"You must be the friends my son brought along today. Welcome to my house," the Duke spoke in a regal voice. He held his head up high as he spoke and never kept it at eye level with Ning or the others.
"Thank you for having us," Ning said, and Saphandra followed.
The Duke was more focused on Saphandra than he was on Ning. Ning didn't think much about it after all it would have been weirder if he hadn't focused on Saphandra.
"What's your name, young lady?" he asked.
"I am called Saphandra," she said.
The duke gave a curious look. "No surname?" he asked.
"No," Saphandra shook her head.
The Duke frowned a little bit and barely managed to hide it from fully appearing on his face. Ning caught it as he had been staring at the duke, but the others seemed to have missed it.
"Are you not from any big family? My wife says you are from the west, but certainly, you must belong to a noble household right?" the Duke asked.
"No, I do not belong to any noble family. Rather, I was an orphan since I was born, and while I did have a last name that was given to me at the orphanage, I quickly left it behind at a young age," she said.
She was using the memories in her head from a time when she used to belong to another world to craft a backstory to fit the current purpose.
A violet-haired woman with no background or family was too much of a glaring problem for the Duke to just ignore.
Either the woman was lying about her background, or she was simply appearing to have violet hair.
"What rank do you—"
"Aren't you a duke?" Saphandra asked.
"I am," the duke said, with a hint of confusion in his eyes.
"I thought dukes were supposed to be more authoritative, have more confidence in themselves. What are you doing beating around the bush when all you really want to know is if my hair color is real or not?" she asked.
The duchess pulled her lips in and bit them to keep herself from smiling while the duke watched with shock on his face. Never in his life had someone told him to get some confidence in himself.
No one would ever really dare. Yet today… he was starting to show some redness on his face from feeling shame.
"Lady Saphandra, that is not very ladylike," the duke's other son, Lucius spoke from her side.
"Well, sorry to break it to you but I've never been ladylike. Also, don't bother trying to court me. I am not going to give you any time of my day," she said directly.
Ning smiled as he saw the drama unfold. He glanced towards Trevain who was gobsmacked by the fact that Saphandra was talking back to both his father and his brother.
"Ahem," the Duke put away any awkward expression he may have and asked, "Lady Saphandra, is your hair real?"
"Yes, it is," she said without hesitation.
"Can you prove it?" the duke asked. Now that he was humiliated in his own house, he wasn't going to keep his questions tucked away in his mind, hoping the answer would come out on its own.
"Can I?" Saphandra thought for a bit. How could she prove her hair wasn't dyed without using her skills? Did she have to let them wash her hair right here? Certainly not, right?
If it were any other person, they could summon some powers from the other beasts that weren't harmful and could use that to prove their strengths.
They could also bond with a beast that the duke's household might have and use that to prove that they could fully inherit the skills of anything they were bonded to.
But Saphandra's case was a little special.
Ning looked at her thinking about what she could she. From what he understood, she was bonded to little blue permanently and one of the conditions of the bond was that she would always give everything she gathered to little blue.
As such, unless the bond was somehow broken, Saphandra was forever stuck with having no Spiritual energy to summon something.
"What is it? Can you not prove anything? We have some beasts if you want to bond with them," the Duke said.
"She is unable to prove it," Ning spoke from the side. "She is already bonded and has powers, so she is unable to bond to another beast at the time."
"That just sounds like excuses," Lucius spoke from the side.
"That's just the truth, whether you want to believe it or not," Ning said. "Also, why don't we change the topic? I wanted to know why your son is staying so far away. Shouldn't you be trying to get closer now that you've met each other after 5 years?"
"He's being punished for what he did today," Lucius said. "Also, let's not change the topic."
He seemed to have been offended by Saphandra saying that she would not give him the time of the day, so he was now trying to take it out on her.
However, Ning continued, "No, let's do change the topic. I heard your son is getting married, Duke Grecian. You must be quite happy about it," he said. "Although, your son says he doesn't even know who he is being married to, is that true?"
"You don't need to meddle in our family's business," the Duke said coldly.
"That's true," Ning said. "I have no right to say anything about what happens in the family."
"But do you think that's going to stop me from speaking?" Ning asked. "I don't know what exactly is going on, but as Trevain's friend I feel like I must speak for him."
"If for whatever reason what I assume is true, and you really are trying to get your son married off to someone despite his approval, then you really are one of the scummiest fathers I have ever seen."
