Roughly 300 Years Ago
The queen's grade one piano exam results were delivered to Calixte, along with a certificate. Usually, Calixte would buy a bouquet for his students to commemorate their success, but he hesitated regarding this student in particular. Was it because of what had happened during their lesson before the exam? Calixte was also worried that he could not afford a bouquet of flowers worthy enough for a queen. So what do you give someone who has everything?
He then remembered his promise to her that he would treat Queen Violette like any other student. So, he chose a similarly priced bouquet that he gave his other students and hoped it would not offend the queen for its comparable cheapness to the flowers she was accustomed to receiving.
But what kind of flowers should he give? Calixte spent considerable time in the florists, hesitant to pick. At first, he thought about buying violets but then worried that she would likely receive them all the time and perhaps be tired of them. Then he considered other purple flowers, ones with splashes of white to match the queen's garments, or perhaps flowers with the meanings of 'congratulations' until Calixte stumbled upon a particular bouquet. It was made up of flowers that grew in his and the queen's home country.
When the day of their weekly lesson arrived, Calixte waited in the music room of the royal castle with the bouquet and the certificate. Once the queen entered the room, Calixte presented her with them with a deep and graceful bow.
"Congratulations, Your Majesty." Calixte rose from his bow as the queen took the bouquet. "You have been awarded a distinction, with full marks, might I add!" He grinned proudly; though he knew that with any teacher, the queen could accomplish such a feat with her photographic memory, he was still proud of her.
However, it seemed that the queen was only interested in the bouquet.
"Thank you, Barbeau," she finally said after gazing at the flowers for a long time. "I can't remember the last time I received flowers that weren't violets," she chuckled slightly. "They are beautiful."
"Are violets not your favourite, Your Majesty?"
"They were my mother's. Whilst I enjoy them, after receiving so many gifts relating to violets, it becomes... quite tiresome." She looked down at the bouquet, then said softly, "these grew in our garden in my childhood home." The queen looked up at Calixte. "Thank you, once again."
Calixte sheepishly bowed his head. "It was an honour teaching you, Your Majesty. You should be very proud of your results."
"I don't think I deserve it, though," said Queen Violette.
"I can reassure you, Your Majesty, that you did deserve this mark," said Calixte. "I have known the examiner for many years, and he does not give anyone special treatment regardless of their status."
"That is not what I meant." The queen sucked a breath before continuing, "I have been cheating."
Calixte paused for a moment, frowning in confusion as he registered what the queen was saying. "How would you cheat in a piano exam?"
Sighing, the queen bowed her head as if in shame. "I have an unfair advantage; I was born with magical abilities that far excel any average mage. What is unique about me is my innate skill in memory magic."
After hesitating, Calixte whispered, "did you alter the examiner's memory?"
"No! No, I would never do such a thing! I have never used my powers to do such a thing!" The queen glanced away. "But I have altered my own memory: I cast a spell on myself to enhance my memory to the point where I can remember almost anything that I experience and thus can learn a new skill quicker."
"So, you have a photographic memory?" Calixte nodded, his suspicions correct.
"That is why I do not deserve these." The queen returned the bouquet to Calixte, but he refused to accept them.
"I do not see it any different to if you were born with a photographic memory. Regardless, I can still see all of the hard work you put in to pass the exam and learn. You have not been coasting on your enhanced memory alone, Your Majesty."
"Thank you, Barbeau," said Violette softly. "But I still do not believe my success is worth celebrating. Unfortunately, my spell was too powerful for me to uncast it as it would risk rupturing my own brain. Otherwise, I would have dispelled it; I would have liked learning the piano with my own ability."
After the queen had a servant find a vase for the flowers, the lesson began.
"Now, Your Majesty, would you like to continue on with the exams and practise for grade two?" asked Calixte. "Though I think with your skill, we could perhaps skip that grade-"
"No, I wish not to skip any grades," said the queen. "I want to complete all of them in order."
"Very well," said Calixte. "Though we have plenty of time to start on grade two, we could instead just play for fun this session."
"Play for fun?"
Calixte smiled upon hearing the excitement in Queen Violette's voice. "Yes, we could play some duets." He retrieved a book of duet sheet music from his bag and placed it on the piano shelf before them.
To begin with, Queen Violette played by herself to learn the simpler one-handed part of the piece before she was confident enough to play the duet, with Calixte playing the difficult part. Calixte, at first, retained his distance, sitting at the very edge of the piano stool, but as they played, the two of them were brushing shoulders.
"Let's play another one!" Queen Violette clapped her hands, flipped through the book and stopped on a piece entitled 'Chairs of the Musical Nature'.
"That one requires a lot of moving around, Your Majesty," warned Calixte as he glanced at the long gown the queen was wearing. "Perhaps we should try a different-"
"No, I would like to play this one."
Reluctant at first, Calixte instructed the queen on how to play the new piece, which she learned quickly.
'Chairs of the Musical Nature' was one of Calixte's all-time favourite pieces to play with students- students that were children, however, as most adults considered the whole concept of the piece to be immature. Calixte never expected to one day play this duet with a queen.
It started off slow, with the two of them only playing one note per bar, but then it sped up gradually, adding more complex melodies, harmonies, and rules. Every so often, they had to move up and down an octave, or cross hands and play over the other, play softer and quieter or louder, clap hands, handshakes, and high-fives between notes, and then there was when they had to swap seats and parts.
As the piece sped up, Calixte expected the queen to want to stop and declare it all childish; however, Violette was in an uncontrollable fit of giggles, only laughing harder as it grew more difficult.
Her joy was infectious, and Calixte forgot about the boundaries he had placed, not hesitating to get close to being able to play the piano. They laughed as they bumped into each other as they continuously changed seats, screaming and squealing as the piece was beyond impossible to keep with and collapsed on the piano seat in defeat.
Violette then requested to do it again, driven to beat the song and play until the end, which, through tremendous teamwork, they accomplished, both exhausted afterwards. For the rest of the lesson, they played more duets from the book with varying tones and genres, and then Violette desired to play 'Chairs of the Musical Nature' before finishing the day.
"Just one more time," she said through uncontrollable giggles. "Just one more time, I swear."
Calixte released a tired sigh, not yet recovered from the last time. "I am not sure I have it in me..."
"That is indeed a shame. I had hoped you would have better stamina than this, Barbeau."
Calixte eventually conceded, and they played 'Chairs of the Musical Nature' one last time, their competitive natures revealing themselves as they fought to see who would make the first mistake.
With Violette graciously taking her defeat, she thanked Calixte for the lesson. "Even with my enhanced memory, I cannot remember the last time I had this much fun."
A sharp pain pierced through Calixte's stomach as he heard this. "It is always a pleasure to teach Your Majesty."
After the queen bid her farewells and left the music room with a slight skip to her step, Calixte slumped down on the piano stool, his head in his gloved hands.
What had happened to keeping a respectful distance?
What he had done in this lesson was not an appropriate way to treat royalty, playing such a childish song and forcing her to move around so much. Yet Calixte could not ignore how much fun the queen had, and was that not his job: to make his client happy? He was still teaching her piano as he was hired to, and learning was so much easier if there was a fun element. Yes, that was right. Making the lessons was fun, but the hand-holding from the lesson before was still very much inappropriate, and this Calixte vowed never to do such a thing again.
Day: 1230
Though the blood moon had ended, Corinna continued to walk around in her celestial form with Lili by her side to keep her company. It seemed that it always took Corinna longer to be able to transform back in despite her mask form being humanoid. Even Dex and Sumit, who turned into a headless horseman and an octopus, did not need to take this long. Corinna wondered if it was not related to her mask but her mental state. Perhaps if the blood moon affects you more, it takes longer to return to being human, but that theory was quickly shot down due to Ivette and the imps changing sooner than her.
"A few more minutes, and you'll be back to your human self," said Lili. "Just a bit longer, and then you can finally stand still."
Somehow, Lili could tell what Corinna was thinking. 'How did you know?' Corinna quickly wrote on the ground, controlling her power long enough so that she would not set the grass on fire.
"You kept looking down at yourself in frustration," said Lili. "It was an assumption."
'You are good at reading people'.
"I always thought I was bad at it." Lili paused. "Perhaps it is because I only need to concentrate on your body language and facial expressions instead of your words and tone of voice with you."
'The new Kai?' Corinna silently giggled as she saw Lili's bemused reaction.
"I am not going to be the next Kai. I am far from as insightful as he is." Lili muttered, "he's some mystical being with how easily he sees things."
Corinna nodded, remembering how Kai noticed that she and Harmony had feelings for each other, though apparently, that was obvious to everyone. 'Does body language help guard?' Corinna asked in the dirt.
"Yes, it does," replied Lili. "If someone is attempting to assassinate or harm my ward, no matter how good of a liar, there will always be some slip up to give them away, especially with body language. You also learn how to read it when fighting. The smallest movement your opponent makes can allow you to predict their next attack. And with facial expressions, I am not so good at telling. Perhaps that is because most nobles and royalty hide behind masks. So faces are still new to me." She paused. "But I learned from Daina."
Corinna glanced at Lili, seeing her eyebrows knit together as she mentioned that name.
"Daina rarely talked to preserve her singing voice," continued Lili, pushing through thinking about the betrayer. "And Oscar, for a while, could not speak either." Lili looked down and then mumbled, "and my mother is deaf, so I learned how to read her body language too."
Corinna realised that she had never heard Lili speak of anything personal. Despite spending so much time with her recently, she knew nothing about this woman. Though Lili had been conversing more with people, it was more focused on work or related to the Abyss. 'You don't talk family much', Corinna wrote, intrigued that Lili was finally opening up a bit more.
Lili swallowed, straightening her back in a military fashion. "No one asked."
Corinna tilted her head and smiled slightly in guilt.
Lili smirked. "I suppose when you could still remember, you did not need to be prompted to talk about yours at length." She paused, wondering if she should be talking about her own family as much. Lili was in the enviable position of being protected from the memory curse because of Princess Alfreda; it would take several decades before she, too, would lose all of her memories. Perhaps she should talk more about her family whilst she still remembered.
"I..." Lili hesitated, seeing Corinna look at her expectantly as if asking her to continue, but what was there to say? Was that bad? If Lili was at gunpoint, what would she say regarding her family? "My father was a high-ranking officer in the royal guards," she began. "He worked alongside your father, actually."
Something clogged in Corinna's throat.
"Your father trained me for a few months," Lili continued.
Lili knows my dad? Corinna almost stopped walking at the thought. Although she had told herself that she did not want to know anything about her family, having heard that they were devout royalists and with Corinna being charged with treason, she imagined that none of them was waiting for her on the other side. Who would wait for a traitor? Thus, she did not want to know any of them, regardless of any happy memories they had before. But yet, there was a part of her that wanted to know.
"I also knew your brother, well... one of your brothers, Richard Jr." Lili chuckled slightly. "Which was confusing at first, Captain Richard Warren Sr and Knight Richard Warren Jr... Miss Warren, are you alright?"
Stop being so silly, Corinna told herself. Stop thinking about them; you're down here. They're nothing to you without your memories. And you are probably the same to them because you're a traitor to the crown and-
A droplet of rain splatted onto the ground, followed by another that hit Corinna's shoulder, the water hissing as it connected with the celestial's glowing and burning body.
"We should find shelter," said Lili as she saw Corinna flinch each time the rain fell, the rain slightly stinging from the heat.
They searched around and found a small alcove in a rock side, enough room for two people, but Corinna was still stuck in her celestial form and needed to keep moving. Lili waited outside, barely covered from the rain by the trees.
With guilt driving her, Corinna paced around and focused her mind on calming down until, eventually, she was able to take off her mask and detransform.
Corinna collapsed onto the cave floor, controlling her breathing as she tried to forget all of the negativity before. So what if her family thought of her as a traitor? She had a new one now.
Lili joined her inside and sat down next to Corinna. "Need a moment?"
Corinna nodded, smiling weakly before it soured as she noticed Lili's clothes were slightly wet from standing out in the rain. 'Cold?' she wrote in the dust on the ground.
"No, I will be fine." Lili shook her head. "Just a spot of rain won't kill me."
Despite this, Corinna could notice the royal bodyguard shivering slightly, likely before the blood moon; Lili was wearing her sparring clothes, a tank top unsuitable for the cold rain outside. Corinna took off her jacket and rested it on Lili's shoulders.
"That is unnecessary-" Lili paused as Corrina edged closer to share the jacket and thus the warmth. "Should we wait for the rain to die down?"
Corinna nodded.
They were both silent for a moment and listened to the rain beating outside. Some rain fell into the cave entrance, so Corinna and Lili had to huddle closer to avoid it.
"Earlier, when I was talking about..." Lili hesitated, her voice low. "When I mentioned your father and brother... would you rather I hadn't?"
After a moment of debating, Corinna moved her hair to the side and pointed to her brand; the word 'treason' scarred into her skin.
Lili glanced away, then showed her own brand, matching aside from the addition of 'usurp'. "I also come from a very royalist family, what with the majority of my family working in the royal guard or the military, same as yours." She paused. "And yet I am down here too."
Corinna frowned and wrote on the ground, 'you protect royalty'.
"I think my family would side with Queen Corinna over Princess Alfreda. I am still a traitor to the crown, same as you, even though the claims are false." Lili looked at Corinna. "So, I do apologise, Miss Warren, for talking about your relatives. Since we are in a similar situation, I should have realised that the topic would bring discomfort."
Corinna touched Lili's arm reassuringly and smiled as if to say there was no need for apologies.
"Still, I shall not speak on the subject unless you request it," said Lili.
The rain continued to plummet down, never ceasing. Corinna hoped that Calixte was alright in this weather and that someone was with him since she was not there.
Tired from walking for twenty-four hours, Corinna's eyes drooped, almost closing, but she forced herself to remain awake so that she could leave as soon as the rain calmed.
'Why call me Miss Warren?' Corinna wrote in the dirt on the ground, a question she was always curious about and a conversation would help her remain awake.
"It is respectful," answered Lili. "Though I am a prisoner, I am still here in a professional capacity to guard Princess Alfreda." Though, of course, she was not currently guarding the princess. She hoped the rain would subside soon so she could go to her ward's aid. "I call everyone formally."
'Oscar, Calanthe,' Corinna wrote, deciding it best not to write Pearl and Daina's names.
"Yes, I refer to them by their first names without titles," said Lili. "Princess Alfreda ordered me to do so. Something about being part of a team and familiarity... though nowadays I call Oscar 'Mr Oscar' because he's..." Lili swallowed, hesitating. "It is just Calanthe I call by first name now."
'I'm only one you use surname,' wrote Corinna.
"Yours the only surname I know," Lili smirked. "You always introduced yourself with your full name, which is also quite formal."
'Ivette Espinosa', wrote Corinna.
"Espinosa?" Lili read. "I shall endeavour to refer to Ms Espinosa more respectfully then."
Corinna shook her head.
Lili frowned in confusion. "I shouldn't? Would Ms Ivette not like that?"
Corinna shook her head again, then wrote, 'we friends?'
Lili stared at Corinna for a moment, then glanced away. "I... " She paused. "Do you dislike being called Miss Warren?"
Corinna scrunched up her nose and nodded, then pointed at the word 'friends'.
"We... we are friends?" said Lili slowly.
Silently sighing, Corinna shuffled away in a huff.
"Wait, I-" Lili cursed internally, unable to tell if Corinna was genuinely upset or exaggerating. "Nobody has called me that before..." Something caught in Lili's throat, almost closing up. "I don't know what it means to be someone's friend, so I apologise... I do not know if we are or not."
Corinna turned back around, her eyes slightly watering.
"Wow!" Lili panicked. "It's fine! Don't cry! Please don't cry!" Lili gently dabbed Corinna's eyes with the jacket. "I probably have had friends and didn't know at the time. No one has explicitly stated it, yeah- I mean, it's my own fault for always putting work first and never having a social life." Lili forced a laugh, possibly the fakest anyone ever attempted, making Corinna giggle.
Lili cleared her throat. "So, uh... do you think we're friends, then? What's the friend expert's opinion?"
Corinna twisted her mouth, looked up in the corner and put one hand on her chin as if in deep thought, then erased the question mark and turned it into 'we friends'.
"Okay, so I guess we're friends?"
Corinna gave a look, and Lili corrected herself: "We are friends," she said more confidently.
What are you doing, Lili?
'Friends use first names,' wrote Corinna
Stop it.
'Call me Corinna'.
You said you would keep your distance.
Corinna looked at Lili expectantly.
Now, look at you.
"I... I still need to remain professional..."
Where is your self-control?
Corinna forced a smile, then glanced away.
Never let your guard down.
Lili cleared her throat.
Don't repeat the same mistake with Riley.
"Perhaps when I am not on duty."
Am I not supposed to be on duty now?
'Are you on duty now?' Corinna wrote.
You're supposed to be working, Lili!
"Well, I..." Lili swallowed.
No more distractions, you promised.
"I am not, no. Calanthe is with Princess Alfreda."
You said to Kai you can't...
"It will take getting some used to."
That you would give up and focus on work.
'Practise makes perfection', wrote Corinna with a jesting smirk, using Lili's words against her.
It has been a long dry spell...
"You got me there," Lili smiled.
No, stop it; control yourself.
Corinna tilted her head, prompting Lili further.
My feelings...
"Okay, okay!" Lili held up her hands in surrender.
No, I don't have feelings; I do not need them.
Lili cleared her throat and then said plainly, "Corinna."
All that matters is my duty to the princess.
Corinna put a prosthetic hand to her ear, pretending not to hear.
And I promised the princess no more distractions.
Lili rolled her eyes and said, "Corinna."
Nothing else.
Again, Corinna kept her hand to her ear, leaning closer.
But Ms Rin and Ms Ivette said I should do what makes me happy.
"Corinna."
I should do what I want.
Corinna leaned in closer, and Lili whispered...
And what do I want?
"Corinna-"
They both pulled each other in, their lips attempting to devour one another, consume in a fervent uncontrollable passion. Then they broke away, gazing at each other as if neither believed what had just happened but knew it was inevitable, that it had been building up some time now and was finally released.
Lili glanced at Corinna's lips, wanting so desperately another taste, her discipline and self-control slipping with every heavy breath she took.
'You should do what makes you happy', 'you should do what you want', the advice of Ms Rin and Ms Ivette appeared in her mind again, and the remnants of Lili's self-control disappeared entirely. She surrendered to her base desires, pulling Corinna back into another kiss.