Something happened at dinner last week that I have been thinking about ever since.
Lord Varenthis — Father's cousin, the one who visits twice a year and stays too long and has opinions about everything — looked at Lothwyn and then at me across the table and said to Father, quite casually, as though we were not sitting right there: "Well. One of them will make a fine head of house someday."
Just one.
Father said something smooth and redirecting, the way he does, and the conversation moved on. I ate my soup. I looked at my soup, actually. I was very focused on my soup.
Afterward, Lothwyn found me in the garden and sat down next to me in the way she has, which is to say: without warning and immediately too close. She said: "He means you, you know."
I said I didn't know what she was talking about.
She said: "Yes you do."
Which was fair.
I told her I didn't want it to be like that. I told her it didn't have to be like that between us. She looked at me for a moment the way she sometimes does — serious, underneath all the noise — and then she said: "Aereth. I am going to be a great warrior. I am going to be the best blade in Quel'Thalas. And you are going to run the house and know everything about everyone and be terrifying and correct about all of it. This is fine. This is, actually, the perfect arrangement."
Then she stole a flower from the garden, put it in my hair without asking, and went to bother the groundskeeper about something.
I have been thinking about this ever since.
I don't know if she meant it, or if she said it to make me feel better. I suspect, with Lothwyn, these are often the same thing.
The flower was a good choice.
— Aevynareth