Anastasius

Anastasius (アナスタージウス, Anasutaajiusu) is a prince of the Kingdom of Yurgenschmidt and currently in his final year at the Royal Academy.

Most of the time the prince appears calm and impartial, albeit with occasional bouts of arrogance showing through. However he sometimes gets rather emotional and obstinate when Lady Eglantine is involved, showing very obvious signs of jealousy.

Despite complaining about Rozemyne's walking speed he ignores her suggestion to go ahead and wait for her in his villa and still slows down for her, hinting at both a sympathetic personality and a certain entitles petulance from his high status.

Anastasius never cared for the throne when he was young. Upon meeting Eglantine he quickly fell in love with her and it is only for the sake of marrying her that he persues the throne.

Prince Anastasius is currently in his final year at the Royal Academy. He has been chosen to pray to the God of Darkness in the Graduation Ceremony's Dedication Whirl. .

As the second prince of the country he has a claim on the throne and is currently in fierce competition over the right of succession with his older brother.

Rozemyne and Anastatius first meet at the Fellowship Gathering, where all archduke candidates introduce themselves to the prince in order of duchy ranking. After the mandatory introductions, greetings and blessings are over, the prince complains about how untrustworthy his reports on her were, since her appearance didn't live up to the legend of the "Saint of Ehrenfest" he had heard. Rozemyne's attempts to get the unpleasant interaction over with quickly by giving a self-depriciating answer, but due to her annoyance is unable to keep some very obvious sarcasm from slipping out, unintentionally offending the prince.

This leads the prince to be rather dismissive, if not outright hostile, to her when their paths cross again at whirl practice. Despite his clear antipathy toward the girl, Anastasius is still interested in her highbeast due to Professor Fraularm claiming that Rozemyne attacked her with it. Rozemyne's attempts to wiggle out of the meeting are misinterpreted by the prince as an attempt to "bait" him, to which Rozemyne promises to never approach him of her own accord in the future, completely baffling Anastasius with her bizarre behaviour. Upon completing the class for the day, the prince decides he has better things to do and dismisses her without inspecting her highbeast, much to Rozemyne's relief.

When Rozemyne's new songs gain the attention of the music professors and make them invite her and her personal musician Rosina to a tea-party, Eglantine joins the professors due to her appreciation for music. To gain an opportunity to spend more time with Eglantine, Anastasius forces himself into the party as well.

The prince appears to have been quite smitten with Lady Eglantine, a fellow student of the same year. Most nobles consider this to be deliberate strategy for political reasons. Due to Eglantine's family history and status securing marriage with her would greatly increase the grooms chance of being chosen as the crown prince, which led both princes to ask for her hand in marriage. However the length Anastasius goes to just to gain her attention at any opportunity and the intensity of the jealously he shows toward anyone who gets praise from her made some people, like Professor Pauline come to suspect that his actions are motivated by more than just political reasons. This impression is further reinforced by how embarrassed Prince Anastasius was when asking Rozemyne for help in finding out who Eglantine plans to have escort her to their graduation ceremony.

After the tea party with the music professors, the prince coopts Rozemyne into his attempts to win Eglantine's heart and in the course of their meetings openly admits to seeking her hand in marriage not for power, but out of genuine affection. Hearing that Eglantine believed that his romantic gestures were only politically motivated griefs the prince.

When Rozemyne does not contact Anastasius on her own initiative - due to the promise of never approaching him of her own accord - his eagerness for news on Eglantine leads him to not just send a servant, but to personally go to the library to fetch the Ehrenfest girl, causing a lot of raised eyebrows among the nobles who see this procession.

Due to trying to not slow the already impatient prince down any more than absolutely necessary, Rozemyne ends up exhausting herself and falling ill on the way to the royal villa. In the haze of her ever rising fever, Rozemyne gives Anastasius the advice in a far more direct and candid way than anyone else would ever dare to in a conversation with a royal. She advises him to tell Elgantine his feelings more directly, since they are obviously misunderstanding each other, to practice his twirling and to polish his harspiel since Elgantine has great appreciation for the arts. Despite letting his frustration show on his face, the prince nevertheless is grateful for the valuable information and repays her with advice to better hide her emotions and to advertise information without giving it away for free so people would not end up exploiting her and treating her lightly. Shortly after Rozemyne falls unconscious, shocking the prince.

Shortly after Anastasius invites Eglantine and as Rozemyne advised lays his heart open to her. He openly and directly tells her that he never cared for the throne and only entered the race for succession because of her. He believed that Eglantine wanted to return to royalty and wished to make her happy, never suspecting that she wished for peace more than for royal status. From her reaction it would appear that Eglantine does have feelings for the prince as well and she even agrees to accompany him to an event that is generally frequented by those thinking of marrying each other. Upon hearing how he forced Rozemyne into a meeting despite being ill, she chastizes Anastasius and insists on him writing a letter of apology to her. She even assists him in writing it.

In response to the letter Rozemyne sends a letter of apology of her own for her harsh words during the meeting and upsetting Anastasius by collapsing while his guest. She adds the sheet music for the lovesong about the Goddess of Earth to the prince and promises she will make a hair ornament styled like Eglantine's favourite flowers for him, so he can gift them to his beloved.

The prince responds with an overjoyed ordonnanz, telling her which flowers those are and praising Eglantine in various ways.

Spoiler for Part 4 Volume 3

Invigorated by his candid exchange of feelings with Eglantine, Anastasius puts his all into convincing all the relevant people to allow him to escort his beloved at the graduation ceremony. After traveling countless times between the King, his brother Sigiswald and Klassenberg, he manages to get all their permission, with the previous Aub Klassenberg taking the most effort to convince.

When Rozemyne delivers the special hairpin for Eglantine and the song dedicated to the Goddess of Light as promised for Anastasius to gift to Eglantine he is very pleased with the quality of both.

As Rozemyne adviced, the prince put a lot of effort into his dedication whirl practice and thus is able to perform on Eglantine's level during their graduation ceremony performance, aweing the audience. A little later on the same day Eglantine and Anastasius receive the light of a blessing, but no one knows where it came from, which causes quite a stir among the assembled nobles. Eventually the Supreme High Bishop declares that it must have been the gods themselves blessing Eglantines marriage, likely due to the blessing seeming to have centered mostly around her and affecting her much stronger than Anastasius.

Unbeknownst to them the blessing actually came from Rozemyne, who accidentally did so while watching a recording of the whirl performance, but at Ferdinand's advice this is kept strictly confidential at the threat of serious punishment.