Beautiful Scar

Chapter 10

Scarlet caught a glimpse of the King and Queen of the Ire Kingdom and saw the grave expression they bored at their child. She pitied them.

And then, she looked over at Lance, whose back was wider and height was taller than hers.

"That was unnecessary". Scarlet said to Lance. "Thank you but I can handle this".

Lance merely walked, not answering her, until Scarlet turned to Dylan and spoke.

"You want to punch him for making you face that just now, don't you?" Scarlet gave a taunting smirk. "I don't blame you...In fact, feel free to try harm him instead".

Dylan did not respond. He left the place first not bothering telling the two Captains where he was heading.

He was irritated by those two Captains, indeed.

"Well, he's always in a foul mood, or at least that's what I heard of", Scarlet muttered as he left them. "Besides, what was that for? Despites his intention, he was not colluding with Ronald".

Though Lance had protected her when she first started out in the military academy, out of Sir Homes' and King Elias's order, it was also eventually due to the growing friendship they had for being some of the small sized and timid students at the academy. And she eventually grew to be able to protect him as well when they both were suffering from torments of bullies in their academy days. And now that they had graduated first compared to other peers, being the youngest Captains in the army, no one had dared to touch let alone get close to them.

But what happened just now was not out of saving a comrade, it seemed.

"Well, I was bored on my day off. I wanted to see how this Dylan guy is in person. He's a lot of work, isn't he?"

"Credit to his mother, I guess", Scarlet replied. "And really, must you intrude on my session with my men? You should've used your time advising that Brie. I almost got killed by her invention".

Hearing the latter, Lance laughed. "Oh yeah, I should've brought her instead of him, that would be priceless".

Scarlet rolled her eyes but she did not take his comment to heart.

"It's all good. Because she promised me to make the next beautiful army uniforms for me and my men. For free." Her teeth showed.

"That's not possible".

"Please," Scarlet snorted, "With your golds, it is".

Lance realized where this was going and he fell into her trap. He groaned. "Oh my god, so basically Brie's negligence costed me your whole unit?"

"Well, and other provisions for future dress malfunctions and stuff", Scarlet ticked off.

Lance shook his head but he was not angry, just utterly rendered speechless to counter this once junior of his.

Seeing her profile and Fina. They grew up too fast to be these unyielding maidens. They became beautiful but tragically and terrifyingly.

He remembered those days.

Their soft encounter occurred one night, when he was visiting Fina's household. It was the night before he departed to enter the academy for his third year there. At the time, he was turning 11.

He had spent his holidays within Fina's castle, not only because he and Fina were close, but he also wanted to receive additional training session from Sir Homes. While he dreaded going back to the academy, especially at the thought of the older boys tormenting him for his bookish and timid nature, he learned to endure the bullying through Sir Homes' training. And slowly the bullying had lessened, with time and his own defense. But it did not mean it subsided.