manor

Anisa

The manor was a manor, unlike Anisa’s manor, which was a fort in a city. This manor had 2 floors, a flowerbed, another, worse flowerbed, another, worse flowerbed, a beautiful, cleanly-shingled roof, red curtains, black curtains, a post hoc path of flattened wheat to a stable, an empty patch of gravel where a large fountain had been, bundles of blue wheat, bundles of black wheat—

She caught herself before laughing this time. What a mess.

“Again, Anisa, Princess Anisa, I don’t wish to work for you,” said Samantha, straightening her hair with her hands. “But, I should have plenty of datas to make the trip worth your while.”

This trip could’ve been a letter, then. A productive day was instead 20km, 2 signs, and another 50 pages in the book of poetry she still hated.

“Data,” muttered Samantha, loudly, performatively self-admonishing. “Data is already plural. Unless it’s like ‘peoples’…”

“Thank you for the imminent datas,” stated Anisa.

“Peter! Hey, Peter!” screamed Samantha to a field, and again her maid grimaced.

“Yeah, what?” screamed a fielddot.

“Anisa is here, deal with the horses!”

“What?”

“Get over here!”

Anisa looked to the still gaping Driver. No, Driver was reacting correctly, it was Anisa who shouldn’t be calm. “Acknowledge?” Anisa asked her.

“Acknowledged, time is 10:32,” she said, and her mouth managed to lock shut.

“Were you and Quincy not expecting us to be on time, Samantha?” admonished Anisa.

“Oh, no no no, we’re merely busy. Always busy around here.” Maid’s dull exasperation seemed to agree.

That would be shocking, if it were true. There was nothing to be busy with. Penbarrow was a few farming villages, its most notable feature was its proximity to the city of Felkner.

“Here, come, come in, we’ll show you inside. Joan, you have her luggage?”

Maid nodded. “I have prepared for this.” And she walked down the stairs and reached into the carriage and struggled to carry a medium trunk, eventually gaining a sufficient handhold and speedwalking up the stairs. The assignment of a task had apparently corroded judgement.

“You’re good, you’re good,” said Samantha, holding the door open. And Peter was now a fieldhuman instead of a fielddot. “What is it,” he shouted, slightly quieter.

“Take the horses to the stable!”

“Ah, right, on it.”

“I’ll leave you to it, then,” said Driver.

“Are you coming in?” shouted Samantha, and Anisa realized she had been frozen just outside the wagon, hypnotized by nothing.