Chapter Text
Urano Motosu loved books.
Psychology, religion, history, geography, education, anthropology, math, physics, geology, chemistry, biology, art, language, fiction... Books were filled with the knowledge of all humanity, and she loved them from the bottom of her heart.
She felt rewarded whenever she read a book packed with facts and trivia new to her. Looking upon worlds unbeknownst to her through maps and picture anthologies made her feel the intoxicating bliss of her world expanding. She was even interested in old tales and myths from foreign countries, as she felt like they gave her a glimpse into different cultures of ages long past. She couldn't count how many hours she had lost to unravel their mysteries.
Urano loved the distinctive scent of old books. She would slowly fill her lungs with the old, musty smell and look over the aged books, feeling elated from that alone. Of course, she also loved the smell of new paper and ink. She had fun just wondering about what would be written on those pages, what new information awaited her.
Urano just didn't feel right when her eyes weren't scanning the lines of a book. She had lived - from childhood to her college graduation - always with a book close at hand.
Everyone who knew Urano called her "that weird bookworm". They said that she loved books so much it was damaging her life. People commented behind her back about her gross and pale skin and laughed at her for being weak due to lack of exercise. But Urano didn't care, no matter what they said. She had books, and that was enough to make her happy. Even if her mom yelled at her for forgetting to eat, she had no intention of ever letting go of her books
Urano wanted to live her entire life surrounded by books. Time not spent reading books was time wasted. If she had to die somehow, she may as well die getting crushed by an avalanche of books. That'd make her a lot happier than a slow death in a hospital bed. Urano sincerely believed that. However, if she had died, she’d have asked a god to be reincarnated and live again, so she could read again - maybe even books filled with new knowledge.
Urano’s mother had resigned herself to the true love between Urano and her books, even if she would have liked it if her daughter had “managed her time more wisely” and “took proper care of her health”. She was curious about every form of art and craft, yet she would get easily tired and charge into something new after a while - usually leaving her daughter to finish her work, reducing her reading time here and there. Urano loved the meals she cooked - though she was usually too absorbed into some book while eating to praise her mother and let her know it.
Shuu was Urano’s closest friend, that kind of friend that referred to her home as his own and not her nor her mother even questioned it. After all, his home was next door, and he and Urano had gone to school together for years, since the daycare. They truly were childhood friends. Urano believed he had come to understand how much she loved books, even if she could admit to herself that sometimes it annoyed him.
The room Urano used to hole into when she was in her own house was a book storage room left behind by her father, who had died when she was young. The book room had a window for ventilation purposes, but a thick light-blocking curtain tightly covered it to protect the books from sunlight. There were bookcases packed with books on all sides, surrounding a desk placed in the middle of the room.
Urano was sitting on the desk chair, reading one of her books. A huge stack of books was almost towering over her from the desk itself, as she had bought so many books over the years that the shelves couldn't hold them all. No sunlight or shadow stretching could visually convey the passing of time, as the lamp yellowish light never faded or relented.
Suddenly, her vision shook. She concluded that an earthquake was happening and kept on reading as always.
The shaking was harder than usual, which made it difficult for her to read. The light started pulsating. Her brows furrowed and she looked up, frustrated at the earthquake, only to see books dominating her vision.
"Hyaaah?!"
Books tumbled from a tilted shelf and rained right down onto her. Unable to dodge them. Urano could only stare with her eyes wide open as she was buried beneath them. Her last hope was a prayer, to whoever god could hear her, to be able to read books in her next life.
Ferdinand Sohn Ehrenfest did not know what loving someone or something meant.
The woman giving him his name had spoken to him only once, telling him to follow his heart, find his dream, and shape his life. He had been told later she was his mother. Yet, despite all the years he spent in that place, only that faint memory of her lingered in the depths of his mind.
After that, a small group of people had taken him away from these sweet-smelling rooms. A man with hair as dark as the night sky, a beardy and bigger one with piercing eyes, and a woman with pale hair had walked him out, into the world he could have only stolen glances to through windows blocked by cold bars. The blue-haired man told him he was his father and the woman was going to be his mother. The other people addressed him as Aub Ehrenfest, while the woman named herself Lady Irmhilde.
His father lived in a big and white building and already had a wife - Lady Veronica - and a son - Lord Sylvester. While the latter seemed happy to have met Ferdinand and led him all around the place, the first one ignored him or looked down at him worse than people in that place did. He learned his father's name was “Adalbert” since that was how the blonde woman angrily addressed him while he was avoiding her gaze, wearing a troubled expression. The imponent man rarely spoke, but Ferdinand could almost feel his gaze following him around.
On the other hand, Lady Irmhilde had been gentle to him. She was afraid of making him uneasy by touching him, and she wanted him to live “to find the things he desired, to make them true, and to protect them”. In her villa he got accustomed to the “Ehrenfest” he was going to live into, and got aware of what becoming a “noble” implied.
His father, Lord Adalbert, was the "Aub" - the ruler of the city and the land surrounding it. The silent man with azure eyes, Lord Bonifatus, was his father's brother. Irmhilde was their sister. The heat he sometimes felt inside in his body was mana, and having so much of it while also being the son of the Aub made him a high-ranked noble. Lady Veronica feared him, ‘cause he could potentially threaten the position of Lord Sylvester as the next Aub, and she hated him because his father “plucked a flower in another garden”. He was not sure of what that meant, probably he was seen as an outsider in Ehrenfest.
His days in her villa weren’t fated to last. He moved to the castle. He often felt cold, and headaches, and he almost couldn’t eat without feeling some pain in his stomach.
Some days later, he was baptized as Aub Ehrenfest's son. He didn’t see Lady Irmhilde there, nor anyone in the castle told him about her. His father and Lady Veronica named new people to look after him, replacing almost all the ones who had been serving him during his period in Lady Irmhilde's villa. However, the way most of them behaved around him made him feel uneasy. They seemed to observe him and try to frame him, while pretending to teach or guide him. All while wearing polite or even wide smiles that never reached their eyes.
Apparently, his father's wife was quick on the uptake about each one of his smallest supposed mistakes, and she liked to remark on whatever flaw she could spot while repressing with little effort a nasty grin spreading on her face. Each bite of food was harder to swallow during the meals shared with all the family.
To prove his worth as the child of an archduke, he had to produce results. After all, raising an useless archduke candidate would have been a waste of resources, and their life wouldn’t have been valuable in the slightest. Veronica ensured day in and day out he could never forget it.
So, he had to be flawless. No word of his tutors could be allowed to go wasted, nor could any of their teachings be neglected.
Even if his memory never failed him, he had to dig in the notes Sylvester lent him (proudly smiling) and in any book he could safely put his hands onto.
After his baptism, Ferdinand started supplying mana to the magical core of the duchy, the foundation. He often replenished it with Sylvester and his father, but sometimes Veronica led him there - since there was more mana he could supply to help his father, his brother, and Ehrenfest. He could barely keep her pace, earning comments about how he was such an ungrateful or an useless child whenever he mustered the courage to dare to ask her to relent or stop the mana dedication flow. When he felt his eyelids heavy, his body aching and dizzy, and he was hardly able to get up and stand up, he begged the gods to save him and help him survive.
He never got an answer.
That day, the supply with Veronica had been no different. After he left the room, his attendant quickly washed him and prepared him for dinner.
The meat he was slowly chewing was annoyingly spicy, and the familiar pain in his stomach told him Veronica used the usual amount of poison to harass him. He had to put all his might into keeping a polite smile, while Bluanfah was dancing in Sylvester’s eyes as he was telling them how his courtship was bringing Lady Florencia closer, even if she had already graduated from the Royal Academy. Ferdinand ought to congratulate and encourage him, but he almost choked on a small piece of spice.
He tried to politely cough it up, but he found himself unable to do so. As Veronica noticed him, a grin shortly cracked her noble facade, before she turned again toward her speaking son. Putting more effort as he started lacking air, he managed to free his throat - though, it wasn't polite nor silent. He pushed back a tear and quickly swallowed, only to meet Sylvester’s eyes as he called his name.
His head was still dizzy, so only at that moment he realized the corners of his lips were wet. He wiped himself with his napkin, only to see reddish stains on its whitish fabric.
Started by what was happening, Ferdinand tried to ask for forgiveness, but the edges of his field view blurred and he felt something piercing his brain. He instinctively cradled his head and coughed, his throat in a fire.
As he opened his eyes, more blood stains were now on the table.
Sylvester had jumped up, leaning towards him with his hands on the table. His face was close to the colour dear to Ewigeliebe.
Veronica was looking at him without commenting, displaying the same expression one would show upon hearing an unknown song.
His father had frozen in place.
Ferdinand’s head hurt. He couldn't breathe in enough air. His stomach and his throat were on fire. As started to shudder, and he could feel his rigid body not answering to him, Ferdinand truly understood what ‘fear’ was.
“Bro- hel- me.”
Ferdinand didn't even know why or how, but he found himself asking for help and stretching his own arm towards his elder brother.
“Poi-on.”
Sylvester’s eyes widened and, right after, a short stick appeared in his hand. The man behind Veronica stepped forward wielding a similar instrument, and so did Karstedt - Sylvester's guard knights, and Bonifatus’ son.
Ferdinand’s father's voice roared - what an unusual event! - and cut down all movements and noises.
Ferdinand was suddenly enveloped in a big bubble. Water filled his nose, mouth and throat. Then it disappeared, and a green light quickly filled his view. As he fell forward, everything went dark and silent.