Hildebrand/Story

When Hildebrand arrived at the Royal Academy it was while the student and professors were all attending the advancement ceremony, leading to the corridors of the academy being completely empty. This comes as a disappointing surprise for the prince, who expected some kind of welcome.

Once in the small hall he is further surprised that his head attendant Arthur does not have a seat, but remains standing behind him the entire time, the same as his guard knights. Only his scholar Dankmar would sit down during the gathering, but in a concealed position under the table, so he could help the prince out, should his memory falter, like a prompter. While his retainers state they trust him to pull off the greetings on his own, they also say that it is their duty to make sure they are prepared for any eventuality so their charge would not be dishonored no matter what unexpected situations might occur. Hildebrand was nevertheless determined to get through the event solely on his own abilities, without having to fall back on his retainer's help.

Initially he did very well with the studied greetings and prepared responses for all the greater duchies, since their many interactions with the Sovereignty meant he had plenty of information of them, but once the greetings moved on to the middle duchies, his knowledge becomes more and more fuzzy. By the time the ninth is introduced, he has no choice but to rely on Dankmar to fill in the blanks.

When it is time for the tenth duchy - Ehrenfest - to introduce themselves to him, the prince tenses up considerably. During his briefings Anastasius warned his half-brother about Ehrenfest and Rozemyne in particular, describing her as "a dangerous individual who comes up with unthinkable ideas that cannot be dealt with normally", instilling both a sense of awe and nervousness in the boy.

Upon seeing the three siblings, Hildebrand is surprised and relieved to see the small, blue-haired girl who looks to be about his own age, since it means he is not the only child who has yet to turn 10 in this place. Based on their appearances, he also assumes the smaller girl to be the younger sister Charlotte and the taller, blond girl with the indigo eyes to be Rozemyne. Apparently his brother's warnings did not even include the most cursory mentions of Rozemyne's appearance, leading the third prince to mistake the two sisters for each other.

While the vast majority of students are still busy with their lessons, Hildebrand secretly visits the academy's library with only a small group of knights and bringing the entire group to just ten people. During one of his visits he is surprised to run into one of the Ehrenfest archduke candidates. After the obligatory noble greetings are exchanged, the girl stating she does not want to inconvenience the prince quickly retreats to the second floor with one of the library magic tools after ordering the other to guide Hildebrand.

Hildebrand secretly watches her read. While the girl herself does not notice, one of her attendants does.

A couple of days later Hildebrand notices the absence of Schwartz and Weiss during one of his secret visits to the library and inquries with Professor Solange about this. He learns that by chance he had arrived while Rozemyne and Charlotte along with more Ehrenfest students were in a backroom changing the two magic tools into their new clothes. Hildebrand offers to leave, but his retainers are very curious to witness this, since they had previously worried about Ehrenfest's ability to provide the appropriate attire for the shumils. Due to their difference in rank, Rozemyne has no choice but to invite them in and hand the old clothes over to the royal attendants.

After he tells the kneeling Ehrenfest students to resume their work, the smaller of the two archduke candidates, whom he assumed to be Charlotte, remains standing aside. Since everyone else in the room appears busy either working on or observing the changing, except the girl, he moves over to her to talk. In the course of their conversation he shyly mentions that he heard that Rozemyne was already engaged and inquires whether any such plans existed for Charlotte. The girl tells him that while she was not aware of any such plan, it surely would be discussed during the Interduchy Tournament or Archduke Conference, leaving Hildebrand to dejectedly look down and whisper about being too young to be considered reliable.

Much to his surprise the girl states that she does not believe that reliability is based solely on age and inquires whether she should ask Charlotte for the prince, greatly confusing him for a moment until it finally clicks that he has in fact been speaking with Rozemyne and not Charlotte this entire time and had mistaken them based on their appearances. He quickly deflects and asks Rozemyne to keep this part of their conversation a secret.

After the changing is complete Hildebrand is so enraptured by the shumils' cuteness that he reaches out to touch one of them. Rozemyne tries to warn him off, but is too late, resulting in the prince receiving a mild shock on his hands on account of not having permission to touch them, which surprises him and his retainers, since at the royal palace all magic tools are accessible to the members of the royal family. They strongly suggest that since the shumil are royal heirlooms, the prince would be more suited to being their master than Rozemyne. To their surprise she agrees with them that it would not only be more appropriate, but also more convenient, listing out all the advantages this would bring, but also sees fit to state the disadvantages as well, like needing to provide a new set of clothes, the amount of mana it requires and that the magic tools are only capable of refering to their primary master as "milady" regardless of gender.

The royal retainers balk at the time, effort and ressources it would require to provide a new set of clothes on short notice and the effects that providing so much mana might have on their charge at such a young age, while the prince is quite disinclined to be called milady. As an alternative Rozemyne suggests that Hildebrand could become a secondary master, provided he has affinities for both darkness and light, which the prince enthusiatically agrees to.

From then on Hildebrand visits the library daily to stroke the two shumil, while providing them with mana.

During one of his visits, Rozemyne enters the library to inform Professor Solange that she and Lady Hannelore have settled for a date for their tea-party and that it would be in four days. Overhearing this Hildebrand inquires whether he should stay away from the library on that day to not inconvenience them, but seeing as how part of the tea-party is to make Hannelore into a secondary master for the magic tools as well, Solange suggests to invite the prince too, which Rozemyne does. Hildebrand accepts the invitation, happy at the prospect, since there are so few places he can visit and so few things he can do here at the academy. He's also looking forward to having a tea party with someone he's not related to, since all of his previous tea-parties were only between his mother and him, or on rare occasions other relatives who came to visit.

Soon after other students found out about Hildebrand often visiting the library and started flocking there, which made Hildebrand retreat to his villa and stop going to the library at all.

To compensate his former ally for the damage the purge has done to the duchy, King Trauerqual agreed to marry his son Hildebrand to Aub Ahrensbachs granddaugther and heir once she ascends to the position of archduchess. To this end the engagement of Letizia and Hildebrand has already been officially announced, which is exceptionally early for such an announcement. Hildebrand only had his official debut in the very same archduke conference and Letizia isn't even old enough to attend the academy yet.

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