Lucky Rabbit

At just after five in the morning, Pandy slipped out and flew back to Avington House. The building was dark and silent, and there were no clocks, which was probably going to be a problem. Add one more thing to the list of items to pick up when they went shopping. Fortunately, loud cursing announced the arrival of someone at the front door even before they knocked, which woke almost everyone up.

It turned out that Glory had indeed managed to arrange for someone to bring a few basics by every morning at exactly six a.m. That solved the clock problem, at least for now, but the slightly shady-looking teenager on the doorstep was Extremely Unhappy about the reception he’d gotten.

It seemed that he’d tried going to the back door first, since that was where deliveries usually went, and a very large shadow threatened to engulf him. The only reason he’d tried again was because ‘Graham’ – Glory’s alter ego – had promised him a silver for every day he actually managed to hand over his delivery. Apparently that was an exorbitant sum, and if the feathers in his hair were any indication, he was willing to raid a few henhouses in order to earn it.

After he left, Nyssa was very apologetic about threatening to eat the delivery boy, but what did he expect when he turned up without warning? Nox nodded in agreement, and Pandy made it Very Clear that implying they might kill or eat someone was a Last Resort sort of thing, not what you did on a random Tuesday morning.

Breakfast was a glass of milk, along with some eggs and toast cooked over a firepit someone had dug in the yard. Actually, Pandy was fairly certain the pit was where the dirt in the atrium had come from, and Nyssa had just made the best of the unplanned excavation. Hazel had to be dragged out of the bed in the master bedroom, where she slept with Eleanor and Lord Winston, and made it very clear that while Dragons did approve of lighting fires, they very much Did Not Approve of crisp autumn mornings.

If Pandy didn’t know better, she would have thought Isidor was actually nervous. He picked at his eggs and toast, and they were only a little black around the edges. Eleanor was only a bit more enthusiastic, however, watching Pandy and Isidor get ready for school with intense longing. The princess barely managed to smile when everyone came together in the front hall, waiting for Lady Frances and Lady Arabelle to arrive.

Glory finally got up when she smelled the scent of burned toast and crispy eggs wafting through the house, and her hair had somehow regrown since she left the night before, which was actually a great relief to Pandy, since its shorter length had clearly distressed the other woman. The Empress was definitely not a morning person, and everyone quickly learned not to ask her to pass anything, because she would only glare and grunt, “Are your arms broken? No? D’you want them to be?” Hopefully this was all in fun, because Pandy was about to leave Eleanor alone with her for hours.

Augustus’s aunts were impeccably dressed and perfectly prompt, and Pandy held her breath as Lady Frances’s sharp eyes swept over her. This was the debut of her pseudo-uniform pants, as well as her fabulous new coat, and while the older woman’s gaze skimmed over the pants, it lingered on the coat for a surprisingly long time before she murmured, “Gwen at Lanthorne Court, was it?”

The greatest downside to going to school with the women was actually not being stuck in an enclosed space with the irascible Lady Frances, but the fact that it took more than half an hour of Pandy’s time as a human to get to school. When she’d agreed to this, she hadn’t even considered the fact that she would lose more than a quarter of her human-time every day to the commute.

Hopefully this was only temporary, though. If Glory could find someone to raid henhouses and milk cows – Pandy hoped it was particularly pungent cow milk anyway, but she wasn’t going to ask because ignorance was bliss – surely she could also find someone to pretend to be their carriage driver twice a day. Though at that point, would they even be pretending?

The good news was that Pandy was able to heal Lady Arabelle both when they got into the carriage and as they got out. Arabelle was even able to climb down with relative ease, though her wife hovered nearby, ready to help the footman catch Arabelle if it looked like the other woman would fall. While the two older ladies went inside, Pandy waved to Isidor as the carriage rolled back up the long drive. She didn’t know if he looked back, since the windows were closed, but if he did, she didn’t want him to see nothing but an empty step and a closed door.

Breakfast was just beginning as they arrived, and Pandy made certain to be Very Visible as children passed through the foyer. Thaniel lit up when he saw her, and she gave him a special smile, though ‘Eurydice’ had only had one class with him so far, so it seemed a bit early for hugs. He lingered there, and Geraldine soon joined him, though Abbington entered from the back of the school, since that door was closest to his room in the stables.

As soon as the flood of sleepy-eyed students slowed, Pandy went up the steps to the chancellor’s office, as if she planned to meet with him there, then released Shifting Faces, seeing with some dismay that the spell was already down nearly an hour and a half. She counted twenty Mississippis, then hopped back down the other side of the stairs, hugging the wall where a bit of shadow allowed her to use Shield of Darkness to reach the main floor without notice. There, she rejoined Thaniel and Geraldine, and they slipped in just in time to receive a Disapproving Frown from Ms. Davenport, but not an actual chastisement.

After that, the day was pretty much the same as always, though at one point, Pandy did take off to search for Augustus. He wasn’t in his office or rooms, though the doors to both opened easily beneath her hand. She was about to close the door to his apartment when she noticed a slip of paper pinned beneath the slim vase on the table. Glancing around as if Augustus might pop out and chide her for being nosy, Pandy pulled out the page and saw the word ‘Rabbit’ written at the top in crisp, elegant letters. Of course his handwriting was perfect, too.

With a sigh and absolutely no hope that this might be a love letter or something of the sort – because that would be ridiculous – she unfolded it and read the five words written within. ‘Back by Friday. Yours, Augustus’. Yours. Yours. As if he in some way belonged to Pandy. Not only belonged, but was pleased about belonging. Happy, even.

Pandy felt her cheeks burning, and tried to focus on the rest of the letter. Back by Friday. Why? Where had he gone? She had things she needed to talk to him about, and by Friday, they would probably all be replaced by other things that seemed just as important. She tried to ignore the powerful sense of disappointment threatening to overtake her. She was just upset that she could not interrogate him about Very Important Things. Yes.

To keep her mind off of it, Pandy spent the rest of the time until Small Group casting random Minor Heals on everyone she passed. She was shocked to discover how many people were just walking around with small injuries. It turned out that the limiting factor for leveling Minor Heal probably wouldn’t be finding people to heal, but how much Mana she had.

She quickly ran herself down to about four hundred Mana, then just kept idly picking at it for the rest of the time, keeping her Mana at fifty to sixty percent full. Children also seemed prone to reinjuring themselves, especially in Combat Training and Horseback Riding, so she was able to heal almost every student in the class at least twice. Honestly, it was a little embarrassing that she hadn’t thought of this sooner, and even more embarrassing that she was pretty sure her System had suggested it at some point, and she’d refused.

During Small Group, Pandy once again sent the children running around the common area. She healed each of them as they passed her, though only Geraldine needed it every time. When they sat down, drinking the water Pandy had stashed in her Inventory during an illicit excursion to the kitchen after lunch, Pandy watched the girl, noting that she kept rubbing her heel with a surprised expression.

“Are your shoes too small?” Pandy asked, leaning to the side so she could examine the offending footwear. The students could choose between a pair of dainty short boots, which most of the girls wore, or a pair of heavier shoes, which most of the boys wore. Geraldine used pretty ribbons to tie her boots, rather than laces, and the satiny strip was pulling at the eyelets.

“No!” Geraldine said, tucking her feet back under her skirts. Pandy gave her a look, and she sighed, extending one of the little boots. “A little. It’s fine. I’ve been wearing thicker socks.”

Which would make the shoes feel even tighter, even as it helped prevent the back from rubbing her ankle. Pandy started to ask why she didn’t write to ask her parents for a new pair, but bit back the words. She knew exactly why not. She also knew she was going shopping that Friday, and silently added one more thing to an already extensive shopping list. She’d gotten a pair of shoes for Abbington, after all. It was only fair that she get some for Geraldine, too.

Reminded, Pandy turned to look at Thaniel. “How are your shoes doing?”

He flushed, but it turned out he had a completely different problem than his friends. “Mine’re fine,” he muttered. “Really. I don’t grow very fast.” Looking up, he caught the pitying look on Geraldine’s face and hurriedly added, “Lian says I’ll grow real soon, though! Papa and Mama were really tall.”

Pandy thought back to her brief stint as part of Thaniel’s dream. In real life, The Father hadn’t seemed particularly tall, even from a rabbit’s perspective, but he was also perpetually hunched, spending all of his time looking down, rather than ahead. In the dream, though, he’d been taller than anyone else, and the top of Grace Conroy’s head reached past his shoulder.

The question was, had that just been Thaniel’s perspective as a child, or was it an accurate representation? Lian was right up there with Kaden and Edgar though, and as the male leads in an otome game, of course they were all tall, though Dorian made everyone around him look short. Well, according to the Gacha Love characters profiles, Bastian was one hundred and seventy centimetres, but he was the token ‘cute boy’, so that made sense. All of the other love interests were at least one hundred eighty centimeters.

None of that would have mattered, because Thaniel was Thaniel no matter what height he reached, except that he chose that moment to rub at his chest. Ever since he’d collapsed after trying to use his magic, revealing the existence of the stone, he’d picked up this habit, and Pandy hadn’t yet figured out if it was because the area around the stone hurt now, or if it always had, but now he didn’t have to hide it from his friends.

The fact was, Thaniel wasn’t normal. And not in the good way, because Pandy had long held the belief that all the best people were weird. No, Thaniel was small. Not tiny, but definitely one of the shortest, slimmest children in the school. He was also one of the youngest, so there was that, but she’d been in this world for months now, and she didn’t think he’d grown at all. If there was one thing she’d learned recently, it was that children grew at an astronomical pace. Abbington’s wrists already showed just a bit past his shirt cuffs, and Geraldine’s new shoes were getting tight, but Thaniel’s uniform looked like it had been tailored for him just yesterday.

Looking at his defiant expression, Pandy had to fight down the lump swelling in her throat. What if… What if Thaniel was going to be stuck like this forever? Or at least until the stone was removed? Her fingers tightened on the pitcher of water she still held, and she had to clear her throat before she could say, “All right, just like yesterday. Pick a tree, cast your spell, run to the right, cast again, then trade places with the person across from you.”

Geraldine groaned, but Abbington shrugged and Thaniel whooped. They all went to their respective trees and started practicing, while Pandy cast Minor Heal on them over and over. She might not be able to make Thaniel grow, but she could at least make sure he didn’t have blisters.

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