Sing!

The Home of Margrave Addler

About two months later I found myself standing outside the gate of a rather large home, waving Linfa and Gale off. They offered to stay with me for as long as possible, but I remembered being a teenager at school before, and the last thing I needed was for me to appear before a bunch of teenagers with my mommies in tow. These spoiled rich kids would have enough to badger me with, no need to add fuel to the fire, as it were.

Once the two women were out of sight, I turned back to the estate where me lessons would be taking place. It was a good sized mansion owned by Margrave Adler, a very old but very influential former knight, now over-seerer of this county. He was basically the boss of Grier's Rest and all surrounding lands and villages. You wouldn't find a higher status man outside the capital.

I knew from rumors heard at the guild that Margrave Adler was well past the age most humans kicked the bucket naturally in this world. So I would guess him to be in his seventies. But that hadn't stopped the man from living life. When his previous wife died some fifteen years ago, he went and married a powerful merchant's daughter. SO, on top of his two sons from his first marriage, Adler now had two more children about my own age.

This mansion was so big that it would fit ten of our modest cabins in it, and that wasn't even counting the well kept lands it sat on. As I gawked a man in a very nicely pressed suit made his wade down the drive, his intent clearly to address me.

"Can I help you?" Asked the man, his hair and eyes both a steely grey, his back pin straight, and his facial expression clearly stating that 'my kind' were not welcome to be hovering outside his master's home.

"Um, yes, sorry." I said awkwardly. I was not made for polite noble speaking. Regular manners? Sure! but all the complex ins and outs of what was and was not appropriate of a noble household... not so much. "My name is Rin. I was told that I was to attend lessons here..." I was suddenly not nearly as confident in my forty odd years preparing me for this type of interaction at all. I very much felt like the some what dirty twelve year old I looked like.

"I see." The man sighed but removed a large key from a pocket, opening the gate. He stepped back and gestured for me to enter. As I stepped over the threshold, past the wrought iron, i felt magic shiver over my body. A little alarmed and a little annoyed, I looked inquisitively at what I assumed was the Margrave's butler. "Just a normal security spell. Miss Rin."

The 'Miss Rin' was clearly meant to be a jab of some-sort, but I didn't bother to rise to it. Sure, my family was not high enough status to have a last name -something only noble families had in this world. At lest among the human populace. I just nodded and waited for the man to take me where ever it was I needed to be. This was going to be a long day...

The butler lead me up the short drive, but instead of escorting me though the main door, I was instead guided to a smaller side entrance. This was meant as another slight at me I would assume. No way any of the high society students had been lead through a servants entrance. What was wrong with this butler? Was he so elitist that he would take out his disgust for 'peasants' out on a freaking twelve year old girl? He was a servant! Surly that did not rank him much higher than himself. Jerk.

"Miss Rin," He said, as we entered the house. We were in a large kitchen, the place buzzing with activity as other servants and maids busied themselves getting some sort of meal ready. It was already after lunch so I would guess tea? Either way it was crowded and not a single person even spared me a side glance as we worked our way past stoves, tables of food, and several people. "This is the noble house of Adler, and as such, a certain amount of decorum will be expected of all those who enter this estate. Is this understood."

I resisted the urge to snap at the obnoxious man and simply nodded. What did he think I was going to do? Run wild, deface expensive art work? Maybe splatter mud on the walls? Geeze.