Main Wing

  The following days nothing exciting happened, the routine was mostly the same, the books the Duke had delivered to Veronique’s room were mostly about the history of the Circles and the effects of the Labyrinth on the world, which completely excluded Veronique’s theory about this world being a post apocalyptic one because the included world map was clearly not the Earth she was familiar with.

  Humans weren’t even world wide spread there was only one Human kingdom, a couple of Undead ones of which only one neighbored with them and apparently the Avians were settled somewhere secret roughly to the other side of the world, some acting as errant merchants and the only source of information we have for the outside.

  Apparently pretty much any beast introduced in by the Labyrinth had the tendency to attack humans on sight, so it was really hard for a human to travel in the wild.

  No wonder they couldn’t find much of their lost history, humans were still struggling to get back even just this continent…which from the map wasn’t even that big, probably smaller then Australia but there wasn’t a precise scale noted anywhere.

  Through the short readings she did before bed Veronique found out that the Labyrinth had pretty much fucked over the entire ecosystem causing the mass extinction of many animals with the introduction of other species or leaving their body irreparably altered from the power it radiated.

  Most of the times it was minor physical things, for example Humans simply got colorful hair…but scorpions on the other hand…

  ‘The old hag was right, I would never want to face one of those’ she had thought when she read about it.

  Honestly the only big hurdle in her way, besides the utter boredom that Miss Hawkings’s lessons gave her and the struggle to memorize everything plus applying such knowledge, was her temper.

  It was getting increasingly more difficult to stay calm and collected while dealing with Alexander’s quips and having to follow those bullshit rules nobles had.

  She did feel a bit calmer after taking whatever tea was given to her, but it wasn’t by much and she wasn’t entirely convinced the tea was doing anything at all.

  Probably the best way to deal with it would be by working out her aggression towards something like hitting something, but she couldn’t even do that because of the bullshit rules that want her to act as a meek and refined doll.

  It was frustrating to not be able to tell off people and Veronique was acutely aware that she simply wasn’t cut out to be a noble.

  However since Alexander was set to inheriting the Duke’s title then Veronique could already imagine that her permanence there was on a time limit and while she didn’t want to be a noble she wasn’t so naive to think she would have an easy life as a commoner.

  The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

  Her best bet to make it in this world was without a doubt to leave the Aurelia on her own terms before Alexander took over, probably even move outside the Aurelia’s influence all together cause she couldn’t be sure he would let her be and live in peace, to do so she needed get her own business going without attaching herself to the Aurelia’s name but she had no idea on how to do that and she was too little to even start to try so her only choice at the moment was to keep playing along and soak as much knowledge as she could.

  Mos and Bos’s fate was also uncertain, if there was a positive thing from the Labyrinth was that dogs gained a longer lifespan.

  Now they could hit at around thirty five before reaching old age and could live as long as around fifty.

  Veronique had no idea what would happen to them when she was kicked out, and there was a real possibility of Alexander being a dick and taking them from her even if she did leave on her own, since her poor puppies probably counted as propriety of the Aurelia, so as the first thing she had to find a way to gain the ownership of her dogs.

  She was starting to feel overwhelmed about all the things she had to do, given the utter failure of her last live she felt utterly inadequate to accomplish anything and would have already given up on everything if it weren’t for Mos and Bos.

  She had to be better for them and with that in mind she took a big sigh, buried her ever growing rage and entered main dinning room for breakfast.

  The sight that greeted Veronique was quite surreal, she wasn’t even sure what she was looking at.

  There was a floating ball of light hovering right over Alexander’s palm, which he was showing to an excited Rhea, who noticed her entrance

  “Veronique! Look its light!” she called her over, which the redhead did if only to stare at it with puzzled look “they are going teach us today, I going to make mine so big!”

  “…okay” Veronique slowly said ‘So those skills are magic?’

  “Rhea be serious, skills are nothing to joke around with” the Duke reprimanded her

  “Don’t worry so much dear, it’s the easiest of skills as well as the most harmless” the Duchess would say

  “Isn’t it embarrassing that the oldest of us doesn’t even know her base skills?” Alexander just had to point out

  “Alexander-” “Ever heard of the story of the tortoise and the hare?” Veronique interrupted the Duchess, Hanging Jaw, who was already waiting by Veronique’s spot, started making panicked movements

  “What nonsense are you talking about now?” he said letting the light disappear

  “One day a tortoise challenged the hare to a race, the tortoise was slow compared to the hare, who was so fast it could have won the race at anytime, but didn’t because they were so sure at winning they hanged back to mock the tortoise, so do you know who won in the end?”

  “The hare of course, if this hare was so fast it could finish the race at any time then it meant the tortoise had no chance” Alexander guessed without thinking twice

  “Wrong, the tortoise won because the hare was so full of themselves they decided to take a nap” Veronique had told him

  “…are you challenging me?” Alexander immediately made the wrong assumption

  “If that’s what you took from the tale then you aren’t as smart as they make you to be” Veronique then reminded him “I am already out of the race, remember?”

  “What Veronique meant is you should stop wasting time looking down at her and focus on your own work before Rhea overtakes you” the Duke intervened

  “Exactly!” Veronique was quick to say ‘I actually meant before he embarrassed himself to a more hard working noble, but I am not contradicting Dad’ with that she headed to her spot to the other side of the table.

  However only when she sat down did Veronique notice the sour look on Rhea’s face.