Ren won each test with ease thanks to the Mantis. The beast had copied Larissa perfectly and allowed Ren to use each of her movements with perfect precision. Every bow, every gesture, every dance step executed with the grace of someone born to nobility rather than raised in poverty.

It was like having the kingdom's best protocol teacher guiding him in real time.

♢♢♢♢

In the new stands reserved for families and the general public who'd paid the expensive ticket price, in a section with a good view of the proceedings, Ren's parents watched with expressions that oscillated between pride and disbelief.

They were seated not far from where Selphira and Julius occupied their main seats, though they didn't interact much directly outside a distant nod returned with a smile from the prince and the imposing Ashenway leader…

The tickets hadn't been paid for by Ren in the end despite the fact they wouldn't have affected his enormous wealth. They'd been a gift from those same leaders, delivered when Ren had wanted to pay for them himself.

"Don't be foolish," Selphira had said simply, pressing the tickets into Ren's hands with finality that brooked no argument. "Your parents deserve to see what their son has achieved. And these seats aren't bought easily because they have the best view."

Now, his father leaned forward in his seat, his eyes following each of Ren's movements in the ballroom like someone witnessing a miracle.

"Did you see that?" he whispered to his wife, his voice filled with wonder. "That bow... he executed it like one of those old nobles. Each movement seems..."

"I saw it," his mother responded, discreetly wiping her eyes with the edge of her sleeve. "Our son. Dancing among them like... look how he moves. As if he'd been born for this."

"We never taught him any of this," the father shook his head, marveling at the impossibility of what he was witnessing. "Imagine it... In the old house we barely had space for him to practice walking without tripping over something."

Their cramped kitchen where Ren had grown up, where three people could barely move without bumping into each other, seemed like a different world from this grand ballroom.

"And now look at him," his mother smiled through tears that she couldn't quite hold back. "Among all this nobility. Moving better than most of them."

Better than people who'd been trained since birth. Better than those who'd had every advantage he'd lacked.

♢♢♢♢

Larissa herself didn't participate in the nobility exams again, her position as princess exempted her from having to compete in that category for the schools. So nobody could defeat Ren in her absence. Nobody had the level of perfection that Ren could achieve by copying a true genius who'd been trained almost from birth for this type of thing.

Luna came close to tying him.

So close that winning by "cheating" was painful for Ren.

In the final farewell greeting, where they had to execute a perfect bow to their evaluators, Luna executed the movement with grace that made several nobles nod with approval. Her inclination was exact, her posture impeccable, her timing precise. Years of training evident in every controlled muscle.

But by tenths of a degree, her angle wasn't as flawless as Ren's.

Tenths…

The margin was so small it seemed almost cruel that it mattered.

Yet when Ren executed the final greeting and they named him winner, his father squeezed his wife's hand so hard that she had to give him a small hit to make him release.

"He did it," the man whispered, voice thick with emotion he couldn't contain. "Our son... Just won against all the noble children from the best three academies."

Children who'd had every advantage, every resource, every private teacher. And their son, raised in poverty with only love and determination, had defeated them all.

"I always knew he'd make us proud," his mother responded, her voice trembling slightly with the weight of vindication and joy mixed together.

"We always knew."

♢♢♢♢

Ren saw the result on the main evaluator's tablet and felt guilt twist in his stomach like a knife turning. Luna had worked so hard, had been perfect in everything else, and lost by such a small margin that it barely mattered.

Except that it did matter.

Because first place versus second place meant different levels of recognition, different opportunities opening or closing, different perceptions from the observing nobility. Status earned or denied by fractions of degrees.

And Luna needed every advantage she could get with her family pressuring her, with expectations weighing on her shoulders like the weight of the world.

Ren couldn't help but feel also somewhat unlucky for not having been her dance partner in the lottery. They would have had to practice together so many times and perhaps that would have helped her talk to him, helped them return to before everything got complicated.

Communication through forced proximity…

Dancing with her would have been nice for more reasons too, holding her close while music played, pretending for a moment that everything was simple.

Ren reddened a bit at the thought.

Instead, Luna had 'funnily' ended up dancing with Klein.

Klein Goldcrest, who'd apologized quietly at the beginning of their dance for "all this", his voice carrying genuine regret for circumstances beyond his control.

And Ren had danced with Mayo.

Which had been a strange surprise.

"Surprised I didn't step on your feet?" Mayo had joked with that mischievous smile while they executed a perfect turn, her body moving with his as if they'd practiced together for years. "I was trained in many things too, lord Ren."

And it was true. Despite all her jokes and her personality that made her seem unreliable, Mayo turned out to be an excellent dancer. Her movements were fluid, her timing impeccable, her ability to anticipate Larissa's steps in Ren's body almost intuitive.

"Years of practice," she'd explained afterward, when Ren had expressed his impression and genuine surprise. "My role might be service, but they still make us learn all the boring noble things... And the fun ones."

Liora had (according to her) less luck.

She ended up dancing with Min.

Which almost ended in murder multiple times.

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