Ludger noticed other things only in passing, because by then the real problem had become the conversation itself. Or rather, how smoothly Luna controlled it.
She did not force anything. That was what made it effective. She simply guided the flow with the kind of quiet precision that made each new topic feel natural, as if it had come up on its own. One question led to another. One answer opened space for the next. Before Ludger fully realized what was happening, he was talking more than he usually did in half a week.
“How are the twins doing?” Luna asked first.
Ludger looked out the window for a moment before answering. “Fine. More serious than usual with training, but fine. Arash is trying too hard to act serious lately. Elle is better at hiding it, but she’s the same.”
Luna listened without interrupting.
“They’re training more with Father now,” Ludger added. “They keep talking about showing me ‘crazy moves’ when I get back.”
That made the faintest change touch Luna’s expression.
“Sounds like they admire you.”
Ludger clicked his tongue softly. “That should pass.”
“It probably won’t.”
He did not answer that. Then Luna asked how Elaine and Arslan were doing. That topic was somehow even easier.
Ludger spoke of his mother’s usual calm tyranny, of the ridiculous suit ordeal, of Arslan’s talent for escaping responsibility and then pretending he had done nothing wrong. He said it all in the same dry tone, but Luna listened closely enough that the words kept coming without resistance.
After that she asked about the guild. What he planned to do next. How Lionfang was progressing. Whether he meant to expand training more or focus on the squads he had already established.
Ludger answered without thinking too much about it.
He spoke about the veterans taking shape as leaders, about the northerners getting stronger through the weekly challenges, about the squads settling into clearer roles. He mentioned Tali’s development, the way the younger members were improving, the town’s gradual stabilization, and the fact that things were finally starting to function without needing him to constantly hammer everything into place by hand.
Luna asked good questions. Not shallow ones. Questions that kept him speaking in ways that made him realize, only afterward, how much he had actually said.
And then, slowly, the conversation turned.
Luna began talking about herself. Just with the same careful smoothness she had used from the start.
At first it was simple. A few remarks about training. A few thoughts about the capital. Then, after a brief pause, she said, “Do you remember something you told me a while ago?”
Ludger looked at her.
She lowered her gaze lightly toward her dessert, though he could tell her attention was still fully present.
“You said that if I wasn’t satisfied with my life,” Luna said, “then I needed to change it.”
That made him pause. He did remember. He had not expected those words to come back.
Luna went on before he could say anything. “I brought that up to Viola a while ago.”
Now that got his full attention.
“And?” he asked.
Luna’s voice stayed calm. “Since then, she’s been preparing to let me go free.”
Ludger blinked once.
Luna clarified, “Instead of remaining as her servant and full-time bodyguard.”
That sat in his mind for a second. Then another. Ludger gave a small nod, but inwardly he was already making a note.
If Luna stepped away from that role, then someone else would need to cover the gap around Viola. Tali and the others made the most sense. That had been part of the direction anyway. They needed growth, real assignments, and the chance to become the kind of guards who could stand beside Viola without embarrassing themselves or dying immediately.
That was their goal, after all. So Luna’s freedom did not create a problem. It simply accelerated an adjustment that would have needed to happen sooner or later. He filed that away while looking outwardly calm.
Then he asked, “What are you planning to do with that much free time?”
For the first time in a while, Luna’s answer came with a hint of uncertainty.
“I don’t know yet.”
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Ludger stayed quiet. Luna rested one hand lightly near the plate before continuing.
“I’m still thinking about it,” she said. “What I actually want. What would I do without the structure I’ve had until now.”
That made sense. More than most people would realize. Freedom sounded simple to those who already had it. But for someone shaped by duty, routine, and someone else’s purpose, too much open space could feel less like relief and more like standing at the edge of a road with no signs.
Luna lifted her eyes toward him again.
“I was trying to look a little lighter today,” she said. “To get used to that kind of freedom too.”
Ludger’s gaze moved over her again almost before he meant it to. The dress. The tied hair. The green ornament. The absence of the maid uniform. So that was part of it.
Not just blending in. Not just investigation. Practice. For a different life.
Ludger gave a slow nod. “I see.”
Luna looked at him for another moment, as if measuring whether he truly understood.
Then she said, “It feels strange.”
That, more than anything else, made the moment feel honest. Not a polished speech. Not some prepared line. Just the truth.
Ludger understood that better than he liked.
He looked down at his coffee for a second before saying, “It probably will for a while.”
Luna gave a small nod in return. The capital continued moving outside the windows, all noise and color and motion, but for a little while the café itself seemed quieter than before.
And as Ludger sat there, listening to Luna speak about the possibility of becoming free, he found his earlier suspicion loosening slightly.
Maybe this was not only what it had looked like. Maybe it was also something else. A person trying, carefully, to step out of one life and see if another one could fit.
Luna looked out the window for a moment, watching the movement below without really focusing on it, then said, “I’ll be turning nineteen soon.”
Her tone remained calm, but there was a quieter weight under it now.
“So while I don’t think that’s very old,” she continued, “it still makes me think more about the future. About what I should do with it.”
Ludger gave a small nod. That made sense. More than enough.
The world liked pretending certain ages mattered because everyone needed neat little lines to feel less lost. Fifteen. Eighteen. Nineteen. Adult. Free. Ready. As if a number could ever really decide that for someone.
Still, he understood what she meant.
A point came when the future stopped being some vague stretch in the distance and started feeling like something standing directly in front of you, arms crossed, asking what exactly you planned to do with the life in your hands. Luna kept speaking, slow and thoughtful.
“I’ve lived by other people’s needs for a long time,” she said. “That isn’t a complaint. It’s just true. So now that I might have more freedom, I can’t help thinking about what comes after.”
Ludger listened. And while she was still talking, his mind, as usual, betrayed him slightly. A dry little joke formed in the back of his head.
So she was trying to rob the cradle, apparently. Just waiting for him to become an adult properly first. The thought was ridiculous. And, annoyingly, not entirely fair.
Because in truth, he was mentally an adult already. More than that in some ways. He had lived through too much, carried too much, thought too much for his age to matter in the same clean way it did for everyone else.
Still, he wasn’t aiming for her despite her age. That was not the point here. Probably. Hopefully. Ludger kept his face completely still while the joke ran once through his mind and died there.
As usual, he was trying to make the situation feel less serious by mocking it. Even if only in his own head. That was easier.
Easier than sitting too honestly with the image of Luna talking about her future while seated across from him in a place full of couples, dressed more lightly than usual, speaking in a way that was calm on the surface and far more personal underneath.
So instead of saying anything stupid, Ludger simply took a slow sip of his coffee and let her keep talking.
Because joking inwardly was safer. And because, for all his mental age and all the experiences stacked behind it, some situations still had a way of making him feel far less prepared than any battlefield ever had.
Eventually, Luna let that thread of conversation rest and shifted to something else with the same smooth control she had shown from the start.
“How is the partnership with Elira’s guild working out?”
Ludger looked at her over the rim of his cup.
“It’s the partnership with her mother’s guild,” he corrected.
Luna gave a small nod. “Right.”
Ludger set the cup down and answered, “It’s fine so far. But it hasn’t been that long. Not long enough for the real results to show clearly yet.”
That was simply the truth.
The structure was there. The intentions were there. The benefits were obvious on paper. But real outcomes, stable ones, measurable ones, needed time. More shared work. More runs. More proof that both sides would continue acting sensibly once profit, pressure, and pride started pulling in different directions.
So he explained that. How the arrangement still needed time to settle. How early success meant less than consistent success. How most partnerships only revealed their actual value after the first easy stage passed and both sides had reasons to become selfish.
Luna listened quietly.
Then, after a brief silence, she asked, “And Elira?”
Ludger blinked once.
“What about her?”
Luna kept her gaze calm. “How has that been going?”
Ludger, not really seeing any reason to think too much about the question, answered plainly.
“I haven’t seen her in two months.”
Luna went silent again. And that was the moment Ludger’s mind betrayed him completely. Because the instant that silence landed, one absolutely idiotic thought punched its way into his head.
She’s checking on her rivals.
Ludger reacted before common sense could catch up. He punched himself in the face. Not hard. But hard enough. A short, sharp hit to the cheek that made Luna stare at him.
“What was that?” she asked.
Ludger lowered his hand immediately and answered with the first lie he could grab.
“I tried to smash a fly.”
Luna looked at him. Then looked at the air around him. Then back at him.
“You failed?”
“Yes.”
She stared a second longer, openly baffled now.
There was no fly. There had never been a fly. And both of them knew it. Still, Ludger kept a perfectly flat expression, as if missing some invisible insect in the middle of a café conversation was a completely normal thing for a person to do.
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