Main Wing, Corridor

  Rhea had gone out from a side door in the back, so despite wanting to comfort the child Veronique had found herself lost.

  She wasn’t familiar with this layout and she has never been in this part of the Main Wing, but an added plus was that their guards were waiting at the main entrance so for once they were alone.

  ‘Err I should have brought that map’ Veronique scolded herself for not doing drawing another copy of the map Kain had given her, even if her inaction was mostly because she didn’t want to be seen consulting a map by the staff

  ‘Now that I think of it, the Main Wing wasn’t as detailed as the rest’ she recalled as she thought about it ‘I guess since Kain couldn’t even enter the Main Wing they gave him an incomplete map as a security measure’ she quickly reasoned, then her attention was caught by Clashing Eyes hovering over her.

  She looked at it and it pointed to another of her Dead, who pointed in turn to another, she felt a sense of deja vu then she remembered it was the same thing they did in the Library, back when she was looking on those books to train Mos and Bos.

  It was the same way they lead her to what she wanted and they were doing it again.

  “Thank you guys!” Veronique had said as she followed their direction

  Unknown to her Miss Hawkings had witnessed the interaction, the Dead had noticed the intruder too late and looked towards her with worry as she started tailing Veronique from a distance

  Dinning Room

  The staff was pleased to be witness of the ongoing shouting match, many having a desire to join in as well, but they were too professional to kneel to such whimsical urges.

  Still this didn’t make it less enjoyable to watch and this event would be probably be talked for years to come.

  “I am sorry there must be a misunderstanding” Ivan quietly said, who had paused in his eating, as both the Duke and the Duchess were taking turns yelling at him, while he just let it happen with the expression of a poor puppy that had no idea what it had done wrong

  “I DON’T CARE IF YOU WERE SENT BY THE BLESSED SEVENTEEN THEMSELVES HOW DARE YOU MAKE SUCH DEMANDS OF MY FIVE YEAR OLD DAUGHTER!” the Duke was full on rambling, his legendary composure was only enough to restrain him from committing outright murder

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  “Sir I don’t know what you are talking about” Ivan timidity said completely dumbfounded on what was happening

  “YOU DON’T KNOW? YOU WENT STRAIGHT TO THAT CHAIR AND MADE ADVANCES TO MY BABY DAUGHTER” Duchess Lucretia yelled back

  “Err I only sat down to eat Madame” Ivan pointed out, not seeing the issue, it was common practice to just sit near the closest occupied spot as to not come across as rude.

  The Duke stopped Duchess Lucretia from yelling again and inquired

  “Do you truly have no idea of the significance of sitting in that spot?” then added skeptical “I would expect someone employed by the Lorens to know basic etiquette to heart”

  “Oh they tried, but I thought it was a waste of time so I just focused on what was important” Ivan was too glad to clarify with pure pride.

  “What was important” the Duke slowly repeated

  “Exactly, why should I waste my time on something as frivolous as learning which fork to use?” Ivan had claimed “I would use my hands anyway” and ate a chicken drumstick with his bare hands to drive home the point, uncaring if he dirtied his face and clothes, while making loud chewing noises.

  Duchess Lucretia looked outright disgusted by it, as was the entirety of the staff.

  “By sitting next to my sister Rhea you essentially proposed to five year old and embarrassed yourself to all present because of your ignorance to the basic rules of society” Alexander ended up explaining Ivan’s grave offense, looking murderous, his rage was quieter then his parents, but it was as intense “Do you still think proper etiquette to be useless?”

  As soon as those words registered to Ivan’s mind the man just started loudly laughing like a madman since from his prospective it was the most ridiculous thing he had ever heard.

  “The Lorens sent us a savage” Duchess Lucretia commented baffled, while the Duke was wishing he had kept some of the scorpions around to have this disgusting man feed to them.

  South Wing, Music Room

  Veronique wasn’t at all surprised that Rhea would come there when she was this upset, since it was the child’s favorite place.

  What actually surprised her was that she had managed to reach it so fast.

  ‘If I knew she was headed there I would have tried to cut the way to anticipate her’ she had thought, even if it would have been hard to do given she didn’t know the Main Wing well enough to do it and if she went through the ways she knew then the guards would have stopped her ‘hopefully they won’t be too pissed that we ditched them’ she briefly thought about the possible consequences that they would incur later over doing that, but such thing immediately went all the way to third place in her list of priorities as she heard Rhea sobbing

  “Hey Rhea I am coming in” Veronique announced as she entered to not spook her and was confused by seeing the room empty but still hearing the muffled sobs, she couldn’t even tell where they were coming from since the acoustics of the room were making it seems as if it was all around.

  She had just finished checking the balcony for the child, when she noticed Little Drag was circling the wooden lectern, which she had previously assumed was the director spot, and Hanging Jaw was pointing down.

  Veronique made her way towards it, circling it so she was behind it and squatted.

  There was Rhea hidden in the small empty space curled into a sobbing ball.

  “Hey Rhea” the redhead didn’t know what to say, but her voice had caught the child’s attention so a mere moment later Veronique found herself sitting on the floor with Rhea clinging to her and crying in her chest.