"She… she learned table manners?" the Duchess Claes gasped, eyes glistening with unshed tears.

Maria nodded as Keith gave his mother a concerned look. "Yes. In fact, she used a dinner etiquette example as a simile during a conversation we had. Correctly."

The Duchess covered her mouth with one hand, too overwhelmed to resort to affectation with the fan. She closed her eyes, as if trying to recover her poise and stamina. Maria held back on any further shocks. Finally, the duchess opened her eyes. "Lady Maria," she said evenly. "You are a Saintess, for you have performed a miracle. If we still had religions and gods, I would say you are blessed by one of them."

Oh, please no. The last thing she needed was the attentions of a Great One. That was unlikely to end well.

Maria kept this out of her face as she accepted the words in the spirit in which it was given… probably. Her grace WAS nobility, after all. "It was merely my responsibility to my squire, your grace," she said.

The door opened, and Rafael came in, looking mildly bemused as he led Prince Alan and Lady Mary into the room, their servants joining the line with Sadako off to one side. "Hey everyone," Prince Alan said, looking as aloof as usual. "Fancy meeting you all here, right Mary?"

"Yes indeed, Prince Alan," Mary said brightly. "Hello Maria. I see your crops are looking as bountiful as usual. How are the children? How's Shana?"

"Doing well, Lady Mary," Maria responded as the two seated themselves. "I believe they're bringing their sheets down to the laundry right now. And Shana is fine. I'm sure she'll be glad to hear you are visiting."

"Did you happen to send out some invitation I wasn't aware of?" her fiancé asked as he sat back down next to her. "Because when this many people come to visit, it's usually to see your squire."

Maria shook her head as her grace raised an eyebrow.

"Now, now, Rafael," the Third Prince said with an easy smile. "Coincidences do happen, after all. Perhaps we all just happened to want to see our good friend Maria at the same time." Since the subject under discussion wasn't Katarina Claes, his highnesses helmface was perfect, giving no clue whether he was being sincere or sarcastic.

If the Duchess had been absent, Maria would have retorted with something cutting and sarcastic. As the Duchess was there, all she said was, "I am glad to have you all visit my humble estate."

The Duchess frowned. "Speaking of which… I could have sworn I've been here before…"

"This used to be the Dieke estate before the entire family was arrested and utterly annihilated for dark and unspeakable acts," Rafael said, sighing wistfully in joyful remembrance. "Maybe that damned woman rot in the Abyss."

"He refers to the Marchioness Dieke," Keith helpfully told his mother.

"Ah, say no more," the Duchess nodded. "I completely understand. I've encountered many Marchioness-to-be when I was young." She shook her head. "Many of them are completely useless. Lady Mary, I hope you don't grow up to be such."

"Oh ho ho ho ho," Mary laughed. "Worry not, your grace. My eldest sister is the one inheriting. There's no risk of me becoming some twisted, scheming, conniving, vile Marchioness."

On her grace's other side, Keith gave Mary a flat look that said that elevator had risen a looong time ago, and who did she think she was fooling? Though Maria had to admit, it was technically true. After all, Mary wasn't a Marchioness.

A Katarina Interlude

After a full morning of doing lance drills as she had been taught by Dame Alicetaria, Katarina was quite ready for lunch, and had been thrilled when Anne had come down to tell her Maria-chan was having her come up to the castle to review her etiquette lessons. While it meant it took longer to eat, she was at this point reasonably confident in her table manners and meal etiquette that she no longer had to worry about losing Shana-sensei any dessert.

Her confidence took a lot of damage, however, when Anne had warned her that her mother would be there.

Her mother! Argh, she wasn't ready for this! She didn't know enough etiquette! Her mother would find something wrong with her, she just knew it! And Maria would need to dock Shana dessert points for not teaching Katarina properly! Not only was she going to get scolded, but she'd get Shana in trouble too!

And not just her mother, but all her friends would be there as well, meaning mother would be extra strict with her since there was company!

If this wasn't a setup for a bad end, it was at least a hellish, exacting mini-game that asked for absurd timing that not even a guide could help you with!

Still, as Shinji said, she mustn't run away! Because she had nowhere to runaway to! But also, since she was training to be a knight, and knights weren't supposed to run away unless it was ordered as a retreat, or they were trying to make room to start throwing magic at the problem!

And she wasn't a mess like Shinji, of course. She was a well-balanced, normal young woman!

Nodding to herself, filled with determination if not confidence, she took a quick shower to get to smell of sweat off her, but on the dress Anne had brought for her to wear at lunch, belted on her wooden sword and strode determinedly into battle!

It was even a familiar battlefield! That lightened her mood. The small dining room was where Shana and she had spent a lot of time together as the younger girl taught Katarina as she'd been taught by Mary, as she interpreted the dizzying, incomprehensible text of mother's book and made them something Katarina could actually understand. Sometimes barely, that was true, and sometimes she strongly disagreed about it, but that was a separate matter from Shana actually teaching it to her well enough that she could make an informed opinion… or something like that.

Her friends were there too, at least. And Cousin Mashu! AND Rafael! Ah, she wondered if Maria had unlocked the H-scenes yet. She listened carefully every day, trying to hear if Maria was humming the Fortune Lover sec-scene music like Anne was. So far, it didn't seem like it. Sometimes she wondered if instead of the normal Fortune Lover, she'd been sent to some watered down, all-ages remake, or if she was in the American version where all the good stuff had been cut out… But no, Anne was humming the music, so maybe Maria just wasn't initiating the scene yet.

Such a pure Main Character-type…

Oops, her thoughts had wandered again! Right, lunch! Well, everyone was here. That made her feel better, although she knew they would help her or give her little hints. Maria had made it very clear that anyone who did that would get no dessert and would no longer be invited to dinners. Her sensei was cruel but fair like that. Very, very cruel, but fair.

Katarina put on her brave face and remembered all her lessons with Shana. She remembered all the dinners, all the practice with the help of the other children, and the way she'd had to conduct herself in the two parties she'd been to since. She could do thi—

She saw her mother's stern face as she gave a knightly gesture of greeting, that bow Maria did, and which she had been taught.

AAAUUUGGGHHHHH! She couldn't do this! She was going to get scolded, she knew it! This was mother, there'd be no pity-pass or only testing her on specific parts that they'd studied! This was too much, it was too hard, she…!

—Katarina stared at the textbook before her with a feeling of having done this before. She distinctly remembered having read this page already, but not remembering anything that came before it… just like she was reading this page right now but barely remembering everything that came before it—

…she…!

— She stared at the words written on the back of the test paper as Lady Maria took it back: "DON'T FORGET!-!-!-!-! SAME TEST NEXT WEEK!-!-!-!-!" It was in her handwriting—

…she…

—Reading this book was obviously very hard for you. You barely managed to remember anything in a mere 26 pages. You're obviously not suited to be a knight. You should just stick with what you can do, and what's easy for you. Farming, you're good at that, Lady Katarina. Not being a knight. You tried your best, but you failed, so you're obviously not good enough. So just give up being a knight, Lady Katarina. It's only making you unhappy and it's really hard—

…

—You're no good at studying, and you need to study a lot if you want to become a knight. There's no one to help you, no one to give you notes. No one to remind you of what the test will contain. No talented friends that will just give you the answers—

…

—"I want to be a knight."—

Katarina blinked, and she was standing back in the familiar room where she had worked so hard, where her teacher had praised her on her progress, where she had done her best, and her best had been enough. The familiar weight of her sword rested at her side, and the slight ache in her hands from wielding the still-unfamiliar training lance in drills was comforting, as if she'd just spent a full day using her favorite hoe to spread her seeds into the fertile womb of the earth. She was just straightening from her bow, facing her mother and her friends, all of them quiet and looking at her expectantly.

She had nothing to fear. If she was scolded, she was scolded. She was prepared to be scolded! She would go beyond the scolding! She would embrace the failure and learn to be better.

This was just something else she had to learn, a set of moves she had to mindlessly drill in again and again until she git gud. She could do that. Mindless drilling was her specialty!

Except shield parrying. Shield parrying was stupid.

Katarina— Squire Katarina Claes smiled. It wasn't her regular, happy smile, with all her face that she felt in her cheeks, the smiled that bubbled up from her soul, the smile that called to the blood of the Adeth within her. It was her fiancé's smile, cool royal and black-hearted. It was Mary's smile, polite and popular and Mary Hunt. It was Maria's smile, as befitting a main character, showing her strength even in hardship. It was her mother's smile, small yet precious. She smiled as she'd seen the most proper, most etiquette'd people she knew smiled, even as she poured her sincere emotion and gladness into it.

She opened her mouth to greet them…—

Katarina made one final bow of goodbye as she stepped out to return to the knight's dormitory so she could get changed back into training clothes and continue with that afternoon's scheduled training. The door shut behind her and for a moment, there was only perfect silence in the small dining room of Maria Campbell's manor.

Then Duchess Claes collapsed, weeping into her hands, her smile positively Katarina-esque. Mary Hunt had immediately put a handkerchief in her mouth and pulled on it so hard she it had ripped, while Keith just sat there, slack jawed. The Third Prince was simply staring at the door, a few stains on his front due to not watching what his hands were doing all through the meal, while Prince Alan had the look of someone who was denying the evidence of his senses because the evidence presented was complete nonsense. Sophia had started muttering what sounded like book titles, as if she was going through every book she'd ever read in her head in an effort to make some sort of comparison to what she'd just witnessed. Only Nicol seemed unperturbed, but his face always looked like that, and he was staring at the door where she'd gone out too.

Poor Dame Matthew looked completely confused, as if she had suddenly found herself in a room full of lunatics after what had been a perfectly unremarkable lunch filled with bland but not-unpleasant conversation.

"Well," Rafael finally said, his surprise at Katarina's behavior the most understated, "that happened."

Maria sat calmly drinking from her cup. She was not smug. She was definitely not smug. No, she wasn't smug about her squire (!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!) at all.

Cut Content: Alternate Opening

"She… she learned table manners?" the Duchess Claes gasped, eyes glistening with unshed tears.

Maria nodded as Keith gave his mother a concerned look. "Yes. In fact, she used a dinner etiquette example as a simile during a conversation we had. Correctly."

The Duchess covered her mouth with one hand, too overwhelmed to resort to affectation with the fan. She closed her eyes, as if trying to recover her poise and stamina, shaking her head. "No…" she whispered.

"'No' what, your grace?" Maria asked.

"Don't give me hope…" Duchess Claes pleaded.

Maria bowed chivalrously. "I'm sorry I couldn't give it to you sooner."