"Ow!"

"Oh! Are you all right?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. Nothing quite like coming home and having a box dropped on me."

"Ooh, I'm so, so sorry! I didn't think they'd ship so many copies here. But, at the same time I feel so excited!"

"I know. I can feel those vibes of excitement from all the way down here under this pile of books."

"I'm sorry! Let me help you!"

. . .

"Are you hurt? Does anything feel broken? Maybe I should go find that box of gels-"

"It's just a bump on the head."

"... right. I'm sorry."

"I-it's fine. You don't need to apologize anymore."

. . .

"And, um, so The Chronicles of Gerald the Knight?"

"Um, yes. From what I gathered, many of the children here like that series but could never afford it. So, I thought, why not publish extra copies and hand it out for free here and in the villages around here!"

"All 20 books in the series?"

"I just couldn't help myself! Every time I finish writing one adventure, Gerald just wants to go on another one. He's impatient! He leaps into the next page, into the next book!"

. . .

"And, um, the result of all that is, most of the house will be a bit... crowded for the next two weeks or so."

. . .

"You're not mad, are you?"

"No, I'm not mad."

"... you look mad."

"I'm not-! Look, I'm just a little annoyed that you sprung this on me out of nowhere."

"I... You seemed so focused on picking out the failures in your colleague's thesis. Not to mention that really important conference today. And I- I didn't want to bother you."

"O-oh."

"Mm-hm."

"... I'm not mad. I'm sorry if it sounded like I was."

. . .

"Dammit, Estelle! Just hug me already!"

"Rita! Hee hee!"

"Besides, I'd rather see you this happy then waste my time on those losers' fail theories."

"Did you say something?"

"No, nothing."

"So how was that conference?"

"It was all right, I guess. Some moron tried to prove me wrong and messed up on his own spell."

"Oh no, what happened?"

"There were explosions."

"What!"

"'Course, being the ignorant fool he was, couldn't even get his own explosions right. So I helped him."

"Oh Rita."

"What?"

This was just. Yeah. I blame my deranged fantasies. .

Though as far as deranged fantasies go, this wasn't that bad.

And as for me, I'd like to imagine that every time Estelle is apologizing her face is set in this DX expression.