The Emperor and the Knightess

‘I had no idea there were secret doors in this castle.’

It was a good thing it wasn’t an assassin, but it still didn’t answer the question of why Poliana was lying on the floor like this.

‘Did she fall because the floor was slippery?’

Lucius the First looked over Poliana’s head carefully and saw that she wasn’t injured. He checked her pulse, heartbeat, and breathing.

She had a strong pulse and a heartbeat. Her breathing was ok, but she smelled faintly of alcohol. At first, he thought the smell was from him, but he realized that it smelled a little different. It was a different wine.

After a brief hesitation, he shook her body lightly. He would never find out without her explaining what happened.

“Pol! Sir Pol! What happened? Are you ill?”

“Umm…. Err….”

It took him a while, but Poliana finally opened her eyes. She looked around, trying to figure out what was going on.

Then suddenly, she pushed the emperor away and crawled towards the nearby corner. And there… she began to vomit.

Lucius the First thought about calling for a servant at first, but he stopped. Poliana was still naked. Even with the cloak around her, the shape of her body was visible because of the moisture.

He couldn’t let another man see her like this.

“Blarggh!”

Poliana threw up violently and the loud ghastly sound echoed throughout the bathhouse. Lucius the First looked away and patted her back to comfort her. It sounded like she was vomiting her innards out.

At some point, she looked up. Lucius the First then asked, “Are you ok? Are you awake now?”

“Yes, your highness.”

“Alright, tell me what happened.”

Finally feeling better, Poliana explained what happened. After leaving the emperor’s room, she went to take a bath just as Lucius the First suggested. She remembered hearing how the wine tasted even better when taken during a bath. She knew it could be dangerous, but she was confident that she could handle it.

Because she gave away her bottle to Sir Ainno, she had to go get another one. Luckily, she was able to find a new bottle of liquor.

She soon realized that the myth was true. Drinking inside a hot bath got her drunk even faster than usual. When she began to feel dizzy, she came out of the tub and opened the nearest closest door she could find. When she walked through, she found herself in another bathhouse, and she became confused. Drunk and baffled, she kept walking back and forth between the two different bathhouses until she lost her consciousness.

Lucius the First checked the secret door and saw that indeed, the other side looked, while on this side, it looked like it was part of a wall. Poliana kneeled and cried out, “Your highness, I apologize for my behavior. I am sorry! I deserve to be punished!”

The cloak he placed on her naked body fell on the floor, but she didn’t care. Meanwhile, Lucius the First didn’t know where to look so he looked up at the ceiling awkwardly.

‘I guess she was embarrassed about vomiting, but not about showing her naked body.’

Poliana didn’t see him as a man. The emperor wondered if she even realized that she was actually a woman.

“Please, kill me, your highness!”

“It’s alright, Sir Pol. Like I said before, I would be happy to take care of you when you get drunk.”

Poliana bit her lips in mortification, ‘Dammit!’

Why did she have to get drunk like this? Why did she have to be so stupid? She wanted to drown in the bathtub and die just to escape this moment. It was even worse because Lucius the First was so kind. He was patting her back as she was vomiting a minute ago.

This was the worst moment of her life.

“But Sir Pol, you need to remember that drinking in a hot bath is very dangerous. You could die.”

‘Dammit!’

Poliana’s face was almost touching the floor while Lucius the First was still looking up uncomfortably. Soon, Poliana’s body began to turn pale from the cold. Her body began to shiver and when the emperor heard her teeth chattering, he forced her into the tub. Poliana insisted on cleaning up her vomit, but she realized that she was still feeling very dizzy and weak. She knew she might collapse again, so she said to the emperor, “I will leave right now, your highness, and get a servant.”

“It’s fine. Get into the tub and warm yourself up. Did you leave your clothes in the other bathhouse?”

Lucius the First asked as he poured some water on her vomit to clean it off. The dirty water streamed down to the nearby drain. Poliana, now in the tub, reddened unhappily.

“Your highness… You shouldn’t have to clean up like that…”

“I told you I will take care of you, Sir Pol. Besides, you shouldn’t be moving at all right now, or you might fall and hit your head.”

Lucius the First didn’t mind. He had a strong stomach because he was a soldier and a hunter. He had gutted plenty of animal carcasses in his life to the point that something minor like a puke would not bother him. He had also seen a field of dead corpses during many battles in the past.

Lucius the First then went to the other bathhouse and grabbed Poliana’s neatly folded clothes. He also grabbed a clean dry towel for her. As he walked towards her, the emperor suddenly realized something incredible.

He came here to take a bath. He looked down and remembered that he was fully naked. He wasn’t even wearing a towel to cover his private part. Lucius the First leaned against a wall to support himself. He was feeling a little dizzy as he realized something.

He had been nude this entire time, yet Poliana… she didn’t seem to even notice.

Should he be feeling angry at her? Or should he be devastated?

Only

In his head, he understood that Poliana was different from a normal woman. She had seen plenty of naked men in her lifetime, so she was used to it.

Still…

Lucius the First glared at himself in the mirror. He had a beautiful face, an amazing body, and an excellent manhood. He was being objective. He had also seen many naked men, especially because saunas and bathhouses were common in Acreia. He had many chances to compare his body to others, and he knew he had more than adequate.

‘So why?!’

Feeling embarrassed, Lucius the First found a towel to cover himself. They were both naked, but it appeared that it was only the emperor who was embarrassed about it. He knew it must be because he saw her differently now.

Meanwhile, Poliana was still in the tub looking uncomfortable. It wasn’t a sense of embarrassment from being naked; it was because of the fact that she vomited in front of the emperor and he ended up cleaning after her.

Suddenly, Lucius the First realized that this could be a great chance to confess to her.

‘Could this be the perfect timing?’