Jana collected Adam after the duchess was done with him. Looking at her scared him more than dealing with the duchess. She looked like an axe given hair and facial features. It made him wonder how the children dealt with her, a question that was soon answered.
Jana led him toward Abigail’s room first. He was originally nervous, remembering her previous greeting, but he also remembered how stunned she had looked when the system assistance had taken over and calmed her. He might not particularly like losing control of his actions, but at times there were surprising benefits. It was a bit like a play staring himself.
Telling himself things like that helped to deal with the system’s enslavement of his body, but ultimately he was still terrified of it. What was worse, was that he didn’t understand it. He remembered Szellem stating that it would help him to raise his Class Affinity, but he thought he had actually done that on his own. If he had, then what was the purpose of System Assistance? And if he hadn’t, then how did it affect his Affinity?
Lost in his thoughts, he didn’t realize where they were until Jana knocked on the door of Abigail’s room. Moments later, when the tiny blonde girl opened the door, he had braced himself to be stabbed again, but was surprised at the differences in the girl. She was still the same smaller double of the duchess, but the light that had inhabited the child before was missing. The girl was staring at Jana with a look of… not disappointment, but something deeper?
Adam could feel his skills working away to interpret her expression, searching for meaning, or the reasons behind her huge change in behavior. She’d been a tiny ray of murderous sunshine when he had first met her, but now she had become less radiant than just a cloudy day, she wasn’t even nightfall. She looked more like an extinguished sun, as though there just wasn’t anything left to burn. It wasn’t a physical loss, she looked perfectly healthy, but the spark that had inhabited the child before was gone.
After some study, his skills helped him parse what he was seeing. It wasn’t disappointment, it was apathy. And its cause was standing next to him.
He looked to Jana again, searching for the cause behind Abby’s drastic shift, and noticed the likely cause. The woman’s expression was exactly the same as it had been when he had met her. Nonexistent. He watched her as she spoke, and there was no inflection to her voice, no variance from start to finish. For all intents and purposes, she appeared to have the emotions to match her axe of a face. None at all.
“Miss Abigail,” she spoke in her dead voice. “The boy here, Adam, will be assisting me in your care from now on.”
Abigail looked to Adam, and when their eyes met, he felt the assistance kick in. Beaming a smile at the only slightly shorter girl, he reached out and bopped her nose with a finger. As the light started to come back to her eyes he said, “Hello, princess! I’ve got a cookie with your name on it if you’ve stopped playing with sharp objects.”
Once more, the system assistance kept him from embarrassing himself. When her eyes started to light up, the fear had kicked in again. There was something about her gaze that reminded him of a predator, so he’d immediately begun begging. “Please don’t stab me again! Please, please, please?” If he was being honest with himself, he was more scared of her than he had been of the troll. He knew how to deal with trolls, or at least what to do in a fight, but little girls were another matter. Particularly that one. He could at least stab a troll, but he didn’t have much recourse against his own charge stabbing him.
Life was returning to the girl, but it came faster when her expression turned to confusion. Cocking her head to the side she asked in a higher pitched match of the duchess’s melodious tones, “Stopped playing with them? But… what?”
Adam was nearly as confused as Abigail, watching her look back and forth between him and Jana. Seeing her distress rising, he stepped in to hug her again, once more utilizing Shhhh without realizing. “Don’t you worry about it, sweetie. I’m sure you’ve been a perfect picture of the sweet little girl I know you are.” He gently guided her back into her disaster zone of a room.
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He hadn’t even spoken that time, but, figuring none of it would come out anyways, he started a bit of a rant. “Stupid stabby girl can’t even clean her room. Look at this pigsty. No wonder I’m a slave, you couldn’t pay someone to clean this place.” He was more than a little surprised to hear his words echoed by his system controlled mouth.
“Now, sweetie,” his voice spoke, firmer than before. “Look at this pigsty! I don’t think we pay the servants enough to deal with this mess.” Despite the small difference in their heights, he crouched down so that he was looking up into her now downturned eyes. He tucked a couple fingers under her chin and raised it until her eyes met his. “How about you get started on finding the things in here that you simply must have, and I’ll gather everything we need to tidy it all up. If we get it all done today, we’ll make some cookies, OK?” He beamed a warm smile at her.
She nodded, wide eyed, but Jana ruined it all.
“You will do no such thing. You must meet Master Marcus and the tutor before we move on to the other things that are needed for the day.” He was confused by the lack of emotion in her words while she was attempting to correct and command him. He spotted one of Abby’s little knives sitting on a table, and briefly wished he could use it to stab the unfeeling monster behind him.
He was still debating the proper response when he felt system assistance moving him, turning his head to look back at her guarding the door. He was surprised, as it rarely seemed to care about adults. Still, he cheered it on, “Yeah! Stab that bitch!”
When his voice emerged from his throat he once more didn’t recognize the tone, yet it somehow chilled him to the bone. It was sickly sweet, yet somehow poisoned as well. He even felt Abigail shiver from where his hand was resting on her shoulder. “Well, that won’t do will it? See, I’ve already told this child what we will be doing, so why don’t you run along without us.” He tapped a finger against his lips in a thinking pose, then levelled it at Jana. “Actually, why don’t you toodle along and find Marcus for us. I bet he’d love to spend some time helping his sister with tidying up. As for the tutor, I imagine I’ll meet him at his next class, so there is no need to waste time on an introduction, now is there?”
Despite the tone he had taken with the maid, there was no change to hers. “These are the orders of the duchess and must be followed.”
Adam quirked an eyebrow. On the inside he was nearly giddy with the achievement, having always envied one of the old men at the market that had used it as a bargaining tactic. Someone would offer a price and he’d simply stare at them, slowly raising that single brow. By the time it reached its peak, most people were stammering out a price they never imagined they would climb to. And now it was levelled at an emotionless stone. He didn’t believe even that woman could resist its power for long. He kept a firm grip on Abigail, preventing her from interfering.
He waited.
And waited.
The eyebrow rose just a tiny bit more.
She broke first. “The duchess’s orders are to be followed to the letter.” There was an infinitesimally small quaver to her voice, but Adam heard it.
Beaming a smile her direction, he said, “But, dearie, we are following her orders. I’m meeting sweet, little Abigail now, you’ll be bringing Marcus by, and I’ll meet the tutor tomorrow.”
With no outward change, he found it difficult to know what she was thinking, but her silence was all the indication that he needed that she was, in fact, thinking about something.
Watching her, he noticed a slight tremor travel through the woman. It was followed by a twitch in her cheek, and then a vein appearing on her forehead. Little symptoms like those seemed to make themselves known throughout her body over the next few seconds. Abby tucked herself a little more to the side, keeping him firmly between the two females. He didn’t blame her. He was beginning to think he had broken the poor maid. There was the possibility of an explosion in the future, literal or metaphorical.
Finally she stilled again, frozen like the statue she had seemed to be since he had met her. Abruptly, her mouth opened and closed a few times, as though she was attempting to speak but had no words. She stopped, and he could see her visibly swallow, then she spoke. “Marcus. Tea.” As though those two words explained everything she turned and walked away.
Adam, deeply disturbed by what had just happened, could do nothing but watch her leave. Turning to Abigail he saw that she was just as lost as he was.
Seeing her did help start the system assistance again. It had paused like everything else when the maid began behaving so bizarrely, so he was glad something was working again. He watched his hand tickle Abigail behind her ear, and smiled at the girl’s giggle. She blinked, surprised to hear that noise come from herself. Interrupting her introspection, he said, “Come now, dearie. Let’s get started shall we?”