Title: Boy's Boycott
Summary: It's not as if the boys were the only one with deadlines for marriage.
"Sir Bartfort," my Master said with a disappointed look.
That was odd. I was dutifully practicing my craft and making steady improvements. Olivia certainly thought I was, though she also commented my hobby was a tad obsessive.
"Master?"
"What's this I hear about none of the boys inviting girls to tea parties?"
Oh... that's what this was about.
"To be fair, all the boys are hosting tea parties," I easily responded to hopefully sidestep the issue.
"But they only invited commoners from outside the school," he pointedly said.
"They didn't want to swarm Olivia. She's far too timid."
"You know that's not the point. How and why did you convince the boys to do... whatever this is?"
"You think I was the cause of this?"
"Leon, kindly do not test my patience. You are the only one I know who has the motivation, attitude, and capacity to do this."
That was certainly flattering.
"We're boycotting the girls who mistreat us."
"Boycott? I'm unfamiliar with the term."
Of course he wouldn't be familiar. It was derived from a name in my world.
"It means to protest by abstaining interactions, either transactional or social. We decided to name it boycott because we boys cottoned on to the fact that we are participating in a broken system in which our active engagement to get engaged actively breaks us."
"That had to have been scripted. It was far too cheeky of a wordplay to have been anything but."
"When I drunkenly proposed the boycott, it was not nearly as eloquent. But the words came rolling out fairly similarly since I was too inebriated to think of other words when I said them," I admitted.
It was difficult to be eloquent when drunk. I'm fairly certain I rambled off the word engage five or six times trying to word it properly when I first said it. It was a wonder that anyone could cobble together a cohesive thought from my babbling and formulate any semblance of a movement antithetical to the very nature of society. Part of me wonders if I was inspiring enough or if the boys were so fed up that anything would have caused this avalanche.
"Back to the topic at hand. What is the end goal of all of this?" my Master said when he realized I wasn't going to elaborate without prompting.
"Right, as you know, we are expected to get engaged and married before the age of twenty-one lest we become disgraced. As a result of this, we enter the bargaining stage with a disadvantage which women have taken full use of," I said as I grumbled the last bit.
Master only gave me a pitying look.
"So, in my drunken state, I asked why the girls weren't in a similar situation as us. Obviously my friends thought I had too much to drink, but not wanting to part with my drink, I explained my thought process... to prove my sobriety. I posited that the girls, like us, need to find husbands in the Academy since virtually no man would be left single after. Shouldn't they also be under similar social pressures as us? Why is it that we need to fund everything, allow our wives to have a harem of sex slaves, and generally be abused? Which got the boys pondering and interested. Some of the finer details are fuzzy to me, but general gist was that we would only court true ladies or commoners... excluding many baronets."
"And how does courting commoners come into play?"
"I'm the product of a baron and a commoner, yet I'm still here," I said simply.
"You are here because of your success as an adventurer."
"And Olivia is here for her natural magical aptitude. The way I see it, there is no benefit to courting the noblewomen available to us."
"... Very well. Might I ask what punishment was delineated for breaking this pact?"
"Punishment?"
"Your pact is far too successful and widespread not to have some significant penalty involved."
"... Master, we didn't outline any such thing."
"Could you repeat that?"
"We didn't think there would be a need since we are in solidarity over this. The most we do is stand by each other to remind each other the goal when someone decides to force the issue with us. I suppose if you needed to consider a penalty, the inevitable subservience of engaging with an undesirable woman would be punishment enough."
Master took a moment to blink and think over what I said. He didn't seem angry, but then again, he never got angry. It made me nervous.
"You'll be a fine noble when you graduate," he finally said before walking away.
That was easy. I took a sip of my hidden flask to calm my nerves before returning to y hobby.
I sat under the gazebo sipping on my rum infused tea. I had immediately filled my pot with my flask when I had heard Zola had come to chastise me. I could easily handle her but listening to her tirade over my existence was such an irritating experience that I chose to lose myself to the drink.
I dispassionately sipped away as Zola aired out her grievances with her children smirking arrogantly behind. As I watched Zola's yell angrily at me, I noticed a couple of girls with savage grins and a few higher noble boys look on amused in the background. Children thinking I could be cowed by a dressing down from a worthless parasite. I scoffed.
"You disagree with me," Zola said with a look of downright disgust. She thought I was scoffing at her.
"Simply wracking my brain over how you could possibly think you have any value," I said to get the conversation over with. Perhaps I could further the boycott with this since she decided to try to drag me over the coals in public.
"You_"
I continued before she could give a rebuttal.
"Last I checked, you hold no value to speak of. Did you not marry Dad because you were one of the leftovers? What assets you did bring at the time of your marriage has long been paid back with interest. If anything, the Bartfort name, even in its dilapidated state, holds more weight than your extinct house. You currently have no assets to your name nor any real bargaining power now that my side of the family gained prestige from my ventures. You failed your duty in managing the territory as the Bartfort territory as it has lost affluence since you have gotten a hold on it."
"That's your worthless father's fault as he cannot properly run the territory. The man's too busy cavorting with harlots and raising brutes."
I forced down the urge to snap back by taking another sip.
Calmly, I said, "Regardless of his aptitude, it does not change the fact that you are also responsible for running the territory, if not more so given that society has decided it was the wife's role to do such tasks. And don't claim it is not your fault, I've seen the laws you enacted to fill your personal coffers. Demanding fifty percent of all transactions is asinine. As for raising brutes, it's no wonder given how much a failure your spawn turned out to be after being raised by you."
"Exc_"
"Two unwed children above the age of twenty one. How rich it is to see you berate me for risking being a disgrace when your spawn have failed spectacularly. I may think of your side of the family unfavorably, but even society has already labeled your children as unwanted leftovers. Rutart is nothing more than a man-child believing he need not lift a finger to manage the territory, something he must have learned from watching you since you refused to let Dad teach him anything. Merce is simply used goods with no assets to speak of since she comes from an impoverished frontier barony and doesn't have the good sense to even attempt to make an appeal rather than make demands. But how can I blame them when they have you as their mother."
The children were shocked and angered, but they held their tongue as they looked to Zola to defend them. I laughed and said, "They can't even muster up the courage or wit to defend themselves. They need to rely on their worthless mother to do everything for them. So much for noble blood. As far as can tell, my mother's blood contains far more nobility that this Kingdom is famed for."
With that, I stood up and left the family to stew in anger. Looking about, I saw the vultures that had been staring at me hoping to see me dressed down were still gleefully staring at the situation, though their entertainment focused on Zola. Simpletons failed to realize that they were likely to suffer the same fate down the line... or maybe not as I eyed a few of unfamiliar male students approach me with looks of curiosity. It looks like a few more guys were curious about the fate that would await them should they marry any of the mini Zolas.
Walking into the guild hall, I stormed up to the receptionist. The guild girl looked at me with a quirked eyebrow.
"Care for a drink before you say something you will regret?" she asked while extending a hand.
I slipped her a couple of coppers.
"So what's eating you?" she asked as she gestured to someone to get me a drink.
Rather than respond testily, I pulled out several sacks and plopped it on the table. A variety of junk came rolling out of it.
At first the receptionist gave an unamused look as I had made mess on the table, but as she too a closer look, she realized something. They were all pirate totems. The superstitious bunch always carried one around per crew.
Having the number I did indicated it was a lot more than one ship. It was a damn fleet, something pirates did not do given their untrustworthy nature. Though given how many nobles paid them, it was no wonder they set aside their differences.
"Please tell me you found a particularly superstitious ship," she said as she handed me my drink.
After a sip and some time to collect my thoughts, I said, "Well, my ship is full of very superstitious pirates."
"How many?"
"Probably best to call the guild master. I could probably use Lord Roseblade's help to have an audience with the King."
I did have a long list of nobles who needed to be punished. Most of which I knew to be from the Forest of Ladies, and some of which belonged to prominent members of the Frampton's faction. Lord Roseblade would likely jump on such a chance to weaken his political rival.
AN:
1) For the previous chapter, I actually did think about Bakarina will writing the first section.
2) For this chapter, I wasn't sure how I would want to write this. I could go for humor or for a more serious fic. You can see evidence of the original draft leaning more towards humor since Leon here gets his best ideas while drinking. As I continued writing, I felt it was somewhat a disservice to simply have this be a humor fic instead of a more serious ripple effect fic.
3) I feel it is semi reasonable that the lower nobles would quickly latch onto the idea given how quickly the power dynamic flips after the battle with Fanoss (though that most likely has to do with how many nobles loss their titles for trying to flee instead of fight). Shit, even the lower nobles held no real live for the Kingdom and only stayed because of Leon's 'friendship'.
4) If I were to go for a pairing, it would probably be either Deirdre or Dorothea since this Leon would probably butt heads with them if they ever meet. Probably the girls tried to have him cowed by sending them in only for it to backfire.