Four hours later
The north garden is the morning garden. It's quite small, but beautiful none the less, and hydrangea of all shapes and colors adorn its paths.
In the middle is a small fountain, and this is where everything is going to come down for me and Delia. The reason I chose the north garden, is because Beatrix' mansion specifically can't see it.
I can't have her ruin the rest of the plan.
It doesn't take long before Maximillian appears, holding Delia's hand tightly.
Delia's eyes are all swollen, but she looks cutely determined... but I've already made up my mind. It's time to put and end to this, and clear up this blinded love properly. To take control of my own life again.
It's time to put on my best Beatrix performance...
"Are you still crying?"
Delia's determination deflates at my cold mocking words.
"Eh?"
Of course it does. She wasn't expecting such words of abuse from me. And neither was Maximillian, that immediately looks like he's about to fly off the handle.
"I can't believe, that you're still trying to make this work, after how the last three weeks have gone, Delia. I thought you'd realize now that we aren't meant for each other."
Maximillian looks utterly confused, and Delia... Delia looks like she thinks someone replaced me, and she's trying to figure out where the real one has gone.
I agree.
This isn't like me.
To be honest it's pathetic. I could just let her down normally... but... I thought about it. Between telling Delia everything, and telling her that she just isn't suited to be queen, that in the end I won't be able to love her, and that I had agreed to Beatrix's scheme, this is better.
As pathetic as it makes me, I want this to end happily, so that whenever I see her in court in the future, my heart will feel no regret.
Delia's point of view
What is going on?
This isn't the Clovis I know.
"You could have any man you want, but your eyes landed on me, who is already happily engaged."
That's... that's not what happened...
Is it?
"If you had just looked a bit to the side, you would have seen that idiot there, come running to your side with every fiber of his being, willing to give up everything to make you happy."
Eh?
I look up to Maximillian, who looks at Clovis with shock. He doesn't know what's going on.
I look to Clovis. The air around him is different, he feels more like Beatrix now... scary.
But, what is he saying? Is he saying he never loved me? I can't help but to think back on the sweet words we had shared together, the joy when we finally won over Beatrix.
"So I decided to teach you what being the queen really means, the pain and burdens."
I freeze.
Why?
"Why?" Maximillian stands up for me, asking what I forgot to in the confusion.
"Because you were hurting my fiancé, who had been protecting your family from your actions."
Eh?
Beatrix had?
I look to Maximillian, who frowns.
That's a lie? Right?
I look to Clovis.
Right?
"I've had an investigation run, professionally, that confirms it. The witnesses to your bullying is being re-interviewed as well."
I feel the strength in my legs disappear.
So the fighting with Beatrix was just a plot to punish me?
"That's taking it too far!"
I look up at Maximillian that snaps at him.
"Then why didn't you confess to her yourself, Maximillian?"
Maximillian blushes deep red under the moonlight.
"I-"
He looks down to me, with guilt in my eyes.
"I didn't have the courage, since it seemed you only adored his highness, and you were so afraid of my sister."
Eh?
Ehhhhhhh?!
Is he confessing?
I feel heat rise to my cheeks.
But- but I'm engaged.
"Our engagement was a performance. Beatrix is my official fiancé, always has been, and still is. The staff was told to treat you as my fiancé ahead of time for the sake of this performance."
Ah.... is that why none of them really treated me like his fiancé?
I look down at the ring he gave me.
"Then... that means I'm done being punished now, right?"
"Yes."
I see...
All the pain and frustration, it was punishment.
How cruel...
I take off the ring, and drop it on the ground.
It never meant anything.
"But... if you knew I liked Delia, then why didn't you just convince me to tell her instead of this? Why make her go through all of this?"
"Because she only saw me."
He almost sounds sentimental under the cold tone.
I... really did... didn't I?
When I found the two of them on the balcony yesterday, I should have know that his hate towards her must have just been a performance.
"Now go make that idiot happy. Someone that truly wants it, and forget about me."
I wipe the tears, and look at Clovis.
He's smiling, slightly.
I know I should be angry. Probably furious with him. But, part of me is just relieved that it was just a play. That I'm free. No more waiting until the late hours for someone that just falls asleep, and won't hold me as tight as I hope. I want someone that's just as dedicated to me as I am to them. Someone that has the time for me.
"I will!"
I end up smiling, and look at Maximillian who is staring at Clovis with pain in his eyes, and then to me.
"Are you.. sure?" Maximillian asks me, nervously.
I squeeze his hand.
"It's the future kings order. Unless you... don't want me?"
I smile to him, and he blushes red.
I squeal as Maximillian lifts me up in his warm arms like a princess.
"How could I not be deeply and madly in love with you, Delia?"
Instead of a carriage taking us away, he brings me on his white horse, and we ride under the moonlight, where I breathe in the night air of freedom.
Clovis' Point of View
Part of me can't believe that Delia actually believed half the amount of lies I just sputtered out. At least Maximillian played along decently.
I sigh, as Louise comes out from the bushes, staring at me with as much disbelief on her face, as I feel right now.
"Your acting pales compared to Beatrix, to the point I am not sure miss Delia has ever been in a theater before."
"Shush."
"You look like you're about to cry."
I sigh. It probably does. Saying goodbye hurts... and so does waking up to the reality, that the person you thought loved you, maybe didn't, or loved you in such a twisted way, that they didn't truly care... at least it should... but I can see, that clearly I'm the only one of Delia and I that is affected...
This is goodbye.
She will never come back again, and never regret leaving.
It's a clean cut.
I don't need her to remember me either.
"I don't have time crying, or grieving over hopes that weren't meant to be. The night hunt is up next."
I glance to Louise, who stares at me with confusion all over her face, making me unable to hold back a little smile.
"Time to face the real 'villain' that set this month up for me."
She looks at me, then to the mansion in the south, and then back to me.
"Hunt? Lady Beatrix? I fear you'll step into a few hundred traps, even if you make it past the guards and servants."
Louise hasn't been over there. I give her a secretive smile, after all, it's a secret only between Beatrix and I.
"My fiancé certainly does have a way to get what she wants, doesn't she?"
Louise smiles awkwardly, and then sighs, shrugs and crosses her arms.
"I think the only thing she wants is you though. But are you okay with that? Gonna enslave yourself to the spider witch?"
I end up sputtering a laugh.
"What kind of name is that?"
I walk over to the ring that Delia dropped on the ground, and pick it up, staring at it with lingering pain. As much as I might want, and have tried, I can't shove the blame of what happened on Beatrix.
Short periods, where things are like this, do happen normally without interference. Though, usually the king and queen wouldn't be in the same castle at that point.
Would Delia have changed for me? Maybe. With enough time.
But that's not the Delia I fell in love with. I fell in love with that slightly clumbsy her, the kind and sweet her. The free her.
Could we have changed the country to make a place for Delia by my side?
Maybe.
But how long should we endure before reaching that? Would our hearts have lasted that long, or would we have turned to shadows of ourselves as we tore each other down.
I know that I, for sure, turned to a shadow of myself.
If you look at it like that, all Beatrix did, was give us a trial period.
I let out a soft sigh.
In the end, Delia wanted to be free. I don't know if she wanted to be free that much, knew me so little, or loved me so little... but she didn't hesitate to believe my words, and leave, from a silly excuse like that.
Everything I thought we had gone through together, could be washed away so easily.
It makes it hard not to think that I must have been replaceable from the beginning, though that probably isn't true.
But, Beatrix never truly let me go. She probably never will.
"To be honest, I don't think I can pull out the claws that the spider queen has dug into my skin, Louise."
I look to Louise, who gives a small smile.
"Need help?"
I shake my head softly.
"I realized... With Delia, I always had to come up with solution. Whether I was the one in the wrong or not. I had to protect her. Even from myself... But Beatrix... even after I was planning to get her exiled, she set up this grand scheme, to get me to see the truth. She does not cut off the discussion, cry when things don't turn out the way she want, or run away... she is always there to discuss what had been done wrong, and where she had taken it too far... that's a lot of dedication to me..."
Dedication that should be returned in equal amount.
I stand up, and put Delia's engagement ring in Louise's hand.
"Have it melted down. I have to go on a 'spider' hunt. See properly what's underneath the chitin armor she's used as a mask."
"Don't get bitten," she warns me in return.
"Don't think I can avoid it."
I am about to leave, as I remember one last thing I need to do properly, before I go an be an idiot.
"Beatrix will be back in her spot as the crown princess in the morning among the servants, and have a room prepared for her... and a new one for me."
I wish to never see the inside of that room again.
(AN: This story is partly made, for the large number of male leads in shoujo stories that have to cut down their own emotions to forever make the female lead happy. Remember that our male leads have troubles too, and need to be heard, cared for and loved!
Next up: Me trying desperately to redeem Clovis)