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When she finally got her manners up to standard, Sir Ainno began to nitpick about her appearance and hygiene, which was unreasonable for her. For example, she would show up with her face and hair washed, but Sir Ainno would swear at her that her hair looked dirty. Her last bath was only a few days ago, but he insisted that she needed to take another hot bath again. Poliana couldn’t help her frustration.

But in the end, she had no choice but to follow his orders. Sir Ainno said that it was the rule for the royal guards to follow the same hygiene standard as that of a nobleman.

One day, Donau suggested to Poliana, “Now, all you have to do is to let your hair grow. If you do, people will no longer mistake you as a man.”

Poliana hasn’t had long hair since she was a little girl, and she didn’t want to start now. When she scratched her hair hesitantly, Donau begged her, “Please, Poliana, let your hair grow. I am so sick of people confusing you for a man. Sometimes, I even feel like I should call you ‘Bro.\'”

“You can if you want to.”

“That’s not the point, Sis!”

Donau now sometimes called Poliana “Sis.” He was sick of having a brother. Now that he finally had someone that could be like his big sister, he felt like didn’t need another brother. Donau knew the pain of having a big brother, and he secretly felt sorry for Sir Deke, who had the misfortune of having two.

Donau pointed at Poliana’s hair, which was shorter than most men on the base.

“It’s so short! Isn’t it uncomfortable?”

It was true that in summers and winters, short hair could be unpleasant, but she kept it very short for one reason; it was easier to wash it and keep it clean. Even though her newly adopted brother begged her, Poliana refused to change her mind. Her reasoning was simple; if another outbreak of lice or bedbugs occurred, everyone was going to be ordered to shave their hair anyway. What would be the point of her growing her hair long and going through the frustration of taking care of it?

On top of that, if she did get longer hair, she knew that the other men would criticize her for it. She knew that they would either laugh at her, thinking that she wants to look feminine, or insist that she takes proper care of it, like washing it and brushing it regularly until it shined.

It was odd how men had an obsession with women’s hair, a great example would be her stepsister, Liana, who had long shiny hair. She called it golden, but Poliana knew it was at best a light brown one. Everyone in the household talked about her hair all the time. Any men that visited their house also always mentioned how beautiful she kept her hair.

Men didn’t care about their own hair. They didn’t care if men shaved their heads or if they let it grow long, so why was it that everyone was fixated with a woman’s hair?

Poliana knew that she wouldn’t be able to take proper care of it, so she was determined to keep it extra short. She lived with it for the past 10 years. It served her very well and even if she began now to let her hair grow, she knew that she wouldn’t last very long and would end up cutting it short again.

Because her head was practically shaved, the shape of her head was very obvious. It was very round, and one day, Lucius the First found a slightly depressed area on it. It didn’t look like she was born with it; it looked like it was formed from an accident or an assault.

“Sir Poliana, what is that on your head?”

“This dent is from being hit by a hammer when I was in the Aehas’ army. I was lucky to be wearing my helmet at the time. If I wasn’t, I would’ve died.”

Lucius the First found it interesting so he touched it. With Poliana’s very short hair, almost a stubble, touching the dented area felt oddly satisfying. The emperor seemed to have found it amusing because he kept touching it over and over again. Poliana stayed still and let him have his fun. This happened some times when people wanted to touch the area and as long as the intent wasn’t inappropriate, Poliana was ok with it. She knew that her emperor found it amusing, nothing more.

When Lucius the First finally had his fill, he pulled back his hand and replied, “I guess you were indeed very lucky to survive it.”

“And I didn’t get a bald spot either.”

Poliana supposed that if she did get a bald spot, she might have grown her hair long to hide it. The emperor then added, “I was wondering why you were so strict about wearing your helmet, and now I understand. It was because of that incident.”

Until Poliana was assigned as his guard, they never had the chance to get to know each other. But with this new position, they were learning so much. Lucius the First liked what he learned of Poliana as a person. Poliana, on the other hand, was already very loyal to him to begin with, and her feelings for him didn’t change.

Lucius the First nodded as he studied her short hair.

“Now that I see it up close, I can see that you have blond hair, Sir Poliana.”

“It’s actually light brown.”

“Not golden?”

“My younger sister has light brown hair, so yes. And as it gets longer, it will probably darken.”

Poliana knew that she, or anyone else in the world, wouldn’t claim to be blonde in front of her emperor, who had hair that looked like it was spun from gold. Lucius the First seemed interested in her family, so he asked the question that was most commonly asked if one were to realize his/her friend had a sister. “Is your younger sister pretty?”

“Yes. She is pretty.” Poliana was used to this question, so she answered quickly.

She worried that the emperor might not believe her, so she added a little of an explanation, saying, “She is small, so she looks fragile and feminine. Her hair is very long and shiny, and she is very proud of it. We weren’t close, and in fact, I didn’t like her very much, but even then, I found her pretty.”

Poliana could have ended there, but she couldn’t help herself as she continued, “But of course, your highness is much more beautiful!”

She held up her fists and proclaimed this so vigorously that Lucius the First didn’t know how to respond. He remained speechless and stared at her quietly.

As the tournament date approached, Sir Ainno couldn’t spend much time on criticizing Poliana anymore. Any extra time he had was spent on teaching and training the other knights.

Only

The other royal guards were happy that their leader was no longer around them to reprimand and disprove them. All the guards were excellent knights, but Sir Ainno, who was the best of them all, never seemed satisfied with them.

Because the guards felt more relaxed, they treated Poliana with kindness. It was never a bad thing to be surrounded by handsome and nice young men, so Poliana felt pleased with her position.

Soon, she learned that the royal guards were envious of the other regular knights. It shocked her since she knew that the regular knights like Sirs Donau and Howe were envious of them.

The royal guards explained to her, “We know it is a great honor to protect his highness up close, but we want to be in battles. Because his highness rarely leads the men in the front lines, we are always left behind with him. When we see the knights return with injuries, we feel a sense of great guilt and responsibility.”

The royal guards were selected from the best of the families. Only the good-looking, well-mannered, and skilled young men were chosen for this duty. But despite the fact that they had it all, it seemed that the guards felt inadequate.

Serving the emperor up-close was a great honor. It could help them and their families advance politically but whenever they would face the knights covered in blood while coming back from their previous battles, they would feel horrible about themselves.

The guards felt that they could be a significant help if they could enter the fight.

‘Well, I guess everyone has worries about something or another,’ Poliana thought to herself.