[Regalis: in search of Peace and Quiet!]

•chapter two•

Hi, a bit less stress-written but, if my word count isn't lying, about one and a half chapter worth of word count. I almost broke 5k in, like, three hours, y'all.

In other news, I have a beta! Which means the mistakes will run less rampant! All clap for Magikarp Karp, an evil, evil enabler from my CPwUR Discord and meanwhile I'll swap the chapters for corrected ones.

Today's warnings: violence, fantasy racism, powerful noble family dealing with crimminals in a way a powerful noble family realistically would. Also, Adetta gets pissed off for the first time since she was reborn. Also mentions of possible mental illness.

•chapter two•

Girl talks with father. Girl goes on a shopping trip. Girl picks up a stray.

•••

If Elijah and original Adelia started off on a bad foot which then became worse, then Elijah and Adetta of the current were-

Well.

Somewhere along the way (which Adetta bets was after the thunderstorm, or even during it) Elijah devolved into a duckling prone to anxiety if he was away from her for too long. Like, he would dissolve into a crying, panicking mess and the third time her parents tried to separate them for longer than an hour, Adetta called quits and just allowed Elijah follow her almost everywhere.

Upside was that when she studied—which took most of her time, because she was a nerd who loved reading everything that she got her hands on, as for her even a history book was, for her, a fantasy novel of great interest—so would Elijah. And he would remind her to stop and go eat something, or just bring snacks with him to the reading room. Adetta stopped trying to stop him after a series of pitiful looks.

Downside was- Downside was that he was suffering either from codependency, or DPD, she wasn't sure which yet, and that was unhealthy. It would have been better if it were DPD of the two, but Adetta honestly preferred it was codependency instead—because that could be eventually broken and rid of with enough work. But then, he didn't have problems making decisions for himself, he just really didn't feel well while left Adetta-less, so it probably, hopefully, was.

And, hopefully, he'd grow out of it by the time his closeness to her could be interpreted by others as something of less innocent nature.

Or, worse, if Elijah got the idea that they were more than friends/stepsiblings/emotional support duo.

(It wasn't that Adetta entertained the idea of having a wide selection of men to choose from, like a young lady of her standing probably would anyway, or that she feared a scandal; it was that she entertained the idea of being left completely alone on the romantic front, thank you very much, whether it was Elijah or anyone else.)

Yes, this also meant that he was incapable of sleeping by himself. Adetta understood during thunderstorms, but all the other times? But he was a child, frightened one who lost his parents recently, and he tended to be happier when around her, so she suffered through it.