Side Story: Saviz, Captain of the Knight Brigades

End of Volume Special
Side Story:
Saviz, Captain of the Knight Brigades
Together with the Winds of the Beginning

 

TWO REDS OVERLAPPED and seemed, to me, the same—the red of our flag billowing in the wind and the red of her hair.

They were one. One and the same.

 

I happened to come across Fia—and her bright red hair—in the hallway one day. Upon noticing me, she moved to the edge of the hallway and bowed. Normally I would give a quick nod and pass by, but for reasons unknown to me, I found myself stopping before her.

She raised her head and looked at me curiously. I looked into those golden eyes and ordered her to follow me on the spot, acting on sheer impulse. My guards betrayed surprise for a moment, seeing me act out of character, but they soon returned to their stony-faced selves as Fia followed me upstairs.

We arrived at a balcony attached to the highest floor of the castle. It was unusually wide, large enough to fit Fia and a dozen of my guards.

“Whoa…” Fia looked down from the balcony, marveling. All of the kingdom could be seen from this spot. The multicolored rooftops sparkled as they reflected the sunlight, no doubt stunningly beautiful to her. Beneath every roof lived a citizen living a bright and beautiful life.

“Gorgeous, is it not?” I muttered to no one in particular. “This is the Náv Kingdom. This is the land I must protect.”

Fia turned around, smiling from ear to ear. “What a coincidence!” she said energetically. “I was just thinking about how I wanted to protect this sight too!”

I frowned a bit. Perhaps it was my intuition as a leader, but I got the impression that I was missing something. I tried to follow her train of thought and grasp that missing piece when I was interrupted by a gust of wind.

“Whoa!” she exclaimed, trying to keep her tousled hair from flying everywhere. Past her, a line of flags hung from the balcony. The design of our proud Náv Kingdom’s flag had a black dragon centered on an all red base. Fia’s hair, however, seemed to fade into the red of the flag behind her…

“Your hair. It matches the flag,” I said, my thoughts slipping past my mouth. Fia looked back at me quizzically.

“Hm? I guess? Red has many different shades though, so it’s not exactly the same.”

The red of our flag came from the Red of the Great Saint, a shade I’d believed to be unique to the Great Saint—that was, until now.

I didn’t reply, checking the colors against each other again.

They…looked one and the same.

Originally, the flag of the Náv Kingdom was white and blue. But three hundred years ago, it was completely changed by the knight brigade captain of the time to match the Great Saint’s red hair.

It was a well-known fact that the Red of the Great Saint was uniquely difficult to reproduce. It was said that dye craftsmen were given the challenge of their life when the flag was changed three hundred years ago. They all tried to reproduce the color but to no avail. Only one craftsman managed to make it, and only through a stroke of luck. Since then, the secret to reproducing the Red of the Great Saint was closely guarded, known only to a single line of dye makers. All national flags were dyed by that one workshop alone.

And yet that same rare, nearly unreproducible color was before me now.

“They are the same shade,” I said.

“Oh really? Must be a really common shade, then,” she replied with a smile, blissfully unaware.

That color was never passed down through family lines. It had been lost with the Great Saint. I remembered looking at a portrait of her when I was young and feeling utter divinity from the striking color. It was said to never appear naturally, and yet…

“Common?” I snapped reflexively. “Have you any idea how much a noblewoman would give to have hair that color?” At times, Fia was oddly ignorant about such commonly known things.

Sometimes nature did bring forth miraculous coincidences. Perhaps this girl, without an ounce of saint power, was one such coincidence. But to have the same golden eyes as the Great Saint too?

“It’s unfortunate you don’t have any saint power,” I said. “Demonstrate just a little and you would be worshiped.”

Fia looked confused for a moment. Then, with a carefully blank face, she nodded. “But of course, sir.”

Obviously, she had no idea what I meant.

Don’t nod along if you don’t understand! I grumbled to myself.

Still, I stifled my weary sigh and beckoned Fia back into the room. “Sorry for making you come with me all of a sudden. I just happened to think that your hair and our kingdom’s flag looked similar, and I wished to compare them.”

“Hee hee! So even the great captain does childish things every now and then,” she replied with a strange smile. She turned on her heel and made her way for the stairs. I noticed that the bodyguards were looking at her differently than they had before.

You’re the only one who doesn’t understand the significance of that color. Or perhaps there are more people in the world than I thought who have hair of such a striking color, but…no, I doubt it.

The Great Saint was once a princess of the royal family. Although she surely had blood relatives within the aristocracy, none ever had that same red.

Was this really just some miraculous coincidence?

“Don’t go dyeing your hair, Fia,” I said, worried about the ignorance she showed.

She smiled back at me. “Yes, sir! I’ve had this color my whole life, actually, and I like it quite a lot!”

“Is that so? Some people’s hair color changes in childhood, but you…you’ve kept the same color?”

“Ah…hm. I guess so?” she replied vaguely.

 

I brought Fia back to where we’d met earlier, and she bowed to me. “Thank you for showing me that wonderful sight! I’ll work my hardest today! Farewell!”

She’s a lively one, all right. It wouldn’t be bad to have more people like her in Náv.

I turned away and began walking to my next appointment.