Venus Rouge

Act Natural (Part 1)

June 2, 515IE, Dusk Town, Eastern Shade Fief, Gestalt Kingdom

Finally.

Blessedly.

We've arrived at our latest destination.

We decided that instead of stopping as soon as we got into Shade fief, we would push on until we were at the border in Dusk Town.

Dusk town was not the capital of Shade fief but, it seemed at least twice as lively, simply because this town was bordering the kingdom and a large number of people inevitably passed through here doing business or otherwise.

I peered with naked interest at the wide range of people crowding along the street so much that the progress of our caravan was significantly slower.

I didn't mind. It gave me plenty of time to observe the variety of people from outside Gestalt Kingdom for the first time.

Sure, our own fief was almost ass-and-elbow with Noctis kingdom, but most of Noctis is wide open desert, and the relationship between them and Gestalt was passive aggressive at best. There is also the intimidating buffer that is the Alexander Mark [1]between Verne fief and the border of Noctis. The closest I've seen to a foreigner are the refugees from border settlements ruined in the pyramid war that I hire to fill in the gaps in our fief's agricultural labour force.

The jingoistic behaviour that comes with being one of the three superpowers on the continent constantly vying for supremacy took care of almost all desire to get too far into gestalt kingdom if you don't happen to be a one hundred percent Gestaltian human being.

The casual xenophobia that the brave few to travel Gestalt Kingdom are subjected to makes me cringe even now.

Shade Fief, in contrast, was bordered with allies of Gestalt, so as far as border towns go, Dusk was very laid-back.

I peered discreetly through the heavy red curtains of the carriage window at the stalls lining the street, the wares almost indistinguishable between the shifting bodies from my vantage point.

The carriage eventually slowed to a stop; while I was distracted, we had arrived at the inn.

Ronnie and Leon were practically vibrating in their seats at the promise of finally being let out of this cursed hell-box, and I couldn't blame them.

I self-consciously fidgeted with the wig I was wearing, making sure there were no hanks of vivid red peeking from beneath the unremarkable dark brown and that it was suitably swept over my blue eye.

It was a pain to wear, because I've most definitely inherited father's thick wavy hair texture, and it had long since grown past my shoulders. Despite being deceptively silky, It had a mind of its own most days and refused to be forced into anything more than a simple tail.

It was clearly not amused by being stuffed under the wig and, all I could do was look forward to the inevitable headache after wearing it for so long.

I'm tempted to lop it all off into a short, tidy bob, just like I had in my past life, but, unfortunately, hair length has cultural connotations in this world.

Cutting my hair that short would imply that I'm either doing manual labour of some sort, or that I'm of a more martial persuasion, and I want to make it abundantly clear to all those waiting in the eaves that they won't find their new "Black Knight" to clean up their political messes in me, so I wear my hair long, as is the stereotypical fashion of scholars in Gestalt Kingdom.

Things are not always so black and white though, case in point Alexander whose hair is just slightly shorter than my own despite definitely being a combatant. I never played his route in that game that slipped father from my memories as the years went on, so I'm not sure what he looked like while in the academy, but right now his pin-straight golden-brown hair was in a low tail all the while.