PrePub - Ascendance of a Bookworm

For once Rozmyne The Gremlin is swept in the chaos of others (which she herself created). Ferdinand has some sort of plan to contain her rampage. I feel like the battle made its mark on her psyche. Not only the trauma of feystones but also subtle change of thinking patterns due to underlying fear inside. She can make her dreams come true but something inside of her is stopping her.

Gonna be the biggest "bwuh?" of all time when Roz figures out what's going on

Sometimes I just want to punch Ferdinand in the face. She came to him to prevent their marriage and what does he do? He just goes and pretty much cements this marriage happening, never even telling her what he's going to do, much less asking her if she's okay with it. Remind me again, why people think he's good husband material for Rozemyne? Deciding Rozemyne's future for her and essentially forcing her to marry him, without her having any say or even being aware of what he's doing sounds like a very bad way to start a peaceful marriage.

And yes, that is definitely what he's doing. If him taking her on his highbeast, despite knowing full well what the societal implications are isn't clue enough, he outright said "our rule" of Ahrensbach to the soldiers, with his, Rozemyne's and Melchior's retainers in earshot, making it very, very likely that this will spread like a wildfire.

To be clear, my issue isn't with him seeing their political marriage as a sensible thing and wanting to go through with it, my issue is that he just goes and forces it through, without Rozemyne's knowledge or concent! I am aware that it is par for the course in Yurgenschmidt for the guardians or parents to decide a ward/child's marriage partner, but for one thing, he isn't even her guardian anymore.

Anyway... Melchior is such a good boy. He was so frustrated about "failing" to do things, that were completely out of his control to begin with and that people who lived multiple of his current lifetime completely failed to anticipate either. I'm so glad Rozemyne was able to ease his mind.

Disclaimer I may have gone of the rails with this comment:

“But when I mentioned that I didn’t want any unnecessary burdens, Lady Hannelore and my retainers all started insisting we get married. They changed their stances in a heartbeat. It doesn’t make any sense whatsoever, does it?”

“No, it makes perfect sense, if you ask me. They foresaw the disaster that would come from you having unchecked power and decided you would need someone to control it for you.”

I don't get why after a conversation about the importance of maintaining transparency to avoid misunderstandings. The first thing Hanelor and Roz's retainers do is cause more misunderstandings. Wouldn't it be far more effective to mention security risks upfront?

The only reason I could think of this course of action is Roz has two conflicting directives:

• Obtain a library city, and/or build a library network (which requires Ferdinand in some capacity to sucessfully build)
• Give Ferdinand a choice on his "true love" and avoid forcing a potentially unatural (by Roz's earth standards) political marage.

As Ferdinand hides is true emotions and makes it imposible for other nobles to asses his fealing most of the time. Haneloor and Roz's retainers concluded:

• Having some one regulate Roz and keep her safe is highest priority
• Having a poltical marrage with Ferdi is the best way for Roz to cleanly end her marrage with Siggi (the bookless scrub), and avoid adoption into royal family
• A Ferdi political marrage with Roz wouldn't put Ferdi's life in danger unlike the Christmass tree and Ferdi doesn't really have any other Romantic partners in mind currently, and Roz doesn't have any other romantic interests anyway........