Inner Garden
Veronique wasn’t stupid and it didn’t take a genius to understand that Rhea was upset with her for some reason, the child didn’t have a poker face and was still quite transparent even she acted more mature then her age.
“Did I upset you?” Veronique went for the straight approach because after all Rhea was still a child and she doubted she had already built a wall around her true emotions like adults do.
“Maybe” Rhea mumbled but didn’t say anything more.
“If you don’t tell me what I did I can’t do better” the redhead lightly pushed on it, but wasn’t going to insist on it if the child didn’t want to share as it would make it worse and most likely to just cause Rhea to get extremely upset instead of helping.
They had stayed in silence for a couple of minutes before Rhea caved on her own.
“I don’t want to race with Alexander” she started “Now he’s upset with me because he thinks I want to, but I am fine just like this and I don’t like that you two keep being mean to each other”
“I am sorry” Veronique apologized then explained her actions “I wasn’t trying to put you on the spot but I can’t talk back to Da- the Duke so I had to go with what he said” she paused before clarifying “What I really meant was that Alexander needs to humble himself before he gets embarrassed by some other noble or worse he is so overconfident to make a serious mistake”
“So you were trying to help him?” Rhea guessed, Veronique wouldn’t have put it that way…she would probably be the first to cheer if Alexander got humbled by a peer, but if doing so worked to appease the child
“Indirectly, but sometimes people only learn by slamming their face over it” Veronique went for it.
“I don’t want Alexander to slam his face” Rhea didn’t seem to appreciate regardless
“Lady Rhea, it’s a figure of speech Lady Veronique doesn’t mean literally” Miss Hawkings butted in the conversation “and Lady Veronique if there is something the Duke hates is people only agreeing with him because of his rank, he won’t be upset if you corrected him”
“Oh good to know” Veronique doubted she would have the courage to stand up to the Duke anyway.
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“Veronique” the child suddenly called on her
“Yes Rhea?”
“What’s a hare and a tortoise?” Rhea asked
“Those are like a different kind of a rabbit and a turtle” Veronique knew those were known since the latter was the crest of one noble house and the other was the symbol of one of the Circles
‘Was it the 12th or the 14th?’ she didn’t memorize which was which
“Did you make those up? I don’t recall either of those” Miss Hawkings’s voice interrupted her
“Eh…I just dreamed them” Veronique lied, knowing the truth wouldn’t be accepted and blaming herself for not just telling the story by changing the hare and tortoise with a rabbit and a turtle.
“And that story, perhaps there is some hope in you if we cultivate on that inventive” the older woman mused about it with something close to approval.
‘Shit I don’t want to earn a living by plagiarizing Aesop’ Veronique panicked internally “That was just a once in a time thing, I can’t possibly make more” and besides the last thing she needed was to specialize in a creative field, that wasn’t the sort of thing she would be able to pursue once Alexander got her kicked out and even if she could that would just get her stuck to play by nobles rules.
Veronique glanced around at the Dead surrounding her, focusing a little bit on a pair that seemed intent on playing checkers on the grass using their missing finger tips as the game pieces ‘besides if I started writing horror stories everyone would get so disturbed I would be thrown in the loony bin so fast I might break the sound barrier’ then she wondered ‘how come they are both missing exactly 8 tips of their fingers to be able to play?’
“Lady Veronique?!” Miss Hawkings called her back to attention “what’s so fascinating over there?”
“I thought that shadow looked like two gentleman playing checkers” Veronique quickly lied mixing a bit of truth in it.
“Is that so?” the older woman looked intensely at the spot as well, while one of the Dead’s checkers reached the end of the imaginary board and became a king, so the Dead proceeded to take out one of their teeth to put on top of the finger tip while the other was upset about it.
“I can’t see it” Rhea tried as well, a small frown marring her cute face
“Me neither Lady Rhea, Lady Veronique must have quite an imagination” Miss Hawkings commented then looked at her pocket watch “Regardless we must head to get both your skills assessment done”
“Back at breakfast it sounded like those skills was something we were going to learn” Veronique ended up asking
“Yes, some skills can be taught, but everyone starts with a base” the older woman clarified “trying to build on it without knowing what of kind it is can be quite dangerous”
“What are we supposed to expect?” the redhead didn’t want to be caught unaware
“Probably a basic elemental skill or passive increment” Miss Hawkings answered without being specific
“Did Miss Hawkings get a skill?” Rhea asked
“Of course I do, everyone does” the woman would answer but it seemed as if she didn’t want to add to it.
“And what is it?” now Veronique was curious and she kind of wanted an heads up if the old hag was able to zap her
“Maybe I will tell you as a reward if both of you can get through my course” the old hag ended up saying
‘Did she say both because she thinks I am going to quit? Or she thinks I am too stupid to pass on the first try?’ Veronique felt her vein popping in her forehead along with a sensation of warmth, but she ruled off the latter due to the fact she had been standing in the sunlight for a bit.
