Today on “the rarest of rarepairs”, I give you….Laurenz and Lueuradi (the archscholar from Jossbrenner who got Bluanfah’s divine protection and wrote Mestionora/Erwaermen fanfic) from Ascendance of a Bookworm.
HEAR ME OUT THOUGH
SO. Points in favor of this pair:
1. Lueuradi is from a ‘bottom of the middle’ duchy (I think they’re somewhere around 10th) and adores the love stories published by the Ehrenfest archnoble ladies, to the point where she wants to marry an archnoble from Ehrenfest, but as of her third year, her parents are against her marrying into Ehrenfest because they still remember it from its time as a bottom-ranked duchy. However, because he’s name sworn to Rozemyne, by her fifth year, Laurenz is a sixth year slated to be an unmarried noble in Alexandria, a former and current greater duchy, led by the avatar of the goddess and all that. Lueuradi could possibly swing this as forging a connection between Jossbrenner and the home duchy of the avatar of the goddess.
2. We have Lueuradi to thank for being so enamored with the Royal Academy Love Stories-quoting shumils that she actually listened to them all, thus playing the Ehrenfest advertisement that scored points against Fraularm and Detlinde and Laurenz is the voice who delivered those lines.
3. Lueuradi wrote her own manuscript, and you know Rozemyne is all for collecting authors (even if she probably is less enthusiastic about romance as a genre).
4. Lueuradi is friends with Muriella, who is in extremely similar circumstances to Laurenz (namesworn child of criminals) who now works for Elvira, who unlike Rozemyne, actually knows how to maneuver through politics and has a matchmaking streak. Muriella might not be willing to rock the boat, but if she was (kind of ‘one of us should get a fairy tale ending’ kind of vibe…), that potentially loops in quite the ally.
5. Laurenz does not want to end up like Mathias and be escorting another retainer’s mom to his graduation 🤣
Where things get….challenging….
1. Laurenz is a mednoble, and Lueuradi is an archnoble. However, we’ve seen Rozemyne’s compression method raise mana capacities up a rank, and we’ve seen with Lieseleta (and Damuel’s doomed erstwhile first romance) that marriage can move rank up or down, so it’s both conceivable that a) Laurenz could match a middle-ranked duchy’s archnoble in mana capacity and b) could marry up as an archnoble or Lueuradi could marry down as a mednoble (probably a harder sell for her fam though)
2. Thiiiiis is the biggie. In one of the Q&A’s it came up that getting married as the child of criminals was basically an impossible ask. I don’t remember all of the details of why but I do remember reading that Sylvester would have to give his permission. But Laurenz no longer lives in duchy with the people who would be upset about it, and you know Rozemyne would rampage for her retainer’s happiness (/author acquisition) and if Muriella can get Elvira to support them as well, she’d easily find the right levers to press for leverage.
3. Laurenz is namesworn. But given that Lueuradi is practical enough to accept her dreams of romance will stay dreams and has resigned herself to a political marriage arranged by her parents, I think she’s practical enough to accept this.
EVEN IF marriage isn’t in the cards, I like to think they could at least pull off a Lamprecht/Aurelia “you can escort them for the sake of a fond memory” right???
I mean come on, they even have coordinating hair/eye colors! MEANT TO BE.
