[1 year ago]

Din, Lorelei, and Katherine were in a small dress shop in Ravenwalt.

The shop had made plenty of suits and dresses for the Morrison family so Din and Katherine knew it could be trusted.

“Are you sure about this?” Lorelei asked timidly.

Katherine held her shoulder as she replied, “Of course! You’ll need a new dress to celebrate the ceremony for the new Ace knight.”

“But—”

Before Lorelei could reason with her, Katherine put a finger over Lorelei’s mouth.

“You don’t need to worry about a thing, Lorelei. We’re your second family. Just let your big sis buy you a new dress, okay?”

Noticing that nothing she could say would change Katherine’s mind, Lorelei quietly nodded.

Katherine gladly took that nod and cheered, “I can’t wait to have you try on all these cute dresses!”

She has sparkles in her eyes that even Din hadn’t seen before.

“Why do I have to be here?” Din asked.

Katherine moved from one corner of the shop to the other, picking up a dress from each end, before answering, “As her friend and my younger brother, you have no say in this matter. You have to support Lorelei fully for the day.”

With a long sigh, Din went to the corner of the room and looked out of the window. He had wanted to train with his sister this morning, but she decided to go shopping instead.

During their early morning trainings, Lorelei had begun coming to watch them practice and seeing as how she would watch them every day, Katherine decided to repay her by buying her a new dress for the new Ace knight’s ceremony.

They spent hours inside the shop, having Lorelei try on each and every dress. Katherine was just doing it to see Lorelei in cute dresses at this point. She never had a younger sister before so she wanted to baby her as much as she could before Lorelei got sick of it.

“Here, what do you think about this one, Din?” Katherine pulled Din over to observe Lorelei’s new dress. It was a long green dress with a golden design around the neck and the waist. It was a simple dress, but one could tell it was an expensive dress just from feeling the material.

Din replied with no enthusiasm whatsoever, “It’s fine. We should just buy that and go.”

Nothing Lorelei’s disappointment in Din’s response, Katherine squeezed the top of Din’s head. Din screamed in pain as he tried his hardest removing her hands.

“What was that for?!” He yelled.

“You have no delicacy! Not one bit!”

Din groaned, “It just looks off.” He then noticed a blue dress out of the corner of his eyes. He walked over to it and picked it out.

“How about this one?” He suggested. “I think this one would fit her.”

It was a light blue dress with a long skirt. The dress had a fresh air around it that would make the wearer appear free of worries.

The moment Lorelei came out wearing the dress, Din knew his decision was right. She looked much better wearing a dress like that than the old traditional dresses that Katherine had been gathering.

“How do you feel about it?” Katherine asked.

“Does it matter, Kat? She looks good in it, let’s just get it and go. The sun is already beginning to set!” Din mentioned.

“We still need to see if Lorelei is okay with it.”

Din angrily marched out of the shop with the words, “I’ll be waiting outside.”

“What do I do with this kid…” Katherine sighed.

Lorelei gently tucked on Katherine’s dress.

When Katherine turned around, she noticed Lorelei’s adorable blush as she said, “I like this dress.”

It took all her willpower to not embrace Lorelei at this moment.

—After they had bought her the dress, they immediately left for the Ace knight ceremony. The main roads were quite crowded, so they decided to take another route.

“Ray is becoming the new Ace knight, right?” Din asked.

“Yup!” Katherine replied. “He’s proved his worth on his service in Zante, so it isn’t a surprise.”

“Are we still at war with Zante?”

“Sadly, yes. With Ray’s contribution, we were able take over the Great Bridge, but now we have to deal with the troops on the large mountains beyond the bridge—”

“Do you have to join the next battle?” Din suddenly asked.

Katherine nodded, “Yes. Ray will be leading a new team to be the first group to charge past the bridge and he wants me to join him. I know I told you I’d stay with you after what happened to mother and father, but our country needs any help it can get.”

Noticing Katherine’s depressed tone, Din stopped her in her tracks by walking in front of her, “Don’t worry about me. I’m not the little kid I used to be! I will be joining the academy later this month and I will make sure to train hard and become strong!”

Katherine was taken aback for a second, but then she held Din close to her.

“You do that, Din.”

This time, Din was able to push himself away from her almost immediately. He muttered, “You need to stop doing that.”

The route that they were using were only known to those who liked playing near the small river next to Din’s mansion. There was an underground path that led to a ladder that lead up to an alleyway close to the castle. Din had used this path many times to get to the hospital, which was only a little walk away from the castle.

They were walking through the underground path when Din suddenly ran into a spider web.

“Get it off me! It’s all over my face!”

He brushed his face and hair until he felt like all the web was off him. After he had finished getting rid of the web, he thought to himself, ‘maybe this wasn’t the best idea to go in fancy clothing’.

“Make sure to watch where you’re going,” Katherine lectured. “It’s dark down here and these torches on the walls don’t really provide that much lighting.”

Din looked over at the corner where the spider web had been and noticed a butterfly that was stuck on the web.

“A butterfly is caught,” he muttered.

Katherine moved over to Din to look at the butterfly and noticed that it was still alive. She gently pulled the butterfly off the web and then tried her best to remove all the webbings.

When the butterfly noticed that it could freely swing its wings, it flew away from her fingers and out of the underground path.

“I hope the spider isn’t too mad at me for freeing its food,” Katherine joked.

Lorelei asked, “If you thought that, why did you remove it?”

If anyone else had asked that, Katherine would’ve thought they were being sarcastic, but she knew Lorelei wasn’t the type to do that. Lorelei was seriously curious about Katherine’s reasoning.

Katherine held Lorelei by her shoulders as she answered, “Well, Lorelei. I just thought helping the butterfly was the right choice to make there.”

Lorelei tilted her head to the side.

“I guess that answer doesn’t work, huh?” Katherine laughed. “Well then, how about this: I wanted to protect the weak.”

Noticing that Lorelei understood Katherine’s reasoning now, Katherine smiled and then got ready to move forward.