pale october twilight

sgetober day fourteen: dean(s)

"Tell me more about your reader." Dovey says.

Lesso waves her wineglass. "She's awful."

Dovey waits.

"She wears pink, has a shrill voice, and her hair gets everywhere." Lesso grumps. "Happy?"

"She sounds like someone I know." Dovey muses. Lesso snorts into her glass.

"It was one time! And the dress was more orange-red then pink."

"Oh, stop being pretentious for one minute in your life." Dovey responds, picking up her mug. "You like the other Nevers well enough, you just don't like Sophie because she reminds you of yourself."

"Hardy har." Lesso says sourly.

"You know I'm right." Dovey says calmly, taking a drink.

"What about your reader? I hear she ate a fairy on the first day." Lesso says with a grin.

"She's very charming, thank you." Dovey says stiffly.

Lesso's grin widens.

"Oh fine. She's hopeless. The other day I saw her doodling a skull onto her Princess Handbook. We were reading a chapter on Princely Requirements." Dovey says, very piteously.

Lesso cackles while Dovey sniffs. "I suppose you think it's funny, considering what a model student your reader is!"

That shuts Lady Lesso up.

"Well, despite the pink, I have great faith in her. The schoolmaster ought to have learned from... last year." Lesso says carefully, watching her counterparts face.

Dovey just slackens. "Let's hope so. I am rather fond of Agatha, despite her shortcomings."

"Think of them as cactus flowers." Lesso suggests.

"Do those even exist?" Dovey asks.

"Oh sure. You see them all over in Shazabah and Thicket Tumble. They're not very rare," Lesso waves off. She finishes off her wine. "Maybe their prickles and thorns will guard a lovely flower."

The two ponder on this metaphor over the setting sun. The silver balcony has turned a lovely pink- purple shade.

"That was rather sweet, coming from you." Dovey teases, setting her stewing mug on the tiny stand between them.

"Oh, do shut up!"

"You love me."

"Doesn't change the fact you're on my last nerve."

"Doesn't it though?"