Christie had to say that it was a bit weird sleeping in the same compartment as Adrien, as the old servant had always slept out of the carriage. Not that she wasn’t against it, she already had told him several times that he should sleep inside, but he always would say “It’s hot inside” or some variation of that, and now that Agatha had joined the trip and occupied the other bench, it seemed like the man would always sleep outside.

  But he didn’t.

  Surprisingly, Agatha decided that she wanted to drive at night. Christie was almost tempted to ask Adrien to teach her too, but she knew that the man could get nearly as protective as her dearest father, so she decided against it. Another thing that influenced her decision was that she knew she would get tired quickly from driving. It was one thing to go riding on Fran?ois like when she was younger, letting the stoneshell go were he pleased, it was a completely different thing to go actively driving a carriage.

  When Christie woke up, she rubbed her eyes and saw Agatha through the driver’s window. Cooking, sewing, acrobatics, driving… Is there anything this seductress of mine cannot do? Then she realized it. Why is she still driving? It is morning already…

  Christie removed her blanket and stepped forward onto the cold floor of the carriage.

  “Agatha, why are you driving?” The nouveau riche said softly so as not to wake Adrien.

  “What are you talking about? I did say I was going to drive.” The villager responded without turning her head to face her.

  “Agatha, it is morning.”

  “Yeah? And wha… oh.”

  “Yes. Oh,” Christie reiterated. “Why have you been driving this long?”

  “I just… uhm… you know… Adrien still has not woken up, and I wanted him to sleep as much as he could.”

  Christie would have bought that excuse; she truly would have, if only Agatha were looking at her when she said those words. But she yet had to turn to face her.

  “Stop this carriage at once,” the redhead commanded, not leaving room for any protests.

  Her dummy demure obeyed and brought Fran?ois to a stop. As for Christie, she woke Adrien up.

  A minute later, she had both of them sitting on the bench of the carriage. “You both should be ashamed of your actions.”

  “I understand the frustration with your friend, but why am I getting lectured, milady?” Adrien scratched his head.

  “Because you are still my servant and you decided to doze off for the whole morning whilst my friend was doing your job,” Christie put emphasis on the word, but that emphasis meant two very distinct things to her listeners. Then her expression softened. “Adrien, if you need sleep, just tell us.”

  “I don’t need any sleep, Christie,” the old servant smiled at her warmly. He had been there her whole life, and it showed. “I already work little as it is, thanks to your father and Diorite; a handful of weeks of tiresome work are nothing.”

  “You better not fall ill,” she threatened him.

  “I would never, milady,” Adrien chuckled. “But now, thanks to Agatha here, we are on a better pace. Lemme change to the horses and we’ll get an even faster one!”

  As the coachman left the carriage and distracted himself with the horses, Christie pressed her hands against the carriage wall, locking Agatha in her cage.

  “You are very, very dummy, mock sapphire,” Christie said sternly.

  “I… it is nothing new, is it?” Agatha chuckled, but she didn’t fool Christie as she had her head turned to the side, still not facing her.

  “Is there something wrong?” Her tone shifted into worry.

  “N-no, not at all,” her inamorata replied nervously, her cheeks gaining color.

  Christie folded her arms, closed onto her, and she gave her a quick peck on the cheek. “I really hope that is the case, mock sapphire. For now, sleep. I will not accept a no for an answer.

  “Do not worry,” Agatha yawned. “You do not have to say it twice.”

  The redhead faked reading a book, and she checked the mock sapphire, making sure that the blonde truly fell asleep. Christie couldn’t help but think if the weird behavior was due to her. After all, she hadn’t been in her best place – mentally and physically speaking – during this early journey. Those thoughts melted away as she observed her lover’s sleeping visage. She was so cute, so attractive, so lovely… It took a lot out of her not to disrupt her sleep, which she might have done if it weren’t for Adrien. Soon her rose thoughts turned into more mundane ones as she scratched her scalp.

  “Ugh, I would kill for a bath.”

  “Sorry about that,” Adrien chuckled behind her.

  “Oh, d-did I say that aloud?” Christie felt her confidence she had built all these last days vanish in a fell swoop as nervousness overtook her.

  “You sure did. But I don’t mind,” he continued chuckling. “If it makes you feel better, we will reach an actual river, wide and deep, in a couple of hours. You and your friend could wash there.”

  “You should wash yourself too, Adrien.”

  “The lady wants to bathe with this old man?” The coachman grinned.

  “No!” Christie instantly responded.

  “Depths!” He burst out laughing gutturally. “I have never heard a more brutal and sudden rejection in my life.”

  “I… am sorry,” she sighed.

  “Don’t be. Completely deserved that one, aye. Anyhow, I’ll try to get a wash if just to remove this stench. I stink like a skunk.”

  “Er… what is a ‘skunk’?” Christie proselytized her confusion.

  “Uhhhh, you don’t know about ‘em?”

  “I cannot say I do.”

  “Nasty buggers that stink. Don’t worry much, you won’t find any here.”

  “All…right?” Christie let the conversation rest and satisfied herself by just looking at her ladylove sleep peacefully.

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  Christina Valasela couldn’t say that she was a jealous person, but she couldn’t deny that it infuriated her to a certain degree how her paramour was able to sleep anywhere, everywhere, and nearly instantaneously. The sweet temptation came to her again like a whispered caress, but Christie was able to hold it back more easily now that she knew that a bath was imminent. After all, if she – let us say – were to do something with her beloved, they at least should be clean.

  Those hours quickly went by, and the whole entourage found themselves at the river. Adrien let Fran?ois and the horses graze free, or rather, drink. The warhorses were satisfied with a bit of water, but the stoneshell looked like he was drinking his weight in water.

  “I’ll take a nap while y’all are washing. Wake me up when the food’s ready,” the coachman waved as he made his way to the carriage.

  “Right…” Agatha affirmed with a mighty yawn. “So, what are we doing here?”

  Her dearest was cute and alluring with all of that drowsiness of hers, so much so that Christie just felt an urge possess her. Every time she interacted with Agatha, she always felt braver than she actually was. It was that teasing desire that gnawed at her, not that different from the pressure she felt from her sea of stones that waited to be released. Only that now she felt all logic being completely defenestrated.

  “You know~” Christie said softly as she put her hands on the braces of her dress. “We wash.”

  And she let it fall to the ground.

  It was such a marvelous reaction that Agatha gave her that Christie’s heart forgot to beat for a moment. She wasn’t experiencing shame as the blonde jumped, covered her mouth, and became livid red. No. The redhead didn’t know what she was experiencing right now as her heart beat even faster, but she could say it wasn’t shame with absolute certainty.

  “I… uhm… er… this… uhh…” The more Agatha spoke – or rather, the more she failed to speak – the more tangible Christie’s experience became.

  You are not fooling anyone. I can see you gazing, the nouveau riche kept those thoughts to herself, mostly because she had promised herself that she wouldn’t tease the villager too much.

  Calmly, Christie squatted and picked up her dress to fold it neatly. She then also removed her sandals. Not as good as boots as far as travelling went, but she wasn’t trekking mountains like during the final exam, so sandals were more than good enough for a carriage ride. Her underwear was last, which she placed on top of her folded clothing, and then she grabbed a basin with a towel and soap that they had grabbed from the carriage.

  “Are you coming or not?” The tall girl asked innocently, as if she were free of blame.

  The water was a bit cold when she stepped into the stream, but she held her reaction as she looked behind to see the petite girl struggle in an internal conundrum. She could almost read her mistress’ thoughts as openly as a book. Agatha stood there squeamishly, her eyes and hands darting around, but she finally seemed to give up and led her hands to the buttons of her shirt.

  Unlike Christie, who had opted for more casualwear, Agatha wore a full travelling attire: a linen shirt, corduroy, and boots. Not as well-equipped as they had been during the final exam, but the redhead perfectly imagined a peasant travelling in such clothes.

  Hmm… why do such common clothes look that cute on her? Is it because she is small and those are the clothing expected from the average well-built countryman, or because she is my lovely sapphire? Christie’s eyes shot wide open when her flame removed her shirt.

  “Oh,” the redhead gasped. There was nothing underneath that linen shirt.

  “C-Christie, do you mind?” The blonde blushed savagely.

  “S-sorry, Agatha,” the nouveau riche now found herself blushing too. She turned her head away and she started making work out of the soap bar. Suddenly, the water didn’t seem as cold as before. “Er… why is it that you are not wearing a brassiere?”

  “I… uhm… I do not need one,” the villager chuckled nervously behind her. “I use it at school just because, well, it feels appropriate. Part of the uniform and all. But as such, you know, er,” the clothes rustled as she spoke, “I do not b-boast a build that requires a brassiere, nor do the fabric of most shirts scratch me. I’m… thick-skinned.”

  Never before had Christie heard such a combination of words, and she chose to ignore them. “Are you not, uh, worried that anything might show through the fabric?”

  “This shirt is too loose for that,” Agatha chuckled again, but Christie didn’t like the tone this time. “Not that there is anything to show.”

  “Nonsense!” Christie felt rage overtake her and turned around to face the petite girl. She was now fully naked. They both blushed. “I… uhm… sorry, but I cannot stand hearing you talk that way about yourself.”

  “W-why?” Agatha took a step backward out of fear.

  No, not fear, Christie realized as her agate embraced her torso. It is self-deprecation. That was a feeling she well understood. Perhaps not applied to the same subject she was used to, but she wasn’t unbeknownst to it either.

  Christie took a step forward.

  Agatha took a step backward.

  Without thinking – as she already expected what would unfurl if she didn’t do anything – Christie let her sea of stones free. There was no need for her Grow ‘command’; everything just moved like she needed. Agatha took another step backward, but before she could take a third one, she hit a wall behind her. The two girls were trapped in a dome.

  The redhead walked out of the water and marched toward her ladylove with lithic footing. The blonde remained in place. Christie knew she was being too aggressive, but at the same time, she was both stupid and a complete stranger to romance. So she used the only way she knew to show the girl in front of her the truth.

  “Agatha,” she said, standing only one step away from her. “You are my girlfriend, right?”

  Girlfriend. It was a word that Christie didn’t dare to utter in her thoughts; it felt too indecorous. And yet, pushing through her shame and ignoring her growing redness, she had uttered it aloud.

  “Y-yes?” Christie saw the confusion in those sapphire eyes, but also the fear, the shame, and the self-hate. And beyond everything else, the dread. It hadn’t been the best selection of words, and Christie could easily read the thoughts Agatha was having as a consequence of it.

  “Do you know why I accepted being your girlfriend?”

  “B-because I, uhmmm, kissed you?”

  “That was the causative, but no. The reason was different,” she bowed ever-so-slightly and pressed her forehead against her seductress. “It is because you make me feel things I have never felt before. It is because just being around you makes me happy. It is because you made me feel loved even if I did not reciprocate. But let me tell you why it was not. Not your body, not your doubts, not your details. I am greedy, Agatha, and I want the whole. Your whole. And I will not stand anyone undermining that, not even you.”

  “I…” The blonde muttered nonsense as she shifted her feet around, gravel displaced at her movements.

  “It seems I have not been specific enough for you to understand, mock sapphire,” so she kissed her.

  Christie pinched Agatha’s upper lip with her teeth as she suckled on it, her tongue infiltrating inside her lover’s mouth from underneath. At first, the blonde hesitated, but forever a seductress she was, as Agatha didn’t take long to accommodate herself to Christie. She accepted the tongue, but wanting far more, the petite girl softly pinched with her teeth the tall girl’s lower lip as she also closed onto her body with an embrace.

  It was a messy embrace, both for their awkward position and their state of hygiene. They reeked because there weren’t clothes in the way to mitigate the smell, but Christie couldn’t care less. She wanted to melt in that radiance. Ah, this is what I live for…

  With ragged breath, both girls separated their lips at the same time. Christie giggled as she saw how Agatha’s lips were slightly swollen from all the fight the redhead had given them.

  “Is it clear now, mock sapphire?”

  “Mmm, I do not know~” Agatha taunted her.

  “I see,” Christie smiled, but she didn’t let herself fall for it; they were against time here. She settled on a kiss on the bridge of her heartthrob’s nose. The forehead felt too impersonal now. “I guess I should be more explicit then. I love you, Agatha.”

  “I…” The petite girl blushed as brightly as she was radiant. She closed onto Christie and kissed her on the chin, as that was the only place she could kiss her – at least on the head – where she reached. “I love you too, Christie.”

  Two weeks. It had been two weeks since they had started dating, but Christie realized this was the first time they were vocal about it, and also the first time that it felt so real. No desire or urge remained in the redhead’s body as it had been utterly evaporated by the blonde’s radiance. The only urge that remained inside her was the desire to remain alongside her girlfriend.

  Then Agatha pushed her away. “But could you be more conscious about your nakedness? I told several times that I am not comfortable with it…”

  As her sapphire pouted, Christie realized that she no longer wanted to tease her, but she wanted her to feel protected and secure. “Of course, I apologize.” She said sincerely. A relationship worked both ways, and whilst it didn’t matter to the nouveau riche if she was teased, she knew that didn’t apply to the seamstress.

  “Uhm… good.” Agatha giggled, taken aback by the sincerity. “Yes, superfluous!”

  Christie found herself giggling. “That is not how you use that word, mock sapphire.”

  “I knew Terráquea was wrong!” Her ladylove stomped on the ground in a fit, only to realize with her own body that they were still bare as her foot met the gravel. “Ow!”

  The redhead’s soft-mannered giggling devolved into a chuckle. “Let us get washed, shall we?”

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