A Tiger's Independence
To Shirca, Obli Glosa was a complicated person in more ways than one. They were the same age, and from childhood they had come face to face at every family gathering. House Glosa was a vassal house, and a few generations back one of its daughters had even been consort to a Caliph clan head, which made the two of them distant cousins as well. Among their peers, they had been the closest.
Perhaps that was the problem.
Once the Glosa clan head began to indulge his greed, the ease between Shirca and Obli cooled. Now they were nothing that could be called friends.
And yet Lady Glosa actually helped us find the little one.
Shirca drank the tea a maid had left and studied Obli where she sat across from him.
From the moment her clan head's ambitions took root, Obli had grown excessively wary of him. She could not hide her nerves, and she fretted like someone being hunted. Today, though, something was different. She looked at ease, comfortable. Was he imagining it?
"Sir Jake said you were unconscious when they found you. Are you all right?"
"I am. I wasn't injured, and thanks to the physician House Caliph sent, I feel much more at ease. Thank you."
Obli answered, and Shirca knew at once.
Not my imagination, then.
Whenever they met, she had always forced a pretty smile across her whole face. Now she looked perfectly calm, the way she had back when they were friends.
He had been certain the Glosa clan head would never let slip this chance for Obli to claim a merit. The surprise of it caught him off guard.
"More importantly, is the young lady all right? I never managed to check whether she was hurt then......"
The worry on her face was genuine, and Shirca nodded.
"She's fine. Her hair got cut, but......"
"What? Her—her hair?"
He had been about to add that the short cut was cute and he rather liked it, but the look on Obli's face stopped him cold. She was beside herself.
"Th-the last time I saw her, she was perfectly fine. In that short a while, what on earth...... I knew I should have stayed with her to the end."
She looked so lost in guilt that Shirca moved to settle her.
"Only her hair was cut. She isn't hurt, so calm down. And the little one cut it herself."
It had been an accident, a swing of her hand at Lioric gone awry, but Bariya seemed pleased with the short hair, so no one had made much of it. Obli, however, went on blaming herself.
"I'm sorry. If I had protected the young lady all the way to the end......"
"No. Thanks to you, Lady Glosa, we found the little one and brought her back to Caliph. We're grateful enough already. So is she."
"......The young lady is?"
"Yes. She said that thanks to you, she got out of there safely, and that you're someone she's thankful for."
Shirca had only been passing along Bariya's words, and the next moment he was startled. Color rushed into Obli's cheeks, and she smiled, shy.
"The young lady, about me......"
He had watched Obli all his life, and he had never once seen a smile like that.
"What—why are you smiling like that?"
The surprise jolted him straight back into the way he used to talk when they were children.
"Because I'm genuinely happy. This is how I normally smile."
Obli shot him a glance, wiped the smile clean off her face, and answered bluntly. Her tone, too, was the one from their childhood. Faced with the first unfeigned look he had seen from her in years, Shirca could not quite hide how thrown he was.
"Since when have you and the little one been that close......?"
"There was a reason."
Obli took a sip of tea and set the cup down with a sharp clack. It really did feel as if they had slipped back into the old days.
"As it happens, I have something to tell you. I'm going to become independent."
He had thought Bariya was the only one who could still surprise him. Today's Obli managed it just as well.
"Independent? Out of nowhere?"
"In truth, I should have done it long ago—the moment Father got that ridiculous notion in his head about shoving me into the place of the young master's fiancée."
Obli sighed.
"Marriage to a childhood friend. If I had been secretly in love with the young master, perhaps it would have been different, but I didn't feel a thing, and suddenly it was being forced on me. It was miserable."
Shirca nearly said that he felt exactly the same, then swallowed it. She would know without being told.
"But I was still young. I couldn't live alone without my parents' help. I didn't know how to do anything by myself. I made excuses like that and settled for the life in front of me."
She smiled, mocking herself.
"Even after I came of age. I'm plenty strong. I could live on my own perfectly well now."
"And the young lady was the one who made me see it. Part of why I went all the way there to find her was to test what I could do. I had never done anything on my own."
Saying it, she looked somehow unburdened—unburdened enough that he wanted to cheer her on as a friend.
"The little one made it safely back to Caliph, so I'd like to give you a passing mark. What do you think?"
"In the end I couldn't save the young lady perfectly, so I felt guilty, and I even cried, thinking I really couldn't do anything alone after all."
Obli broke into a bright smile.
"But if she's all right, then for a first try I don't think it was so bad. A first time is hard for anyone, isn't it?"
"That's true."
Shirca nodded. Simply deciding to do something by her own strength, and then actually doing it, was already worthy of praise.
"Still, you can afford to be a little kinder to yourself. Thanks to you, we got our wish too."
"Your wish?"
"Yes. The little one is going to become Bariya Bell Caliph. Word will reach every vassal house before long."
"Heavens!"
Obli clapped a hand over her mouth. Only then did she understand just how extraordinary a thing she had done.
"All of it because you got word of where the little one was so quickly and came running to help. I heard that because you pinned Lioric Leotel's feet, she was able to meet me safely."
They had all heard the story in the carriage on the way back to Caliph after rescuing Bariya, and so Shirca offered her his thanks.
"Thank you. For saving my one and only little sister."
"......No. I'm just truly glad the young lady is safe."
Emotion surged up, and Obli dabbed at the corners of her eyes.
Ah, thank goodness they found Bariya. What would have happened if they had waited until Shirca arrived?
"So House Caliph wants to repay you for the help. Is there something you want?"
"It would sound better if I said I didn't do it hoping for a reward, but there is something I want, so I can't say that."
Obli met his eyes without flinching. She looked so well that he could hardly remember the girl who had withered day by day beneath the Glosa clan head.
"I want to become the aide who stays at the side of Lady Bariya, now that she is of the Caliph direct line."
"You want to assist Bariya? Why?"
The request was unexpected enough to startle him.
"Because her confidence is extraordinary. I thought if I stayed beside her and learned, I might become a little more confident in myself as well."
It was true that, even to Shirca's eyes, Bariya was astonishingly self-assured—more so than he was, and he had lived his whole life under an heir's education. He understood Obli's heart well enough. That much was no problem. And yet—
If she comes into House Caliph, there's no telling how the Glosa clan head will react.
It might only throw oil on that greed of his, the greed that coveted a fiancée's place. That could never be allowed.
"For now—"
"And please help me so that I am never engaged to the young master."
"......What?"
Beaten to the punch, Shirca blinked.
"Honestly, the young master is nowhere near my type...... I truly do not wish to be engaged."
The mere thought seemed to sour her mood; her lovely face twisted. He could feel, without a doubt, that she meant it.
"Ha."
A hollow laugh escaped him. He wanted to protest that she was not his type either. Somehow, though, it felt like losing, so he forced the words back down.
"As for the aide position, we'll ask the little one what she wants once she's home, and decide then."
"Thank you for the chance!"
If Bariya refused, it would be a pity, but Obli was content simply to have been given a chance at all. Her father would fly into a rage when he learned of this, yet she was not the least bit afraid anymore. She was a proud tiger beastkin, more than capable of living on her own.
Shirca was not the only one having a busy day. Sabrina was as well.
Interrogating the auction-house bastards Jake had dragged in was grueling work by any measure. She had to hold her strength in check so they would not die too easily, and for Sabrina that was the hardest task of all.
"What did you say?"
But the instant she heard the report a subordinate brought in mid-interrogation, Sabrina snapped the arm of the wretch in her grasp before she even knew she had done it. Bone collapsed with a crunch beneath her palm, and she clicked her tongue, but there was nothing to be done about it.
"The young master of House Leotel has sent word that he intends to pay a visit."
They had just told her, after all, that the lion cub who dared torment the child destined to become her youngest daughter had come calling.