Penthesilea stepped out of Arthur’s command tent and stood there blankly in the cool night wind of the north.
Arthur’s cool yet gentle voice still lingered in her ears.
A complex that denied her own femininity while still yearning to be loved as a woman. Cowardice that hid behind the ghosts of the past and only wished for the other person to come to her first.
Arthur had seen through every bit of that hypocrisy and contradiction without the slightest error.
'...Was I the one who was wrong?'
She opened her palm and looked at it. A rough hand hardened with calluses from gripping weapons.
She had lived proudly as the queen of the Amazons, and yet when faced with something called love, she had only crouched like a lost child.
Unable to calm her troubled heart, she wandered through the camp, and her steps eventually led her to the large bonfire behind the tents where the Servants had gathered.
Around the crackling firewood sat the female Servants who were both Arthur’s women and his dependable strength, each enjoying the late night rest in her own way.
Barghest was silently poking at the logs and adjusting the flames, while Ushiwakamaru had Usumidori laid across her knees as she carefully polished the blade.
Medea was steeping herbs in a teacup, and Nobu sat with her legs spread boldly, draining a massive cup of liquor.
And above them all, Stheno floated at an angle in midair, wearing a languid smile.
"Oh? Isn’t this our battle-crazed queen?"
Nobu was the first to spot Penthesilea. She wiped the liquor from her mouth with her sleeve and grinned.
"That expression looks rotten as hell. Don’t tell me you threw yourself at the brat first and got dumped cleanly?"
Normally, Penthesilea would have pulled out her mace at once and charged straight for Nobu’s head.
But tonight, she seemed to lack even the energy to play along with that kind of WWE nonsense or snap back. With heavy steps, she approached and dropped onto an empty log seat.
"...I wasn’t dumped. I merely realized my own foolishness and came back."
Penthesilea’s attitude, admitting defeat so meekly and so bleakly, made the mood around the bonfire sink into something strange for a moment. Even Ushiwakamaru, who had been polishing her sword, widened her eyes.
"Did something happen, Lady Penthesilea? You have less than a quarter of your usual spirit."
"There’s... something I want to ask all of you."
Staring blankly into the blazing flames, Penthesilea finally opened lips that had been tightly shut.
"How is it that you can stand before him as women? I too am a proud queen and a warrior. But... the moment he treats me as a woman and calls me beautiful, that damned curse of Achilles carved into my Spirit Origin paralyzes my reason. Shame and fury explode, and I can’t control myself."
Penthesilea was confessing the most shameful depths of herself, the very core of her complex.
At the Amazon queen’s outpouring, so tightly bound up in pride, the women each showed their interest and sympathy in their own way.
The first to break the silence was Barghest.
"...I understand that feeling all too well."
Barghest set down the firewood with a bitter smile.
"I too was born a hideous beast, a Black Dog, and a warrior with an enormous body and heavy muscle. Whenever the desire rose in me to be loved at my lord’s side as a single delicate woman, I cannot tell you how afraid I was that my monstrous nature would tear that romance to shreds."
"Barghest, you too..."
"But Penthesilea. His Majesty Arthur, our lord, does not feel the need to separate a warrior’s roughness from a woman’s softness."
Deep respect and affection shone in Barghest’s eyes.
"There is no mockery in his praise when he calls someone beautiful. His Majesty fully acknowledges even your bloodied scars and your calluses as your pride, and embraces all of it, saying that taken together, it is beautiful as a woman. What you fear is only a ghost of the past, not the sincerity of the man standing before you now."
After Barghest’s earnest comfort, Ushiwakamaru slid her sword back into its scabbard and smiled brightly.
"To be honest, I don’t really understand complicated things! If my lord wishes to use me as a sharp blade, then I will gladly become the sword that cuts down his enemies’ heads, and if he wishes to hold me at night, then I will gladly become my lord’s woman."
"You... aren’t afraid your pride as a warrior will be diminished?"
"My pride?"
Ushiwakamaru tilted her head.
"To be loved by my lord and stroked by him is the highest honor a warrior could ask for, is it not? Even if I were stripped naked and made to get down on all fours like a dog before my lord, all I would do is wag my tail. I would feel not the slightest speck of shame! Rather, the very fact that my lord desires me is an honor!"
It was truly blind and simple loyalty. Before that blind affection, even the most tangled trauma seemed meaningless.
Just then, Stheno, who had been lazily propping up her chin in midair, let out a charming laugh.
"Hehe. Our Amazon queen really does live in such a tiresome way. What you actually want is to pout and say, 'Please dote on me,' and yet on the outside all you do is bare your fangs and growl."
"S-Stheno. I’m not asking for something so shallow as that..."
"Shh. Lies won’t work on me."
Stheno lightly descended and gave Penthesilea a soft tap on the forehead.
"Did you really think you could fool the eyes of a goddess? You’re waiting for that little Master to break your shell first and hold you roughly, aren’t you? But if you don’t hide your claws first, he’ll never touch you because he’ll be afraid of hurting you. A fighting dog needs a collar, not a kiss."
Penthesilea’s face flushed bright red. The blow had landed too squarely for her to even argue. Hadn’t Arthur said the very same thing as Stheno?
"Hahaha! The snake woman is right a hundred times over!"
Nobu slammed her cup down on the ground and boisterously cut in.
"Penthesilea! Even I, the Demon King of the Sixth Heaven, was completely conquered in bed and clung to him crying and sobbing! But does that mean I lost? No! I wanted it, I sucked down his yang energy and chased pleasure because I desired it, so why would that be defeat? If he calls you beautiful, then say, 'Yeah, I’m that amazing. Want to hold me once?' and pounce on him proudly!"
At Nobu’s absurd but strangely refreshing logic, Penthesilea let out a disbelieving laugh.
And yet, somehow, it felt as though the knot that had been tightly blocking one corner of her heart was slowly beginning to melt.
Medea, who had been quietly sipping her herbal tea and watching the situation unfold, finally spoke with her usual elegant and mature smile.
"As someone from Greece as well, it’s rather painful to sit here and listen to this."
"Witch..."
"Penthesilea. The glory of the Age of Gods is already over, and this is not the battlefield of Troy."
Medea’s gaze settled calmly. She too was a witch who had lived a life stained by betrayal and tragic love, and so her advice carried a heavy truth.
"On the battlefield, old grudges may make you stronger, but before love, they are nothing but poison that eats away at you. Those cursed words Achilles left behind? Forget them now. You no longer need to die as a tragic hero. Right beside you now is a real man so vast and strong that he can laugh off wounds from the past and bury them completely."
Medea set down her teacup and added gently,
"There is nothing shameful about becoming a woman. Nor does it mean casting aside the pride you possess. It simply means honestly showing another side of yourself before the man you love. Wouldn’t that be true courage?"
"...True courage."
Penthesilea quietly turned Medea’s words over in her mind.
Barghest’s earnest loyalty, Ushiwakamaru’s blind affection, Stheno’s sharp insight, Nobu’s hearty desire, and Medea’s mature advice.
These strong women who stood at Arthur’s side had not become women by throwing away their strength and pride.
They perfectly balanced the life of a hero and the love of a woman, each taking proud root in her own way beneath the great tree called Arthur.
'So I alone... I alone was bound by the past and cowering in fear.'
The warmth of the bonfire slowly melted Penthesilea’s frozen heart. She gradually unclenched the fist she had been holding tight.
This long trauma would not be resolved in an instant. Every time Arthur called her beautiful, the blood of the Berserker might struggle to boil up again.
But.
"...Thank you."
Penthesilea murmured toward the women around the bonfire, her voice very small, but sincere.
"I won’t overcome it overnight. The madness carved into my Spirit Origin isn’t so easy to deal with. But... I’ll try. I’ll stop doing the cowardly thing of letting myself be devoured by the shadows of the past, and I’ll cast aside this weakness of waiting for him to reach out first."
At the corner of the Amazon queen’s lips, a fresh and beautiful smile bloomed, stripped of its bitterness.
"Until I can make him look at me properly as a woman. And until the day comes when I can willingly say with my own mouth that I want his embrace. I’ll fight myself for that."
At her dazzling resolve, Medea smiled faintly, and Nobu clapped loudly.
The long northern campaign still had to march on toward Orkney.
And on that long and arduous road, Penthesilea was beginning a period of growth that was not about learning how to swing her sword, but about breaking her own shell and remaking herself down to the bone.
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