The fountain was a veritable monument of Classical imitation, with a tall Corinthian column emerging from the centre of the base, and the corners hosted figures in a Classical Greek anthropomorphised form of the continents of Aurora; Arcadia, Findias, Gorias, Murias, Summer Isle, New Jharkhand, New Ontario. The women why was it always voluptuous women? poured water from their amphorai into the fountain below, making a delightfully gentle splashing sound. And sitting beside that fountain was a figure, which Adea had some trouble identifying.

The person sitting by the fountain obviously identified as female, for she wore a tyrian dress that was of comparable in cut and design to Adea’s own, whilst wearing cream-white stockings and gloves. Her pale long hair was gently combed, flowing across her bare shoulders and down her back, decorated with lavender bows. Adea considered approaching her, asking if she didn’t want to get out of the rain, when she noticed that an unopened umbrella laid by the girl’s right hand, on the fountain’s border. As Adea was watching the girl, she removed the long cream gloves of her left arm, and even from a distance and in the gathering dark, Adea had to stifle her cry of surprise and horror. Even in the poor light, Adea could see even lines of tissue that ran up the inner forearm, many of them. The girl made a sound that caught in her throat as she used her other hand to run along some of the scars. The garden lights chose that moment to come to life, illuminating the wonderful inner court garden, as well as the fountain.

Oh, it’s her. The hair should have been a give-away, Adea didn’t know anyone else with as pale hair as Artemisia de Vere, and her small stature should have been the real tell, but it had somehow escaped Adea.

“Didn’t your parents teach you that it is rude to spy on people, Lady Sélincourt?”

The biting remark from the diminutive figure and the accompanying icy glare snapped Adea back to the present, and she returned the favour with a scowl of her own, suppressing her surprise at Artemisia’s ability to spot her from such a distance and awkward angle. She stepped out onto the green, but made her way intentionally quite slowly towards the fountain.

“The use of the word ‘spy’ implies intent, Lady de Vere,” Adea replied in a stony tone that was just on the correct side of polite for the courtesy of any others who might be lurking in the half-shadows of the gardens and columned inner court walls.

“And that was certainly not my intention, I came out here to look for Lady Spencer, but she seems to be elsewhere, my chancing upon you was merely happy circumstance.”

“If by Lady Spencer you mean that bore of a de La Croix, I saw her walking towards the lake gazebos talking with someone who looked like one of the Cleruchs and Lady Joinville. They were gabbing away about some regatta result or something equally dull, not that I even tried to listen in. However, albeit not that it is any of my business, but how do you stand living in the same house as that utter shrew? She’s a loathsome bother at the best of times in my experience, and at the worst of times she comes across like a proper diva.”

Adea, having reached the fountain, surprised herself with a little smile and her tone thawed a little.

“It helps that she has her quarters in the opposite wing of Ars Gallante House, and that we keep very different company, and as such minimise the risk of bumping each other, apart from lunch and dinner. And as for her mannerisms, I’m afraid that I can’t really comment, lest I want Papa’s rage bearing down on me.”

Artemisia made a sort of grunting sound and reached for a glass by her feet that Adea hadn’t noticed, and downed its red contents.

“Say, Lady de Vere,” Adea said after a short break, the only sound nearby the splashing of water, “not to pry, but why are you out here in the drizzle instead of going back inside? I’m not the biggest fan of the waltz myself, but surely it beats getting soaked.”

“Because,” Artemisia said, running a gloved hand through her long hair, “if I spend even just one more minute with the likes of Dawnshire and Redgrove, I might actually spontaneously combust.”

Her surprise must have been evident on Adea’s face, because Artemisia produced the smallest ghost of a smile and a low sound that might extremely generously be called a chuckle.

“It’s apparent you don’t know me at all, Lady Adea, or else you wouldn’t be so shocked that I absolutely detest the vast majority of the Tories.”

She fished up a carafe of red liquid from the ground, which also had escaped Adea’s notice, and held it out, that same shadow-smile on her thin, pink lips.

“A drink, Lady Adea? I’m honestly not sure if it’s a very sweet claret or a very dry port, but it’s not half-bad. Duchess New Forest is to be commended for her cellar and her generosity.”

Adea made note of the flush on the pale girl’s cheeks, gave her a small smile of her own and sat down beside her on the side of the fountain, making sure not to crease her dress skirt. Two parts of her brain, the inebriated and her normally hyper-focused one, warred with indecision before her id won out and accepted the carafe, and took a swig of the wine.

“If you don’t mind me asking,” Adea said after removing a glove and demurely wiped her mouth, “why are you at the ball in the first place if you don’t intend to partake in the dancing and the socialisation? And just before the dancing started, the footmen announced your father’s arrival, which means you didn’t arrive together.”

That last bit was not a question, more of a statement of fact, and Artemisia shrugged.

“It’s simple, my father would give me a proper lashing if I shirked my social duties as a duke’s daughter and heiress, so I did not have much of a choice. As for the earlier arrival, I already told you, I can’t stand the Tory crowd in there, so I was one of the first to repair, gave my thanks to the Duchess, and made myself scarce.”

Adea bit her lower lip. Had she not witnessed those scars on the girl’s arm, she would have assumed ‘lashing’ to mean being chewed out, but now she wasn’t sure if Artemisia was being literal or not. Despite her intoxicated state, she chose not to pursue the point. Silence, though not necessarily uncomfortable, stretched on for a bit. The two girls could hardly have been more different, and as they sat beside each other it would have been very striking to any onlookers. Adea was a head and a half taller than Artemisia, her physique muscular and defined whereas Artemisia was slight and delicate. Despite having similar length of hair, one was fiery red while the other was as pale as snow.

“I saw you, by the way,” Artemisia continued after a spell, “at the QMMU Opera and Baroque Orchestra Year End performance, in attendance with Her Highness Valerie.”

“You did?” Adea was taken a bit back by the non sequitur, “I didn’t see you at all…”

A nearly forgotten memory flickered of a mane of white making its way down the aisle after the final applause and as the audience was leaving the theatre.

“I merely wanted to congratulate Edward on an exceptional performance,” Artemisia said, her tone now sounding almost jovial, her thin smile slowly expanding, “it was after all, quite an ordeal to get through such a demanding libretto, despite the lack of any soloist sections.”

Something inside Adea felt like it had been stabbed.

“And just what, if I may ask,” she replied in a tone that had lost all of the gradual cordiality it had built up during their conversation, “is your agenda with Edward, Lady de Vere? I believe you mentioned you’ve only met him on one occasion.”

Artemisia’s face reverted to her initial scowl, and pushed herself off the side of the fountain.

“My agenda, Lady Sélincourt, I have an agenda? Am I not allowed to socialise with other people? Or is it that I am not allowed to socialise with your people? I clearly remember you saying you ‘didn’t have a man’, and last I checked this was a free kingdom, so I am allowed to talk to whomever I want.”

The small girl was furious, half-shouting and the muscles in her hands contracting them into something almost like claws at the ready.

“My ‘agenda’, as you so crassly put it, is that Edward Heatherland is one of very few people I have met in my life who didn’t immediately judge or condemn me for what I am, unlike you and almost every one else; in fact he openly accepted it and made no bigger fuss over it than if you had told him the sky is blue. I can almost count on a single hand the times this has happened in my eighteen years of life, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to be denied talking to him because you’re being childishly possessive!”

The silence that lingered between them this time was heavy and pregnant with emotion. Finally Adea cleared her throat awkwardly, and readjusted her gloves.

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

“For the record, I don’t care that you’re a Gen-Two, that doesn’t bother me in the slightest. I’m not a bigot, there’s nary anyone with Gen-Two’ers in their lineage somewhere. The issues between us stem from the company you keep, not some contrived or racist notion.”

Artemisia laughed humourlessly and spun around with her arms wide.

“The company I keep? Pray tell, what company is that? I’m sitting in a garden all alone and drink during one of the grandest events of the year, rather risking getting a cold out here in the rain rather than mingle with the cretins inside the ballroom. The only person I consider ‘company’ is, ironically enough, the Duke of Dawnshire’s daughter, Amelia Euxina. She, like your Edward, didn’t judge me based on how I came into this world, and treated me like a normal person. Seven years older than me, she flipped His Grace her father the bird, and signed up for the Royal Navy, and now she has a destroyer command in Valerian. My God, what I wouldn’t give for that type of freedom!”

Panting slightly, Artemisia calmed down, sat back down with her chest heaving rhythmically. She looked around, found the carafe, and drank deep from it (there wasn’t much left), not bothering with pouring into the empty crystal glass on the fountain.

“I’m going to show you something, Adea.”

Artemisia’s tone was barely above a whisper, nude of any of the anger and agitation she had just displayed, replaced by… wistfulness?

Slowly, she peeled back her cream-coloured left elbow-glove and laid it in her lap.

“These are the ones I do to myself,” she said, her sad smile accompanying one of the most distressing things Adea had ever witnessed. Artemisia’s pale inner left arm was covered in even and short strips of bloated scar tissue, the physical remains of dozens and dozens of cuts that ran from her wrist all up just past her elbow. Adea gasped in shock at the revelation, but Artemisia shook her head.

“And these are the ones he does to me.”

Her scarred left arm peeled off the right glove, and Adea felt her stomach turn as Artemisia revealed the scarred, bruised, and burned skin of her right arm. Small circular burn marks, irregular scar shapes that probably stemmed from some elastic material slapped hard from above, and ugly orange contusions with dark purple rings.

“I wish,” Artemisia said, some of her words struggling to escape the lump in her throat, “I wish I had parents that actually cared about me. You joke about risking the rage of your father, but in my case that is literal. Whenever I don’t conform to his ideal of a perfect daughter, he finds some new and inventive way of hurting me. It might be as simple as not paying the correct courtesy to a noble, or not wearing the attire he wanted to an event, or even for just walking down a hallway in Verius House in a pair of shoes that make too much of a clacking noise…”

She rubbed the insides of her arms, tears appearing in the corners of her pink-grey eyes. Adea felt something shift inside her, a sense of reaching out to the younger girl, to pull her into a tight embrace, to whisper words of comfort to her. Yet she didn’t. How could she? Wait, why wouldn’t she?

“Artemisia…” she said in a wistful tone, “I don’t know what to say…”

The younger girl sniffled and put on a brave smile.

“Better say nothing. That’s what everyone else does. My father sends me to a regenerative nanosurgeon in Raleigh every four months or so to remove the marks, and pays him under the table to shut up about it. The staff in our Auroran and Angevin estates knows about it of course, nothing escapes the servants after all, but they’ve been bullied into silence by the threat of immediate dismissal and defamation lawsuits.”

She looked up at the sky, stars now starting to appear as the clouds had largely lifted, and Adea noticed that it had stopped raining, but water was streaming down Artemisia’s cheeks.

“Do you now,” she said chokingly, “know why I appreciate when people like Edward appear in my life? Because they represent the total antithesis of everything I’ve ever known. My father, the one who literally down to every detail ordered me, hates me and treats me like absolute shit, despite the fact that I am the one he made sure would be there to carry on his legacy, bloodline, and his fucking disgusting genes!”

Artemisia wrenched forward, nails clawing into her upper arms, drawing blood and Adea sat back slightly in shock. The pale-haired girl kept her gaze towards the ground, her long hair covering her face, but her body betrayed her as she visibly shook and Adea could hear the stifled cries. Despite herself, she reached out a grey-gloved arm and laid it about Artemisia’s shoulders. What am I even doing?

They stayed like that for a little while, Artemisia silently sobbing while Adea held an arm around her shoulders, hopefully reassuring the younger girl. Adea didn’t know what to say, while Artemisia didn’t know how she would regain her dignity after such a display of raw emotion in front of someone she ought to be considering a rival. The sound of the splashing water filled their ears for a time, neither wanting to make the first move to break the emotional deadlock.

“So…” Adea finally managed to produce, squeezing Artemisia’s shoulder amicably before retracting her arm, “what’s your plan after finishing your degree in… history, was it?”

Artemisia sniffled and nodded an affirmative, and sat back up and readjusted her hair, upon which Adea withdrew her arm, feeling somewhat awkward.

“I don’t know,” the pale-haired youth said, “I only know that I want to go as far away from my father as humanly possible. Maybe to the Myndowen Empire, or Earth, I haven’t decided yet. I just know I can’t stay where he can come into contact with me, and subsequently get to me…”

It seemed like she would cry again, but she composed herself admirably, straightened her skirts, and replaced her gloves. Then she turned towards Adea with something akin to a genuine curious smile, despite the fact that her eyes were still glossy.

“So then,” she said, doing her best to sound gamesome, “what’s your ‘agenda’ with Heatherland?”

Adea opened her mouth to protest, but she saw the raw hurt in Artemisia’s eyes and proceeded to swallow her pride.

“I…” Adea started, tugging at her skirts, “I don’t actually know.”

Artemisia hiked up a pale eyebrow in indignation.

“I inadvertently bared my heart in front of you, and when I posit a question, you ‘don’t know?’ Come on, Lady Sélincourt, you need to try harder than that.”

The fact that Artemisia’s tone was playful rather than depressed or judgemental sent a shiver of… joy? down Adea’s spine which she hadn’t expected, and the tall redhead flashed the Trewellynshire heiress a genuine grin.

“I honestly don’t know, Lady de Vere,” Adea replied in a voice that was at the same time honest, playful, but most of all unsure. And now it was Adea’s turn to embrace her own chest.

“Genuinely, I don’t know, Artemisia,” when did I start calling her by her first name only?, “it might be as simple as a flirt that has gone on for too long, or a dare by my friends that has had unfortunate consequences, or…”

Don’t say the words, they aren’t true, they simply mustn’t.

“Or I might be in love.”

Pale eyebrows hiked up in surprise for a brief moment before helping form suspicious slits.

“Aha, you expect me to believe that?”

“What?”

“Because, when I spoke to Master Heatherland after this past concerto, he told me you’ve only met a grand total of three times. And pardon me for saying, Lady Sélincourt,” Artemisia batted her eyelids in a delicate but very sarcastic manner, “if you truly were infatuated with someone, you would yearn to meet with said person more than three times over the course of four months.”

“How do you know when we first…! Oh, you were in the same lecture with Dr van Fluyten.”

Adea made a mocking disgusted grimace, while Artemisia stuck out her tongue.

“Finders keepers, Lady Sélincourt, but I will disavow my claim if you present a good case as to why you deserve him.”

Adea’s skin bristled at that, sending electricity down her spine and manufactured reactions she didn’t think she was capable of feeling, especially over such a trivial subject. Of course Adea had had admirers before, of both genders, but for some reason whenever Artemisia mentioned Edward, she felt a combination of both awkwardness and anger.

“I think,” she said at length, “that he reminds me of a sense of naiveté which I haven’t felt since I was a pre-teen…” Adea blushed, realising how vulnerable she made herself.

“I mean, we both can relate to being nobility, involuntarily being in the spotlight, but here is a young man who has no idea what that feels like, and still approaches us like normal people, addresses us as normal people, attends us as normal people. I, for one, find that extremely endearing. He reminds me of the days before I was made aware of the social duties that lay ahead of me, and I kind of want to go back to those uncomplicated days…”

Adea broke off as she noticed Artemisia looking at her with what could only be described as a sarcastic grin.

“Lady Sélincourt is in looove…” she cooed, upon which Adea quickly snapped the unopened umbrella behind her and opened it with a flurry.

“Lady de Vere, if you expose this to the world,” she said in a faux-sweet tone that did nothing to hide her intended venom, “I will annoy the hell out of you.”

Adea had originally planned to say something more menacing, but reined herself in upon remembering what the poor girl had already told about her father. Said pale-haired girl simply gave her a sarcastically large grin.

“Apart from both apparently vying for young Heatherland’s affections…” Artemisia said while rising up from the fountain side once again, following a swig from the carafe of what both had by now decided was claret, “… does this whole series of conversations imply that we are friends now?”

Adea rose as well at the same time as Artemisia, but fell back down on her backside while giggling.

“Oh God no, Lady de Vere,” she managed between fits of laughter, “I certainly don’t hope so, that would prove very troublesome.”

It took a little while before Adea’s inebriated brain recognised the challenge that Artemisia had laid down. Yet the girls looked at each other and smiled.

“We should perhaps venture back inside?” Adea offered and Artemisia nodded, and snapped her fingers upon which a New Forest footman almost magically appeared.

“Me and Lady Sélincourt are about to enter the grand ballroom,” Artemisia said with an actual genuine grin on her face, “would you awfully mind clearing out this mess, and then announce us as we enter?”

Adea, who had held out her arm for Artemisia to loop her arm into, suddenly looked panic-stricken, but the shorter girl reassured her with a smile.

“Oh don’t worry, if my father doesn’t die immediately from a stroke, then we’re going to create headlines at the very least.”

Alabaster teeth split Artemisia’s pale face into perhaps her first genuine grin in a decade.

“And those headline might force young Heatherland to choose sides.”

Adea Sophia Carlisle-St.Eiron didn’t know how to respond to that, and she didn’t have time to as the duo re-entered the muted-green walled ballroom, just as the orchestra was preparing for Schumann’s Op.25, No. 1.