The Villainess Will Not Bring Dishonor To Her Family

67 - Helena Fox and The Villainess

It has been two months since the incident in the dance hall, and though I haven't made up with Lionel, things have been progressing steadily... Most things...

William invites Claire to regular study sessions in the huge school library, and he seems to be opening up quite well.

Soleil is actually managing to have peaceful and teaching conversations with her, where he explains basic interpersonal connections and the political landscape. I am actually quite impressed with Soleil's progress. Usually he was too snobby and arrogant to deal with Claire properly, and her lack of manners didn't help either.

Still, as an effort between Soleil and William, she is slowly settling in, and actually begins to blend in... as much as a person of interest can.

Furthermore, Gil has become glued to her side. In the beginning he would offer me cookies once in a while, but recently he's been looking exhausted. Yes, that Gil has been looking exhausted. I suspected our Heroine for a while, but it doesn't seem to be her behavior driving him to this point of exhaustion.

About people glued to someone. Lionel is as usual glued to Alstair... but when he switches out during the evening hours he tends to relax by the bathhouse, where Claire approaches him. They end up talking about the day quiet peacefully. It's just that once in a while he gets quite... aggressive in his approach of her as he traps her like he did the first time.

Eric... she's missed all of Eric's events. Perhaps, more than missed he's just surrounded himself by people to the point no heart touching moments could happen... multiple of Eric's friends have shown interest in her, but Eric politely ignores her unless it is actual business she needs him for.

Now, the other lack of progress for the Heroine is with Alstair. Furthermore, it's neither because of Claire or Alstair.

Let me illustrate the problem:

Say the event is a conversation at the fountain. Claire and Jesmaine arrive from one side, and Lionel and Alstair from the other. Then students from Crinia approach the two girls for a talk. At other times it is students from Headal, the country to the east, that insistently request that Jesmaine return to Headal.

Meanwhile on the other side of the fountain Alstair and Lionel are approached by foreign students from the northern country, Semor...

Now, things pass like that for a moment until Gil arrives with the girls and support Jesmaine in trying to get out of the conversation, and guide Claire around the fountain... and about the same time Lionel picks up on Gil's voice and realizes Claire is coming, then pulls Alstair off for 'security reasons'...

The whole Heroine and Alstair thing is like a game of tag at this point.

Ah, Helena Fox?

It is not that I've forgotten her, it is merely that she has been temporarily expelled for her behavior. She should be back today though.

Other interesting things belong to the category of darker things. I've not been attempted assassinated even once... and I've seen Claire nearly attacked with a knife at least once...

Asher still insists on picking me up and dropping me off though... but with the chaos going on around Alstair I can understand why he's paranoid. I think Alstair is reaching a point of exhaustion as well... but I need him to meet and talk with the Heroine properly... what in the world is going on with this chaos?

How can pretty much all other events than the ones with Alstair go smoothly?

At this point I am hardly doing anything other than smoothing out Claire's initial negative impression on some other nobles and preventing any bullying from girls fawning over our male characters... thankfully that part is going smoothly... well... with everyone except the foreign students from Crinia. They don't bully her, but it's visible that they don't like her... and yet they certainly do talk with her a lot.