24.
Verum's quarters were exactly like Toby expected. First of all, they were up another ridiculously long set of winding stairs. The fairy godmother-in-training's rooms were set on no less than five different levels, with various stairways, ramps, and ladders spanning the distances, which varied from a step up to about five feet up. Toby was reminded of one of those hampster houses she'd seen in a pet store.
In every spare space, stacked high against the walls all the way up to and indeed around the various paintings and wall-hangings, were various scrolls, books, and parchments in a littered mess. Various things like feathers, bottles with unknown teeth and other items in them, and boxes of every size and shape, were scattered amongst the stacks.
Verum herself was sitting in amongst a pile of books, a huge, dusty looking one open across her knees. Toby blinked at Verum. "Good to see you're no longer small, furry, and big-eared."
The silver-haired young woman looked up at Toby and blinked. "Oh, that only lasts as long as I'm wet."
Toby couldn't help but laugh softly, shaking her head. "I'm sorry, but... you turn into a rabbit every time you get wet? Isn't that a bit.. inconvenient? Do you have to make sure you carry an umbrella with you all the time?
Verum tilted her head, tapping her lower lip. "Well. It's not plain water that does it. It has to be special water from a spring with a willow tree growing near it collected under the full moon and stored in a glass bottle with rose petsals in it." Toby stared at her, opened her mouth, then closed it, deciding it was better not to say anything. She shook her head and Verum giggled at her. "Everything has a weakness, even fairy godmothers in training."
"I suppose that's a good thing," Toby replied, though quietly she wondered how anyone figured out such a strange and convulted weakness as that.
"Well, Princess, I'm glad you're here. We have so much to talk about." Verum suddenly flounced to her feet and immediately started flinging papers all over. "We have to talk about what you'll wear, who you'll go with -- Fizzybink, of course, as is only proper -- what your title is going to be, if you want to ride in on Valiance, oh, dear, there's just so much to do!" She hummed happily, dancing about Toby as the brunette stood there in mortified horror.
"No no no!" Toby grabbed Verum mid-flounce, resisting the urge to shake her. "Look. No fancy ceremony. I want as few people to be there as you can possibly get without majorly offending anyone. Just say the stupid words and let me get back to trying to be as invisible as possible, okay?"
Verum blinked at Toby. "But... you're a Princess. You're the very epitome of not-invisible, dearie."
"I didn't ask to be a Princess," Toby said with the feeling that she and Verum had had this conversation many times and probably would continue to have it. Verum just didn't seem to understand that Toby didn't want all the pomp and circumstance that most royalty seemed to desire. Or at least be used to.
Verum tapped her lower lip. "Fine. A small ceremony before the Ball. Just the Queen, Fizzybink, and a couple of other important nobles."
"Thank you," Toby said, relief creeping over her. At least there was that...
"Well, now that's settled, how are you liking Avalon?" Verum turned to look at Toby, her eyes sparkling. "Happy to see Dominic back, perhaps...?"
Toby wrinkled her nose. What was she implying, anyway? "I guess. I just hope he doesn't fall on his sword or anything like that. I'd hate to have to explain that to his mother. She likes me, but I don't think she likes me that much..." She meandered among the stacks of paper, glancing over them idly. They seemed to be on diverse of topics and in diverse of languages as any library's collection back in the mundane world.
Mundane world. Now she was even talking like them.
"I'm glad you have a proper Knight. Not that Georgette isn't, but she's got her hands full, what with Theo and everything..."
Toby looked up at Verum, one eyebrow arching. "What do you mean, 'with Theo'?"
Verum blinked at Toby. "No one's told you? Georgette is Theo's foster mother. Or at least as much as a mother as you can be to a giant lizard like that. She's the reason that Theo is able to live here in the Fairy Court like he does."
Toby tried to imagine a giant blue dragon fitting into Avalon and failed miserably. Still, she shook her head, her brow furrowing. "But why do they..."
"Fight? Simple, really. Georgette has no attention for anyone or anything that isn't a good warrior. It isn't that she thinks less of scholars and the like, it's just that she has nothing in common with them. So she just wastes no time making small talk. So Theo seeks her attention the only way he knows how -- by fighting her."
"Oh," Toby said quietly. In an odd sort of way, it made perfect sense. She knew sometimes she wondered if her own mother cared about her because she wasn't as interesting or crazy as Dominic and Dominic's mother were.
"But, enough of him. He'll be gone soon enough," Verum said with a dismissive wave of her hand, apparently content that the subject had been given all of the time that was necessary for it.
"What? Gone? What do you mean?" Toby couldn't help the alarm that shot through her. Apparently it was more alarm than was warranted, because the fairy godmother-in-training looked over at her with another one of those disapproving frowns. Toby hated those frowns. It was the same one she'd fixed on Toby and Theo when they were sitting talking on the back porch swing.
"Well you can't expect us to want him around a Princess all the time. He's already tried to kidnap you once, we can't know what he'll do next."
Toby's stomach twisted into knots of anger and sudden fear, though she wasn't sure what she was afraid of. "What gives you the right to do that?!"
Verum frowned at her again and it only made Toby angrier. "I'm your fairy godmother..."
"In training," Toby spat. "And you know, with the track records you fairy godmothers seem to have, I think my luck is better off with the "evil" dragon."
"What are you talk--"
"When were you planning on telling me that the real reason that the Fairy Godmother isn't around and I get an apprentice is that she went rogue and is in all likelyhood the one who's trying to make me disappear? Don't you think that would be good knowledge for me to have just in case she decides to show up again?"
Verum frowned. "She hasn't gone rogue."
"Then why did she break the trolls' most valuable possession?" Toby patted the sword hanging from her belt emphatically.
"We don't know," Verum admitted with a sigh. "But if there is one thing I can tell you, Princess, is that the Fairy Godmother would never try and make you disappear. That's the last thing she would have wanted. The Princesses' disappearances... she obsessed over them. She was determined to find out who was responsible so that there would be Princesses once more."
"So it's okay that she broke Kjavaeos because she was just trying to help? Does it also make it okay for you to just send away someone who's important to me just because of 'maybe's or 'what if's?" Toby's hand had curled around the sword's hilt, and to her it seemed warm against her skin. Probably just her imagination.
"... fine. He can stay, but I don't want you alone with him at any time. We have too much riding on you, Tobias. You're too important, we can't take any chances," Verum said in a soft, soothing voice that did nothing to soothe Toby's ire.
"So now I can't take care of myself?! You're ridiculous!"
Verum pulled back, blinking at Toby. "Why are you getting so mad? I said he didn't have to go."
The brunette realized she was clenching the sword tightly, so she forced herself to relax. "... I think I should be going," she said, finally. She was frustrated with herself, too. Why did it seem like every time she ran into someone she ended up yelling at them? This was all too much drama, too much work. Isolation was so much nicer...
"Princess, I.. I realize that all this has been very difficult on you and that you're very stressed. Perhaps... Perhaps you should try something relaxing. There are caves beneath the Courts that have heated pools. How about a nice, hot, quiet dip?"
That actually did sound really nice. Toby considered for a moment, then regarded Verum with a stern eye. "And no mention of anything 'Princess' related. And!" she held up one finger to interject before Verum could say anything else. "I want a book to read."
The corner of Verum's mouth twitched and she clasped her hands in front of her. "Certainly, Princess. Consider it done."