The blueberry jam muffins were good, so, naturally, I bought one more and brought it home for mom to eat. Claire, being the sweetheart she always was, gave me one more as extra.

"Claire, no," I'd choked, tearing up, and she'd laughed in that lilting way of hers.

"This one's a bit deformed, so we can't sell it," she explained, but this thing had barely a nick on it.

Wiping tears from my eyes, I gave her a hug and waved goodbye to both Claire and Dan, and then to Rosa, whose haggard-looking footman was waiting at the front of the restaurant to take her back to the dorms.

I'd turned to her. "You're not staying the weekend?"

Sullen, Rosa had shook her head. "I need to work on my etiquette class project. It's due on Monday and I haven't done a thing."

"Sucks to be you," I'd chuckled, and turned away when Rosa glared at me balefully as she clambered into the carriage.

And now, I was home. Finally.

Finally.

Finally... I could finally finally finally take a nap!!!!!!!!!!

Hm, actually, it just might be better if I slept now and didn't wake up until tomorrow. Nodding to myself, I gave mom a hug and handed her the blueberry jam muffin, explaining how it was a new product at Claire's bakery.

"How was your day?"

"Very exhausting." I rolled my eyes, knowing she couldn't see me. "I'll tell you all about it tomorrow, but for now, I really need to go to sleep." It was only, what, five in the afternoon? But I was pretty sure I could just sleep until tomorrow morning. "I don't have work today."

Mom laughed, her voice tinkling as she said, "In other words, don't wake you up?"

I grinned at her. "Exactly."

"Well, then, don't let me keep you here any longer. Thank you for the muffin."

And with that, I got ready for bed impatiently and had myself lying down before I knew it.

"Goodnight, mom," I called, to which she only responded to with a chuckle.

Turning my head to the side, I snuggled right in, feeling all the tension leave my body. Ahhhh, bed, sweet bed. How lovely to be able to sleep. Finally!

I didn't crash as I'd thought I would. Instead, I lay there, feeling my tired feet tingle from long-overdue rest and the comfort of a blanket pulled over me. It was plenty to be able to let myself relax like this after a long day. I'd been up since 3 AM! This was great.

While reveling in the simple joys of relaxation, Rosa came to mind. I briefly frowned. She had seemed pretty depressed, sulking even more than she usually did after a mislaid plan. Would she be okay?

Eh, I thought, as I drifted slowly, slowly, slowly off into sleep. Rosa would be fine. Probably.

---

Rosa Chesterfield was not fine.

No no, Rosa Chesterfield was currently slouched over her desk in her room, her posture completely unforgivable in the eyes of etiquette. Not that she cared-- no, she could not care less about her horrible posture nor the little dainty square of embroidery that she held in her hands, which no amounts of Heroine Buff™ could save.

Her maid sneaked a very sneaky peek at the little square of embroidery, squinting sneakily at it. (She was very good at being sneaky.) She squinted her eyes, trying to figure out what exactly that was supposed to be. It had reds and oranges and yellows, but they were so entangled with each other that she couldn't tell what it was.

Maybe... a fire? Yes, a fire, that would work. A fire would be as messy and as, uh, spiky? As that thing was. Nodding to herself, the maid undid her sneak and went back to being a very obedient maid.

But that was not important, now was it? What was important was that Rosa Chesterfield was not fine: in fact, she was currently lost. Set adrift. Cast at sea, off-course, out the window. Completely and utterly at a loss for what to do.

Yes, Rosa Chesterfield, mastermind of many plans, was planless.

"And it ain't painless," Rosa mumbled to herself, in an added commentary to a narration... that... she shouldn't be aware of..?

Ahem. Anyways.

Rosa Chesterfield was planless and not painless, and she was suffering.

She remembered every single detail of the last scene in the game, as the ending scene had no skip option and Glitcherman had swooped right in way too many times to steal the show. She'd been forced to watch the same ending scene-- the condemnation of the villainess and all her lackeys-- at least fifty time, Rosa estimated. Ad she wasn't even rounding up.

One of the accusations, in the long list of many (that she had memorized back then, but couldn't remember as accurately now) had been illegal gambling, followed by illegal trade of weapons, which had assisted these villains in the game.

And so Rosa had took a gamble of her own. A gamble that, she'd thought, had the highest possibility of bringing her the most gains with the least risks. I mean, she already had a point of contact into an illegal gambling ring! This was practically fated to be.

Rosa groaned into her arms as she threw her little square to the side and slumped completely over the pretty little desk. She should've known that things would not go so right after the aforementioned illegal gambling ring turned out to be a pre-modern cooking show. And Potato Peeler hadn't even won! Skillet¹teehee, whoever that was²teehee, had swooped in with her impossible rate of success and won³TEEHEE. How dare she!!⁴TEEHEE

Anyhow.

This entire fiasco had two meanings to her. One, that she needed to rethink everything, and rethink everything fast, because Things were going to Happen and she needed to be prepared. Two, that she should never try her luck at gambling because, well, she sucked at it.

"Gambling is bad, kids, don't gamble," she murmured, and somewhere within that universe, a cook who went by the name of Skillet turned to face the nonexistent camera and nodded in agreement.

Now what? That plan had taken ages to form. Now what? Now what? Now what could she do?

Dinnertime passed, she took up the embroidery square again, and no answer came to her. The sun set and night dyed the sky dark, but still no answer came to her. Lights turned off in the windows of the Academy dormitory as one by one, students went to sleep. No answer came to her.

"Gah!" she yelled, throwing the square to the side for the seventy-fourth time (her maid counted) and gripping the edges of the desk, about to flip it.

"Milady," said the maid, and Rosa sullenly put the desk back down.

"Yes, yes," she sighed, then sat back down with her square. Then she looked up, holding that very square up to the maid. "Hey, Bina, what does this look like?"

Bina the maid took a good, long look at the piece. Oh look, some greens had been added to the bottom. Hm. "A forest on fire, milady."

Rosa nodded thoughtfully, looking at the square herself. According to the assignment, she was supposed to have made a flower, or some kind of plant. "That's a good one. I'll say that's what I was trying to make." Yes-- she was trying to make a statement, start a trend and all that. It was still sort of related, and she'd been inspired. Very avant-garde. She approved.

With that, she threw it on the side for the last time and flopped down onto the bed. Ah, bed, expensive bed. As expected of the Academy, their (probably expensive) beds were always so fluffy. And so naturally, she spent the next thirty minutes racking her brains for a new plan, scouring through her options.

Then she lifted her head and announced, "My brains are deep-fried," and proceeded to mentally throw the entire thing to the side of her brain, just like her little embroidered square of a forest fire. That's right, she decided, she didn't need to think up a new plan now. First things first-- focus on the now. She needed to go to sleep so that tomorrow, she can find the Crown Prince for a possible lake event should it happen this weekend. Now, how had that dialogue gone...?

---

Meanwhile, in the royal castle of Durova, the Crown Prince Alexander Forbias felt a shiver go down his spine. He got these shivers sometimes, at the most random moments, and sometimes he even woke up in the middle of the night because of it. (Very coincidentally, nighttime was when Rosa planned best.)

Not today, however-- it was a bit late in the night, but he was currently sitting by the bedside of the King of Durova. His father, in other words.

"Alexander?" the king rasped, and he shook off the shiver to resume his report.

"Please excuse me, father. The Westingtons have agreed to reroute some of their supplies for the royal military. I am to meet with the Baron this following Tuesday."

"Good. And your relationship with the lady of the Lindvall house?"

Alexander paused, then nodded briefly. "Lady Mildred and I have been getting to know each other further," he said. It wasn't a lie-- they had been, even if he couldn't very well say, she saw me up a tree once and then we never talked about it again.

Oblivious to the unnamed struggle within Alexander, the king reclined into his bed, sinking into his pillow. "Good. Very good," he rasped, his eyes going a bit unfocused. "Alexander, boy, your marriage may have been arranged, but that does not mean it must be estranged."

"Yes, father."

"Treat your fiancee well, and you will see that you can find marital happiness. It is not impossible."

"Yes, father."

"I do not say this only hypothetically, my boy. See how your own father and mother have lived. I am sure that you will be able to attain the same relationship."

"....Yes, father."

Alexander bowed his head, as if the cold did not permeate through his heart at the mention of his mother, and as if the thought of having a relationship like his parents' did not cover him with a quiet, heavy blanket of dread.

Yes, perfect Crown Prince Alexander Forbias bowed his head, but as he left the king's quarters, he quietly vowed to himself that as long as he was alive, he would never live to be as delusional as his father was.