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Maxi’s surroundings were enveloped with silence & awkwardness. She might finally be away from the clutches of her wretched father, and with her secret now in the open, she feels a heavyweight from her shoulders slightly lifted. However, the feeling of pure shame still lies in her chest.
She couldn’t even look any of the Remdragon Knights in the eyes as she walked towards the carriage taking them back to Anatol. Yurixion was on her tail every second, wherever she goes, but she wouldn’t even spare him a glance. The pity looks, the painful expressions, she doesn’t want those etched in her head and her heart.
A shadow towers over her just as she was about to walk into the carriage, and she felt a hand on her lower back.
“Watch your step."
Maxi looks up to the owner of the voice, gives a small nod and a slight smile. Once she’s seated, her husband comes in and settles next to her.
She couldn’t even look at her own husband. Her handsome, literal knight-in-shining-armor. From all the fairy tales she’s read, they save their damsel from dread and dragons, free them from a secluded life in towers, and then share a passionate kiss as a promise to live a life happily ever after.
But now, here she is, a damsel who is finally safe and free, yet she never expected the humiliation and trauma that comes with those secure words. She suffered the same distress, and she wanted the same things as those women in the books wanted– freedom, and love, yet why does her story feel so… unfulfilling?
If only she was honest and brave and smart. If only she wasn’t so… petty and weak. If only she fought back. If she only told her husband the truth.
What if Riftan and the knights think of her so little now? After all the things she did to prove herself, be accepted and respected, only to be voided by the mere fact that she had let her own father abuse her to his heart’s content.
Maxi has her head leaning against the carriage window, wallowing in her own pitiful thoughts. She doesn’t deserve to revel in her newfound freedom just yet.
Her thoughts were interrupted when she felt Riftan’s gloved fingers caress her cheeks so gently as if he’s scared he might bruise her. A gesture like that would usually make her heart soar but now, she’s worried he might be too reserved to handle her. She’s fine now, she’s stronger than when she last left the Duchy, but how can she prove that exactly after the show they just witnessed?
Still, she returned his gaze with a solemn expression of her own.
“You’re safe now.”
“I k-know.”
Her response was so stiff it made Riftan’s heart twist.
Does she not believe him?
Maxi went back to her initial position, looking through the scene but not really absorbing anything. Until she sees a familiar hill near a field of lilies. Suddenly she jerked her head upright, opened the window, and impulsively yelled–
“S-stop the carriage!”
The sudden halt almost made her fall from her seat. And her actions were so unexpected it surprised Riftan, his hand was ready on the hilt of his sword.
“What’s wrong?” Riftan asks coldly, trying to gauge the surrounding area from inside the carriage. They were still far from the forest entrance to encounter monsters. Is it bandits? Did Maxi's father or his men follow them to ambush them?
Maxi stood up and was about to get off the carriage when Riftan grabs a tight hold onto her arm.
“Where are you going?”
“I– uh.. I w-wanted to go s-see someone,” she says without even sparing him a glance.
“Who?”
Maxi was unsure if Riftan was even aware that his hold on her became tighter.
She was about to answer when a soft knock came about.
“M’Lady, Commander, is everything alright?” Uslin’s voice was heard from outside the carriage.
Maxi then finally looks at her husband, her eyes reflecting much more emotions than a few moments ago.
“Come w-with me. I want to introduce you to someone,” she says with a smile.
Riftan shoots her a questioning look, but lets her go, and lets her out first when the door opens.
The first thing Maxi notices were the Knights’ stern and heavy gazes at all possible angles for an attack, encircling the carriage, all hands ready to unsheathe their weapons. She feels a little guilty knowing they were on their toes because of her.
“Everything’s okay,” they hear her say. “I just want to v-visit someone before we leave for g-good.” Then she begins walking towards the hill.
Uslin looks at his commander, and Riftan just nods and follows Maxi.
The hill wasn’t too sloped and high, in fact, it looked pretty well-maintained for just a huge lump of dirt that you could probably run through it barefoot. But upon getting closer, Riftan notices a black marble headstone rooted on the edge of the hill.
In her every gesture there was dignity and love
Here lies
Lady Arian Croix
Duchess of Croyso
Riftan stood stiff and stunned until he felt Maxi’s hand intertwine his, and he let her tug him closer.
“Hello, M-mother,” he heard his wife’s small voice from beside him.
Maxi lets go of his hand and kneel in front of the headstone, bowing her head slightly.
“I a-apologize, I… never got to visit you… after they buried you.”
She felt her chest tighten again, holding back the urge to cry. The last time she was here was her mother’s funeral, and she was so young back then. How many years ago was that? No, how young was she back then? Maybe she was only a mere toddler, but she remembered that day all too well. After that, her father became stricter than usual, relentlessly making sure she never leaves the castle. She might not remember how to get here to the hill, but her father made sure to lock her before she even got the chance to find out how.
“I h-hope you aren’t m-mad. F-father… h-he, never let me..”
Riftan was listening and he didn’t need to pry to know what Maxi meant.
He felt his own heart breaking. He felt so sorry for his wife, felt bad for his… late mother-in-law. How could her own husband prevent her and their daughter from seeing each other?
His jaw clenched as he was thinking of violent ways to put the Duke to permanent sleep.
“I’m married now, Mother. I-I don’t know if you’ve h-heard..”
In an instant, he dropped his ruthless thoughts upon hearing his wife’s uplifting voice, like she’s sharing the best news of her life for the first time.
Is this really what she wanted to talk to her mother about?
“If y-you are watching me from a-above, then you’ve heard… And you must have a-also heard, that I am married to the most v-valiant and s-strongest Knight in all of Whedon, if not the entire c-country,” Maxi softly brags, and lets out a small giggle.
Riftan blushed as he hears his own wife gush about him to her mother.
“He leads the Remdragon Knights, a g-group of just and loyal and b-brave men. I t-trust them with my life. And we l-live in a place called Anatol. It’s lovely t-there, and happier. The servants, t-they are nice to me. They are like family.”
And listening to his wife talk about her life in his land makes him feel proud.
“M-my marriage... It was arranged, wasn’t the most f-favorable… My wedding, it wasn’t f-fancy like in the books…”
“But my husband… He saved me.”
Riftan’s chest felt like it was about to burst. He looks at his kneeling wife, fighting the heavy tears that was about to fall from his eyes.
“His name is Riftan Calypse, and h-he’s a good man.”
Maxi turns her head to look at her husband and smiles at him.
“You w-would have liked him.”
She gestures Riftan to kneel beside her. He sees the expensive marble up closer now with his eyes, but he feels the name engraved on the headstone closer in his heart.
“I’m safe now, Mother. My husband, h-he will protect me. So y-you don’t need to worry.”
Riftan grabs Maxi’s hand and brings it to his lips, in front of her mother’s headstone he assures her a promise to keep her safe and happy.
He stands up and goes near the flower fields where he picks a few lilies and lays them on his mother-in-law’s grave.
Your daughter is kind and beautiful. For as long as I am alive, no harm will ever befall her. Not anymore. Riftan speaks in a silent vow.
He stands up and offers his hand to Maxi. And as they leave the premise, Maxi’s heart feels much lighter than before.
They both arrive back where they left the carriage and the other knights, worried expressions evident on their faces. But Maxi smiles at them– looks at them , and they know, everything’s okay. The depressing atmosphere is wavering.
They are on the move again, and Maxi’s head is leaning against the carriage window, remembering the things she longed for while she was trapped inside those brooding brick walls at Croyso.
Now she takes in the sight through the glass, the road taking her back to Anatol
“Freedom,”
she squeezes the hand that’s intertwined with hers.
“and Love.”
“Maxi…”
She turns her head to look at her husband.
“What was… your mother like?”
Maxi stares at Riftan, surprised at his question. But she gives him a big smile, so wide it makes it look like her eyes are closed, and it made his heart flutter.
A 3-year-old Maximillian is cradled in the arms of a very sweet woman with dark-red hair. She looks older for her age, with dark circles around her eyes, a few wrinkles on her forehead. She was thin, but the gleam in her eyes as she looked at her daughter made her look so young and alive.
“Hush now, my child… You will be okay.”
The toddler was sniffling, her mother’s calm shushing and humming stopping her cries.
“One day, it will come, when a man will save you, and show you the life you deserve.”
“He will not be like your father, indeed he won’t.”
“He will be like the princes in your books, the hero that saves the maiden from a life in the dark.”
“But you must remember, that it shouldn’t matter whether he be a prince, he may not even be a noble…”
Maxi is quiet now, for someone so young and small, she listens to her mother as if it’s the most important advice she needs to hear.
“He can be in the form of any man… as long as he is good.”
“Until then, my sweet, you have to be strong. He will come, and he will be good to you.”