A Tale of One Deviant (Book One)

Chapter 176: Reki, Deena, & Cute Progeny

How to do this...Harry Potter style?

     Master, you did not read that book series.

     No, but Takuya did and then he wouldn't stop raving about it all throughout seventh grade. I probably know more about the adventures of that magic misfit than I know about the game of the world I live in.

     Regardless, please do not harass the princess with constant messages. Just show up yourself.

     But that's no fun.

     Harassment should not be fun, Master. And Sioroth cannot, and she's never met Knight. You'd be teaching the children as yourself, regardless.

     Fine...but why exactly is she in the de Libellule manor? What kind of bad fate let her traipse into this place during such a hectic time?

     Ask her yourself.

     ...so you didn't know Reki was here either.

     The king is calling me now, Master, I must depart-

     Go on, then. Keep your secrets.

     I stared down at the maid changing sheets with another young girl, one I recognized from the first time I came back to the manor after the ordeal with the gods, and one I recognized because I'd unwittingly put her on the earl's [List of Sentencing]...

     Both wore the same gray and white uniform, with smudged and stained white aprons in front, caps on their heads, layers to keep them warm, and buns resting against their necks. It was a conservative look I'd marveled at the origins of for years, since the de Libellules were not a conservative family. They didn't really choose sides, being a neutral household, a relaxed one, that responded when the war called on them, and rested when it fell into ceasefire. One that ruled peacefully in its southern territory, and was unyielding and confidently steadfast in its establishment in the capital. It was an old house, much older than quite a few noble houses, with a strong lineage embedded in the land, so I'd assumed it was because of prestige that they kept the strict uniforms...but couldn't they have bothered to make them even a bit more cheery?

     Sure, I preferred gray and white to brown, but...would it kill them to add some blue in there? Maybe even yellow. Or, green, since we were forest and agriculture people.

     Apparently it would've killed whomever made those designs, since it hadn't changed in all my years of life. Sure, I hadn't been living that long, even though it felt like forever...but even Magaris had come around to wearing black. If only I could've changed, on a much larger scale, the stigma of wearing such a wonderful color-

     "Hah," Reki threw her head back, staring up at the ceiling while bringing her hands up to stretch above her. "Are you done with your side? Can we go now?"

     "A-Almost," Deena replied, tucking in the sheets of the guest bed along the wooden frame. Her stocky form knelt on the ground, stumbling with stiff fingers trying to push in all of the excess cloth. Wrinkles were forming from all of that tucking. "My fingers are still cold from being outside."

     "Well, mine were too, but I finished faster than you."

     "I know."

     "Hurry up, or I'll go get lunch without you."

     "I," Deena heaved in a breath, and it came out as a sigh. Her chest sunk in as if that breath had taken all the life out of her. "Am."

     "And can you stop sighing?" Reki's face scrunched in annoyance. "Please? Hello? It's depressing. You'd think the weather here was already depressing enough, but you-"