Several days after Rhea began her first day on the marksman course, and Darren had his eventful encounter with Coventry, Rhea was enjoying one of her more relaxing mornings in the manor. Mrs Wilby doesn’t work on the weekends, and Rhea wasn’t expected to do so either. Rhea had planned on spending the morning deciphering the books she had received from the school, using helpful information provided to her by Mrs Wilby. That was her plan at least, until there was a loud knock on the door, and Darren asked her to answer it. At the door was a pale man with long black hair, eyes hidden behind tinted glasses wearing a brown suit. He was holding a large leather bag in front of him. He looked down at the girl and smiled. The man was an unknown to Rhea, Darren doesn’t usually get unknown or unexpected visitors, so Rhea figured she must get rid of this guy. “Do you know what time this is? What do you want?”
“I’m here to measure you Rhea.” Immediately Rhea shut the door, locked it, chained it and begun to walk away. A loud knock matched the beats of her steps.
“Okay look that came out wrong, listen, my name is Coventry, Darren asked me to come here.”
“Liar! You’re a creep and you need to leave!!”
“Come on, let me in!! I’ll be good I promise!” Coventry was whimpering at the door, ear pressed against the wood. Darren finally makes an appearance from within his study to tell Rhea that he is expecting Coventry. With great displeasure, Rhea unlocks and opens the front door, letting Coventry flop face first onto the floor of the entryway. “Thankyou.” Coventry quickly stands up, fixing his suit preparing to introduce himself to the young girl.
“Greetings, my name is Barnabus Coventry, though I would prefer if you just call me by my last name, I work as a Librarian part time, though full time I prefer to busy myself with tinkering.” Coventry smirks and takes up a rather grandiose pose, “I am a rather infamous Artificer. It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance Rhea.” Rhea is hiding, half covered behind the door she opened, scowling at the changeling. “It is not a pleasure to meet you however, Mr Coventry.” Rhea says under her breath.
“Just Coventry is fine…” Coventry’s pose is starting to lose some of its grandeur. Darren sighs and begins to make his way back into his study. “Get the work done quickly and leave, I have shit I want to do today.”
“Why of course I will!” Coventry shouts at Darren, who is ignoring him. Coventry’s attention returns to Rhea, “Now if you don’t mind, please take me to your room.”
“I do mind… But if Mr Murphy asked you to be here, I suppose I don’t have much choice.”
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“I’m glad you understand.” Coventry smiles innocently at the annoyed girl. Rhea leads Coventry to her room and waits by the door for whatever outlandish work he needs to do with her. Coventry looks around at the mostly empty room, he was expecting a child’s room to be more crowded with toys and clothes, at the very least to look unkempt. Rhea’s room looked more like the kind of room you would show to prospective buyers of a house, to let them imprint their own idea of what the room should look like. “The room is rather, minimalist, don’t you think?”
“I don’t really know.”
“What I mean is that you don’t have a lot of things in here.”
“That is because I don’t have a lot of things.”
Coventry chuckles to himself, “Yeh, I guess that’s true.” He smiles and turns himself to face Rhea. “In that case I must buy you things.” Rhea grimaces.
“Please don’t, I feel like you would buy me weird things…” Coventry flops to the ground and grabs Rhea’s arm. “Please let me pamper you!!” Rhea kicks Coventry away from her.
“DON’T TOUCH ME! You make me uncomfortable.” Coventry stands up and brushes himself down, he smiles and begins to change form. His size grows smaller, hair growing shorter, slowly his appearance matches that of Rhea, though a little older. “Why do you look like a taller version of myself, AND DON’T DO THAT IT’S CREEPY!”
Coventry laughs away the remark and says, “Well there is a limit to how small I can get, and I figured that perhaps you would be more comfortable with yourself?”
“No, this is worse, cause I know it’s you!” Rhea grimaces once again. Coventry thinks for a second and changes form again, matching that of Darren, but in a vest. Coventry flexes his newfound muscles. “How about this? I can even be Darren with his bulging muscles.”
“Darren doesn’t have any muscles, and this isn’t better.” Rhea crosses her arms disapprovingly. “You would be surprised” Coventry mutters under his breath as he changes his form once again, this time to a blonde girl in her late teens with blue eyes and a beautiful red dress. “Who is this?” Rhea asks inquisitively.
“It’s… uh… does it matter?” Coventry tries to dodge the question.
“I… guess not… why are you here anyway.”
“Just taking some measurements for a gift Darren asked me to make, it’s going to be very nice, so look forward to it.” Coventry smiles wryly. He proceeds to open his bag and retrieve a notebook, pencil and measuring tape from within. “Alright, now T-pose, assert your dominance.”
“What?”
“Just stick your arms out.” Rhea follows his instructions, allowing Coventry to quickly take not of her various measurements in his little brown book. Once finished Coventry nonchalantly tosses his things back into his bag and changes his from to a man with short curly red hair, red eyes, and olive skin. His clothes become baggy, designed for comfort rather than to impress. Rhea cocks her head confusingly, “And who is this?” Coventry looked at her equally as confused, thinking on her question for a couple of seconds.
“This is me. I am done with the work so this is my casual form.” Coventry picks up his bag and smiles. “But since I am done with work I wouldn’t mind hanging out in the manor for a while.” Rhea quickly begins shoving Coventry to the front door, effectively kicking him out.