The Scandal

"You're leaving?" She remembered Sophia had asked when, just as she said, she was about to leave.​

"Yes," she answered firmly.​

"She allows you?"​

"She does."

​"But... why? She needs you."

​"I guess that means she doesn't need me anymore."​

Sophia shook her head. "No. Our princess needs you. You know that more than anyone else. She's... what can she do without you? Even if she doesn't notice, we do."​

She said nothing. There was nothing to say, even if Sophia was right.

​"Must you leave?" Her friend asked again with a pleading look. "Can't you stay for a bit longer? You know she needs you."​

"I'm sure she'll be alright soon." The princess had been engaged to a crown prince from a neighboring kingdom, soon to be married and leave her country. As a future crown princess and queen, she would soon have a substitute, someone who could replace her, perhaps even better than her. Both of them knew this.​

"Soon, yes, but that's for later. She's still here now. She hasn't been married off yet," Sophia said, trying to persuade her. "Can't you stay until then, at least?"

​"No." Again, she answered firmly. No hesitation whatsoever.​

"Why?" Sophia looked broken, unwilling. Unfortunately for her, Rosella had made up her mind.​

"I can't follow her to her fiancé's kingdom."​

"I get it. That's why I ask you to stay until she has to leave—"​

"I can't follow her anymore, Sophia."

​That made her stop. Sophia only stared at her. She opened her mouth, closed it, and opened it again. Hesitant, but she finally said, "No one is asking you to follow her to another kingdom."​

"I can't follow her," she repeated. "Not here, not there. Not anymore. You know what I mean."​

She had tried, truly. To stay. To follow. Hadn't she been patient enough? The princess changed after her illness, suddenly becoming amnesiac, forgetting rules and etiquette. Did she leave? No. She stayed. She taught her what she had forgotten. Assisted her when she needed it. She helped. She did more than she should. Did she complain? Yes, privately, but only because she was tired. It was never in a way that meant disloyalty. Never in a way that meant abandonment. Besides, she did it anyway, even when she was rarely thanked for it. Not that she wanted it, needed it. No. She did not need her to say thank you. She only needed her to get back on her feet. To recover. To respect her effort by not throwing it all away, as if it did not matter.​

What was the use of all those teachings if she did not want to abide by them? All the rules she painstakingly tried to make her understand, the rules she abandoned on a whim? Why did she try so hard if this was the outcome she got?​

The princess did not want to be saved, so why must she waste more energy trying to save her?

​It was better to stop. For her sanity. And perhaps, perhaps, her princess would be moved by another lady-in-waiting, whoever she was. She might not want to listen to her, but perhaps she would listen to the one who came after her.

​Sophia was quiet. Her friend knew exactly what she was talking about. How couldn't she? She might not look like it, but she was the princess' bodyguard, always staying close to her from breakfast to dinner. She watched, witnessed, as their mistress fell, spiraling out of control. As she descended not into madness, but into selfishness. As she became less and less respectable, losing more and more of her old self. She witnessed more than her. More than Nina. And Rosella knew, too, that what she had witnessed broke her heart.​

"Nina will stay. Until the wedding, at least," she told Sophia, unable to say a better word to comfort her. Even that was not new to Sophia. She knew it as well.​

"But you won't," Sophia whispered.​

"I won't," she affirmed. "You?"​

"She is my liege."​

"I see."​

She knew then that Sophia chose to stay. She would be staying with their princess all the way to the neighboring kingdom. To her, it was a vow. The loyalty of a knight. But Rosella could not be on the same page. She understood her decision, but she could no longer feel the same. She was no knight. She vowed no lifelong oath. To stay with the princess was to torture herself. It was no longer a loyalty, only foolishness.​

"I'll send a letter," she said, smiling ruefully, resigned. They had made their decision. It was time to part ways. "Good luck, Sophia."

​It was not their last farewell, but for a few months, it was their last direct conversation. They met again during the princess' wedding. They stayed together for another month, the last month the princess would spend in her home country before she had to depart for her husband's kingdom. When that month was over, it was time to bid their last goodbye.​

Nina stayed in the kingdom just as she told them many months before, but Sophia followed the princess as expected. The farewell was not as tearful as she had thought before; she surprisingly did not feel anything towards the princess after everything she had done. If there was a knot in her chest, it was only because of Sophia. But Sophia was just going abroad. They could still exchange letters, so Rosella did not feel too sad when she left.​

"Good luck," she told them, Sophia and the princess, right before they boarded the ship. "Goodbye. Until next time."

She stayed with Nina until the ship was no longer in sight. She returned home feeling a little lost, already missing her friend. But a week later, she left the capital in perfect composure as if nothing had happened. It was easy to move on when you were convinced your friends were doing fine.​

She returned to her life as a noble lady, attending tea parties, learning to manage the household, wasting time doing embroidery, teaching her younger sister, exchanging letters with Nina in the capital and Sophia and the princess in the neighboring kingdom, and looking for a good husband to marry. Life was predictable. A series of routines. Until that news came two years later.​

"Good luck," she remembered her wish. Her farewell. She said it. One in the palace, one at the port.​

"Good luck," she said, and she meant it.

​But life had another plan.​

Because Sophia was dead. Dead to protect a criminal. An adulterer. Her liege.​

Their princess.​

Their princess, who would soon meet the same end, an end befitting an adulterer: death by capital punishment.​

"Good luck," her wish for them. Her farewell. A hope for a good life waiting ahead of them. A wish unanswered.​

Why? Was she not sincere enough?​

Or was it because despite her sincerity, she barely trusted the princess?​

If that was true, she wondered if she had condemned them instead (had she?).​

As the world waited for the princess to receive her punishment, she saw how the scandal destroyed her kingdom. How it smeared the royal family's reputation. How they lost the people's trust. How they weakened when the king fell ill, unable to withstand the shock caused by his daughter's affair. Nobles began to rebel, factions fighting for control. It was a period of instability. And the crown prince was forced to deal with everything on his own.​

She wondered if this, too, was partly her fault. For wishing them good luck without trust in the princess, for leaving her and giving up on her. Maybe it was because she was not patient enough. Was not loyal enough. Was not faithful enough. Would it have been different had she stayed a bit longer?

​Those were the last thoughts she remembered before she found herself in the past, in her study, reading letters she had worked on before the regression. Those were the thoughts that fueled her determination to be different this time, to not repeat the same mistakes.​

But for now, letters come first.​

She sat properly again, clearing her mind of any distracting thoughts before carefully reading the letter in her hand despite the familiarity (because she had read it before, but better safe than sorry. A princess' letter had to be handled with her utmost attention if she did not want to create a political accident). She would have enough time to mull over her second chance after she finished her work.