Mercenary of Navigon:
The Compass of Power
Chapter 2: Noble Interlude (Part 3)
The jealous Lord couldn’t remain quiet any longer and addressed the father, “I beg your pardon, Your Lordship, I just don’t believe a word he says.” He then started accusing Kratos with, “Just look at him! A member of that noble family doesn’t come waltzing into a place like this, dressed like a warden and looking like a vagabond! I just don’t buy it.”
Kratos whispered to his fake fiancée but audible enough for everyone at the table to hear, “At least I’m not the one whose haircut looks like a square-tip marker.”
Duchess Hilda giggled with her hand over her mouth in order to try and not breech table manners but was visibly doing so.
Lord Jotunall squinted with disgust at the mercenary and abruptly stood up, shaking the table a little bit. This brought the attention of some of the other tables whose guests ceased their conversation to observe the racket made at the centre table. Kratos continued to lounge back in his seat with a stoic expression.
“Stand up,” the Lord demanded.
Kratos leaned over to the father and commented, “Pardon me for saying this but this is the man you want around your daughter? He’s quite short-tempered if you ask me.”
“Jotunall, please have a seat, dear.” Duchess Hilda’s mother tried to talk some sense into the firebrand.
“I respectfully decline your request, Your Ladyship,” he refused. “By my family’s honour, he has tarnished it. The only way I can hope to get it back is by defeating him in a duel.”
He then leaned on the table with both palms on it and repeated affirmatively, “You. Stand up. Now. We fight.”
Kratos looked both ways at the Duchess’s parents who sat at the opposite ends of the table, then at the young Duchess herself, and finally back at Lord Jotunall replying with, “Kid, you don’t wanna mess with me, I’m not who you think I am.”
“Right, you’re an imposter tarnishing a great family’s name, as well as my own. And once I defeat you, I’ll take my fiancée back too. Those are the stakes.”
Kratos smiled the kind of irritable smile that makes someone want to burst from where they are, to knock some sense into another but instead he slowly stood up and also placed both hands onto the table saying, “And just what makes you think she belongs to you?”
“Engagement, friend,” the Lord replied, flexing a silver band over his right ring finger, contrasting to the Duchess’s left-handed ring. “Something that wasn’t formally done for you, thus, your relationship to her is invalid. She’s my property.”
“Is that so?”
Kratos’s sinister smile faded the second he nodded.
“If you want to leave quietly now like a true gentleman,” he continued, “maybe I can forgive all that happened just now, and you won’t have to perish at the sharp end of my blade. I am a Chevalier you know.”
The distance between their faces was close enough for the mercenary to execute his underhanded move: a sharp head-butt to the nose. The Lord faltered back and collapsed on the floor behind him, as he held his broken and bloody nose with his left hand. Duchess Hilda’s parents were appalled at this act and sought to help the man recover, as well as usher some servers over to the table to sanitise the wound.
“K-Kratos…!” Duchess Hilda exclaimed, standing up while clutching his wrist.
“He was saying some pretentious things… I just wanted to put him in his place,” he explained.
“But you—!”
“And you should too.”
“What do you…?”
The mercenary sighed and as the commotion was focused on Lord Jotunall’s recovery, he escorted the Duchess away from the scene while managing to evade any confrontation.
“Kratos, what are you—?” she asked, startled at everything that’d happened from the moment they entered the restaurant.
“Any man who thinks like that marker head out there has no place in a world run by women,” he explained. “This means that you shouldn’t be so powerless against anyone like that either.”
“I’m not powerless against him…” she argued, “Just… my parents and their arrangement to him. Like when I’m paired together with him, he doesn’t force himself or anything like that on me because I reject his advances. I have him under control…”
“So, he really is all talk,” Kratos mentioned off to the side.
“Yes…” Duchess Hilda continued, “but, it’s just my parents don’t want me to be so stern when I’m with him and just learn to get along, but I know he wants more than that, so I intentionally put-up walls…”
“… So there lies the issue,” Kratos speculated. “It’s not that painting brush you need to worry about, it’s disappointing your parents.”
“And his parents, as well as other nobility and the people who look up to me…” she added. “It’s all just unfair to think that I need to be with someone to find my own success when I’m already a prosperous overseer in this country! I’m the Duchess of Navigon! The only thing he has is his family legacy as accomplished soldiers and blade masters, but you don’t see people hounding him to get married.”
Duchess Hilda sighed as she leaned back against the wall.
“And from what I know, even the four Matriarchs are unwedded, so why are people so adamant on someone like me to get married? There’s four solid proofs around us!”
“… Why should they care about someone else’s future?” Kratos ominously stated. “They should just mind their own damn business. You should be free to do what makes you happy.”
“… I could understand why you’re saying what you’re saying…” She sympathised after learning of his disownment from his family, “but they’re still my parents, Kratos… I at least owe them one selfish request.”
“But to the expense of your happiness?”
They were both speechless for a moment.
Kratos then continued with, “I’m sorry. You’re right, Hilda… they are your parents after all. After a certain point, mine just stopped caring for me, so I sought to travel my own path away from their influence. The first was replacing my surname to something that defined my position in the family and then, keeping my calling name as a verbal reminder, as well as retaining the watch as a possession. I didn’t run away from my past; I embraced the changes while constantly reminding myself of the pain so that I could move forward. I forged a new identity for myself, but I’ll never disown my heritage.”
“You’re strong, Kratos. For you to honour that commitment proves that you’ve certainly been through a lot and still come out victorious,” she complimented.
“I just think,” he continued, “that it’s not my place to speak on how you want to handle your family issues, but I do believe, if they love you enough, they’ll give you the freedom you desire if you tell them what you want, instead of asking for it.” “You’re right…” Duchess Hilda responded, as her face lit up with hope, “I need to be blunt and tell them that I’m not going to marry that misogynistic… marker head! I’m going to continue to live my life doing what I love… and that’s being Duchess of this great country.”
Randy Boodram 
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