Lessons

Lessons

When the morning finally came, it arrived with a maid to wake Rain up. The maid called to Rain, calling her ‘Young Lady Estom’ and telling her it was time to wake up. Rain, for her part, was already awake, having been unable to sleep for long before the nightmares chased her back to reality. Still, she pretended to wake up from a deep sleep.

The maid told Rain to prepare for the day before beating a hasty retreat. The whole exchange took less than a minute.

Rain changed her cloak into a nice knee-length white and blue dress. It reminded her of a cloudy day. Not the nasty gray clouds that were usually in the sky, but the fluffy white clouds that made people feel happy. Rain was going to make today a good day.

First, though, she needed to find a good place to leave a coin. This manor was well defended, and judging from Lord and Lady Estom's actions yesterday, no one would bother Rain.

In the end, Rain decided that the servant's room next to hers was the safest place to hide the coin. No one lived there. Even if someone was snooping in her rooms when she warped back, it was less likely they would be in that small room and see her appear out of nowhere.

Coin secured, Rain took one last look around the room to see if she should bring anything with her. However, before she could warp out, there was a knock at the door.

Rain could still just leave and let whoever it was knocking look for her, but she had to admit she was curious about who was trying to talk to her. Rain opened the door. On the other side was another of the house servants. Rain should really start trying to tell them apart.

"Follow me, Young Lady, and I will take you to your morning lessons."

Wait, lessons? What were these lessons about? Unsure what was going on, Rain decided to go along with things until she had a better picture.

"Lead the way."

The servant led Rain to another door on the same floor. When Rain entered, she was left speechless. The door led to a library bigger than her mist room. While it was smaller than the Mid Ring library, it was still huge. All these books for just one family. Rain was stunned by the thought. With all these books just down the hall from her new room, she would be able to read them whenever she wanted.

Rain followed the servant down an open stairway to a reading area of the library where Lucus sat at a table; standing on the other side of the room was an old woman with wrinkles like crumpled paper.

"Ah, good. You've brought her. Now, Young Lady, have a seat there next to the Young Lord."

Rain followed instructions and sat at the table next to Lucus, who, for his part, looked incredibly bored.

"Now, we will continue today's lesson on the history of House Estom."

Rain was already starting to regret not escaping when she had the chance. The woman's voice was dry and slow; it seasoned everything she said with a thick layer of lifelessness. Where someone like Hope could make anything interesting by virtue of her bubbly excitement on the subject, this woman could tell a story about a fight between dragons and still put Rain to sleep.

"Since you don't seem to be interested in listening to anything I say, how about you copy the first fifty pages of Lord Verneri Estom's journal? I expect you to have it done before our lesson tomorrow."

And with that, Ms. Crinkles shuffled away.

Lucus, who had been in the middle of drawing when they were noticed, groaned.

"Great, that's going to take hours."

Rain cocked her head.

"Then why would we do it? She can't do anything to us, can she?"

Lucus looked shocked at the idea of not doing as he was told.

"She could tell Mother and Father."

"So what? You said yourself that Lord and Lady Estome rarely bother with us anyway. I doubt they care."

"...I guess you're right."

Taking one look at the massive journal, Lucus made up his mind.

"I guess I'll go to sword training early. Are you going to come watch again?"

"No, I have other things I want to do today." Rain said, looking at all the books around her.

Lucus's shoulders slumped slightly.

"Good, your cheering was annoying."

Rain decided not to call him out on his lie.