Mother Lily really was right: thou-shalt-not-stop-me Rosa in planning mode was, very much, preferable to woe-be-to-me Rosa in moping mode.

But still, annoying was annoying, and right now she was more than annoying. Why?

You see, Rosa had a lot of places at her leave. She had the dorms, probably some sort of study space in the Academy (like, you know, the library! I've heard great things about libraries! Like the fact that they have lots of books!), and, even if it wasn't the largest space ever, she had her own house. Which was right down the road.

And yet, here she was, sprawled on the floor of my home, our relatively small room above the restaurant, to work on her oh-so-important plans. To make matters worse, the papers she was so proud of were scattered all over the place.

I loomed over her threateningly for the third time. "Rosa, can you please go plan somewhere else?"

"...Else... That's right, Count Else is having a ball... maybe I can use that...? Genius."

I frowned. Did she, did she just call herself genius..?

Shaking that off, I put my hands on my hips. "Can you not be in our room, at least? It's getting so messy in here. Go downstairs, the restaurant isn't even open yet." I gestured at the door. "It's right there for you to use."

"Use, that's right. As in, double-u's. W's. Letters!" She tapped the end of her little feather quill pen on her cheek. "Connections. Resources. Classmates. Ohhhhhh, that just might work."

"That's great" I said dryly. "I am getting a major sense of deja vu."

"Dejah Voo? Who's that, a noble house I don't know of?" she murmured. She looked up at me, her golden eyes unfocused. "Do they go to our school?"

My last layer of patience cracked. "Alright, that's it!" I snapped. "Rosa, we are going downstairs with your sheets of paper right now and you cannot stop me! Or else I'm telling-- I'm telling-- I'm telling Mother Lily!"

She gasped, scrambling up. (Oh, now she hears me clearly.) "Wait, no, mistress landlord! I'm so close!! Don't evacuate me on such short notice, please! I am literally so close--"

When she tried to clasp my knee with her two ink-stained hands, I shook her off roughly. "Too late, young lady! It's downstairs or else!"

"Aww, c'mon, I have nowhere to go," she whined. She opened her eyes as wide as they could go, but ha! Too bad for her! I was already immune to the Golden Stare.

"Nowhere to go?" I threw my hands up into the air. "Out of all the people I know, you have the most places to go!"

"No, I mean, nowhere secretive enough for me to go! I don't know where Snow White might be, so I need to be someplace I know I can trust," she wailed, but I only crossed my arms and stared her down.

When I didn't reply for a long while, she let me go and sulkily got onto her feet.

"Fine." She tossed her hair back in a wave of sparkles. "But you better know that your disruption of my work is not appreciated! And that, and that Auntie Ava's on my side!"

I turned to where Mom was seated by the table, her knitting needles in her hands, and she smiled as if she could sense us looking at her. "Of course I am, my dear Rosa."

I made an exaggerated gasp as Rosa sneered. "See? Heh."

And with that, she gathered up her papers and harrumphed herself out the room.

"Oh, thank goodness she's gone," I groaned once the door was shut behind her. I sat on my bed and flopped down, my arms spread wide on the bed. "All those places she can be, and she chooses to bother me!"

"What is she trying to do again?" Mom asked while I marveled momentarily at my accidental rhyme. Her voice was soft with amusement. "World domination, was it?"

I rolled to my stomach and gave her a mock glare. "It's not funny, Mom. She's really doing things out there." Dangerous things.

"Oh, come on, It's not like she's out there stopping wars and chasing princes, now could she?" A smile tugged up the corners of her lips, but I could only sigh, flopping back down onto the bed.

"Haha, very funny," I said dryly.

If only she knew.

....unless she did know. Mom was pretty good at reading people. I don't think we've ever said anything so incriminating before... or wait, knowing Rosa, she probably did, and with Mom's good hearing, she probably heard her. 

My sigh turned into another groan, and I kicked my legs out into the air. "Ugh," I grumbled.

Rosa acting hectic these days was stressing me out. Not because she was being extra annoying-- if I really thought about it, that was something I was very used to, and I hadn't been this annoyed by it before. No, this time it was a bit different.

And if I was right, it was because this time I knew what she was trying to do, and I knew how impossible it seemed.

Because come on! Even if this was Rosa we were talking about, we were just two girls!! And if every single one of what, seventeen prophecies? I didn't remember the exact number, but if every single one of them had a war, then didn't that mean it was pretty dang assured that there would be a war no matter what? Wasn't that how divination worked?

I frowned. Not that I could trust myself on that. I really didn't know a thing about how divination worked. And Rosa had seemed like she'd only compared it to divination and prophecies, so maybe that wasn't right?

Anyways, that didn't matter. What mattered was that I was stressed out and frustrated, and I didn't really know why, except that Rosa's planning was all part of it. I wished we could just skip right to the end, where we would have our happily ever afters, so that I didn't have to lie here in stress trying to wrap my head around this impossible task.

But alas, here I was, mulling for the fifth time in the last two days how we would get through this alive.

Oh, I thought, as that last thought struck me once more, folding my hands onto my stomach and staring up at the beams of ceiling. Maybe that's what I'm really afraid of.

---

"I'm afraid I'm going to die." I said the words aloud, tasting the words in my mouth, checking how I felt. Yeah, sounded about right. "I'm afraid something will go wrong and I'll get executed, or Rosa will get executed, or we'll just end up in a back alley somewhere, dead."

Whew. I know I said that, but that sure was morbid. Good thing I was saying this with nobody I know around me on my way to get some groceries! 

"Um?" said a tentative voice behind me. I whirled around with a gasp, and came face to face with Ryan.

"Ryan!" I cried cheerfully, giving him a bright smile, like I hadn't just been voicing out my deepest fear into the world. "Whatchu doing over here?"

"Uh..." He raised up his little folded paper bag. "Going--" He cleared his throat. "Going grocery shopping?" 

Kindly ignoring how his voice cracked, I thwacked him on the shoulder in a friendly way. "That's good! I'm going grocery shopping too. Wanna go together?"

He seemed a bit hesitant, but the lanky boy gave me a nod, and I fell in stride with him comfortably.

..At least, I probably seemed comfortable on the outside. My Customer Service skills meant I could masterfully look pleasant and calm on the outside while fire raged in me on the inside, though this time it wasn't fire but a flood of awkwardness.

Ooh, what an awkward situation. He looked like he was feeling pretty awkward.

Yeah, this was awkward.

Really? Ryan? You had to be there? At that exact moment? Really?

Anyways, this called for one thing: it was time to talk his ear off so he could forget he ever heard it in the first place. Always worked.

I launched into rapid-fire right away. "You know, the other day, I saw Mr. Rowlandson's new horse. He got a goat earlier, you know, but I think he sold it? I've no idea, but Auntie Dela hasn't talked about the goat for months.¹The author totally hasn't talked about Mr. Rowlandson's new goat until now because she forgot its existence. Totally. They might still have it, though. Not too sure-- Auntie Dela doesn't come around as much now. She seems pretty busy. Have you seen them around recently?"

"Mr. Rowlandson?" Ryan asked.²Please assume that in every sentence Ryan speaks, his voice cracks comically. That's just how things be around here.

"Yeah, your next-door neighbor? Tall, always looks grumpy, has a really cool hat?"

He fiddled with his folded-up bag. "He has a cool hat," he agreed absentmindedly. "Haven't seen the horse."

"Yup! Good for them-- Auntie Dela's always complaining about her bad knees, so having a horse around should be good for her health."

We talked about their neighbors a bit more, just some mindless chatter, and then moved onto a bunch of new topics I introduced at high speed until we reached the vegetable stalls. Fortunately, Ryan seemed to have forgotten about the entire death spiel that he'd probably overheard, and was now going really in-depth about every single detail of his new boots. 

"The sole is so brown it could almost be black," he informed me proudly, in a way that sorta reminded me of Rosa.

"Oooh!" I said obediently.

"I never wear it on days that're too sunny-- 'cause it'll kick up dust, y'know-- and after it rains. I've been scrubbing it every night so it keeps clean."

"Wooow," I enthused for him. "What passion. What drive!"

"Yeah," he said, his shoulders squared back happily.

I chuckled. Aww, good for him. Ryan always got into trouble for his rebellious streak, and Rosa always barked at him for it. I saw him sullen more often than not, so it was good to see him so happy over something so small.

"Well, as much as I'd like to keep hearing about your wonderful pair of boots-- you better thank Rosa for that, by the way-- I think we're here, and I need to go to the butcher's after this, so we'll have to part ways." He nodded, looking around, and I patted him lightly on the shoulder. "Tell Mother Lily I said hi!"

"Okay," he said, his voice cracking for the last time, and he cleared his throat in embarrassment. I only gave him a snort and waved him away, watching him go with a warm heart. As moody as he could be, he was a good kid at heart. And yep, mission success-- the only time he'd ever go back and think about what he'd heard me saying would be probably in the middle of a random night, really randomly, as he tried to fall asleep or something. Eh, that was the best I could do.

With that feeling of satisfaction, I headed towards the cabbage stall, when--

"What's got emo Ryan so happy?"

"Gah!" I yelled, throwing myself forward. I twisted around, my eyes wide. "What! Rosa?!"

The brown-haired girl stared at me with indignance written all over her face. "He didn't even say thank you properly when I gave him the boots, and then he waxes poetic about it to you now?"

"Um, yes?"

"Hmph! He really doesn't appreciate me enough." She flipped her hair back, and I straightened with a roll of my eyes.

"The two of you really are the same, aren't you?" I sighed.

Rosa raised an eyebrow. "What exactly are you implying?"

"What do you think I'm implying?"

"That I'm an emo kid who doesn't know how to say thank you?"

I gave her an obviously fake smile as I passed her to get to the cabbage stall. "You said it, not me."

As I heard her signature dramatic gasp behind me, I couldn't help but smile for real. "Are you going to help me, or what?" I called back.

"Wait," she called back, and I stopped in my path, the smile still on my lips.

"Hmm?"

She locked eyes with me, and the smile fell from my face almost immediately. Ohhh no. I knew that look.

I knew that look, and I did not like it.

"Okay, whatever you're going to say--"

"You promised," she reminded me. "You promised to help me. No take-backs."

I held up my two hands. "Then you better keep your end of the agreement, too! I'm not doing anything drastic."

"No, it's nothing drastic. And it's not even going to be soon," she scoffed, then slung an arm over my shoulder to guide me towards the cabbage stall. "No," she continued in a low, almost sinister voice, "you're just going to be my messenger."

---

A/N: Run away, Filian!

Anyhow, this is a very late and sort of long chapter (to sort of make up for the last two weeks ._.), but I must also inform you that I will have to go on hiatus for the next two weeks too because I am moving countries! Whoo! Here comes the pain and the lack of wifi!

To soothe us all of some of the pain (?) while we wait, I present you: random but accurate TWAN³This is short for They Were All Nobles, aka this very story ahaha quotes I got from the random quote generator back when it was all the craze. >:)

Can't believe it's already end of August⁴every start of the week, by the time I came to my senses it would always already be Wednesday and I don't know why, but I hope everyone sees a great start to the new month! :D Stay safe!