The Atonement of a Writer

4. A Toe in the Water

"Mother! Father!" Colette, at five years old, along with Clovis, ran up to her parents who were having tea in the garden.

Without even glancing behind her, Queen Hilde answered, "Colette. Princesses do not run."

Colette stopped abruptly, and walked towards her instead. Clovis immediately copied her in solidarity. "Sorry--I mean, I apologize, Mother."

Hilde didn't acknowledge it. It was King Alphonse who put down his cup. "What did you need, Colette? Clovis?"

Colette brightened up immediately as she remembered what she came for. "Father, I finished Clovis's homework!"

Alphonse's fingers twitched. "Excuse me?"

"It's true, Father," Clovis beamed in pride of his little sister. "You see, Andre gave me some homework. He told me to think of ways to solve the floods! I couldn't think of anything but to use magic, but Andre said not everyone can control water. So, I asked Colette and she solved it! She said there are more people who can use telekinesis than the elements anyway, so they can use it to...what was it again?"

"Remove the rocks and dirt from the bottom of the river," Colette answered, "Make the water flow faster. Then it won't be stuck in people's homes! Of course, I don't know the exact details, but I'm sure smart people will figure it out!"

The king and queen exchanged a glance.

"Clovis," Alphonse began severely, eyebrow twitching. "From now on, do your homework yourself. Do not ask your sister. You should be capable of little things like these, as the Crown Prince."

"And Colette," Hilde continued, "Know your place. These problems are not for you to solve. If you can put your efforts into things that are not of your concern, I should be hearing about your improvement in etiquette lessons, no?"

That day, the lesson Colette learned was not the one the queen intended. A seed had been planted.

~*~

It was a birthday party.

It was a goddamn birthday party.

Why, oh why, was this in the story?

If--when--Lili got back to the real world, the first thing she would do would be to change the setting so it wouldn't be so cliched. Sometimes, motivation to change came from experiencing first hand how crappy it was.

To be more precise, it was a birthday ball, celebrating the Crown Prince Clovis's 18th birthday. It was the event Lili had been dreading, not only because it marked the start of the story, but also because the event itself would also be disastrous.

It had been exactly a week since she woke up as Arielle. After her blunder in the bathroom, she decided not to risk it anymore, at least until she figured out how to interact with the people in the manor. She spent her days exploring and avoiding the Soules whenever possible, having nothing but short, stilted polite conversations.

It was then, that one day when she found out one thing: she couldn't read.

She had found the library and was immediately excited. It meant she could do research on her powers, right? Wrong. The information in the books was simply not readable. Not because the words blurred together--she had half-expected that, since she had no imagination when it came to the books and academic theories in this world--but because they were not in English.

Lili wrote her notes, hidden in her drawers, in English. Everyone spoke in English. She heard English. She wrote the whole damned world in English. But the words, the actual written words in this world--they were not English. Instead, it was in some elaborate script that she couldn't make heads or tails of.