Beast Gacha System: All Mine

Damon Iondora was not one who would admit to being a schemer.

Although, yes. He was one. And yes, it was like a fish admitting to being wet, but there was a difference. A distinction that mattered, even if only to him.

Choice and necessity.

Well-meant or ill-meant.

Damon and Angela were schemers of necessity. And well-meaning, insofar as anyone in their position could claim such a thing.

Keeping a rotting empire afloat, an empire whose foundations had been eaten away by decades of neglect and decay and the slow corrosion of power without purpose, meant using the rot itself to stay above the water.

You could not save a sinking ship by pretending it was not sinking. You plugged the holes with whatever was available. Even if what was available was ugly. Even if it was wrong. You did what you had to do, and you told yourself that the alternative was worse.

But Ivy and Isla Cassia—

They were schemers of choice. And well-meaning. At least now after they had clawed their way to stability and could finally, finally stop running.

They no longer necessitated scheming. They chose it. They wielded it like a sword rather than a crutch, and they aimed it at things that deserved to be struck.

To Damon, Ivy and Isla were like Cecilia.

People who existed in the right place and time. Privileged for the cause, whatever that cause happened to be, and using that privilege properly.

"They are..." He paused.

How did you explain people to someone who had never known

them? How did you convey the shape of them, the weight of their history, the reasons behind their choices, or the thousand small tragedies that had forged them into the women they had become? "They do what they do for reasons. Not for power or territory. Not for any of the things that usually make people hire assassins to kill beast lords."

His violet eyes met hers.

"Ivy Cassia watched her father succumb to his depression when she was a child." Damon began. That death of the previous Cassian King had been famous, after all.

"She was told, over and over, through his mouth, through that broken, grieving man’s endless repetition, the day her pregnant mother went missing. The day they found her body. The baby, already born, already gone, and no one could find it."

The kidnapping of Queen Estelle, the incident that caused the King’s suicide.

"Ivy... There was a period in her life where she couldn’t even explain to her twin, Isla, about what had happened to their sibling. Just that her mother was dead and their sibling was missing and her father had already left them even while he still breathed."

His jaw tightened.

"She held that place together. A child. A child, Cecilia. Going through her closest confidant’s death, the Prime Minister whose death you solved, and all the while, her sister was still holding toys. Both were still young enough to play while Ivy took over a kingdom that was falling apart at the seams."

The morning light seemed harsher now as it caught the tension in Damon’s shoulders, the way his hands had curled into fists against his knees.

"You know the story of how Isla Cassia cut her own face to match Ivy’s after an assassination attempt." His voice dropped. "A little scar they now choose to hide with their hair style, she chose to carry that scar. To become her sister’s double. To learn to be queen so she could replace Ivy when the weight became too much."

"She took over that responsibility, for both their people and their family that had already shattered, and she never once complained. She never once asked for anything else."

Damon hissed by the end.

"They are not—"

He sighed.

"They are not villains, Cecilia."

They might be your sisters.

The words rose in Damon’s throat, but he had no right to say them. No proof or certainty, just a suspicion.

Cecilia looked sixty, maybe seventy percent like them. The blonde hair. The bluish eyes. The intelligence that surpassed himself, Angela, and the Cassian Twins combined.

And Damon meant this with absolutely no ego, she was sharper than all of them, quicker than all of them, and more dangerous than all of them.

Knowing, or in this case, suspecting, that this little shit could be those two’s missing sister...

Damon could not bear to antagonize them.

He could not let Cecilia become the Cassian Twins’ enemy.

He would not allow that.

And after two heartbeats, he let it go.

The tension bled out of him. His shoulders dropped and his hands uncurled. The fierce light in his violet eyes dimmed to exhaustion.

Cecilia watched the way his fingers lay loose and empty against his knees, no longer curled into fists. She watched the way his shoulders had fallen from their defensive hunch and the way his gaze drifted to the window.

The pale winter sky beyond looked almost sad.

Of course Cecilia knew about the Twins’ history. She just didn’t know what they went through meant a lot to Damon. If she was confronted the way Damon was confronted earlier, she might also said the same thing he said.

Cecilia never suspected the twins of anything like that either.

But now she knew that Damon June Iondora was apparently more interesting than Cecilia had thought.

"You trust them," she said.

Damon’s jaw tightened again."So?"

Cecilia blinked at him. "Do you love them?"

Damon narrowed his eyes.

"I do, as a friend." His hand moved slowly to retrieve his slipper from where it had been resting on the floor, and it rose into the air once more. Damon Iondora’s face had shifted completely to annoyance. "Do not joke around, Cecilia Araceli."

"Ah, dumbass!" Cecilia snapped. "Why did you not marry them then?!"

"AH, IT PASSED ALREADY! JUST LET IT GO!"

Cecilia’s eyes narrowed. "Oh. You are still mad about it."

"SHUT UP!"

Cecilia blinked at him again in the long pause after.

"What?" Damon’s eyes narrowed to slits. "What is that face? Why are you looking at me like that?"

"Damon."

Cecilia asked casually, "Why did you not marry me years ago? It’s not rare for the Empress to be the Saintess too."

Damon’s face contorted into disgust. "You were a child. Were the two of you not just eighteen when you married that bastard Tiger Prince?"

"Eighteen is an adult." Cecilia said. "People marry around that age on average, anyway. Angela, too!"

She pointed at him accusingly.

"You are the one who got too old for marriage now, Damon. Not me. You."

"I am not even thirty yet, you brat." Damon spat.

"So." Cecilia leaned back into the sofa cushions. "Who are you going to marry?"

Damon’s expression flickered. "No fucking clue."

"Angela has not had a chance to tell me the candidate yet."

Cecilia hummed. "I think I already know who Angela is about to recommend to you."

Damon’s eyes narrowed and the slipper lowered. "Who?"