Tiona... Regained Health?!
"Excuse me, but what exactly are you girls doing?"
Her strides quick and steady, Mia waded into the crowd. There were three
girls surrounding Tiona. She recognized them from the previous timeline to be
the daughters of moderately prominent nobles from a number of moderately
notable countries. The emphasis here is on "moderately."
"Huh? And who," said the leader of the trio irritatedly, "do you think you are,
barging in—"
"Y-Your Highness...?"
Upon hearing Tiona's surprised voice, the girl fell silent and the color drained
from her face.
"Wh-What? Your Highness? You mean..."
"I do believe introductions are in order. As you may have suspected, I am
indeed Mia Luna Tearmoon, Princess of the Tearmoon Empire. It's a pleasure to
make your acquaintance."
Mia gave her skirt a small tug and performed an elegant curtsy. Just then,
sunlight streamed down onto her, imbuing her with a resplendent corona that
dazzled the onlookers. It was as if she glowed with the glory of the Empire itself,
and the girls almost prostrated themselves on the spot.
"Now, allow me to repeat myself... What exactly are you girls doing?"
"Um, well, we're..."
Their faces grew paler by the second. As the princess of the mighty Tearmoon
Empire, Mia was the one person they couldn't afford to offend... And right now,
she looked absolutely furious.
Indeed, Mia was on the verge of blowing her lid. The last thing she wanted to
do was help her archenemy, and yet these girls had put her in a situation where
she had no choice but to do just that. She glared at them with burning hatred.
"It seemed to me that you were behaving rather rudely toward one of my
subjects."
"N-Not at all. We were just thinking that, um, while she is imperial nobility,
she comes from a noble house in the Outlands, so we were reminding her that
any uncouth habits would not be tolerated in polite society—"
"Need I repeat myself once more?"
Seeing that she had no choice, Mia had accepted that she was going to have
to play the savior. However, it was a reluctant acceptance, and Mia was an
extremely sore loser. After all, she'd hated losing — her life to the guillotine,
that is — so much that she was literally replaying the whole game. In an
attempt to make herself feel a little better about this infuriating turn of events,
she kept talking.
"You see, I love all my subjects, and I love them equally. Even the child of the
poorest beggar shall not be denied my affection. No matter who they are, so
long as they belong to the Empire, I will not condone any discourtesy toward
them."
What she meant was, I'm not helping Tiona because she's special or anything,
'kay? Even if they'd been bullying some miserable beggar kid, she'd still have
stepped in to help. In essence, she was really saying, Listen here, you twit! I
don't give three hoots about you! To me, you're no different from some
miserable pauper, got it?
Now, all of this might seem supremely counterintuitive. Considering she was
stepping in to help anyway, it'd be far more productive for her to just commit to
the effort wholeheartedly. However, that would require her to be a good sport.
And being a good sport simply wasn't what Mia was about. Therefore, she
turned to Tiona and smiled at her in triumph.
Hah! I just helped you. Can't say anything bad about me anymore, can you?
Alas, Mia's smile was destined to be gravely misinterpreted.
Tiona did not come from a particularly long line of nobles. Her grandfather
was originally a leader of sorts among his fellow farmers. After successfully
fighting off a group of bandits, he was awarded land and a title. He was
therefore not born but inducted into the nobility — a nouveau riche of sorts.
Worsening matters was the fact that the region where Tiona lived was
incorporated into the Empire much later than the other regions. As a result,
discrimination was rampant. Oftentimes, they weren't even considered subjects
of the Empire, never mind nobility. "Second-class citizens" was hardly the worst
insult they'd ever heard. On bad days, they'd been called everything from
"descendants of serfs" to "colony peasants."
That was why she'd come to Saint-Noel. She'd studied her heart out, learned
all the rules of polite society, and even taken up court fencing. Day in and day
out, she pushed herself to improve, all so that she could outshine those noble
girls who'd made fun of her. Or, at the very least, so she wouldn't be a target of
ridicule anymore. She wanted to be acknowledged as an equal — to look into
their eyes and know that they saw someone whose blood ran just as red as
theirs.
And yet, it'd barely been half a day since she'd arrived, and she was already
staring at the shattered fragments of her hopes. Voices, their spiteful tone all
too familiar, stabbed at her ears and at her soul.
Her world darkened. She bit her lip and lowered her gaze.
After coming all the way here, she had her answer; it didn't matter how hard
she tried. Nothing was going to change. Not for her, not for the Rudolvons, not
for the people of her county. They'd never be seen as full citizens of Tearmoon.
Just as despair began to grip her heart, she appeared.
Like the flash of light that splits the darkness, Her Imperial Highness Mia Luna
Tearmoon, noblest of nobles and Princess of the Tearmoon Empire, strode in
and declared with resounding conviction that Tiona was "one of my subjects,"
and that "No matter who they are, so long as they belong to the Empire, I will
not condone any discourtesy toward them."
...Huh?
For a long while, Tiona's mind was blank. Mia's words kept echoing in her
mind, but their meaning eluded her. She wasn't expecting any help, and never
in her wildest dreams did she think she'd be acknowledged as a subject of the
Empire as well. Then she blinked, and the figure of the girl before her came into
focus.
Your Highness...
The girl's smile was gentler and more tender than any she'd ever seen.
"...Ah."
Something fell past Tiona's cheek. She knew it was a tear. It wasn't because
all her hard work had paid off. It wasn't because she got back at her offenders.
It was because of a promise — the assurance that no matter how powerless or
insignificant a person she might be, the young princess before her would love
and protect her as one of her own. After spending her whole life hounded by
the urge to keep proving herself, for the first time ever, she felt... secure. Relief
poured out of her in a stream of tears that, despite her best attempts to stem,
simply refused to stop flowing.