Dust in the Empty Flames

Chapter 7

The first day of lessons started the day Ceanna arrived as well. I'd already learned the basics from Christine and from there forward it was all pretty easy. It was all about confidence and being above worrying what other people thought of you. Once you could keep that mentality it would show in the way you walked and talked and carried yourself.

I had little to no problem with that. Ceanna had a little more trouble, but I feel that being away from my aunt, as harsh as that seems, has done wonders for her.

She began to carry herself better, and stand straighter, and spoke up more often. She also seemed simply more comfortable in her own skin which was wonderful and just what we were hoping for.

She excelled in some places that I didn't as well. While I was better at dancing, etiquette, riding, and English. She was better at Math, Science, Royal protocol, History, and music. She'd grown up a royal and knew what was expected and the rules and such. She was also a lot smarter than me and yet didn't boast about it like most people would. She was very humble which was an endearing quality. She did her best and more often than not, especially now, she did wonderfully.

We were both not the best at archery and were pretty weak at hand to hand combat but thankfully I doubted we would ever actually need to use it. It was pretty fun to try though. There was an adrenaline rush you got and after having never really used any strength it was nice to let go even if we weren't really letting go the right way yet. The instructor was very nice though and said that we would be seeing improvement very soon and shouldn't be worried anyways.

After lessons Christine and I showed her the room we'd chosen and decorated last night. When her things had arrived with her we'd had the staff bring them into her new room and Olivia and Grace had organized everything like her clothes and shoes and such. We'd decorated it very similar to mine but not quite. She'd wanted a pink room and so we went for a pink, white, and gold room fit for a princess. It was very pretty and the look on her face when we showed her was worth it.

She nearly burst into tears but part of our lessons earlier had been how to accept things graciously and humbly. She blinked them away and said in a voice full of gratitude," Thank you."

Christine beamed and brought her into a hug," You're very welcome, my dear."

And with that we let her have some time to enjoy her new room before dinner and I asked Christine where Nathan was. She smiled and took me there on her way to do her own duties as queen.

She lead me to a room not far from everyone else's and motioned for me to open it. There was Nathan hunched over a stack of paperwork looking very confused and frustrated.

When he saw me he gave me a tired but genuine smile," Hi, Rose, you ready?"

I smiled back and nodded," Yes."

He laughed," Well we're going to need of lot of luck to figure this out but let's give it a go."

I nodded and closed the door saying goodbye to Christine.

I walked over to the desk and sat in the chair in front of it. I looked at all the papers and realized that they were all the requests from the citizens from yesterday that Nathan was trying to solve.

There were two stacks. One small and stamped and signed and the other a lot bigger and still not done.

I looked at him apologetically," I can come back another day if you're too busy?"

He shook his head brushing it off," You're actually doing me a favor."

"I am?"

He nodded," Yeah, since the question you had towards how to help more people in the kingdom would actually solve my problems right not as well."