Waking up the next morning Lili found herself in the Queen's bed once more. With the Queen and the princesses there as well with her. Although they were already getting ready for the day while Lili was still trying to understand what was going on.
Seeing Lilis sleepy and stunned state, the Queen lightly laughed and said. "Come now Lili, it's time to wake up, breakfast is waiting and so are your daily lessons. You know you really shouldn't be staying up all night drawing pictures no matter how beautiful they might be. As a young girl you should focus on sleeping more so you can grow."
Rubbing her eyes Lili tried to lightly explain herself by saying. "But those were the blue prints for the mechanical reaper that I was drawing for you. I spent a bunch of time yesterday remembering the basic schematics of it."
To these words the Queen just patted Lili on her head lovingly and said. "That's real sweet of you Lili, but you shouldn't bother yourself with such things. Your the Princes bed maid and if you want to impress him then you should focus less on agriculture and more on things like dancing."
Hearing the Queens comments Lili was confused. She couldn't understand how the Queen could act so uncaring towards such an essential and great invention. She even spent a good amount of time yesterday trying to explain it all to her and yet the Queen acts like she doesn't care.
Lili really wanted to make the Queen understand the greatness of her invention, but it seemed that her ideas would need a demonstration in order to be truly understood.
While thinking of this the morning quickly progressed as she was dragged around by the princesses. They did all their morning things together and then headed to the dining hall where Lili was surprised to see Edgar sitting next to Linn.
The boy had a strange look about himself as he kept eyeing her throughout the morning breakfast. And as he eyed her he asked strange things like. "So miss Lili, what do you think of the Prince?"
To this Lili knew not what else to say but. "I don't know. I haven't ever met him before."
In response Edgar merely said. "I see."
Then the eating continued for a while before Edgar spoke again and asked. "So Miss Lili, why did you choose to become a bed maid?"
Thinking on this question for a moment, Lili then said. "Well I was offered the job and so I took it. A girls gotta earn her worth somehow, you know and that's basically that."
Although despite saying this the fact was that she hadn't even now been paid a single coin. She was basically a bed maid on benefits and nothing more.
But as she said what she just said, she noticed the atmosphere in the room become cold for some reason. No one was eating and then Edgar uncaring of this all said. "So then if the terms were right and the price high, I could have yo?"
But before Edgar could finish, he received a hard smack upon his hand from Grandma Linn. "Smack!"
The boy was immediately startled into silence as Grandma Linn looked to the Queen and said. "My apologies your highness. Edgar is still young and lacking. I will make sure to correct the boys misguided ways."
To this Queen Wilda showed a somewhat dissatisfied look as she said. "It is fine. Let us just continue with our meal, there are many things that I must attend to today."
And with that said they continued to eat in peace while sharing some light talk amongst each other. Although Edgar didn't speak again, he merely kept taking small glances at Lili. The boy seemed to clearly have something on his mind, but didn't just dare to say it.
After that the day continued much like it usually did. Lili followed Grandma Linn to her daily lessons, which were set to be dance and painting lessons for that day.
Luckily for her the dance they practiced here was waltz, something that she was quite familiar with from her past life. And thanks to that the lesson was mostly just filled with praises towards her supposed quick learning skills.
And as for her other lesson Lili found herself being quite disappointed. While this was not the first time that Grandma Linn was teaching her how to paint, it just didn't feel right.
The style of painting that was thought here was a bit two dimensional and in some cases just cartoonish. Everything seemed to lack that realistic aspect to it, the paintings couldn't quite capture the moment in time as it was and bring it all to life.
So with Grandma Linn's permission Lili then began painting with her own realistic style. She intended to paint grandma Linn herself.
Linn seemingly being more than happy to see her own portrait made, she happily sat upon a stool next to the window with the evening sun lightly shining upon her fair skin.
With great concentration Lili began to then paint the old Granny, who no more seemed so old. Her once dead and gray hair was again showing signs of life and blondness. Her somewhat hazy eyes were now a clear deep blue. Her wrinkles were mostly gone as were those eye bags of hers.
Then there was the Granny's great posture, nicely rounded firm breasts, thin waist and overall curves that were highlighted by her thin white dress that she wore. And to top it all off her face now looked sharp and skin smooth, she almost seemed like she was in her early forties.
Truly Grandma Linn was quite a sight to be seen as she was already over the age of sixty. An age which many in this time didn't get to see, but all things considered it seemed that she was definitely going to see a lot more than just sixty.
Of course her seemingly miraculous de-aging situation had not gone unnoticed. Many people called it a miracle from god, the local church and its bishop agreed.
The bishop, which by the way also now had begun speaking of his churches holy water as the waters of the fountain of youth. No more did the bishop let people bathe in the pool as they once did. Instead he had apparently fenced off the thing and only let people be baptised by a small cup that held a small portion of the pools water.
This bishop, Lili found to be quite a strange fellow and a bit ridiculous. To call a simple pool of water the fountain of youth was a bit much. Although apparently the man had become more youthful than before and as such people believed him.
But this Lili didn't really care about, what was more concerning to her was Linn's own suspicious actions towards her. No more did Linn sleep during lessons as she had once done. No instead Lili had caught the Granny pretending to sleep.
This to her was quite strange. Was Linn suspicious now that it was she that had caused her becoming younger, or was Linn suspicious of her slacking off while she slept.
Well either way Lili was no fool, she knew the difference between a sleeping person, a passed out person, a dead person and most of all a person who was faking it. She couldn't be fooled so easily, she was a former undercover police officer after all.
Then as hours passed and the sun began to settle, Lili finally finished making the realistic portrait of Linn. Sure she wasn't no real artist, just a person who was taught how to paint in school and such.
But nonetheless she couldn't deny that her portrait of Linn was quite magnificent. Although it didn't quite do justice to Linn's new found beauty, but a good first try nonetheless.
Coming to Lili's side Linn seemed quite pleased. She immediately began singing praises of how beautiful the piece was. She wanted to hang the piece upon her wall in her room, but Lili didn't feel that it was right.
After a moment of talking and calming the excited old woman down, Lili managed to strike a deal with her. She would try a few more times to make the piece again and only once she felt satisfied could the good piece be taken and placed up for all to see.
With this the day basically came to a peaceful end. All Lili still needed to do was make her daily light stones. But instead of making the usual twenty stones Lili instead focused on making one great one.
Heading into the gardens with Jack as her company. Lili began a little search for a good stone. A stone that would need to be twice as big as her fist or more.
And after a small while of searching she then found one hidden in the ground next to a tree. With but her bare hands she dug it up to Jack's dismay.
The man kept on whining as he usually did. "Please Miss you shouldn't do that. Your going to make the maids displeased again. Instead you should just let me do it for you."
To this Lili simply said. "Sorry Jack, but this is just faster than me explaining my stony needs to you or someone else."
With stone in hand, Lili then began to pour her will and magic within its gray colored core. Unlike with other stones Lili decided to give this one a secret code. A code that when said would spring it to light. And as such the code was very simply, Let there be light. And when one said it again it would then turn off.
Overall a very simple concept, but one that's complexity still took a lot of energy out of Lili to see it fulfilled. Plus with the stones size the area of light would be bigger, but as such all her magical energy was basically poured into it. But to these things Lili had started to reason that quality was better than quantity.
And also she didn't want to dig all the stones in the garden out, that would just be too suspicious and as such she had begun making these larger stones.
Sweat ran down Lilis forehead, her skirt was stained by the wet soil and hands were dirty as well. But within those hands she did have one mighty and shiny white gem. It shone in the darkness of the garden like a bright beacon, it turned the darkness into day and turned the humid cold air into that of a warm summer's day.
Truly it was magnificent, and as Lili said. "Let there be light." Darkness came again and the cold slowly began to return. The light, was although quite blinding and made Lili and Jack rub their eyes lightly before their sights returned to normal again.
From there just like most days Lili then headed to the well and with a bucket and rope lowered the stone, to the sister below.
And like so all Lilis tasks for a day were pretty much done. She might have a small snack before bed, work on her blueprints and such. Maybe do a small exercise as well, but other than that there was nothing else really left.
And so they began heading back towards the castle. Lili and Jack walked upon the small grassy paths of the garden, until they came to a stop as they spotted a light in the dark. Behind some bushes and trees down the path they could see it and hear the sickening voices of what sounded like a vomiting woman.
Heading towards the sounds, they then came upon a young maid. She was on all fours with lantern in hand and a small puddle of vomit next to her. Seeing this Jack seemed disgusted as he said. "Ugh, how repulsive."
But Lili didn't care of the smell or the nasty sight of the vomit, she immediately rushed to the maids side and called out to her. "Are you alright, what happened?"
Placing a soothing hand upon the maids back Lili began lightly massaging her as she used her magic vision to check her status. The maid seemed a bit sick and nauseous as she then said. "I I saw a bright light, it it, seemed so strange that I thought to come have a look. But when I started moving I suddenly began feeling disorientated and sick."
Using her magical vision Lili could see something strange within the young maid. There she saw what seemed like a bright core of light, amongst a sea of gray, located below the woman's belly button. The light seemed similar to the young woman, but brighter and it felt more masculine in a strange way.
Realising this Lili then asked. "Have you been getting these feelings often recently?"
The woman went to her knees as she held her stomach weakly and said. "Yes its been happening every once in a while this past week, but why? Do you know something about this sickness of mine Miss Lili?"
Using her hands to gently massage the young maids lower back, Lili began applying her magic to the woman. Quickly her breathing began calming down as Lili then happily answered the woman by happily saying. "Well I'm no doctor, but If I'd have to guess your probably pregnant. And by the looks of it it's a very healthy baby boy. So congratulations to you, your soon going to be a mother."
After saying this, Jack's face turned to confusion as the maid suddenly turned around. Lili stopped her healing as the maid looked at her in shock and asked. "What? I'm pregnant with a baby boy? But how do you? How can you know?"
Thinking on it Lili immediately realised, Oh yeah there isn't any real way that she could know such a thing. Or well at least she didn't know of such a way. But as she thought quickly on it she did remember something as she then said. "Well I'm not a hundred percent sure, but it is said that a strong firm heart beat is an indication of it being a boy. And your babies seemed quite strong so I'm guessing that it then is a boy."
Saying this Lili felt like she had just lied, but the light or the heart or whatever did feel quite strong and masculine. Plus she could remember hearing a myth in her past that this could be an indication of it being a boy. So technically she didn't lie, but just gave the woman an honest guess.
Although as she said this the woman seemed overjoyed as she looked at her stomach, turned to Lili and asked. "Can I hug you?"
Confusedly nodding to this, Lili was then hugged and thanked many times for the great news. After which the maid ran to the castle to tell a certain royal guard there the happy news.
Coming into the castle they could see the young maid lovingly hugging a royal guard in a hallway as she seemed to be telling him the news. Seeing this Lili felt happy, she had possibly done a good thing here.
Although Jack didn't seem so happy as he said. "You sure are bad at keeping a secret."
To this Lili merely huffed and said. "Not exactly true. She didn't see me use my light, and besides how could I not. If one has the power to do good, then you ought to use it to do just that. Power should not be taken for granted, but used for the good of all, only then can I justify myself having such power."
With this said Lili ordered some late night snack into her room, did some light exercises, took a quick bath and then soon after went to her own bed. She did think of working on her blueprints and such, but was feeling way too tired to do so.
Later on she did hear some commotion outside her door. It sounded like Eadlin trying to get in her room, but Sir John and Jack rightly stopped her and a moment of possible humiliation was luckily averted. And so Lili once more fell happily into a deep slumber.