

To Justus, that was the definitive proof that his master was just a step away from despair. He had witnessed it before... denying his own needs was his master's way to protect himself, and the intensity of his denial went hand in hand with how hopeless he felt. When his father died and he felt he would not be able to survive otherwise, he had given up his noble status and entered the temple. What was he going to give up this time? Why did he feel so threatened? What did Rozemyne do to his master?

With great effort, Justus composed himself and turned to look at his master, showing him the faint smile he always wore. He steeled himself to outsmart the one he admired most and had chosen to serve. He needed to make him change his mind before he could give him the order to shut up.

"Milord, I will keep quiet about it if you tell me to, but you can't possibly expect me not to see how badly you're trying to mortify yourself." He slid the trousers down Ferdinand's legs and, after he stepped out of them, stood up to better face his master.

"Lady Rozemyne will surely be displeased when she sees it." Justus added, to better drive the point home. He didn't know how to feel about the girl at the moment. He was quite fond of her, but it angered him that she might be the cause of his master's distress, so at the very least he felt entitled to use her in his plot to make his master see reason.

Ferdinand scoffed at the tragic irony of what Justus was suggesting. "She will not be displeased, as she will not see it."

Justus' eyes followed his master as he stepped inside the bathtub. "Even if you take it off before welcoming winter, it is going to leave marks, and she will surely notice them."

"As I said, she will not be displeased, as she will not see it."

"How could she not see it? Are you really saying that you don't want to consummate your marriage?" Justus poured water on Ferdinand's hair and started soaping them.

"Whatever I want is irrelevant, because she doesn't want it." Ferdinand lowered his eyes imperceptibly, but the movement was not lost to his aide.

"Doesn't want...?" Justus stopped his hands abruptly, not believing his ears. That girl that was blushing so beautifully he almost felt like he was betraying his master just by looking at her... was that someone who didn't want it?

"Are we talking about the same Lady Rozemyne, Milord? She was visibly shaken when I escorted her to her chambers, but it didn't look to me that she was opposed to the idea of being your Geduldh." He said, resuming his massage.

"She made it more than clear that she was. I can recognize a look of disgust when I see one..." Ferdinand said the last part in a low voice, many bad memories coming back to him.

Justus observed his master in one of his rare displays of vulnerability. It only lasted a moment, but for that short amount of time he was reminded of the wary, taciturn child that former Aub Ehrenfest brought back twenty years before. That kid had soon learned to project a strong image, as authoritative as his status dictated, but as his closest aide Justus knew that it was nothing but a barricade behind which that scaredy, affection-starved kid fought desperately to protect himself.

"Forgive me, Milord, but I think you are mistaken here. Lady Rozemyne conquered a duchy and went to the past just to save you. Those are pretty bold declarations of love, if you ask me."

"Family love." Ferdinand stressed, then muttered, almost as an afterthought. "Not that she would even consider me like family after what I did yesterday..."

"What did you do, Milord?" Justus asked as he grabbed the bucket. "Maybe she didn't consider it as unforgivable as you think..." He gently tilted his master's head up and started rinsing his hair.

Ferdinand didn't have the time to say anything, for he felt an unexpected sensation, one he knew from when he was in the Ahrensbach foundation and Rozemyne ordered him to survive. His eyes shot open as he realized she was sending him mana, the fear that she might be trying to end his life worming its way in his mind.

Before he could shape that fear into a coherent thought, the influx of mana had already stopped, replaced instead with the sting of the rinsham-filled water getting in his eyes. He immediately closed them, moving his head away and brushing his fingers on his eyes to get the water out.

"Milord!" Justus reacted as well, setting down the bucket and moving where he could see his master's face. "My deepest apologies, Milord!"

Ferdinand raised his hand, silencing him. "It was my fault for incautiously opening my eyes." he said as he blinked to get water and soap out of them.

"Please let me." Closely observing his master's eyes, Justus used a very precise vashen to clean them without hurting them. "Why did you open your eyes so suddenly, Milord? Did something happen?"

"It happened that I gave my name to a fool who can never do anything that makes any sense..." Ferdinand said, tapping his temples as his aide casted a healing spell on his eyes.

Justus smiled imperceptibly. His master being angry at Lady Rozemyne's antics was a much better sight than him being depressed. "Did she give you an order?"

"She just sent me an amount of mana too small to even tell if she was trying to give me strength or end my life..."

Justus blinked in surprise, but quickly recovered. "Would Lady Rozemyne really kill a name-sworn, Milord? Her husband, on top of that..." He asked as he finished rinsing his master's hair and started soaping his body.

Ferdinand was silent for a moment. He knew that his aide was right, she despised any form of bloodshed... but what if his actions had pushed her far enough to have a change of mind? He didn't really want to know, so he changed the topic. "That's beside the point. What was she trying to do with so little mana?"

"Maybe she just wanted to reach out to you. You know... say 'good morning' to her dark god."

Ferdinand looked at his aide sideways, wondering what it was that planted that badly-concealed smile on his face. "She doesn't see me like her dark god, she made that clear."

"Oh, right... You were telling me what happened that made you so sure of it."

Ferdinand suppressed a sigh, he could have lived without shaming himself again. He decided to make it short. "After you and the others went away, she told me everything that happened and we fell asleep. When you called us, I... had a severe lapse of judgment, and tried to kiss her."

Justus recalled the position he had briefly seen them in, and the tell-tale bulge he had seen in his master's trousers afterwards. He was clearly leaving something out. "Just a kiss, Milord? And what did she do?" He asked while rinsing the soap from his master's upper body.

"She was sitting across my lap and... she scurried away when she felt... my sword." Ferdinand wondered briefly if his attendant had purposefully timed the question so he would have to say that while standing up from the tub. He had never felt so self-conscious of his aide staring at his naked manhood.

Justus felt everything click into place. When he had interrupted them, Lady Rozemyne must have felt embarrassed for having been caught in such an intimate moment and, most likely, had tried to distance herself from Lord Ferdinand. His master, though, must have mistaken the shyness of a young maiden for an act of rejection, likely remembering some disdainful act women did toward him in the past. He should have realized much earlier that it had to be something like that. It was a stain in his attendant's records, failing to take into account the extent of the emotional wounds his master carried within.

"Milord, I'm sure she was just incredibly confused..." Justus said as he started spreading soap on his master's lower body. "You two may be married now, but the star knot happened so suddenly and without anybody giving her the proper talks... you can't expect her to know what to do. And let's not forget that she looked like a ten years old until this spring: things have been so busy since then that she probably never had the time to come to terms with her adult body. You must remember how scared you were when your sword first got stiff..."

Ferdinand almost winced at the memory. He had gone into a panic, thinking that Veronica had found a way to poison him even though he was at the Royal Academy. It took Justus to give him a lecture on the functioning of the male body for him to calm down. And after he briefly rejoiced at the idea of becoming tall and losing the 'feminine beauty' his brother taunted him for, he realized that his body growing up meant Veronica would start using women against him, alongside with poison. That had been a very effective way to suppress his libido before he could even start to develop it.

But it was different for Rozemyne. She had been an adult in her dream world, and she knew how to handle emotions much better than him -who, basically, only knew how to hide them. He was sure she was already used to dealing with the desires of a grown body, even if he wanted to believe with everything he had that she had never been intimate with a man before. Not that he could let Justus guess any of that.

"I'm sure that is not the issue. She has always been more than knowledgeable about things beyond her age."

"This doesn't mean she would suddenly feel comfortable with her husband's raised sword, Milord. These things take more than one night to get used to." Having finished soaping his master's legs, Justus wondered how to clean the now limp appendage. The magic tool was wrapped so perfectly around the flesh that he could only imagine his master had shaped the magic gold directly around the sword, rather than putting it on afterward. Lord Ferdinand's craftsmanship was really on another level, even if he used it for a tool of dubious utility like this one.

"Unfortunately, the first night went bad enough that there isn't going to be a second one." Ferdinand said after a while. He was used to being seen naked by Justus, but it was taking a lot of effort not to shy away from the intensity of his scrutiny. "Shouldn't you wash it, instead of staring at it?"

"My apologies, Milord, I was wondering how to clean it without hurting you. Would you be so kind as to remove the tool?" Justus said, though he didn't sound apologetic at all.

"Only Rozemyne can take it off, by pouring her mana into it. Use vaschen."

Justus' eyes grew wide as he stared at his master. "Please tell me that the tool can grow to accommodate your sword... Do you have any idea how painful it will be if it gets stiff?"

"I made this tool exactly to prevent the sword from getting stiff."

"It's not going to work. Even if you stay away from Lady Rozemyne, a sword can still rise under Schlaftraum's influence..."

"That, too, needs to be rectified." Ferdinand said icily.

Justus' eyes grew wider, then his expression turned into a pleading one. "Milord, why are you punishing yourself like this?"

"This isn't punishment. As her husband, it is my duty to support Rozemyne during winter socializing and the Archdukes conference, and for it to happen, I need her to feel safe with me standing by her side. And that's the end of it."

The last part was meant as an order, and Justus could do nothing but stay silent. 'Duty, duty, duty. It was the same when he ran away to the temple.' That time he could do nothing to avoid it, but this time he wasn't going to stoop at anything for his master to have the happiness he deserved. Even if he had to go against an order and risk death, even if he had to trick the man himself.

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, calming himself as much as he could, then kneeled down with his arms in front of his chest. "I'm sorry, Milord. I won't speak of this again."

Ferdinand acknowledged his attendant's apology with nothing more than a nod of his head. The man wasn't sorry in the slightest, he knew it perfectly well, but now that he had given him an order it didn't matter any more.

Neither of them said anything as Justus finished washing him, wiped him dry, dressed him, brushed his hair. He was going through each task faster than he usually would, but not enough for his master to grow suspicious. At this point, the only one who could convince Lord Ferdinand to discard that torture device was the Aub, and he was dead set on using her authority for his master's sake.

Thanks to Justus' efforts, when Ferdinand reached the Aub's office his wife still wasn't there, although the office itself wasn't empty. As soon as the door was opened, a red head stood up from his desk and kneeled to greet the duchy's second-ranking member.

"Lord Ferdinand, it's a pleasure to see you again." he said politely.

"Hartmut... Thank you, it's good to be back." Ferdinand looked around the room, seeing that there was nobody else inside. "Did the Aub tell you when she plans to come by?"

Hartmut sighed loudly. "The goddess has been testing this unworthy one's endurance ever since she was returned to the realm of us lesser beings... I wasn't at the castle when I felt her divinity reappear in this world, and the blessings she received from Steferise were so strong that, by the time I managed to get here, her sanctity had already expressed her wish to confer privately with you. I haven't received a single word from her, a request, a command to carry out..." He lamented, perhaps in an overly dramatic fashion.

"I see." Ferdinand said dryly as he made his way to his desk.

"Ah... but I guess that just being able to bask once again in the feeling of her blessed magical power is still something to rejoice... Albeit the time she will spend here in Alexandria-"

Ferdinand stopped listening to his rambling and started taking a look at the documents piled in front of him, realizing there weren't as many as he thought. Then again, he and his wife wouldn't keep that many weirdos in their entourages if they weren't all excellent.

Shortly after he set to work, he felt Rozemyne's mana get closer to the office. Uneasiness gripped him as he wondered how she would react to his presence, if she would refuse to go in the supply room alone with him, if she would change her mind and turn back even before entering her office... if she would wait until they were alone to reject him again.

By the time she reached the door, her overly enthusiastic head-scholar was already kneeling down in front of her, expressing his happiness to see her again, praising her and her deeds. Vaguely thinking that the boy had gotten much worse than he already was, he set his eyes on his wife and observed her every move without so much as blinking. While on the surface he was relieved the confrontation could be delayed a little longer, a deeper part of him was starting to feel restless. It was the second time in few bells that she hadn't reacted to his mana.

He briefly released his compression, knowing that no one else would be able to notice, but she didn't seem to realize, either. Was she ignoring him on purpose? Was she even able to maintain such a perfect façade in the first place? Could it be that her magic power had grown even more during the time spent with the goddess of time, enough that she wouldn't be able to sense him anymore? He could still feel her, so that shouldn't be the case, but...

She held his name. What if he was only able to sense her through that bond, and no longer because his mana was on the same level as her? What could he ever offer her, if he could not even give her a child anymore?

He realized that Hartmut had stopped talking just in time to hear Rozemyne say she wanted to fill the foundation. It was his chance, if she didn't feel him, he could wait for her to get inside and then join her immediately after. She wouldn't run away if that was the case. He hoped she wouldn't, at least.

"About that..." he heard Hartmut say, and their eyes briefly met. Whatever he was about to tell Rozemyne, he couldn't let him bring her attention to him, so he quickly shook his head and gestured for him to keep his mouth closed. He wasn't sure the young fanatic would obey his command, but next thing he knew, the young man was talking about random students and the incarnation of Mestionora... he didn't really want to know what it was all about, as long as it was enough to distract Rozemyne.

"Sure..." she answered, without any emphasis at all, and moved to the supply room, opening the door and disappearing into it without even looking back at who was there.

Ferdinand pinched the bridge of his nose. 'That fool... what manner of Aub would enter the supply room without checking if someone is in her office?'

As the room fell silent, he felt everybody's eyes on him. Justus was probably daring him not to get inside the supply room, Hartmut surely wanted to know why he had stopped him from informing 'the goddess' of his presence, and more or less everybody else wanted to know what he'd do next. Suppressing a sigh, he followed her through the rainbow colored film that separated the supply room from the rest of the world.

Many thanks to Krymzim and JcFerggy for helping me polishing this chapter.

The quoted song isbr /
"Bittersweet", Apocalyptica ft Lauri Ylonen and Ville Valo, Apocalyptica (2005)

Another chapter to go and then we'll be back to my usual slowness.