The corridors outside the East Wing of the castle had seemed to age so much in the years she had spent here. The loggia no longer had its stoic and imposing grey colour. She no longer had to scurry across because she felt like the walls were glaring at her. Green moss had slithered its way into the cracks of the much older statues, giving some of the more 'explicit' ones some undergrowth in their private areas.
Much younger pages, mostly boys- only boys in fact, had gathered themselves at the scene and seemed to be having quite the laugh.
'Ah the joys of youth', she thought to herself as she walked past.
Rightfully so too, if she was about seventy years old. She wondered whether she would have been laughing too if she was as young as they were. She shook her head wildly at the thought. Definitely not.
Maybe those two would have. And that was not a strong maybe.
The only reason it was not a 'definitely' or an 'of course' was because of the slimmer than even one-percent chance that both of them had lost their vision simultaneously . This young woman was definitely not the type to ignore a less than a percentile probability. That, she was a hundred percent sure of.
But who knows, just like the grey eerie walls had started to look more like the mortar and cement they actually were, maybe those two had just managed to become more- mature. Knowing them, that also had a less than one percent chance of happening to at least one of them. How much more both?
'Oh no'. She turns to the right and sees a pair of maids, who despite the whole theme of change the author poured into the chapter, didn't seem to be on board. She took a deep breadth, straightened her face even more and braced herself. She wished there was a way not to go through this again.
"There. It's her."
"gasp. It is her. She never even smiles these days."
"It hurts to think back. She used to the breath of fresh air round here. "
"The ray of sunshine on a cloudy day."
"She was like a cool breeze on a hot noon."
"She was like a drop of honey in the sourness of this world."
The young woman stares with a look of disgust as the two maids go full song mode. Twirling around with every new idiom the other spouted. She sighed and made her way towards them, wishing that part of her abnormally blonde hair had not covered one of her eyes so they could see the criminally offensive glare or (sorry guys i just had to) side-eye she was giving them.
She already knew the author wanted an adventure slash shounen type battle anime adaptation so them waltzing about like it was some Disney movie got on her nerves even more.
The maids continued disneying around until one lost her balance and came tumbling down almost right into her. Not like she was ever going to hit her, her hawk eyes had been on them since, so dodging was too easy. After all she was a Raiden.
"Watch it you bat eyed bozos!" she hissed at them as she went past. The poor maid quickly forgot about the pain from her fall and quickly hurried off with her counterpart. Tears in both of their eyes.
She had tried to hide it, in her speech , behavior and pretty much anything else. She tried to sound as formal and lady-like as possible, but growing up in the rural really did a number on most of her lets just say 'mannerisms'. It was always hard to act like the nobility she actually was.
She turned back hoping to muster an apology but noticed that they were gone. Who wouldn't be after that?! Oh well. She just huffed and made her way forward. Her gold plated armor clanking because of her intentional heavy footsteps.
She stopped in front of a door that had the insignia of the Alvarian knighthood. It had a plaque above it that read "MEETING ROOM EAST". It actually was a meeting room once upon a time, according to some of the veterans, but it was much more peaceful these days so there was only need for one in the main castle. She took a dramatic step back and knocked three times.
As usual no answer.
She sighed heavily. " I'm coming in!" She tried to sound imposing but it came out a bit shaky towards the end. She closed her eyes and forced the doors open.
The blonde opened her eyes slowly as the door pried open and at this point she couldn't even complain.
The sight of a brown skinned woman leaning over a meeting table to feed another absurdly blonde man what looked like cupcakes in a war meeting room was one that should make any one, fellow knight or not, surprised if not cringe because you already knew who they were. When you consider how powerful they are, then at least being concerned would be understandable.
The girl however had gone through all three stages already and was now simply too used to it to even rant about it like she used to. The couple , caught off their guard, tried to get off each other.
They failed and came crashing down along with the table.
Goldilocks was too busy rescuing the basket of pastries and didn't even bother helping them up. It was better if she couldn't see them anyway. She popped one cream puff in her mouth and oozed in delight from how tasty it was. The woman lifted herself up from the ground and walked to her. She was too busy stuffing her face to notice.
"Well Nana, whaddya think? Pretty good huh" She grinned at Nana.
Nana did try to give feedback, she always did, but with all of that in her mouth all you could hear were a few sounds that you probably hear when you latch someone's mouth shut.
"I'll take that as a yes then!" The woman beamed at Nana and then turned over to the toppled table that covered the blonde man.
She frowned, lifted up one leg and stamped hard on the floor using what looked like wind release. The gust of wind flipped the table back and sat the blonde man back in place. He was redder than the strawberry filling in the puff Nana was devouring.
"H-H-Hey Nana!" he managed a smile through his embarrassment. " didn't think you'd be back so soon haha. How was it, you did good?"
"You don't need to hide it , and I am back here so you should know how the mission went"
Nana had eliminated whatever trace of cream puff there was on her face and was back to her default settings. "Brotherrr. And please don't call me Nana anymore that was just my pet name. " She stared so hard that chills went down the man's spine.
" Oh big brother I'm so happy to see you. I wish you came with me and I love you so much! mwah! You could have just said that." The blonde man whined to himself while slumping in his seat.
"Haha! Oh give it a break Emile!" The woman walked over to Emile wiping the crumbs off of his chin. "We knew it'd be quicker if she went alone anyway. " She came up right up in Nana's face causing the young girl to fluster.
The woman knew her lady had pretty much hardened up to everyone in her life except her and she always took advantage of it. She loved seeing her get all riled up and excited almost as much as she loved being the cause.
"Besides , who would wanna go do anything with oldies like us?" She turned away in the fakest plea for pity and with her back turned to Nana she grinned smugly before resuming her act, " we're probably to uncool anyway."
" N-n- o of course not. I'd love to do something together Melanie.. madam."
"Huhh? Now its Madam" What happened to Mel nee-san? Ugh! I knew it! You dont want me around anymore." Mel was clearly enjoying this emotional torture.
"I-I-Ii ddiddnt m-mean it that way!"
Somehow her face was even redder than Emile's. Maybe it was a family thing, seeing that blonde hair on top of a red face would usually have been enough, but her inner director, told her the show must go on.
"Oh you didn't?" Melanie wiped the fake tears from her eyes , twiddled her fingers and gave Nana 'the face.' " so we can do something together today, just the three of us?"
"Y-y-es nothing would make me happier"
"Yatta!"
Captain Cupcake just groaned and melted into his chair. He knew he didn't have a say when his fiancée wanted to do something with his sister.