#a princess comes to deerwood

[kingedmundsroyalmurder]

Ooo would love to hear about the next chapter of a Princess comes to Deerwood!

The next chapter is Christmas! I stalled out trying to figure out what the girls would get each other as gifts, so I might just have to gloss over that. Depending on how long Christmas itself takes, it might also include the start of one of the main plot threads: Canada Does Not Agree with Sara's uncle.

[mobius-prime]

191. Sonic the Hedgehog #123

The flippancy of these cover blurbs is hilarious. I can't even handle the little blurb for Afterlife up there. Like, the story itself is played totally straight, with Knuckles having to navigate the realities of death and afterlife, something he was never yet ready to face, and meanwhile the cover blurb has all the subtlety of yelling "LOL THAT GUY IS SUPER DEAD." It's kind of amazing.

Heart Held Hostage (Part Two)

Writer: Karl Bollers Pencils: J. Axer Colors: Jason Jensen

Sonic has arrived at the mansion the weasel thug spilled the location of, ready to dive in and rescue Sally, but he finds himself with an unexpected tagalong - Mina, who was the only one of the group to be able to keep up with his speed. He reluctantly takes her along, making sure to have her promise she won't try to be a hero due to her inexperience, and she's mostly just starry-eyed, thinking about how much of a crush she has on Sonic and all that. Not a recipe for disaster at all!

Sally, meanwhile, is thankfully unharmed, being guarded in a room deeper in the mansion. She decides to get the weasels talking, and then pulls out perhaps one of her best schemes that perfectly demonstrates why she's the leader of the Freedom Fighters.

Amazing. Classic. Wonderful. She spins a yarn about hating how her parents control her wealth and wanting to get back at them, directly appealing to Nack's money-loving heart, and he begins to agree, liking this darker, more selfish side of her he's seeing. Of course, it's all a ruse, and as soon as he gets close and drops his guard she tackles him and steals his gun, acting like she'll shoot him to prevent the other two from getting near her and making her escape this way. Once she's out in the hallways she begins running, with the two henchmen taking potshots at her, which immediately alerts Sonic and Mina to Sally's location. The thugs corner Sally, who is out of ammo (…somehow? Like, was the implication meant to be that Nack's gun was already empty, or was Princess Sally Acorn actually shooting back instead of merely bluffing?). However, their guns abruptly disappear from their hands, and a second later they're left beat up on the ground by none other than Sonic the Hedgehog. Sally, upon seeing this, finds herself suddenly overwhelmed with emotion, and runs to him, overjoyed that he came for her.

Ohhhhh boy.

Mina doubles over in horror, suddenly sick, realizing that all this time she was competing against Sally herself and now keenly aware of the fact that Sonic will never feel the same way about her as she does him. She furiously tries to maintain her composure and not look like she has just burst into tears, since Sally and Sonic haven't yet noticed her in the nearby doorway - but then she notices something horrible. Nack has by now woken up from being knocked out earlier, and is furious, deciding that if his plan has been derailed, he's going to take his last revenge before making his getaway. And so, he raises a gun - points it at an unsuspecting Sally - pulls the trigger - and Mina makes a split second decision. For Sonic.

And thus, the late Mina Mongoose's memory lives on in her friends and in her - nah, I'm totally kidding. She wakes up later in the hospital, having survived the shot to the back. Sally and Sonic admonish her for being foolish, but are also grateful for her act of heroic sacrifice. Mina, for her part, seems to come to terms with the fact that she will never be with Sonic, and thus we can finally put this love triangle to rest. Right?

R-right?

Afterlife (Part Three)

Writer: Ken Penders Pencils: Art Mawhinney Colors: J. Jensen

So just like the last installment of Afterlife, this one is almost entirely made up of recaps from previous issues. Literally, nothing is new except for these couple panels at the very beginning.

One, we have confirmation that Knuckles had a crush on Sally. This isn't exactly news, but it was always left juuust ambiguous enough to keep it off the table as a plot point. And two, Knuckles is now apparently spending his time in the afterlife in a "virtual zone" in which he's able to reexperience scenes from his life in the third person, as though watching a movie play back in front of his eyes. We're skipping the rest of this story, because again, all it does is remind us of various plot points and events of issues past, mostly from the Knuckles the Echidna series. And I don't just mean it retells the story in general - I mean it literally copies old panels from all the previous issues, down to the smallest details. Seriously, I don't know why Kenders is suddenly allergic to giving us anything new, but it's annoying and I for one am super done with Green Knuckles and eager for something more interesting.

The Last Robian

Writer: Karl Bollers Pencils: Art Mawhinney Colors: Jason Jensen

This story is told mostly through text boxes, something which I've criticized Karl for doing before, but in this case it actually kind of works. We begin on a morning in early June (which, if you'll remember, would mean it's around the time of Sonic's birthday), where the world awakens to find every single Robian on the planet missing. Just vanished without a trace. Obviously, this causes a lot of confusion and distress among the population of Knothole, who have by now gotten used to living with their roboticized brethren, and though everyone immediately suspects Eggman, he's nowhere to be found. Three weeks pass before any new information comes to light, and one day Sonic gets a lead that his dog is roaming around in Deerwood Forest in the Kingdom of Mercia.

Celebration and joy engulf the world at this apparent miracle, but Sonic is quietly bothered, as there is one single Robian who still hasn’t returned - his own father. It takes much longer for Jules to return, but when he finally does, he's still a robot - the only person on the whole planet not to have been changed back. Chuck, sensing an opportunity to make up for his past failures, goes into overdrive trying to find a cure for Jules, who begins to feel like an outsider as the only one who can't eat, sleep, and do other normal organic things like the rest of his family. Sonic sees his father's pain and becomes enraged, certain that Eggman has deliberately done this purely to torment him personally. He races to Eggman's current base to confront him, but Eggman irritably insists that he did nothing, and that he is himself disappointed in the sudden return of all the Robians to their original state.

Well, this does certainly seem suspicious. I'm gonna go ahead and call it another deus-ex-machina in fact - I know I've been bringing up that term a lot lately, but well, it's because there's been a lot of cases of it in the past several issues. I honestly think that Karl kind of backed himself into a corner with the Robian problem, and finally decided it was time to get rid of it and start anew, and had no other way to do it than… well, this. There is an explanation, one we'll be receiving shortly in fact, but it still seems like a massive copout this way.

[kingedmundsroyalmurder]

In the middle of Valancy Stirling's fourteenth year, a great excitement came to Deerwood. Valancy heard the news from Cousin Olive, who had heard from her parents. Olive pulled Valancy aside after school one day and told her with great importance, "Have you heard? A Princess is coming to live here!" Sara Crewe meets Valancy Stirling.

Chapter 5: Uncle Benjamin hosts a party.

Read the full fic at the AO3 link or read just chapter 5 below:

The day of the dinner party dawned bright and cold, but clear. Valancy had barely slept and was up well before the first purple hints of dawn. She wrapped herself in her blanket and gazed out the window at the stars above. Distant and uninviting as ever, the stars twinkled to themselves in the early morning darkness, entirely unaware that Valancy existed. Outside, she could see nothing but the faintest of outlines of buildings and, beyond, a dark inky blackness where Lake Mistawis lay. Valancy rested her elbows on the window frame and gazed at the sleeping houses around her. It had snowed earlier in the week, and although the streets quickly turned to slush, a blanket of white still clung to the rooftops and fence-posts. This whiteness reflected the distant glow of the stars, casting a faint haze over everything in the pre-dawn hour.

"Well," Valancy said to herself, as in the distance the scream of a whistle signaled that the first train of the day was on its way. "Today is the day."

She shivered a little as the chill from the outside penetrated the window, and she wrapped the blanket more tightly around her small frame. Valancy had taken extra care to stay warm this past week and a half, although it seemed as though her efforts were for naught. She had woken that morning with a headache and a sore throat, sure signs that another cold was imminent.

"I shan't tell mother," she decided, feeling very daring. Ordinarily such a deception would have filled her with nervous dread, but she was already full of terrible fear about the party to come. A little more dread would barely make an impact. Still, she felt she had better get away from the window and its drafts, and so she retired to bed once more.

She knew from experience that sleep would not come, not until just before Cousin Stickles knocked on her door. Better to stay up, now that she was awake, rather than toss and turn and be brutally awakened just as she had managed to drift off. So she sat down on her bed and tucked her legs beneath her.

The Blue Castle shimmered into view before her, majestic and inviting. Valancy looked down to find herself clad in crimson silk trimmed with matching velvet ribbon. Her long sleeves trailed nearly to the ground, lined in a soft peach that brought out the warmth in her skin. As Valancy stepped into the castle, all she passed stopped to greet her and she nodded benevolently to each person.

She had no pressing business, no looming crisis or impending delights, merely the delicious luxury of time to herself. She would visit the forest, she decided, and before her eyes the trailing hem and pendant sleeves of her gown retracted into something more practical for adventuring. Beneath her newly sensible hem, Valancy saw pretty, sturdy boots of fawn-colored leather, stamped with flowers along the lacing holes.

The impending dawn turned the trees soft blue and violet. The sun had not yet penetrated the canopy, and Valancy picked her way through the shadows, feeling the soft crunch of pine needles beneath her boots. An owl hooted softly as it flew by, so close that Valancy could feel the rush of air from its wings. She traveled boldly through the maze of trees, sure footed and confident in her direction. The forest of the Blue Castle held no dangers for Valancy. Mysteries, certainly, and always new secrets for her to discover, but never any true danger.

She made her way through the woods to her favorite secluded spot: a small pond fed by a babbling brook, hidden deep amongst the pines. A rock sat on the banks of the brook, covered in soft moss and shaped just perfectly to serve as a seat. Valancy lowered herself upon this mossy throne and dipped a hand into the pond. The icy water sent a delightful shock through her skin and up her arm. Around her, the forest began waking up for the day. Songbirds began their first sleepy melody of the morning, and the branches rustled as squirrels set about their daily business. At Valancy's feet, a pair of rabbits hopped by, brown as the soil but with bright cotton ball tails. A doe and her fawn picked their way towards the pond for a morning drink, while on the banks of the brook the frogs began calling to each other. A beam of dewy sunlight, the first of the morning, shone through a gap in the canopy directly onto Valancy, and she turned her face up to receive its blessing.

Cousin Stickles knocked at Valancy's door.

At once the forest melted away, and Valancy almost cried out at the abruptness of the loss. Thankfully, she restrained herself just in time. Dawn in Deerwood had yet to arrive, and she dressed for breakfast in the dark. Mrs. Stirling did not permit candles to be used for this purpose, so save money and to keep the household from descending into vanity. Valancy had learned to pin her hair by feel almost the moment she started putting it up.

She arrived promptly to breakfast, but found that she was not hungry. She nibbled on some toast and drank a cup of tea and listened as Mrs. Stirling and Cousin Stickles talked of the things they always talked about. Valancy stayed quiet. Uncle Wellington decreed that children should be seen and not heard during meals and, although Uncle Wellington could not possibly have known what Valancy did or did not say at breakfast, his decree was always obeyed.

After breakfast came the washing up, and after that the dusting. Valancy ran a cloth over the spotless mantlepiece and tried not to think too hard about the party to come. She tried to take refuge in the Blue Castle, but it turned out that the castle was hopping with activity for a grand ball that was to be held that evening. Valancy could find nothing to do to distract herself from the preparations, and so she returned to the mundane world, where at least she could feel useful. Although it was hard to feel that anything of use had been accomplished when the dusting cloth ended its acquaintance with the mantlepiece nearly as spotless as it had begun.

At half past eleven Mrs. Stirling sent Valancy to her room to dress. "Wear the brown silk," Mrs. Fredrick instructed, as though Valancy had any other choice. Valancy studied her reflection as she brushed out her hair. It was not a very ugly dress, she though, only mostly ugly. The high collar, reinforced by Mrs. Fredrick to demand good posture, poked her chin uncomfortably and the detailing at the shoulders served only to draw attention to the narrowness of her frame. Mrs. Stirling had hoped aloud that Valancy would grow into a woman's shape, but she had remained straight and skinny, and her dress did nothing to disguise those truths. But the color evoked ripened chestnuts, not mud, and Valancy almost liked the design of eyelets and lace roundels at the wrists. Valancy herself, of course, remained as ugly as ever, with her pale, pointed face made even uglier by the spots on her chin and forehead, and dull brown hair. The prettiest dress in the world wouldn't be able to turn Valancy into a beauty, and this dress certainly could not manage the task.

Valancy was filled with a wave of hatred for the looking glass, which so cruelly insisted on showing her what was true instead of what she wanted to see. She ached to hurl it out the window and watch it shatter into a million tiny shards. "Try showing me my face then," she thought spitefully, even as her hands never paused in their task of brushing her hair. She could not so much as hide the glass without upsetting Mrs. Stirling; to throw it out the window would be fully unthinkable. Still, she did not have to look at it, and she resolutely turned her back on her offending reflection to finish with her hair. She did not so much as glance back as she settled her old sailor hat onto the newly re-done pompadour and pinned it in place.

***

Uncle Benjamin lived in a large, comfortable house adjoining his store. The house, Valancy reflected as she, Mrs. Fredrick, and Cousin Stickles arrived for dinner, was very much like its owner. Large, expensively furnished, and not nearly so handsome as it fancied itself to be beneath all the money. The columns supporting the roof of the porch were bare and uninviting, impressive from a distance but disappointing upon closer acquaintance. The twin attic windows framing the porch roof seemed to leer down at the approaching women.

Uncle Benjamin's knocker was a gaudy thing, cast in bronze and so decorated with vines and berries that it was difficult to see which part of it was actually of use. Mrs. Stirling grasped the twisted vines in one gloved hand and, with a sharp knock that made Valancy's headache throb, alerted Uncle Benjamin to their arrival.

Uncle Benjamin, although he lived alone, had the wealth to employ two servants: a cook and a maid to keep his house. This latter answered Mrs. Stirling’s knock, and she led the three guests into Uncle Benjamin’s parlor, where their host awaited. Uncle Benjamin wore a smart new suit, crisp enough to look ridiculous. His parlor was wallpapered with vivid green and gold and lined in dark wood bookshelves, filled with impressively bound books that he never read. Dotted throughout the bookshelves and on the mantlepiece sat trinkets: a decorative bowl of mahogany, a statuette of David to match Cousin Sarah Taylor’s, a carved pipe from Vancouver, evocative of trips to foreign cities he had never seen. His shelves held books in German and Latin, which Uncle Benjamin did not speak, and in French, which Uncle Benjamin openly disdained. The whole room painted the picture of someone rather sophisticated, if one did not know Uncle Benjamin, and of someone faintly pathetic, if one did.

“Why,” Uncle Benjamin asked in lieu of a greeting, “is an old woman like a window?”

“Why?” Valancy asked dutifully

“Because she is full of panes,” he said, and chuckled at his own wit. All three ladies present smiled faintly at the joke, as they were expected to, and Uncle Benjamin ushered them to their seats.

Uncle Benjamin and Mrs. Stirling talked as they waited for the other guests to arrive. Cousin Stickles interjected occasionally, and Valancy retreated entirely to the Blue Castle. Her earlier dread was back with a vengeance.

Next to arrive were Uncle and Aunt Wellington and Olive. Scarcely had they had the chance to shed their winter coats and take their seats when Uncle Benjamin’s maid announced the guests of honor.

Valancy emerged from her Blue Castle and looked up just in time to see Sara and a stranger being ushered into the room by quite the strangest person ever to set foot in Uncle Benjamin’s parlor. He was tall and dark, dressed all in white with a queer sort of scarf wrapped about his head. His black eyes took in Uncle Benjamin’s parlor in one or two swoops, and then his attention returned to the man walking ahead of him.

Uncle Benjamin was too good a businessman to let his distaste show, and he rose to greet Sara and her uncle, fully ignoring the third newcomer.

“Please,” Uncle Benjamin said, “take my seat. Wellington says you have been recovering from an illness, and this is the best chair in the room.”

Sara’s uncle – Valancy was privately mortified to realize she had forgotten his real name, for Sara only ever referred to him as Uncle Tom – nodded his thanks to Uncle Benjamin and took the offered seat. The man in white, who seemed to be some kind of personal servant, produced a lap blanket and arranged it on Uncle Tom's lap. He and Uncle Tom exchanged a few words in a low voice, and then the man in white backed up half a pace and gave a deep, fluid bow, first to Uncle Tom and then to the assembled Stirlings, who were to a one doing a poor job indeed of not staring at this display of unusual behavior. Light footed as a cat, the man in white slipped out of the parlor.

"I say," Uncle Benjamin said. "That a d-" he remembered in the nick of time that there were ladies present, "a very efficient servant you have."

Uncle Tom smiled fondly. "Oh yes," he said. His voice was quiet, as though his mysterious illness had robbed him of the ability to speak up. "Ram Dass has been with me for years. I should have been dead a hundred times over if not for him."

Sara, standing next to the armchair, took one of his hands in her small ones. They exchanged a glance that spoke volumes.

After a moment of silence, Uncle Wellington picked up the conversation thread that Sara and her Uncle's arrival had interrupted. Old Abel Gay had been seen roaring through town three times in the last week, each time drunker than the last. Two nights ago, he had alighted on the steps of the Anglican Church, singing ribald songs and laughing uproariously until the neighbors were forced to call the policeman to chase him away. He let himself be chased, but slung a slew of cheerful blasphemies over his shoulder as he went, deeply shocking even the policeman.

"Really it's shocking," Aunt Wellington said, shaking her head. "Absolutely shocking that they didn't lock him up for it."

"He should be thrown in jail," Uncle Wellington agreed hotly. "I don't know what Officer Matey was thinking, letting him walk free for so long. Dr. Stalling said that if he had been there to hear it he would have dragged the scoundrel in front of magistrate himself, no matter that it was two in the morning!"

"To think, such a man is allowed to walk free in this town," Mrs. Stirling said with a delicate shudder. "It makes you afraid even to send your children to school. Who knows what someone like that might do?"

"There's no need to wonder," Uncle Benjamin said darkly. "How long did his poor wife live? A year? Two? It's a wonder she lived long enough to have that child of his."

"Such a shame," Cousin Stickles said. She sighed loudly. "That girl of his, being brought up like that. She's a pretty little thing, at least."

"She’ll only come to grief, living in a house with that man," Mrs. Stirling said darkly.

"It isn't Cissy's fault where she was born," Olive interjected magnanimously. Dr. Stalling had spoken in church that week about charity for the less fortunate, and Olive felt herself very charitable indeed, to remember Cissy's misfortunes.

"She'll do well to marry someone steady and leave that hovel as soon as she can," Aunt Wellington said.

Valancy risked a glance at Sara, who still stood quietly next to her uncle. Her eyebrows had pulled together into a frown and she appeared to be thinking furiously about something. She met Valancy's gaze, and Valancy was startled by the intensity in her grey-green eyes.

"I think," Sara said, her voice quiet but firm as iron, "that people should leave Cissy alone. She hasn't harmed anybody."

The adult Stirlings exchanged glances. Before any of them could find an answer, Uncle Benjamin's maid announced that dinner was served.

[kingedmundsroyalmurder]

In the middle of Valancy Stirling's fourteenth year, a great excitement came to Deerwood. Valancy heard the news from Cousin Olive, who had heard from her parents. Olive pulled Valancy aside after school one day and told her with great importance, "Have you heard? A Princess is coming to live here!" Sara Crewe meets Valancy Stirling.

Chapter 8: The tea parties continue and Sara's story is told.

Sorry for being a day late -- I was busy with life stuff yesterday. Click the link to read the full fic on AO3, or read just this chapter below:

Uncle Benjamin must have stopped by when Valancy was at school one day, because when next Saturday came along Mrs. Stirling walked Valancy to Mr. Charles Clydesdale's house for tea with minimal comment. And then again the week after, when the mermaid story stretched into its third session. Valancy spent days watching Mrs. Fredrick anxiously, waiting for the inevitable retribution or righteous anger about spending so much time out of the house, but it never came. Mrs. Fredrick walked Valancy to the old mansion each week promptly at two o'clock and picked her up at five on the dot and never once bothered Valancy with any questions about what the girls got up to in Sara's parlor.

In truth, Mrs. Fredrick Stirling resented Valancy's Saturday teas immensely. It was entirely improper for a girl of Doss' age to spend so much time away from home, not when there was work to be done. And in the such company! Sara Crewe's wealth excused many eccentricities, of course, but the way she had spoken out of turn at Ben's dinner party! Doss would surely learn bad habits, spending so much time around her. The Blunt girl was respectable enough -- and Mrs. Stirling felt herself very generous to think so -- but Cecilia Gay! She trembled at the things Doss might pick up from someone like that. Doss was so impressionable, after all.

But she did not dare forbid Doss from attending, not when Ben made it clear that he would happily write Doss out of his will entirely if she were to ruin her budding friendship with Sara Crewe. So she grimly walked Doss to and from Mr. Clydesdale's and made up her mind to refuse her anything else she might ask for. It didn't do to give a girl everything she wanted.

Valancy knew little of this. She had quickly come to look forward to Saturday afternoons as the best part of the week. Mr. Charles Clydesdale's house, once so foreboding, was now as much her friend as its young mistress, and she greeted the skeletal hedges and overgrown path with casual familiarity. The ominous loom of the front porch became the friendly guardian of the warmth and beauty inside. Even Mr. Charles Clydesdale himself, although Valancy had yet to even lay eyes on the man, transformed in her mind from a frightening mystery into a kindly old man, and she felt absolutely certain that there was no truth in any of the stories that people whispered about him.

In Sara's parlor, the five girls spun up countless delights, warmed by the blazing fire and fed by Miss Bray's teas. The story of the princess and the merman came to its conclusion on the third week, as the princess dove into the sea for the last time to be with her love, legs turning seamlessly into fins as her father watched proudly but tearfully from the castle balcony. Sara began a new story, this one about a young sailor in love with the sea and the jealous wind spirit who wanted the sea all for himself.

"And the wind howled his rage," Sara said, standing in front of the fire so that it cast a shadow across her face, her whole body swaying as though buffeted by the storm, "and caused the waters to rise up around the young sailor's ship, threatening to swallow it whole.

'Don't fear, my love,' the sea whispered in the sailor's ear. 'If your ship sinks I will protect you and see that no harm comes to you.'

'But what about my crew mates?' the sailor asked. 'They've done nothing wrong. Will you spare them as well?'

And the sea looked away, for she knew she could not offer her protection to all. And the sailor clung tightly to her for a moment, for he loved her still, and then said, 'I must go. We must make the ship fast and weather this storm.' He slipped out of her seaweed grip and stumbled across the pitching decks to where his crewmates were frantically tying down the sails. The sea watched him with longing in her heart, and as the storm raged on it sounded like the mocking laughter of her jealous keeper."

The fairies in Cissy's garden did not go forgotten either, and it became their habit during the meal to imagine further delights to please them until spring came again. Very quickly their minds outgrew the confines of Sara's parlor, and the riotous garden became a veritable forest, filled with ancient trees and springy mosses and unexpected patches of wildflowers where the canopy parted into a clearing. Sara borrowed from her uncle an encyclopedia of botanical specimens, and they poured over the book, seeking out the perfect furnishings for their tiny, invisible friends.

"They must have homes," declared Margaret, whose father worked in a bank and who was therefore more practically minded than the others. "Even birds have nests, to sit on their eggs and take shelter from the rain."

"I don't think the fairies have nests," Sara said thoughtfully. They had abandoned the tea table and sat sprawled out in front of the fire. Sara and Cissy lay on the thick floor rug, while Margaret and Valancy claimed two of the armchairs. Becky had dragged her chair from the tea table over and sat perched on its edge, ready to spring up at once if her young mistress should need anything.

"No, we would have found them otherwise," Cissy agreed. She flipped through the pages of Mr. Carrisford's encyclopedia, looking for inspiration.

Valancy propped her elbows on her knees and rested her chin on her palms, considering the matter. "Maybe," she said slowly. "Maybe they live inside the hollows in trees, like owls." They had discovered a picture in the big encyclopedia of a brown owl peering out from inside a tree, invisible except for its big yellow eyes. Valancy had been utterly enchanted by the idea, and that very evening filled the woods of the Blue Castle with dozens of big, yellow-eyed owls peering out from the oaks and pines.

"Maybe they build treehouses like the Swiss Family Robinson!" Cissy exclaimed. When it transpired that she was the only one who had read the story, she blushed and hesitantly explained about the shipwrecked family and the splendid treehouse they had built on their deserted island.

"It's very educational," Cissy said, when she finished and Valancy wished aloud that she could read the story for herself. "You learn all sorts of things about animals and farming and building things. Maybe your mother wouldn't disapprove too badly?"

"She doesn't approve of any novels, even educational ones," Valancy said.

Cissy considered this. After a moment, she said. "I borrowed it from the library; I'm sure I could borrow it again and lend it to you!"

"I'll borrow it," said Margaret. "You should save your books for ones you want to read, Cissy." To Valancy, she added, "I'll bring it to school next week. You can keep it at your desk if you don't want to bring it home."

"Oh, you don't have to trouble yourself," Valancy said, suddenly quite overcome. No one had ever done anything nice for her before, and she felt quite shy and uncertain in the face of it. "It's all right."

"It's no trouble," Margaret said. "My mother takes me to the library every week."

"How'd the fairies make all those rooms in trunks, with them being so small?" Becky asked, taking mercy on Valancy and diverting the conversation back to its original topic. Sara eagerly took up the subject, and Margaret and Cissy too became engrossed in the problem, leaving Valancy to sit in silence, letting her feelings settle inside of her until she could once again participate.

But on Tuesday, Margaret Blunt arrived early to school and Valancy found a slim volume from the library tucked into her desk, with a slip on it that read in Margaret's blunt, square hand, 'I have this out for two weeks.'

Only once did the mood in Sara's parlor turn gloomy. It was a bitterly cold day, too cold to snow, the kind of weather that stole your breath right out of your lungs and froze your nose even under a thick woolen scarf. Cousin Stickles didn't want Valancy to go out, convinced that she would die of measles in this weather. But Mrs. Stirling, in a tone so icy it rivaled nature itself, said that if Miss Crewe felt it appropriate weather in which to summon her friends, then Valancy would answer the summons.

So Valancy was duly bundled up and escorted to the now well beloved mansion. By the time she arrived, her cheeks were bright red and she had lost all feeling in her toes and fingers. Miss Bray quickly ushered in both Valancy and Mrs. Fredrick Stirling. As Becky whisked Valancy up to the parlor, she heard Mrs. Stirling frostily accept an invitation to stay at the mansion for the duration of tea, rather than make the walk across town twice.

Up in Sara's parlor, she found Cissy Gay already arrived, huddled in front of the fire and wrapped in a heavy blanket, a steaming mug in her hands. Although she greeted Valancy cheerfully, her teeth were still chattering. The walk up from Roaring Abel's was long, and Cissy was small for her age.

Sara sat on the floor next to Cissy, staring wordlessly into the fire. She roused herself to greet Valancy, but almost immediately fell back into her silent contemplation. It was clear that something was troubling her, but when Valancy tried to ask about it, Sara only shook her head.

Margaret blew in a few minutes later, still bundled in her new fur coat, brown hair peeking out of the cap she'd worn under her warmest hat. She frowned a little at the scene in front of the fire, and shot a quizzical glance at Valancy, who could only shrug helplessly.

As if she sensed this silent dialog behind her, Sara roused herself at last. "Becky," she called. Becky, who had been hanging up Margaret's coat, immediately sprang to Sara's side.

"Yes miss?"

"Will you help me move the table close to the fire please? Cissy is still frozen through."

"I'm all right!" Cissy exclaimed, and sneezed into her tea. "See? My father says if you're sneezing it means you're thawing out nicely."

"Or it means you've caught cold," Margaret said.

"Oh, I never catch cold," Cissy assured her, and sneezed again. Despite her protests, she let Margaret help her up so that Sara and Becky could maneuver the table into place. Valancy gathered the chairs and she and Becky arranged them while Sara fixed the place settings that had been jostled by the table's relocation.

Miss Bray came in with the tea tray, and for a while everyone busied themselves with eating. The walk in the cold had left the three guests ravenous, and even Sara and Becky filled their plates. Slowly, conversation began, initiated by Cissy, who felt bad that she had worried Sara so much. By the time Miss Bray returned to clear away the empty dishes, things seemed nearly back to normal. Cissy had stopped sneezing, and had even managed to coax a smile or two out of Sara over dessert.

But the moment Miss Bray left, Sara lapsed back into silence. Cissy, with a low sound of distress, went over to her and sat down next to her, putting one small hand on Sara's knee.

"Will you tell us what the matter is?" she pleaded.

Sara leaned into the touch, still staring at the fire. "I was thinking of Miss Minchin's," she said. Although this meant little to Valancy, Becky let out an exclamation.

"You shouldn't, miss," she said. "Beggin' your pardon. It's over and we won't neither of us ever see 'er again."

"I know," Sara said. "Uncle Tom says the same thing. But sometimes I can't help but think of it."

"Who is Miss Minchin?" Margaret wanted to know.

"She was the headmistress at the school I went to in London," Sara said. This explained very little. Sara looked down at her hands for a moment, then rose, gently dislodging Cissy. She gathered Emily into her arms and sat back down, this time with her back to the fire, facing the other girls. Cissy scooted a little so that she could see Sara's face. "I suppose I should tell you all the full story."

Unlike most of her story telling, Sara did not embellish this telling. She sat very still, hugging Emily tightly to her, her eyes looking straight ahead. She had come to London at seven, to study and to grow up. Her papa had loved her very much, but she couldn’t stay in India and he couldn't stay in England. After he dropped her off at Miss Minchin's, she never saw him again.

"It was all right for the first few years," she said. "I had everything I wanted, I suppose, except for him. But I told myself that this was my war, and I would endure it just as he had endured the real ones he fought it." She laughed, a low humorless chuckle. "I didn't know anything at all."

Her father died shortly before her eleventh birthday, apparently penniless after the diamond mines looked to have failed. For Sara, everything changed in an instant. She went from petted show pupil to scullery maid from one day to the next, with only Becky and Emily for company. "Miss Minchin told all the other girls to stay away, and I thought even my friends wouldn't like to be around me anymore," she said. "It wasn't until my friend Ermengarde snuck into the garret in tears that I realized how cruel I had been to her."

For two years, Sara lived as a girl of all work in Miss Minchin's school, worked from dawn until dusk, deprived of warmth, food, and companionship, sent out in all weather and at all hours of the day. Only by pure chance did Mr. Carrisford happen to take the house next to the school, and only through a stroke of magic did Ram Dass happen to lose his grip on the monkey one night just when Sara happened to be in her attic to catch it and speak to him.

Ram Dass told his master about the young girl in the attic, and Mr. Carrisford took pity on her, although he didn’t know who she was, and had Ram Dass sneak over blankets and warm food and light a fire in her grate when she was away at her work. Even then, everything would have stayed the same had the monkey not escaped a second time and Sara gone herself to bring him home, where she at last gave her name and Mr. Carrisford realized she was the very little girl he’d been looking for these last two years.

"I think," Sara said, her face nearly buried in Emily's hair, "that I really would have died soon after if it wasn't for that first miracle. It was so cold, and I was so hungry and tired."

"I wouldn't have let you, miss," Becky said staunchly, but her face was very white and she was gripping the edge of her apron very tightly, as though she too was remembering things she would rather forget.

"But Mr. Carrisford found you!" Cissy said. "And everything was all right!"

"Yes," Sara said. "I suppose everything was all right." And she shivered despite the warm fire at her back.

"I suppose," Valancy said slowly, "that this is why you said you liked coming in from the weather? The day we first met." Sara nodded. Valancy thought about her own house, and how cold it got in her room and how much worse it would be if there was no fire at all. It was her turn to shiver.

"What happened to Miss Minchin?" Margaret wanted to know. "Did she ever get in trouble for treating you so badly?"

Sara sketched a shrug. "No. What would there be to punish her for? I didn't have any money. She would have been within her rights to throw me out onto the streets, instead of letting me at least have a roof over my head, as cold a roof as it was. Really, it could have been worse."

"It was 'orrible," Becky said bluntly. "Worse for you than for me, miss. I was used to it, at least."

"Yes, but you were even hungrier than I was," Sara said. She took a deep breath. "Let's talk about something else. It's too cold outside to think about cold memories. Cissy, what does your garden look like in the summer?"

[kingedmundsroyalmurder]

In the middle of Valancy Stirling's fourteenth year, a great excitement came to Deerwood. Valancy heard the news from Cousin Olive, who had heard from her parents. Olive pulled Valancy aside after school one day and told her with great importance, "Have you heard? A Princess is coming to live here!" Sara Crewe meets Valancy Stirling.

Chapter seven: Sara hosts a tea party and we finally get to the scene that I had originally planned for, like, chapter 3.

Read the full story at the link or read just chapter seven below.

On Tuesday afternoon, a visitor came to the little house on Elm Street. Valancy, whose cold had yet to abate, saw nothing of her, but Cousin Stickles later reported that she wore a sensible wool dress and good shoes and looked for all the world like a respectable member of society until she opened her mouth and her queer accent came through. This was Sara's servant girl, and she had come to invite Valancy to tea on Saturday afternoon, if she was well enough to attend.

"You'd better stay home, Doss," Cousin Stickles said, peering at Valancy, who was sitting by the dining room fire, darning. "That cold of yours is sure to turn to pneumonia if you go outside!"

"May I go, Mother?" Valancy pleaded. "I'm sure I'll be better by then!" As if on cue, she coughed into her work.

"We will see," Mrs. Stirling said severely, and that was the end of the matter.

By Thursday, Valancy's condition was much improved, and she timidly asked again if she might be allowed to go to Sara's tea the next afternoon. Mrs. Stirling examined her minutely, and Valancy held her breath to keep from sneezing and ruining everything. Unsatisfied but unable to explain why, Mrs. Stirling sent for Uncle James, who performed his own examination, and declared that he would ring Dr. Marsh and ask for his opinion. Valancy's heart sank.

Dr. Marsh by some miracle had no patients to see that afternoon, and he agreed to drive in to Deerwood to see Valancy. His wife, Second Cousin Adelaide had been wanting to go into Deerwood and eat supper with Cousin Georgiana anyway, and it made little difference to Dr. Marsh if he drove in on Thursday instead of Friday as initially planned.

Unlike Mrs. Stirling and Uncle James, Dr. Marsh barely looked at Valancy at all. He asked Mrs. Stirling and Cousin Stickles how long she had been ill, if she had been feverish, and how many times she had been sick so far that fall. He had Valancy cough for him and declared that it was nothing but a cold, and that she would be fine to attend her tea party if she so desired. When Cousin Stickles anxiously showed him the new spots on Valancy's chin, he instructed her to wash her face more. Valancy wanted to melt into the floor as Uncle James laughed.

Still, having received Dr. Marsh's blessing, Valancy was permitted to attend Sara's tea the following afternoon.

***

Mr. Charles Clydesdale's manor loomed impressively on the outskirts of Deerwood. Once very grand indeed, it now sat hidden behind two massive oak trees, permanently in the shade. An overgrown garden greeted Valancy and Mrs. Fredrick Stirling as they approached, filled with mysterious bushes and weedy flowers long since gone feral. A disconcertingly bright patch of dandelions grew near the path to the front door, clashing with the dark greens and shadowy purples of the rest of the greenery. Valancy shivered a little.

Mrs. Fredrick knocked sharply on the front door. The knocker blazed brightly against the aging wood of the door -- someone had polished it recently, the first sign of upkeep they had seen so far. Almost immediately, the door opened. Mr. Clydesdale's housekeeper stood on the other side, and she peered out at Mrs. Stirling and Valancy. Valancy, feeling irrationally like she was in disgrace, shrank back.

After a moment's inspection, the woman stepped aside. "Come in," she said. "Miss Crewe is expecting you."

Valancy hesitated, suddenly deeply intimidated by the grand house and its inhabitants. She looked to her mother, who gazed severely back. "Well," Mrs. Stirling said. "Go on."

Valancy took a breath. It was Sara's house, she told herself. Sara would not invite her somewhere she was not wanted. She let her eyes go distant until the entrance hall of Mr. Charles Clydesdale's manor began to blend into the grand foyer of the Blue Castle and crossed the threshold.

It took a moment for Valancy's eyes to adjust. She had expected the gloom of the front garden to continue inside the house. Some small part of her had imagined worse, that it would be filled with dust and spiderwebs, an abandoned home to match its abandoned garden. But, of course, the house was not abandoned in the slightest, and she was instead greeted by a blazing fire casting a golden glow onto spotless furnishings.

"May I take your coat, Miss Stirling?"

Still in a daze from the contrast between her expectations and her observations, Valancy shrugged out of her old brown coat and handed it to Mr. Clydesdale's houskeeper. A moment later, another girl stepped into the hall and made directly for Valancy. This was Sara's servant girl, and Valancy saw immediately that Cousin Stickles had been correct. She wore a nice, sturdy woolen dress in a soft pink and the cap on her head was freshly washed and cheerfully white. Only the apron tied around her waist and the way she bobbed a curtsy at Valancy as she entered the room showed that she was not a mistress of the house in her own right.

"Miss Valancy?" she said, her voice broad and cheerful. "If you'll follow me, Miss Sara's in her parlor." She smiled at Valancy as she talked and, although Valancy knew her mother would correct her for it later, she could not help smiling back.

The girl led Valancy through to a small, brightly papered room. Another fire bathed the room with warmth, and the large windows let in even more light. The mantlepiece was dotted with pretty things, strange sculptures and framed photographs and one childish drawing that held the place of honor in the very center. A teakwood writing desk sat in one corner, and a very large bookshelf covered nearly half the wall next to it, so crowded with books that some had to be stacked in piles in front of the rest or they would not have fit. A pair of plush armchairs were sat in front of the fire, and next to them sat a smaller, matching armchair, on which perched a doll, arranged so that she was staring dreamily into the dancing flames.

But the true star of the room was the low dining table placed on top of a thick, soft blue rug. Five chairs sat arranged around it, three of them filled already. When Valancy and the servant girl entered, Sara jumped up from her seat at the head of the table, beaming.

"Oh I'm so glad you could come!" she cried. "When you weren't in school yesterday I felt sure that you were still too ill to join us."

"I am feeling much better," Valancy assured her.

Sara led her to one of the empty seats, and to Valancy's surprise the servant girl took the other. "Now everyone's here," Sara said, in a tone that was too happy to allow any of her guests to question the presence of any of the others. Valancy looked around the table and saw that the other two were both familiar faces: Margaret Blunt, who was in Valancy's year at school, and little Cecilia Gay, who at ten was by far the youngest person in the room. Indeed, she was looking around with open admiration at the loveliness surrounding them. She gave Valancy a bright, uncomplicated smile of welcome.

"Now everyone's here," Sara said.

"Will Emily be joinin' us, Miss?" the servant girl asked, and Sara jumped up again.

"Oh of course, how awful of me to forget! Thank you Becky, I would never have forgiven myself if she'd been left out."

Before any of the other guests could inquire as to the identity of this extra addition, Sara had sprung over to the hearth and retrieved the doll. Becky found her a matching dining chair and soon Emily sat in the place of honor next to Sara, nearly tall enough to eat at the table like the others.

"Emily is my oldest companion," Sara explained to the other three. "My papa bought her for me when I went to school. She has been the most loyal friend in the world."

"Miss Sara used to say how Emily could move about when we wasn't watching her," Becky added. "We used to creep up ever so quiet, to try to catch 'er before she heard. She were always too quick for us though."

"Like a fairy," Cissy Gay said. "I used to try to catch the fairies in the garden at twilight, but they never let me get close."

"Perhaps," Sara said thoughtfully, "that is part of how the magic works. I always used to wonder how it was that dolls always seem to know, no matter how quiet you are. Perhaps they have fairy friends, who guard the door like invisible soldiers and warn the dolls just in time." Then she laughed. "But we can't get carried away just yet. Ms. Bray would be so disappointed if we supposed away our entire afternoon and didn't get to eat the tea she's prepared."

She rang a bell next to her seat and, as though she had been waiting for her summons from just outside the door, Mr. Clydesdale's housekeeper appeared, pushing a cart laden with food. Becky jumped up to help her lay out the seemingly endless delights. Tiny sandwiches and scones still steaming from the oven. Tartlets with golden fillings and crusts so delicate they seemed made of spun sugar, not flour and water. Crystal cut glass bowls with whipped and colored butter, and, festooned throughout, bright orange slices, freshly cut and spreading their delicious aroma across the entire room. The teapot was painted with flowers and each teacup rimmed with gold and decorated to match. Never in her life had Valancy seen anything so pretty, and she felt as though she wouldn't possibly be able to eat anything and disturb the picture.

"Thank you, Miss Bray," Sara said, and the other girls belatedly remembered their manners and mumbled their own thank yous. Miss Bray, who had once looked so dour and foreboding stalking the aisles of Uncle Benjamin's store, now seemed quite kindly and approachable as she wished the girls a pleasant party and told Sara to ring for her if they needed anything at all.

"Cissy, will you pour for us?" Sara asked, and Cissy's eyes widened at the unexpected honor. Margaret seemed like she might object, but she kept her mouth closed and said a very proper thank you to Cissy as she took her filled cup.

When the tea had been poured and the scones and their butter bowls distributed so they could be eaten hot, Margaret said, "What a beautiful room you have. I never would have imagined anything like it, especially not here!"

"Uncle Tom and I created it," Sara said. "Or, I should say, he asked me what I would like, if I had a sitting room of my own again, and then had everything bought and arranged just as I had said. I thought I had walked into a dream, the first time he showed me. It was like a magician plucked the picture out of my head and made it real."

"It's like you saved a piece of summer," Cissy said dreamily. "I can barely believe it's still November outside."

Margaret and Valancy agreed with this statement. And then, because Valancy remembered how Sara had once looked sad when talking about winter before, she said, "Perhaps the fairies in Cissy's garden enjoy coming here to escape the cold."

Sara's eyes lit up, and Cissy clapped her hands in delight at the idea. Even Margaret Blunt, who at fourteen felt herself a little too old for fairy stories, seemed intrigued by the idea, softened by the magical glow that Sara seemed to cast over everything.

"Of course!" Sara said. "Oh Valancy, you are clever!"

Valancy turned bright red and looked down at her teacup.

"Should we pretend them some flowers, Miss?" Becky asked. "If they like the garden?"

"Oh let's," Cissy said. "It's always so dark here in the winters. All grey and white and black, no colors anywhere."

Sara considered this idea, nibbling on a sandwich. "Yes," she decided. "But we must be strategic about it. We wouldn't want to imagine flowers for them that they are not accustomed to, or they might not like it. When I learned we were coming here I read all about Canada, and I found out about the tiny birds that eat only flower nectar. Hummingbirds, they're called -- you know we didn't have any in either England or India? It's such a shame, really. If I'd known about them as a child I'm sure I could have imagined them into all sorts of adventures. They're just the right size to play with fairies. But my books said that they only eat from certain types of flowers. Imagine if fairies are the same -- if we gave them the wrong flowers, they might be even worse off than if they had none at all!"

"I have roses in my garden," Cissy said eagerly. "White ones and yellow ones. And clovers and daisies and little patches of narcissus."

"Wonderful!" Sara said. "We shall start with what they are most familiar with!" And she began to spin up the story, painting rosebushes climbing up the walls and daisies carpeting the floor, with patches of clovers shooting up big and bright to draw attention.

Margaret, who loved colors, suggested they add in some cardinal flowers. This required a pond, which promptly seeped into being in the far corner of Sara's room, safely away from the bookshelf. It soon blazed with reds and yellows and purples as the girls remembered other plants that grew along the water.

By the time they had finished with Miss Bray's desserts -- sweetbreads and sponge cake topped with lemon glaze and shortbread with candied orange slices arranged on top of them -- Sara's pretty parlor had become a field of wildflowers, filled quite to bursting with plants for the garden fairies to enjoy while they waited for summer to return. Valancy was so caught up in the story that she almost worried for a moment, when Sara rang for Miss Bray to come take the empty dishes, that Miss Bray would not be able to open the door, so thick were the vines creeping up that wall.

After the meal the girls (and Emily, who, of course, was seen as the authority on this matter, as she was friends with the fairies) retreated to the hearth rug.

"Will you tell us a story, Sara?" Cissy asked, hands clasped around her knees, looking up at Sara adoringly.

"Will you tell about the mermaids an' the fat little merbabies?" Becky asked. To the others, she explained, "That were the first story I ever 'eard from Miss Sara."

Sara laughed. "It was, wasn't it?" she said. "It's been a long time since I've told that one. You'll have to correct me if I forget any parts."

"You would never," Becky said stoutly. "An' if you did, it'd just be because you'd though of something even better instead!"

Sara laughed again, and then she straightened, her eyes going soft in the way they did when she was preparing herself to launch into a tale. "Once upon a time," she said, "there was a young princess who lived in a castle by the sea. She was very beautiful, and she had many admirers. Her golden hair hung to her feet in shining waves and her blue eyes sparkled like the waters below her father's castle. The princess had everything she could ever want -- a nice home, a father who loved her, friends and admirers who passed all their time by her side -- but she was unhappy. She used to sit on the rocks by the sea, looking out into the distance, trying to find what was missing."

The lush flower field melted away as Sara spoke, replaced by gentle waves and soft white sand. The girls listened, entranced, as Sara told about the Prince Merman who loved the sad princess from afar, and the events that at last brought them together. Even Becky, who knew the story so well she could whisper it to herself in the evenings, listened as if spellbound.

The five o'clock bell rang harsh and discordant just as the princess had jumped into the sea to save one of the merbabies from a storm, jostling all five of them rudely out of the fantasy. "Oh," Sara cried. "Is it really so late? Your parents will surely be waiting for you downstairs."

"My father won't mind if I'm late," Cissy said, but Margaret and Valancy exchanged looks. Neither of them could stay all evening.

"You'll have to come back next week," Sara decided. "I'll have Uncle Tom write to your families. You simply can't leave the story hanging here, and if I told it at school I would have to start all over again for everyone else." She nodded, as though everything had been decided already. Valancy resolved to do everything she possibly could to convince Mrs. Stirling to allow her the unheard of luxury of two Saturday outings in a row.

Sure enough, Miss Bray knocked at the door, with the news that Valancy's mother had come to pick her up. Sara embraced Valancy and thanked her again for coming, and the other three smiled at her as she said her goodbyes. As she followed Miss Bray out of the room, she thought she saw a flash of crimson in the far corner from a cardinal flower that had stubbornly refused to give way to the shining seas of the Prince Merman's kingdom.

[kingedmundsroyalmurder]

I am very stuck on the next chapter of Apctd, and i think it's because i have to make decisions about Olive. I've been debating if i want her to stay essentially a minor antagonist or if she gets the chance to Be Better and i have to comit one way or the other.

[kingedmundsroyalmurder]

I don't have LMM's eye for description, but i had fun imagining benjamin's house:

Uncle Benjamin lived in a large, comfortable house adjoining his store. The house, Valancy reflected as she, Mrs. Fredrick, and Cousin Stickles arrived for dinner, was very much like its owner. Large, expensively furnished, and not nearly so handsome as it fancied itself to be beneath all the money. The columns supporting the roof of the porch were bare and uninviting, impressive from a distance but disappointing upon closer acquaintance. The twin attic windows framing the porch roof seemed to leer down at the approaching women.

Uncle Benjamin's knocker was a gaudy thing, cast in bronze and so decorated with vines and berries that it was difficult to see which part of it was actually of use. Mrs. Stirling grasped the twisted vines in one gloved hand and, with a sharp knock that made Valancy's headache throb, alerted Uncle Benjamin to their arrival.

Uncle Benjamin, although he lived alone, had the wealth to employ two servants: a cook and a maid to keep his house. This latter answered Mrs. Stirling’s knock, and she led the three guests into Uncle Benjamin’s parlor, where their host awaited. Uncle Benjamin wore a smart new suit, crisp enough to look ridiculous. His parlor was wallpapered with vivid green and gold and lined in dark wood bookshelves, filled with impressively bound books that he never read. Dotted throughout the bookshelves and on the mantlepiece sat trinkets: a decorative bowl of mahogany, a statuette of David to match Cousin Sarah Taylor’s, a carved pipe from Vancouver, evocative of trips to foreign cities he had never seen. His shelves held books in German and Latin, which Uncle Benjamin did not speak, and in French, which Uncle Benjamin openly disdained. The whole room painted the picture of someone rather sophisticated, if one did not know Uncle Benjamin, and of someone faintly pathetic, if one did.

[zenlesszonezero]

As the conspiracy reaches its finale, the Void Hunter joins the fight.

Uncover the Conspiracy in Zenless Zone Zero's All-New Version "A Storm of Falling Stars", S-Rank Agent Hoshimi Miyabi is here! With S-Rank Agent Asaba Harumasa Limited-Time Giveaway! Pre-register to obtain additional rewards.

[kingedmundsroyalmurder]

In the middle of Valancy Stirling's fourteenth year, a great excitement came to Deerwood. Valancy heard the news from Cousin Olive, who had heard from her parents. Olive pulled Valancy aside after school one day and told her with great importance, "Have you heard? A Princess is coming to live here!" Sara Crewe meets Valancy Stirling.

Chapter four: Valancy discovers a new pastime and the Stirlings hatch a plan.

Author's note: moving forward, for the sake of actually getting work done at work and also saving my wrists, I'll be posting chapters weekly, on Thursdays.

Read the full fic at the AO3 link above, or read just chapter four below!

Valancy had no idea of the turmoil she had caused in her cousin that day, nor did she have the slightest inkling that, when Olive had indignantly relayed the news to her parents that evening, Aunt Wellington had actually chastised Olive for listening in. "Eavesdroppers never hear any good about themselves," Aunt Wellington had reminded her furious daughter, and she had allowed Olive to flounce off to bed without supper. Aunt Wellington had not particularly enjoyed her tea with Mr. Carrisford and his ward, but she had been very pleased by the social recognition it brought to her, and she did not want Olive to squander their family's opportunity in a fit of childish jealousy.

But as we have said, Valancy knew nothing of this. The only thing Valancy knew was that, for the first time in her entire life, someone had chosen her. And not just anyone, either. For, the more they talked, the more Valancy felt that Sara Crewe was the most interesting person in the entire world. Sara told stories as easily as breathing, and it seemed like everything she said had a hint of magic or adventure in it. She told Valancy more about India, and about the voyage from London to Deerwood. When she tired of those, she invented fairy stories out of thin air, epics about lords and princesses that would have been right at home in the Blue Castle. Once, Valancy got up the courage to shyly suggest an idea for a story that Sara was telling, a fantastical tale about a woman traveling through a sea of flowers to get to her long lost brother.

"Perhaps there is a bird that eats only the honey from these flowers," Valancy said. "So small it can hide in the petals, but just big enough to carry a message."

Sara seized on the idea with alacrity, and expanded on it, giving the bird eyes made of gemstones and wings of gossamer thread. "And the woman saw the bird and said to it, 'My friend, I beg you, will you aid me in my quest?' And the bird said -- do you think the bird can talk, Valancy?"

"Of course it can," Valancy said, too wrapped up in the story to feel shy. "But its voice is as small as it is, so no one has ever heard it before."

"And the bird said, 'If it is within my power I shall help, my lady, but I ask a favor in return.'" Sara paused, looking at Valancy, and Valancy realized that Sara was inviting her to join in the telling of the story.

"The bird… the bird said, 'I am looking for my lost love,'" Valancy said, and Sara smiled encouragingly at her to continue. "'She has feathers soft as these flower petals, and her eyes shine like sapphires. We were separated when a great wind swept across the sea. I found shelter in a budding blossom, but she was tossed into the wind like an elm seed and carried away. You are tall, my lady, and can see far into the horizon. Will you help me search for her?'"

Sara recognized the story, as Valancy had hoped she would, and she clapped her hands with delight. After that they shared the story, with Sara playing the part of the woman and Valancy transforming herself into a tiny, magical bird fluttering alongside her. When at last, after several days of telling, the pair found their respective happiness, Sara and Valancy had accumulated a sizable audience of listeners. The weather had turned cold, and many of the students found it far more enjoyable to listen to this new, odd form of theatre happening in the schoolroom than to brave the bitter wind of Muskoka winter. Had she stopped to reflect, Valancy would have been utterly tongue tied by such an audience. She had never been able to recite well, and dreaded the times when Miss Bryant called upon her to answer a question in front of everybody. But in the midst of the telling, she did not have time to even notice the audience. She barely saw them at all, caught up as she was in the sea of flowers, her gossamer wings beating rapidly to keep pace with Sara's stride.

Olive, although she doggedly refused to join the growing group of girls (and a few of the younger boys) listening to the story, did make one more effort to reverse the catastrophe. She told her mother that Doss was making up fairy stories, and that all that excitement couldn't be good for her cousin's health or her moral upbringing. Aunt Wellington felt this an alarming enough development to share with Mrs. Fredrick and Cousin Stickles, and an emergency council was held one day while the girls were at school.

"She's always been such a good girl," Mrs. Fredrick Stirling said worriedly. "She reads too much, of course, but I've never permitted her any novels. Where could she be coming up with these things?" Aunt Wellington had passed along Olive's report that Valancy fancied herself a bird -- and a male bird at that -- and the news was proving nearly too much for Mrs. Stirling's nerves.

"Come now Amelia," Uncle Benjamin said. Sara Crewe had sent her servant girl to his store the other day and spent a great deal there, and he was feeling indulgent of the young princess. "Children will have these flights of fancy sometimes. Has she stopped doing her chores?"

Mrs. Stirling had to admit that Valancy had not.

"Has she started talking this nonsense to you and Christine?"

No, Valancy had not breathed a word to her mother or Cousin Stickles about any of this. Mrs. Stirling frowned as she recalled how she had asked Doss every evening that week how school had been and not once had Doss said a word to her about being a bird or a sea of flowers or any of the rest of these lunacies.

"She certainly should have told you," Uncle Benjamin said, when Mrs. Fredrick relayed this. "But really, Amelia, she's a young girl. You have to expect these things sometimes."

"I never did anything like this when I was a girl," Mrs. Fredrick Stirling said, deeply affronted.

"Nor does Olive," Aunt Wellington added, feeling accused by association.

Uncle Benjamin saw that he would have to be more direct, if he wanted to be understood. "Be sensible, Amelia," he said. "Your daughter has befriended the richest girl in the whole town." And here he realized that in all the excitement he had forgotten to share the newest piece of news he had gleaned about Miss Sara Crewe. "I heard this morning that she's the heiress to the richest diamond mine in all of India, and she and her guardian certainly spend money like that's the truth. She's bound to have some eccentricities. I don't see any harm in letting Doss hang around with her, not when she has that much good fortune to spare."

"But Doss has precious few marital prospects as it is," Mrs. Stirling said, uncharacteristically speaking one of her private fears out loud. "Eccentricities are all very well when you're a diamond heiress, but what will people think if Doss goes around spouting nonsense like that?"

"They'll think that Doss has a very wealthy friend and that she's an excellent girl to marry because of it," Uncle Benjamin said firmly. The women in the room looked doubtful of this pronouncement, but as Uncle Benjamin was the only man present he was taken as the authority on male preference.

"I… I suppose she's not so bad," Mrs. Stirling said after a moment. "Miss Crewe, that is. She said hello very respectfully to everyone in church last week. But really. Birds?"

"Maybe you can encourage her towards more sensible past times," Uncle Benjamin allowed. The inspiration struck. "Invite her here, where you can watch over them."

Mrs. Stirling's hands flew to her mouth. "Here?" she gasped, looking around at her sitting room. "I couldn't possibly entertain an heiress here! Why we can barely afford to have the family over once a year for our anniversary!"

Uncle Benjamin considered the problem. Aunt Wellington, whom he would normally expect to jump in and offer to host, remained conspicuously silent. She had not forgiven Sara the slight against Olive, for all that she had reprimanded Olive for overhearing it. After a moment he nodded decisively. "I've got it," he proclaimed.

"What?" Cousin Stickles asked. In the absence of Valancy, it fell to her to ask the prompting questions.

"I shall invite Mr. Carrisford and his ward over for dinner next Saturday. You," and here he nodded to Aunt Wellington and Mrs. Fredrick in turn, "shall join us, and bring your daughters to keep Miss Crewe company." He sat back in his chair, looking extremely pleased with himself.

Aunt Wellington and Mrs. Fredrick Stirling agreed that this was a capital idea. Aunt Wellington very much liked the idea of repaying Mr. Carrisford's hospitality without having to host him herself, and Mrs. Stirling was anxious to see Miss Crewe and Doss for herself. She trusted Benjamin's judgment, of course, but, well, it wasn't his daughter thinking she was a bird. Things were different to a mother.

***

Valancy felt she might faint when she heard of the plan that evening. A torrent of memories tumbled through her mind, each more dreadful than the last, of past Stirling clan dinner parties. Uncle Benjamin would make jokes only he found amusing and Uncle James would grow cross when the conversation did not meet his standard of refinement and Cousin Georgiana would talk endlessly of funerals. Aunt Wellington would no doubt tell the story of the missing wedding teaspoon, and Uncle Benjamin would bring up the raspberry jam, and Mrs. Fredrick would tell of how she had sneezed when being measured for her school dress and the pattern had come out crooked. All this, Valancy could have born and, indeed, did bear each time the clan gathered. But to hear all the usual topics trotted out in front of Sara!

'I shan't be able to bear it,' Valancy thought wildly. 'Truly, I shall die on the spot if Uncle Benjamin so much as looks in the direction of a jam pot.'

"Did you hear me Doss?" Mrs. Stirling asked, cutting through Valancy's racing thoughts.

"No," Valancy admitted. "I'm sorry."

"I said, be sure to write your Uncle Benjamin a thank you card for his generosity," Mrs. Stirling said. She peered at Valancy over her knitting. "Are you catching cold again? You look peaky."

"I'm fine," Valancy said. Then, because there was nothing else she could say, she added, "I'll be sure to write Uncle Benjamin tonight before bed."

"Good," Mrs. Stirling said.

"It's a pity it's bound to snow next week," Cousin Stickles said. "Doss will surely ketch measles if she walks to Benjamin's in the snow."

The other two reflected on the statement. "Providence will provide," Mrs. Stirling said after a moment. She said this with such unshakable majesty that the other two busied themselves with their work just to avoid having to admit that they did not see how such a thing could be done.

"Maybe the weather will be nice," Valancy ventured. Both Mrs. Stirling and Cousin Stickles contradicted this immediately, and Cousin Stickles launched into a complaint about the dreariness of winter, which seemed to come earlier every year and each time last longer than the previous. Valancy applied herself to her quilt and tried to take refuge in the Blue Castle. She found it particularly difficult that evening, for each time she had just settled in another entirely mundane worry would cross her mind and the entire castle crumbled away. At one point she imagined Uncle Benjamin asking Sara why young ladies were like bad grammarians and she turned so violently pale that Mrs. Stirling sent Cousin Stickles to fetch the thermometer at once.

"You'd best go to bed early," Cousin Stickles told her, although the thermometer had turned up nothing unusual. "You've been so lucky with colds this year -- only two, and it's nearly Christmas! It won't do for you to ketch one this close to the holidays."

Valancy had been sick with cold more Christmases than she had been well, although it would not do to remind Cousin Stickles of this. Instead, glad to have an excuse to quit her endless quilt piecing early, she dutifully put her work aside and went up to her room.

In truth, she did feel a little queer. A pit of dread had opened deep in her stomach and she knew already that nothing would fill it until the dinner party had passed. But the only thing worse than going to the dinner party would be falling sick and missing it. Oh, she would not be able to stand it if Sara went and she did not and she was forced to stay home and imagine all the things that the Stirling clan were saying about her.

She would be careful, she resolved. She would take great care not to get sick before Saturday. She would stay inside and she would stay out of the rain and -- and here Valancy steeled herself before making this last silent promise -- she would ask Cousin Stickles to rub Redfern's liniment on her chest in the evenings. After all, Cousin Stickles always said that it couldn't do any harm and it might do some good. Valancy needed all the good she could muster.

[kingedmundsroyalmurder]

Teenage Valancy making the ultimate sacrifice over in fic land:

She would be careful, she resolved. She would take great care not to get sick before Saturday. She would stay inside and she would stay out of the rain and -- Valancy steeled herself before making this last silent promise -- she would ask Cousin Stickles to rub Redfern's liniment on her chest in the evenings. After all, Cousin Stickles always said that it couldn't do any harm and it might do some good. Valancy needed all the good she could muster.

[kingedmundsroyalmurder]

Chapter five is looking like it will be a Stirling Dinner Party. Everyone brace yourselves.

[kingedmundsroyalmurder]

Writing Patterns

Thank you for the tag @mollywog

Rules: list the first line of your last 10 (posted) fics and see if there's a pattern!

Mortal Trust and Fairy Dust (Kilmeny of the Orchard)

For three and a half terms, Larry West has been master of the Lindsay school.

Ties That Bind, Bonds That Strengthen (Blue Castle)

"Have you heard? Cecilia Gay is with child!"

A Princess comes to Deerwood (Blue Castle)

In the middle of Valancy Stirling's fourteenth year, a great excitement came to Deerwood.

One of the Deerwood Stirlings (Blue Castle)

Cecilia Stirling Smith was hastily and scandalously married at 17.

Spend the winters by my side (Hadestown/Les Miserables)

Fantine arrived in Hadestown wild and cynical, already broken down enough by life up Top that she accepted the worst Hadestown had to offer with a bitter laugh that emphasized her missing teeth, as if to say, ‘this is no worse than what I had to endure up there.’

Promises (Hadestown not!fic)

That said, someone other than me should write the story of Eurydice and Persephone, after everything’s said and done, two women who’ve been let down by the men they love, orbiting each other with wary fascination.

In the darkest time of year (Hadestown)

Hades is waiting at the station when Orpheus dies.

Never go anywhere, never see anyone (War and Peace/Les Miserables)

“And so, Madame, you shall be attentive and obedient as though receiving directions from me personally, or I shall be forced to discipline you in a manner which will displease both of us, do you understand me?”

Refueling (Les Miserables)

Feuilly scrubbed a hand over his eyes, trying to will them to stay open just a little while longer.

In defense of roses (Les Miserables)

“...and the power structure itself leads to a slow but steady deterioration of power for the people as it gets accumulated by the wealthy and influential who milk the economic desperation and petty xenophobia of the common citizens as a way to keep from being held accountable by the very people who should be most incensed by the rampant corruption of their leaders. It's awful! It's obscene! And no one even notices, which is incredible to me. Have we as a society grown so complacent that criminals only need to put on a suit and a microphone and be seen as heroes instead? Have the ordinary people of this system become so accustomed to being oppressed that they don't even notice the reality of their own oppression?”

Pattern analysis: I don't actually start with dialog as often as I thought I did. I tend to prefer a concise opening sentence - reading through these again a lot of the longer ones feel clunky and like things I would do differently if I was writing that fic today. (Except the last one. Jean Prouvaire is allowed to monologue about art for as long as he wants.) I like an opening line that grabs the attention, but I don't always manage to craft one.

Tagging, uh, @kehlana-wolhamonao3, @no-where-new-hero, @batrachised, @ohhgingersnaps and anyone else who wants to play.

[zenlesszonezero]

As the conspiracy reaches its finale, the Void Hunter joins the fight.

Uncover the Conspiracy in Zenless Zone Zero's All-New Version "A Storm of Falling Stars", S-Rank Agent Hoshimi Miyabi is here! With S-Rank Agent Asaba Harumasa Limited-Time Giveaway! Pre-register to obtain additional rewards.

[kingedmundsroyalmurder]

In the middle of Valancy Stirling's fourteenth year, a great excitement came to Deerwood. Valancy heard the news from Cousin Olive, who had heard from her parents. Olive pulled Valancy aside after school one day and told her with great importance, "Have you heard? A Princess is coming to live here!" Sara Crewe meets Valancy Stirling.

Click the link or read chapter one below. Please be advised that this chapter contains a great deal of canon-typical Stirling Clan Behavior.

In the middle of Valancy Stirling's fourteenth year, a great excitement came to Deerwood. Later, after the commotion died down, no one could say who had first learned of the news. Among the Stirling Clan, everybody knew that Uncle Benjamin had heard the news first, and relayed it to Cousin Gladys when she came by the store for Redfern’s Purple Pills. Cousin Gladys had then told Aunt Mildred, whom she had had for tea that afternoon. Aunt Mildred had told Aunt Wellington, who had told Uncle Wellington and Aunt Isabel. The latter had made sure that the rest of the clan was duly informed, although she maintained that it would have been much more efficient if Uncle Benjamin had thought to tell her first to begin with. But when it came to how Uncle Benjamin had originally come by the news, suddenly everyone's memories seemed to fail and no one could quite say how it had happened.

Valancy herself heard the news from Cousin Olive, who had heard from her parents. Olive pulled Valancy aside after school one day and told her with great importance, "Have you heard? A Princess is coming to live here!"

Valancy, of course, had been a princess herself for years, safe in the walls of her Blue Castle, but a real life princess was a very different matter. She very nearly gaped at Cousin Olive, who wore a small smile of benevolent triumph at being the one who catch Valancy in so unladylike an expression. "Why?" Valancy managed after a moment. Deerwood, with its prim, well-kept, ugly streets and its well brought up, deathly dull inhabitants, seemed the last place any princess would want to set eyes on. Valancy could hardly believe that someone like that would come to live in Deerwood.

Olive did not seem to care about this vital matter, and she waved Valancy's question away with an airy, "Why not?" While Valancy was still trying to find a response, Olive started on her true reason for confiding in Valancy. "She's going to need an entourage," Olive said. She pronounced entourage as it was spelled. "She'll come with servants, of course, but she'll need some companions of her own stature."

Valancy privately thought that Olive was presuming a great deal, saying that the Stirling Clan was of the same stature as a real princess. For, of course, that was what Olive had wanted to discuss: whether she, Olive, would be one of the chosen ones. Valancy felt this a foregone conclusion. Of course Olive would be one of the princess' friends. Olive was the prettiest girl in school, and Uncle Wellington had married money so Olive always went around in pretty new clothes that set off her looks. Olive spoke charmingly and moved gracefully (although she was heavy on her feet, Valancy thought rebelliously) and she even cried prettily when she was upset. Olive could have been a princess herself, if she hadn't been born a Stirling.

That night at supper, Valancy timidly mentioned the grand news when her mother perfunctorily asked her how school had been. Mrs. Fredrick Stirling did not care how school had been, but she always asked, in case Valancy had sins or misdemeanors to confess. It was a gift, Mrs. Stirling felt, to allow Doss the opportunity to freely confess her misdeeds and practice humility, and Mrs. Stirling found it quite ungrateful how rarely Doss availed herself of this opportunity.

Mrs. Stirling and Cousin Stickles had, of course, already heard the news, and had, in fact, passed much of the afternoon discussing the affair with Uncle Benjamin. As such, Mrs. Stirling felt no compunction in rebuking Valancy for gossiping. "A gossip betrays a confidence; so avoid anyone who talks too much," she said severely, and Valancy shrank in her seat. "And sit up straight," Mrs. Fredrick added. Valancy sat up straight and stayed quiet for the rest of supper. After supper, the three retired to their handwork, and Valancy reluctantly set to work piecing her latest quilt. It was a hideous piece, she thought, eyeing the dull brown wool, made of the offcuts of fabric no one had wanted to begin with. Her mother had bought it at a reduced price, after Uncle Benjamin couldn't sell the entire shipment, and had decreed that Providence provided and insisted that Valancy should wear only that wool until they had used up the last scrap. Those scraps were now Valancy's task, and she stabbed her needle into the work with uncharacteristically deep resentment. The princess surely did not have to spend her evenings slaving away at unneeded quilts. Indeed, Valancy knew she did not, because Valancy herself never had to piece quilts in the Blue Castle. She wrote letters to her friends and her beau (Valancy did not dare even think the word lover in the presence of Mrs. Fredrick Stirling), or danced late into the night, or went for long adventures in the woods surrounding the castle grounds.

At last, it came time to retire. Valancy set her quilt aside and said her goodnights to Mrs. Fredrick and Cousin Stickles, then made her way to her room with undue haste that she knew would be remarked upon come morning. She couldn't help it. She had a pressing appointment in the Blue Castle. After all, royalty was coming to Deerwood, and it was only fair that the Blue Castle be put in order to receive it.

***

Over the coming weeks, no one seemed able to talk of anything but the princess' arrival. No one knew when she was meant to appear, but a few days after the initial rumor, word flew through town that the grandest house in Deerwood was being prepared to receive her. The house belonged to Mr. Charles Clydesdale, a reclusive old man with no children. Everyone knew he had inherited a fortune and lost everything but the house, although no one could agree on quite how. A bad business venture, the men speculated at dinner parties and in mixed company. Gambling and liquor, those same men said with conviction when all the ladies were out of earshot. A love affair gone wrong, the ladies said knowingly when the men were not around to hear. Some terrible crime, the children told each other gleefully, hoping there were no grownups around to scold them for gossiping.

Regardless of how it had happened, those were the facts. Mr. Charles Clydesdale lived alone in his grand, crumbling house and spoke to no one. He had no packages delivered and only ever left his home to go to church. He had one servant to keep his house, an old maid of fifty or sixty who did his shopping and refused to answer any questions about her employer, no matter how persistently she was plied with questions or sly compliments. Valancy had been terribly afraid of him as a child, and felt sure that the darkest, most terrible of the rumors must be true. As she grew, however, she found herself thinking more than once that it must be lonely, living all alone like that with no one for company but a mean old cook. Two years ago, when the word went round that he was suffering from a terrible pain and Dr. Trent was making house calls twice a month, Valancy had once included him in her prayers. For this she had been soundly scolded -- adding someone new into her prayers without first asking permission to do was disrespectful of Providence and Mrs. Fredrick Stirling, and tantamount to blasphemy -- but although Valancy cried bitter tears at her disgrace, she found she could not regret the gesture itself.

It was this man who was rumored to be hosting the princess. Uncle James initially dismissed this as utter rubbish, nonsense invented by people with too much time and not enough work to do -- he looked straight at Valancy as he spoke, even though she was diligently working on her darning and had not set her needle down once all evening -- but as the days went on packages began arriving at Mr. Charles Clydesdale's door and it became impossible to deny that something momentous was afoot.

Valancy herself was the first to bring home the next piece of news, although credit would later be given to Cousin Georgiana who had learned the news later in the day and quite innocently reported it to the greater clan, unaware that Valancy had already told Mrs. Stirling and Cousin Stickles. The princess, it turned out, was named Miss Crewe, and she was coming from London. Valancy had happened to spot the name on a package at the post office while she was inquiring after her post, and she had gotten up the courage to ask Mr. Carewe about it. "That's the new missus who's coming to town," Mr. Carewe had said affably. "Here's your post, Miss Valancy." He handed Valancy a copy of the Christian Times and a letter addressed to Cousin Stickles. Valancy, certain that no one else in her household would have heard this news, practically flew home.

"Crewe, eh?" Cousin Stickles said, after reading her letter and tossing it aside. "'S not the name of any Princess I've ever heard of."

"I'm sure it's just an overblown story," Mrs. Fredrick said haughtily. She disliked all this fuss being made of a stranger, and one who wasn't even here at that. "She's likely just some woman who puts on airs."

"She must be terribly important, to be getting so much mail already," Valancy ventured.

"Anyone can get mail," pronounced Mrs. Fredrick, who seldom received any herself and had as such determined that anyone who did had too high an opinion of their own importance. "Just sign up for some horrid subscriptions and your box will be cluttered with post from now until eternity."

"This was a package, not a magazine," Valancy pointed out, emboldened by the fact that, for once, she had first-hand knowledge of what was being discussed. "There aren't subscriptions for those."

"It's very unbecoming of a lady to look at other people's mail," Mrs. Stirling said sharply. She disliked being corrected, and felt that the least her own child could do was refrain from doing so.

"I just happened to be at the post office at the same time," Valancy objected. "I wasn't looking at it."

"Don't take that tone with me," Mrs. Stirling snapped. "It's to bed without supper tonight for you, and if you argue with me again it'll be the same tomorrow."

Valancy lowered her gaze. "I'm sorry," she said.

"What was that? Speak clearly."

"I said I'm sorry," Valancy repeated, and Mrs. Stirling nodded.

"Good," she said. To Cousin Stickles she said, "What is it that Mildred wrote to you?" It was clear that the subject of Miss Crewe was off limits for the rest of the evening. Valancy worked at her knitting in silence and, when Mrs. Fredrick and Cousin Sickles went to supper, retreated to her room.

"I wasn't looking on purpose," she said aloud, in the safety of her room, her tone petulant. It was on that night that she began harboring a secret, entirely undeserved resentment of Miss Crewe.

***

Miss Crewe finally arrived on a blustery November day. Valancy was home with a cold, and Mrs. Stirling had decreed the week before that there would be no more talk of the girl under her roof, so no one in the brick house on Elm Street heard that she had arrived until church that Sunday. Valancy had started to improve, but she was still coughing a great deal, and so it was decided that Cousin Stickles would stay home with her and Mrs. Fredrick Stirling would make their excuses to Dr. Stalling after the service. Cousin Stickles sat her in the parlor where it was warm and rubbed Redfern's liniment on Valancy's chest, although it never did anything but make Valancy cough harder until the smell dissipated.

After church, Mrs. Stirling returned with Aunt Wellington and Cousin Georgiana, who were taking tea with Mrs. Stirling and Cousin Stickles. Cousin Georgiana often visited when Valancy was ill -- to see how close she was to death, Valancy had once thought, when she was deep into a bronchitis and too miserable to control her thoughts -- and Aunt Wellington made a habit of stopping in as Valancy recovered, to check on her condition. Olive never visited when Valancy was sick.

It had long since been decreed that Valancy was to speak as little as possible during her colds, as too much exertion of the lungs could cause the sickness to settle in deeper. So she sat in the parlor and listened as the adults talked, interjecting only to cough or, for variety, let out the occasional sneeze. It was under these conditions that Valancy finally heard the news: the princess herself, Miss Crewe, had attended church that morning.

"At least she's a proper Anglican," Cousin Stickles said. "That's a relief for you, I'm sure." This was addressed to Aunt Wellington. It had long been taken as fact within the clan that of course Olive would become friends with Miss Crewe when she arrived, and so it was indeed fortunate that there would be no need for Olive to besmirch her reputation by befriending a Presbyterian, or worse, a Methodist.

Aunt Wellington nodded.

"She had such a pretty air about her," Cousin Georgiana said. "Somber and polite, as though she was thinking of all the good folks who have passed through the church and heard the word of Providence before us."

"She wasn't alone, surely," Cousin Stickles said.

"Certainly not," Aunt Wellington said. "She had a gentleman with her -- her guardian, Dr. Stalling told us -- and a companion. Quite a plain girl, if I may say, but I suppose you wouldn't want a girl like that to outshine you." It was very clear in her tone just what kind of girl Aunt Wellington meant. Stirling women did not become servants, not even to princesses.

"Miss Crewe herself is quite queer looking," Cousin Georgiana put in. "Not pretty, exactly, but she catches the eye."

This caught Valancy's interest. She had always assumed that Miss Crewe would be beautiful, with golden hair and shining eyes. "What does she look like?" she couldn't help but ask. Mrs. Stirling and Aunt Wellington both looked at her severely, while Cousin Stickles put a hand over her mouth and reminded her that she did not want her cold to turn into pneumonia again this year. Properly chastised, Valancy fell quiet once more and, although the conversation remained on Miss Crewe for the rest of the afternoon, she never once got an answer to her question.

It would not be until the following day when, finally deemed well enough to return to school, Valancy got her first glimpse of the fabled Miss Crewe.

[kingedmundsroyalmurder]

I am late with my book club post because I spent my lunch break writing fanfiction instead. Have a snippet:

"Valancy herself heard the news from Cousin Olive, who had heard from her parents. Olive pulled Valancy aside after school one day and told her with great importance, "Have you heard? A Princess is coming to live here!"

Valancy, of course, had been a princess herself for years, safe in the walls of her Blue Castle, but a real life princess was a very different matter. She very nearly gaped at Cousin Olive, who wore a small smile of benevolent triumph at being the one who catch Valancy in so unladylike an expression. "Why?" Valancy managed after a moment. Deerwood, with its prim, well-kept, ugly streets and its well brought up, deathly dull inhabitants, seemed the last place any princess would want to set eyes on. Valancy could hardly believe that someone like that would come to live in Deerwood.

Olive did not seem to care about this vital matter, and she waved Valancy's question away with an airy, "Why not?" While Valancy was still trying to find a response, Olive started on her true reason for confiding in Valancy. "She's going to need an entourage," Olive said. She pronounced entourage as it was spelled. "She'll come with servants, of course, but she'll need some companions of her own stature."

Valancy privately thought that Olive was presuming a great deal, saying that the Stirling Clan was of the same stature as a real princess. For, of course, that was what Olive had wanted to discuss: whether she, Olive, would be one of the chosen ones. Valancy felt this a foregone conclusion. Of course Olive would be one of the princess' friends. Olive was the prettiest girl in school, and Uncle Wellington had married money so Olive always went around in pretty new clothes that set off her looks. Olive spoke charmingly and moved gracefully (although she was heavy on her feet, Valancy thought rebelliously) and she even cried prettily when she was upset. Olive could have been a princess herself, if she hadn't been born a Stirling."

[kingedmundsroyalmurder]

In the middle of Valancy Stirling's fourteenth year, a great excitement came to Deerwood. Valancy heard the news from Cousin Olive, who had heard from her parents. Olive pulled Valancy aside after school one day and told her with great importance, "Have you heard? A Princess is coming to live here!" Sara Crewe meets Valancy Stirling.

Chapter 3: Valancy and Sara meet at last and Olive makes an unfortunate discovery.

Please excuse the lack of formatting on AO3. There was a glitch in posting that ate all my italics, and fixing italics on my phone is a nightmare. I will edit it tonight when i'm at my computer again. The formatting has been fixed! Italics and proper paragraph spacing are restored.

Click the AO3 link for the whole fic this far, or read just chapter 3 below.

"Oh I am so sorry!" exclaimed Sara. Valancy saw that she held in her hand a pen whose cap now sat on her desk. It had been this noise, of Sara dropping the cap as she opened it, that had startled Valancy. "You looked so peaceful, and I was so trying to stay quiet and not disturb you. I was only about to write to my friend Ermengarde."

Valancy flushed red. The very idea that someone like Sara would make an effort not to disturb her! "It's all right," she said. Then, because Sara still looked distressed, she groped for something else to add. She could think of nothing except, "Is it time for school to start again?"

The moment the question left her lips she berated herself for it. Of course it was not time yet. The rest of the class had yet to start coming inside, and the clock on the wall above Miss Bryant's desk showed plainly that there were still ten minutes left until the bell. She braced herself for condescension.

But Sara only shook her head. "No. I wanted to come in from the cold. It is still such a luxury to me, to come in from the weather when I want to."

Valancy dearly wanted to ask what Sara meant by this. Surely someone like her could do whatever she pleased. Certainly Olive never had to go out into the cold unless she wanted to -- on especially cold days Uncle Wellington would wrap her in blankets and drive her the few blocks to school in his buggy, so that she did not have to risk catching cold on the walk to school. Sara, who was even richer than Olive, must have had the same luxuries. But Sara looked sad, her large eyes downcast and her pale hands clasped together tightly, and so Valancy once again tried to change the subject. "Is it very cold in India?" she asked.

"No, never," Sara said. She laughed a little. "The first time I ever saw snow I was seven years old."

This seemed nearly unbelievable to Valancy, who had grown up with yearly blizzards that coated the world in glittering ice. Sara seemed to read this on her face, because she laughed again. It was a kind laugh, one that made Valancy feel as though she were being invited to share a joke, not made into one. "When I was a little girl, my papa would tell me stories about London. The place, I called it. He was preparing me to go to school, and didn't want me to be afraid. He told me about winter, but I didn't understand what it was to be cold. I fancied it would be enchanting, to dance in the snow in bare feet, like I did in the rain during the wet months."

"Did you try it?" Valancy wanted to know. She tried to picture seven-year-old Sara dancing in the snow. An image came into her mind, but it looked rather more like Port Lawrence than London had any right to.

"No." Sara shook her head. "We arrived at about this time of year, and I was so shocked by the temperature that I vowed never to set foot outside again."

This did nothing to clarify her earlier comment about coming in from the weather when she wanted to, but Sara had finally stopped looking so melancholy, and Valancy did not want to cause her further pain. Instead, she said, "Did it rain a great deal in India?"

Sara's eyes lit up. "During the wet months, yes," she said. "We would have monsoons for weeks. Great storms, with wind and rain so strong you couldn't see more than two paces in front of you sometimes. I used to sit with my papa in our parlor and watch the storms through the big windows. The wind would be so strong that some of the trees would bend over sideways. I used to pretend that there were fairies who played in the wind, and that they must have their time to play outside just as I did when it was dry." Her eyes had gone soft and distant, as though she were looking at something that no one else could see. Although Valancy did not know it, it was the look she herself wore when she retreated to her Blue Castle, and it was this look that Sara had recognized on her face.

"I remember one time," Sara said. "I was very small still, perhaps four or five. I had been playing outside with my ayah when a storm came in. She scooped me up and brought me in just as the biggest wind gust swept through the courtyard. She said it was lucky she had me in her arms, for otherwise I'd surely have been carried off like a seed pod in the wind. I told her I thought being swept up by the wind would be a grand adventure, although I was sorry she and my papa were too big to come along." She laughed, and this time Valancy joined in. She imagined tiny four-year-old Sara, with her black hair and her wide eyes, flying through the air like an oversize elm seed.

Suddenly Sara's eyes widened. "Oh I do beg your pardon," she exclaimed. "I have just been horribly rude. I haven't introduced myself!"

"I know who you are," Valancy assured her.

"But that's not the same thing at all," Sara said firmly. "My name is Sara Crewe."

"I'm Valancy Stirling," Valancy said, a little bewildered.

Sara smiled brightly. "I am delighted to make your acquaintance, Valancy," she said.

For the first time in her life, Valancy felt grateful that her relatives had spent so many hours drilling her on good manners. "I am very pleased to meet you," popped entirely unbidden out of her mouth.

"There," Sara said. "We are properly acquainted. Now we can be friends."

Valancy's mouth dropped open into a most unladylike expression, one that would have made Cousin Stickles remind her sharply that it was unseemly to have feelings had she not been safe at home. "You want to be friends with me?" Valancy burst out, too stunned to watch her words.

"If you'll have me for a friend," said Sara, unaware of how ludicrous a response this was.

"Why me?" Valancy insisted.

"Because you didn't fall over yourself to impress me," Sara said simply. "I want friends who like me, not just my or Uncle Tom's money. After all," and here her voice took on a distant, pensive tone, "you never know when everything could change."

This made even less sense. Before Valancy could even begin to formulate a reply, Miss Bryant entered the schoolroom to collect the bell. Sara smiled brightly at Valancy, who did not manage to smile back, and took her seat at the front of the room.

***

By the time she went to bed that night, Valancy had convinced herself that the whole thing had been a mistake on Sara's part. What must have happened, she decided, was that Sara did not realize who she was. Olive would, of course, have only referred to her as Doss when talking about her, and Sara was new enough in town that she must not have realized that there was only one Stirling family.

For a moment, Valancy considered not telling her of her error. In those brief minutes of conversation she had gotten a glimpse of what it must be like to be Sara's friend, and she could not deny to herself how badly she wanted it. Sara was kind and clever and never once made Valancy feel unwanted. But then she shook her head. No. She would not lie to Sara, not even by omission. Besides, if she didn't tell Sara the truth, one of the other girls undoubtedly would, and that would be far worse. Valancy imagined Olive's look of sly triumph as she told Sara that Valancy and poor Cousin Doss were one and the same. The other girls would laugh, and Jane Bryant would give Valancy a look of pity that she ever thought she could have been liked, and Valancy would have to slip away, humiliated and alone. No. Far better to tell Sara herself, where at least there would be no one around to witness it.

So resolved, Valancy lay down in bed. She entered the Blue Castle the moment her eyes closed, of course, but found that it had begun to storm, forcing the duel to be pushed to a different day. Instead, Valancy took to her correspondence. She looked at her writing desk for a moment then, with a confidence she never felt in her daily life, sat down and pulled out a fresh sheet of paper.

Dear Princess Sara, she wrote. It would be my greatest honor to host you for a time here at the Blue Castle.

***

In all her life, Olive Stirling had never had a day like that Wednesday. It started perfectly normally, with nothing to hint at the upheaval to come. She rose at her usual time and carefully did her curls. Sara Crewe had set a new fashion at school and, although Olive was not fully convinced that the style suited her face, she was determined to experiment until she found a version of Sara's curled and pinned hairdo that flattered her. The effect she achieved that morning was very nearly satisfactory, and she spent so long tweaking her pins trying to get it perfect that she almost missed breakfast. Her mother had to call her three times before Olive reluctantly abandoned her glass.

The temperature had continued to drop overnight, and Olive walked to school amid a crisp morning frost. But her boots were warm and she had a new wool coat with fur on the inside and around her neck. She wore extra petticoats under her good school dress, which made the skirt puff out almost as though she had the shape of a woman. The only disappointment was in her gloves. Olive wore thick mittens knitted for her by Aunt Alberta. They were fine mittens, and a week ago she had been perfectly contented with them, but now they looked old and drab to her eyes. She resolved to speak with her parents that very afternoon about procuring a muff like Sara had. One that matched her coat, she thought. After all, Olive too deserved nice things sometimes.

She arrived at school a little later than usual, and found her friends already waiting. Jane Bryant, who was a year older than Olive but deferred to her at every turn. Blonde Alice Patterson, who liked to stand next to Olive for the pretty picture that their contrasting hair colors made and her sister Amy. Augusta Green, Olive's particular friend, who always had the best gossip to share. And, of course, the newest addition to Olive's gang, Sara Crewe herself. Sarah stood in her thick fur coat and matching muff, her dark blue velvet skirts barely brushing the icy pavement. The cold had put a flush into her pale cheeks, and her grey-green eyes seemed to sparkle against them. She wore her hood up over her head, protecting her ears from the weather. Olive made a note to look at Sara's hair once they entered the schoolroom, to see how she did her pins.

The girls welcomed Olive eagerly into their knot. Amy had been telling the group about her father's latest catastrophe -- Mr. Patterson fancied himself something of an inventor, and he was forever getting into scrapes as his latest contraption fell apart in his face. Olive's mother had strictly forbidden her from going over to the Patterson's house, after she had returned from tea one day with ink all over her skirt and a story about Mr. Patterson's newest attempt at perfecting the self-inking pen.

The invention this week was no less dramatic. Mr. Patterson had tired of how long it took to get his toast to its proper state, and had determined to invent a way to make the process faster. From Amy's account, it was going poorly, and Mr. Patterson had gone to his business in Port Lawrence that morning with only the charred remains of a heel of bread for sustenance. Amy was a good story teller, and she had the whole group in laughter when the bell rang, although Sara was looking contemplative, as though she felt sorry for Mr. Patterson. Olive did not. Her parents had long said that he deserved every misfortune that came his way as a result of his tomfooleries. Inventors, Wellington Stirling had proclaimed once, were one of society's necessary evils. You couldn't have progress without them, but you certainly didn't want them to settle too close. The Pattersons lived three streets down from Olive and her parents, and that was more than close enough.

The bell rang just as Amy was finishing the story, and she rather spoiled the conclusion in her rush to get it all out. It was then that Olive got her first inkling of how the day would go. Doss and her mother had arrived a few minutes earlier, as usual, and Doss had slipped into the schoolroom straight away, as she always did. So she was already seated when the rest of the girls made their way to their desks. Sara paused on her way to her desk to greet Doss. This in and of itself would have been cause for comment. But what rattled Olive deeply was that Doss not only greeted her back but, with a glance back at Olive, said, "I need to talk to you later."

There was not time to speak further. Already, Miss Bryant was looking at the pupils still standing with a stern gaze. Olive hurried to her desk, although she could not help one final backwards glance at Doss. Her cousin sat hunched in on herself, her thin little shoulders standing out sharply under her ugly brown wool dress. She looked the same as she always did, and Olive could not think of even one thing that Doss would want to say to Sara.

Olive found it impossible to concentrate on her lessons that morning. How could she possibly be expected to learn about Julius Caesar when Doss, of all people, had presented her with a mystery? Miss Bryant was obliged to repeat her question about Caesar's legions three times before Olive heard it well enough to answer.

At long last the bell rang for the end of morning lessons. Olive made a show of having lost something in her desk, so that Augusta and the Patterson girls would go out ahead of her. Soon enough, only she, Doss, and Sara remained in the schoolroom. Olive, head still bent over her desk as she searched for her entirely fictious handkerchief, held her breath.

"You made a mistake yesterday," Doss said, and Olive frowned. What possibly right did Doss think she had, to say something like that to Sara? "You said you wanted to be friends, but you don't know who I really am."

Olive let out her breath. That explained things. She had thought it queer, when Sara excused herself from the group yesterday noon, but Sara was always doing or saying queer things. Good old Doss, she thought with a sudden and uncharacteristic rush of fondness for her cousin. Of course she wouldn’t let Sara humiliate herself by being seen in public with Doss in her old brown dress and silly, old fashioned cap. Really, Olive felt almost grateful to her for stepping in quickly, and she thought perhaps she would allow Doss to walk with them that Saturday, if she wasn't home with cold again.

But Sara said only, "You're Olive's cousin, aren't you?"

"So you know then," Doss said. "Of course, Olive must have told you after school. I'm sorry to have bothered you."

"I'm afraid I don't understand," Sara said. "What does that have to do with anything at all?"

"No one is friends with me," Doss said bluntly. "Everyone wants to be friends with you. I thought you must not have known who I was, to talk to me instead of anyone else here."

Sara laughed that low, queer laugh of hers. "I told you yesterday," she said. "I want a friend who isn't trying to impress me just because I have money."

Olive's breath caught, and her face flushed as though she had been insulted. She felt as though both girls were staring directly at her, and she redoubled her efforts to pretend to look for that pen she knew she had dropped somewhere. By the time she found a stray hairpin on the ground and, tired of theatre, snatched it up as precisely the thing she'd been searching for this whole time, Sara had Doss by the hand and was telling her something or other. Olive did not care to stay and listen. She marched out of the schoolroom, head high and eyes bright with anger.

"Where's Sara?" Alice Patterson asked. "She's not ill, is she?" Alice was a worrying sort, always concerned that tragedy was just around the corner. Living with a man like her father, it was a reasonable attitude to take. But Olive had no patience to indulge Alice's worries today.

"I'm sure I have no idea," she said tightly.

"What on earth has happened to you?" Alice wanted to know. "Surely your button couldn't have been that important?"

"Nothing has happened," Olive said. "I just don't care to spend my every waking moment pandering to someone who doesn't want my company."

The other girls looked at each other. All of them knew with certainty something momentous had occurred inside the schoolroom, but it was just as clear that Olive was in no mood to discuss it. After a moment, Augusta brought out the catalog her mother had just received and engaged the others in a discussion of the latest fashions from Montreal. Olive, though she remained furious, eventually consented to be coaxed back into conversation, although the other girls took great care to avoid even thinking about the missing Sara Crewe.

[kingedmundsroyalmurder]

I am writing the next chapter of A Princess comes to Deerwood. I hope you're all ready for a wild Olive POV to appear!

[zenlesszonezero]

As the conspiracy reaches its finale, the Void Hunter joins the fight.

Uncover the Conspiracy in Zenless Zone Zero's All-New Version "A Storm of Falling Stars", S-Rank Agent Hoshimi Miyabi is here! With S-Rank Agent Asaba Harumasa Limited-Time Giveaway! Pre-register to obtain additional rewards.

[kingedmundsroyalmurder]

In the middle of Valancy Stirling's fourteenth year, a great excitement came to Deerwood. Valancy heard the news from Cousin Olive, who had heard from her parents. Olive pulled Valancy aside after school one day and told her with great importance, "Have you heard? A Princess is coming to live here!" Sara Crewe meets Valancy Stirling.

Chapter two: Valancy lays eyes on Sara Crewe and adventures in her Blue Castle.

Click the link to read the full fic or read chapter two below.

~

Valancy never arrived early to school. Like everything else in her life, her schooling was strictly regimented. She rose at seven thirty and breakfasted at eight. Then tidying after the meal and the walk to school, accompanied by Mrs. Stirling even now, long after the other girls had been trusted to walk the few blocks alone. Once, Valancy had ventured to ask if she might perhaps be permitted one day a week of walking alone -- Jane Bryant had said loudly the previous morning how much she enjoyed the freedom to take her morning walk to school without any prying ears, and Valancy understood immediately that friendship with girls such as Jane Bryant would be forever out of her reach if her mother accompanied her everywhere. Valancy did not even much care for Jane Bryant, who was short and rather red faced and thought that her good marks in literature made her an authority on all forms of the written word. But the other girls had laughed and nodded knowingly, even Olive, and Valancy had stood alone and ashamed.

Mrs. Fredrick Stirling had responded to this request by showering Valancy with condescension and Valancy had known the matter was closed.

So Valancy arrived to school that Monday at the same time as always: precisely two minutes before the starting bell, with just enough time to shed her coat and find her seat. She spotted Miss Crewe immediately. Or rather, she spotted a knot of girls in the front of the room, surrounding a desk that must surely contain Miss Crewe. Valancy busied herself getting out her books for the day. There was no use in her trying to court the princess' favor. She was ugly and poor and socially inept, and anyway the other girls would no doubt already have warned Miss Crewe away. There was no use in talking with Valancy if you hoped to associate with the right sort of people.

Only when the school bell rang and the other girls reluctantly fanned out to their own seats did Valancy get her first glimpse of Miss Crewe. She had thick black hair, curled and pinned rather than piled fashionably on top of her head. Her silk dress was a soft, mossy green color, with a lace collar and long sleeves. When she moved a hand to pick up a book, Valancy saw pale white skin and surprisingly strong-looking fingers.

Miss Bryant -- who was Jane Bryant's second cousin and shared her unfortunate tendency to go red with excitement -- tapped her pointer smartly on the teacher's desk for silence. "Good morning class," she said, and the class dutifully echoed the greeting back. "We have a new student joining us today," Miss Bryant said, as though anyone in that room was unaware of the dark-haired figure sitting in the front row. "Sara, if you would say a few words about yourself please?"

Miss Crewe -- Sara -- rose and turned to face the class. Valancy saw that Cousin Georgiana had been right to call her eye-catching rather than strictly pretty. Her face was rather small and her hair rather dark, and her grey-green eyes seemed just slightly too large and too intense. But her dress set her eyes off perfectly and she carried herself with grace and when she smiled as the assembled students she showed just the right amount of pearly teeth.

"Hello," she said, and her voice was quiet. Everyone in the room held their breath to better hear her speak. "My name is Sara Crewe. I was born in India and went to school in London. Uncle Tom -- that is, Mr. Carrisford, my guardian, has been ill and hopes that the travel and good air will do him good." She looked sad as she said this, and Valancy wondered what it must be like to have an uncle you liked well enough to feel sad for. "I hope to get to know you all while we are here," she finished, and cast her eyes across the schoolroom. For a moment, her eyes met Valancy's, and Valancy felt her breath stop. There was something in Sara's queer grey-green eyes, something that looked almost like understanding. And then it was gone and Sara was going back to her seat and Valancy berated herself for daring to think that someone like Sara Crewe would ever take an interest in poor old Dossie Stirling.

Miss Bryant, who had struggled in vain over the past days to keep her pupils on task and not discussing Miss Crewe's imminent arrival at every possible opportunity, found herself with a model student that morning. Sara Crewe was alert and attentive, quick to answer when called upon but not prone to speaking out of turn. She focused so raptly on the lesson at hand that the rest of the students quickly followed suit, and Miss Bryant did not have to hand out a single reprimand, save for a quiet sigh that Cecily Gay had once again been unable to finish her homework. But it was not Cissy Gay's fault that she had run out of writing paper, and Cissy promised to finish the missing composition just as soon as she was able to, so Miss Bryant let the matter pass.

Without taking extra time to hand out demerits or remind Olive Stirling that the classroom was for studying and not for gossiping, Miss Bryant flew through her lessons for the day, and was so far ahead that she gave her students an extra twenty minutes time at lunch, so that they might get to know their new classmate.

Valancy, her pail in her hand, trailed after the others. She had resolved not to bother trying to even speak with Sara, but instead to observe her so that Valancy might see how she spoke and behaved. Miss Crewe herself had exited the Blue Castle some days prior, after Valancy had been sent to bed without supper for seeing her name on a package at the post office, but princesses visited the Blue Castle constantly. Valancy felt this a perfect opportunity to gather some inspiration and see how Sara compared with the grand ladies of Valancy's Spanish refuge.

By the end of lunch, Valancy found herself somewhat disappointed. Sara was not at all like Valancy had imagined she would be. Oh, her dress was clearly of the finest quality, as were the coat and muff she wore to protect herself against the November chill, but she was not in the least bit haughty. Valancy felt strongly that queens and princesses should be at least a little haughty, for how else would they set themselves apart from their subjects? Valancy herself delighted in snubbing noblemen who condescended to her, and more than once had indulged in a fantasy of haughtily turning down the advances of an eager admirer, her lover on her arm cheering her on.

But Sara smiled softly at everyone who spoke to her and stayed quiet when she was not being directly addressed and more than once seemed to lose herself in a dream as around her the excited students of Deerwood jockeyed for her favor. She spoke in the same low voice she had used in the classroom, her accent standing out sharply from the others. The only princess-like thing about her, Valancy thought as the bell rang for afternoon lessons, was how little she seemed to care that everyone she met was falling over themselves to impress her.

"Well," thought Valancy to herself as she took her seat once more, "if she doesn't want to be impressed, so be it. I shan't waste any more time over her." And she resolved to stop thinking even the least little bit about Sara Crewe.

***

Valancy's resolve lasted through to the following Tuesday. She saw Sara daily, of course, but only from a distance. Olive stuck to the princess like a burr, staying near her during lunch and after school and appointing herself as Sara's guide to Deerwood and Port Lawrence beyond. After church on Sunday, Olive very grandly made Sara's introductions to Aunt and Uncle Wellington, and secured in return an invitation for all three of them to take Sunday tea at Mr. Charles Clydesdale's grand house that afternoon. Olive caught Valancy's eye as she was making her victorious exit from the church and, when no one else was looking, smiled a smile of pure triumph. Valancy lowered her gaze and returned to her Blue Castle. She was in the middle of a very grand epic in the Blue Castle, a delicate situation concerning a noble woman who had been caught trying to poison the tea of her romantic rival, and she did not have time to spare for Olive.

Tuesday, however, it rained. Valancy had scarcely gotten over her last cold and already seemed to be coming down with another. Or, at least, Cousin Stickles had proclaimed at dinner the night before that she could hear Doss sniffling again, and it must be measles this time. (Valancy had come out in spots the year before, much to her continued humiliation, and Cousin Stickles now felt that every ailment was the measles making a belated appearance.) She had insisted on rubbing Redfern's liniment on Valancy's chest and her back, and the fumes had served to send Valancy into such a coughing fit that Mrs. Fredrick Stirling too came to believe that Valancy was once again catching cold.

"It is unbecoming of a girl of your age to catch so many colds," Mrs. Stirling said severely, and Valancy, still a little light headed from the double dose of liniment, had no response.

Tuesday morning, after a careful examination, Mrs. Fredrick had deemed Valancy well enough to go to school, but under no circumstances was she to go outside for lunch. "You'll stay inside the school room and rest," Mrs. Stirling instructed, and so Valancy dutifully stayed behind when the bell rang for lunch and the other girls streamed out of the room. The rain had turned to a drizzle, and the temperature was dropping steadily enough that it would surely snow before the week was out, so everyone was eager to spend what time they could outdoors, before winter set in for good.

Valancy took out her pail and the remnants of last night's supper. In truth, she did not mind the excuse to stay inside. Outside, the others would be gathered around Princess Sara, vying for her attention and making right fools of themselves in the process. Valancy would much rather be here in the school room, where she could retreat to her Blue Castle in peace. The conflict between the two romantic rivals had reached a head, and it was Valancy's responsibility, as Lady of the castle, to oversee the duel that she had ordered between them to solve the matter.

Nibbling contemplatively at her cold meal, Valancy sank into the safety of her mind, walking into the royal box at the grand tournament field outside of the castle walls. From there, she would judge the duel to come.

She spent a delightful twenty minutes negotiating the choosing of the champions. It was a beautiful day in Spain -- it was always beautiful in the Blue Castle, unless the day's story called for a storm. The sky shone bright azure blue overhead, and the sun sparkled on the lake near the tournament grounds. Valancy had chosen a rich blue velvet gown for the occasion, with long sleeves to protect her skin from the sun and delicate, intricate embroidery in golden thread across the entire skirt. As she ascended to her position in the royal box, the trumpeters sounded and the assembled crowd cheered her name. She allowed the fanfare to continue for a moment, then raised a hand for silence. She got it immediately. Valancy always got what she asked for at the Blue Castle.

She thanked the assembled lords and ladies for their attendance at this most serious of matters, and led a short prayer for the swift resolution of this affair. Overhead, the last of the puffy white clouds dissipated, as though God had heard her prayers and cleared His eyes to better observe the duel to come. "We begin," Valancy proclaimed, and the assembled crowd held its breath in anticipation, "with the choosing of the champions."

Lady Emerald de Fortune, as the victim of the plot, had the first pick of champions. She wore a gown of lavender silk, which set off her chestnut-colored hair and creamy skin perfectly. She was still pale from the attempted poisoning, and she had with her a page boy, ready to attend to her if she should start to feel ill once again. Lady Emerald, after a brief deliberation, chose Sir Christopher Noble, the fairest and most skilled of the knights. He bowed gracefully, first to Lady Emerald then to Valancy, and accepted Lady Emerald's token with a short but beautiful promise to protect and avenge her honor.

Next came the accused poisoner, Lady Davenport. She glided onto the field in a dress of emerald satin, cut almost scandalously low, and regarded Lady Emerald with ill concealed contempt. Lady Davenport was a long time resident of the Blue Castle, a schemer whose plots had both helped and hindered Valancy over the years. This was the first time in which her scheming had been for herself, and Valancy felt she was not enjoying the spotlight. Well, she should have thought of that before she started poisoning other ladies.

Lady Davenport took a long time to choose her champion, considering each of her choices in turn, studying them minutely and, seemingly, finding each one wanting. In the stands, the assembled nobles began to grow restless, and Valancy was forced to deploy many a stern gaze to quell the murmurs. At last, Lady Davenport selected Sir Marco Columbus, an older knight known for his great experience with duels. He had a long scar on his left arm from where he had been sliced open by a one-time opponent, and all the knights knew that they underestimated him at their peril.

Valancy gave each knight time to say their prayers. Just as she was about to declare the start of the duel, a noise came from inside the schoolroom back in Deerwood and Valancy tumbled out of her castle and fell rudely back to mundane reality. She blinked once or twice, clearing the last of the castle ramparts from her vision, and found herself face to face with none other than a mortified looking Sara Crewe.