How dare you bully the female lead

Chapter 3

Nebula came every day to play with the girls. She had hated these tea times at first but finally found them delightful. Imeena loved Satin with all her naive heart and seeing her sister ecstatic was really nice. Satin became very attentive towards Imeena, therefore Nebula had no objection to letting them play anymore. She could even leave them together if she wanted to, however every second she tried to withdraw, Satin would run up to her to show her something. She would tell her about the flower Imeena gave her or about how tasty the cakes Nebula made were. Nebula had no time to escape and would have to stay with the girls. Satin thought this was perfect. Having Nebula by her side was enough to make her slowly fall in love with her too. At every tea time, Satin would serve the sisters tea herself and she would make conversation about everything that Nebula liked. She would give the sisters numerous gifts and would even invite the sisters to her trainings to show Nebula how talented she was.

Satin never tried getting liked by someone so she just did what she knew best: gave money and showed her strengths. Seeing the result, Satin became even more unstoppable. When she noticed that Nebula liked theater, she started buying tickets to all the new plays possible, hearing that Nebula liked reading, Satin would purchase all the new books from her favorite authors and gift her the books asking for her to read it to them having already them to prepare smart things to say. It was all about appearances and Satin needed to seem perfect. She couldn't make a mistake. Never again. Because if she saw Nebula's dark gaze again, she would literally faint.

Everything seemed to be working because Imeena, being impressed by Satin, Nebula also smiled warmly. Imeena thought of Satin as a living goddess and would have been impressed by her even breathing and now that Satin was being nice to her sister, Nebula found all the blushing and giggling adorable. They were children after all and childhood romance was always sweet. But being older than Imeena and Satin, Nebula soon spent less and less time with them despite Satin's tries and seeing Imeena show up alone to tea time broke something inside Satin every time. She wanted to send Imeena away, she didn't want to smile, she didn't want to act, she wanted to tear out her smile. But she couldn't because she would be scared of Nebula hearing about this. So she could only be patient. Nebula would still come to tea parties but it was less and less and the stress of not knowing if Nebula would show up that day was agonizing for Satin. She couldn't bear this pain and couldn't sleep at night because of it. What could she do to make Nebula stay? Did she commit a mistake? Did she say something wrong? Wasn't she impressive enough?

Of course it wasn't because of Satin at all. Just as Satin learned to be the next empress, Nebula was preparing for the position of duchess. Soon her life got very busy and that was just the beginning. At 14 years old she started speaking up against inequalities between men and women of the empire. In fact women in this country could go to university and could in theory become knights but in reality, they were highly judged for doing so and teachers would make it way harder for women to pass the exam. Despite being equal in the law, there were still the behaviors of adults to change which was the hardest part. Because of people such as Satin's first sparring teacher, there were only 2% of women among the knights telling young girls that they needed to stay home and give birth to children.

Nebula wasn't going to let anyone tell her what to do and used her position as future Duchess to make her voice heard. She really liked Satin and Imeena but knew that this was more important than anything. Moreover, they were still children and she was slowly growing up. Nebula started holding tea parties with her friends first, telling them about her ideas and created the first full women's knight order for her own personal safety. Of course this made a lot of noise and wanting to be in her good graces, Satin immediately did the same. Satin really wanted to find a place in Nebula's life and was on the lookout for anything she could do to be liked. She assisted Nebula in all her ideas and together with everyone else, they made a big change. They gave more visibility to women in art, raising the worth of their books or paintings. They funded free schools so that poorer families would send their children to school and even paid them so they wouldn't lose money without sending their children to work at a young age. They even sponsored female wizards and did so much more.

Slowly Nebula went up to visit the young girls at their schools and give motivational speeches. Nebula gained strong allies and became head of a large group that continued spreading equality throughout the country. With this group they erased the remaining sexist laws and gained the right for free abortion without questions asked for people who could get pregnant across the whole country. Nebula spent years fighting for what was right and Satin looked at her as a hero. Nebula felt imposing and unreachable and despite wanting to do everything in her power to help her, Satin felt that the pit between them was growing deeper. It felt just like the moment Nebula had protected Satin from her sparring teacher. Just like then, her gaze was determined and unwavering.

Satin was supporting Nebula wholeheartedly while Imeena was too young to understand what was going on despite being the same age. She wasn't the type to speak up when something was wrong but had her own form of courage. Every time her sister would tell her about something important that was going on, she just smiled seeing how happy her sister was. She was being supportive but Nebula could see that no information was sticking to her. It was a bit frustrating but she didn't want to rush her sister. She would protect her and if she lived in a world where she had no idea what sexism was then it was all for the best. After all, their dad never abused her, Imeena being his favorite daughter because she was the fiance of Satin. For the first time in years, the Duke was finally happy that he didn't get a son.

Satin being way more invested than Imeena, this was what brought them closer with Nebula and the latter finally started liking Sating. She didn't dislike her after she started being nice to Imeena but she never really liked her for herself. When she was satisfied by her it was as an adult who was happy that a child was being nice to her daughter. It was her actions that she liked and not her. But now that she shared her fight, she felt closer to her than ever. She still saw her as a kid however and would talk to her like she did to her little sister. It was better than nothing and Satin thought that she needed to be more patient. But the more she waited, the more unreachable Nebula became. She started gaining more and more power and even made great discoveries in the field of science helping the country in more aspects than one. She seemed unstoppable, being a genius in every field she touched. For some reason she understood everything with only a glance and solved a lot of questions that researchers couldn't.

Teachers from all around the country heard about her name and came to meet up with the young prodigy. What was worse was that for Nebula all these discoveries were just pure logic. She just looked at it and knew. How could some doctors not understand that washing their hands helped their patients stay alive? It wasn't enough to use purification magic because not all the bacteria and archaea got killed with it. How could people not understand that because of this they also needed to use fire in addition to purification magic on their chirurgical tools? Of course this helped the number of deaths drop drastically and Nebula wasn't stopping at the field of medicine. Everyone was praising this miracle child and Nebula started being a threat to powerful people. Because of this, numerous people tried getting rid of her but Nebula was more than capable of protecting herself and no one would be able to get through Satin who was heavily guarding Nebula anyway.

Nebula soon became overbooked and she didn't notice her birthdays going by. Before she even knew, she was 18 years old and made her real debut in society. Despite having already spent years in society, she needed to make her official debut at a ball that she would hold herself. It was the biggest debutante ball people had ever seen with all the scientists, artists... Everyone important was there and seeing Nebula dance with someone else destroyed Satin. She had asked Nebula to be her partner but still seeing her as a child, which she was, Nebula just smiled and rubbed her head like she would a puppy. Satin was way too young to assist a ball and when she heard the emperor tell her that she couldn't go, she thought she would commit a crime.

She almost did and only woke up holding a blade in her hands, sitting on her fathers chest having knocked over his chair. Satin felt her blood boiling and didn't notice what she had done before having done it. Having come back to her senses she started thinking. Would Nebula be mad if she killed the emperor? Her father was one of Nebula's biggest allies. She couldn't kill him. Nebula needed him. Satin therefore got up and let go of the blade while her father was still staring at her with round eyes. No one would have thought that this small child would have such anger in her eyes. He was way too proud to admit it but the emperor got scared for his life and after that day he regretted not having other children. If he had, he would have gotten rid of Satin quickly, scared of what she would do in the future. But it was too late now and maybe it was for the best. Thanks to Satin, the Duke was finally held in check. Because their children were engaged, he had no reason to plan a revolution for now.

Satin didn't want to prevent Nebula from doing anything and she couldn't force her to dance with her so she just went to the ball and stayed on her throne while people came to talk to her. Nebula was really surprised seeing Satin there:

"Are you going to be okay? Won't you be bored in the middle of adults?"

Satin liked Nebula worrying about her but having her talk to her as if she was a child was insulting. Why couldn't she see her as an adult? She needed to grow up as soon as possible to be able to dance with Nebula. Only 5 years left. Couldn't she speed up time somehow?

"I really wanted to see your debut."

Nebula smiled before rubbing Satin's head. The latter loved feeling her warmth but once again, being seen as a child was insulting.

"That's so nice. I am really happy that you are here with me. Imeena didn't come?"

That child again. Nebula talked about her less and less but Satin still hated hearing her name from that perfect mouth.

"She would get bored.

-You are right. Thank you so much for looking after her. She is very lucky to have you by her side.

-I would do anything for you."

Nebula didn't understand and thought Satin was talking about her sister and her so she just rubbed her head again:

"So cute."

Nebula would come up to Satin from time to time to check on the crown princess and that was the highlight of her night. However, they didn't dance together. Nebula had a line of admirers and danced the whole night while Satin wrote down each and every name not forgetting them ever. She wanted to kill them but was scared that Nebula would go back to hating her. She couldn't have that so she just wrote down their names and imagined torturing them for hours. She didn't feel better but she couldn't kill them. She had to hold back. She could't.

Nebula drank quite a lot because everyone wanted to have a toast with her. At the end of the night she had a hard time walking straight but was still master of her actions. Satin didn't look away for a second however and escorted Nebula to her room at the end to make sure that she was okay. It was okay. One day she would be able to walk into that room and she would stay there forever. She would sleep next to Nebula and would have her in her arms once morning came. It was okay. Considering where she started, she just had to be a little more patient. Everything would work out in the long run.