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❝  𝗦𝗵𝗲 𝗵𝗮𝗱 𝘀𝗼 𝗺𝘂𝗰𝗵 𝗵𝗼𝗽𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝗹𝗲𝗮𝘃𝗲 𝗱𝗲𝘀𝗽𝗶𝘁𝗲 𝗵𝗮𝘃𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗻𝗼 𝗼𝗻𝗲 𝘄𝗮𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗵𝗲𝗿. 𝗠𝗲𝗮𝗻𝘄𝗵𝗶𝗹𝗲 𝗜 𝗵𝗮𝘃𝗲 𝗽𝗲𝗼𝗽𝗹𝗲 𝘄𝗮𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗺𝗲 𝗯𝘂𝘁 𝗜 𝗵𝗮𝘃𝗲 𝗻𝗼 𝗵𝗼𝗽𝗲 𝗼𝗳 𝗹𝗲𝗮𝘃𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗽𝗹𝗮𝗰𝗲 ❞
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Small red-tinted hands repeatedly thumped together, clapping at the performance.

"Don't patronize me, Lydia I only played one note which sounded like thousands of screaming and dying banshees" Silalynn scoffed.

While her clapped ceased Lydia's smile never left her face. "It wasn't that bad Shiruko, you really need more confidence in yourself"

Sila frowned. "Your ears are bleeding" she pointed towards the red liquid flowing out the younger girl's right ear- wait was she younger than Sila?

As Lydia used her music magic to try and heal her ruptured eardrums Silalynn stared at Lydia as if trying to see if facial features would help her figure out the answer to her conundrum. "Shirukoooo, you're staring again" Lydia lightly flicked Sila's nose.

"That hurt" Lydia rolled her eyes knowing it couldn't hurt that bad. "By the way.." the dusty brown-haired girl's ears perked up. "When's your birthday Lydia?"

"My...birthday? Uh, I think...yeah it was May first"

"That's strange"

Lydia quirked an eyebrow. "What's so strange about my birthday?"

Silalynn shook her head. "It's not your birthday that strange, it's the fact I'm older than you-"

"What?! When were you born?!" Lydia practically jumped out of her seat, turns out both of them thought that Lydia was older.

"April seventh" Silalynn replied flatly.

Within seconds the younger girl looks like the most dejected creature on the planet. "Not even a month...."

Silalynn awkwardly giggled watching the sight before her. Lydia mumbled over and over again that Sila wasn't even a month older than her. It's funny, it's always the strangest thing that got Lydia down. Eventually, Silalynn broke out into full-on laughter, unable to hold herself back anymore. "Sila!" Lydia pouted. Silalynn hushed her laughter or at least attempted to, Lydia's moping served to cause the years of courtesy and manners she practiced to go to crumble apart. Normally she'd be lectured until her ears fell off if she laughed at someone (well unless they were a commoner, which Lydia is, but Sila would never make laugh at Lydia for that)

"You're right, it's always fun to tease someone else. Ha! have a taste of your own medicine!" Lydia looked up at her confused. "What? Sorry if I offended you" Sila apologized not knowing why Lydia looked confused.

"Well all the medicine I've ever had has tasted like strawberries. So my medicine wasn't that bad"

Sila deadpanned. "It's an expression, stupid"

Lydia didn't answer that and stared at her for a few more moments before smiling. "It's weird but I can't help but feel glad"

"Huh?"

"I'm just saying, I usually tease people to try and alleviate any worries they have here. I try to distract them and make them smile, basically I'm happy you're smiling-"

"Please shut up..."

"Uh oh! I have said too much? Is her majesty flustered?" Lydia giggled. As Sila buried her head into her knees.

Silalynn groaned. "Lydiaaaaaa." Silalynn was mentally combusting, but then a thought popped into her head, and without thinking, she pulled her head out of her knees. "Do you like strawberries? I mean in general"

"Uhhh" Lydia's cheeks tinted the same pink of strawberries. "Yes..." she mumbled, seemingly very embarrassed by it. Silalynn blinked. Once, twice, and a third time for good measure. "I wasn't expecting that" That only served to make Lydia more embarrassed. Silalynn quickly murmured something that didn't exactly escape Lydia's ears, but she couldn't make out what Sila said.

"Sorry Sila, do you mind repeating that?"

"If we get out of here, then I'll buy you as many strawberries as you want.. in return I want you to stay with me a little longer...." Silalynn reluctantly answered. When Lydia didn't respond Silalynn started to panic until she heard Lydia try to hide a laugh.

"G-geez! Stop laughing! I'm this close to slapping you with mercury!" Lydia's laughter only grew but she forced herself to stop when she saw Sila forming something out of mercury to slap her as she said she would.

"Ok ok! I'll stop" Lydia instinctively backed up. Sila puffed her cheeks out ad turned away. Oh goodness, she's angry. Lydia sighed. "I think it's best I don't tell her what I think. She'll actually hit me" Lydia turned away and picked up her flute.

"That was sudden....she made it sound like.." She turned back to the silver-haired royal who was very evidently still angry at her, well more flustered but it's transferring into anger. The periwinkle-eyed girl sighed but not in exasperation, strangely enough, it sounded fond.

"Ok cranky royal, you can stay angry at me" Lydia smiled putting to flute up to her lips, and started playing.

And for the rest of the day they didn't say a word, just stayed listening and playing the sound of a flute.

-------------------------------------------------------

"How much longer are you going to play around with my hair?" The royal complained. "A long time. But I doubt you can complain, if anything you look like you're enjoying this" Lydia was currently pinning strands of silver locks to the back of Sila's head.

"Can you blame me? I've always wanted someone to braid my hair or do something like that for me. It feels nice..." Lydia paused for a moment. Doesn't Sila have servants? She's a royal after all. Didn't they do her hair?

"How come no servants did your hair, I'm sure you had some that did"

"Ah well.." Sila seemed to relax a bit as Lydia brushed through her silver strands. "I was pretty sheltered up until I was 13 so I didn't have much contact with any servants my family hired unless it was when they'd bring me food or tell me a message from Nozel or father. Or any of my other siblings"

"I'm assuming Nozel is your brother's name?"

"Ehhh, you're kinda right and wrong. It depends on which brother you're talking about" Suddenly Lydia pulled Sila's hair a bit too hard.

"Owe! Hey, watch it, Lydia! Are you trying to pull my hair out?" Sila momentarily lost a little balance.

"S-sorry. How many siblings do you have? If you ask me two extra siblings would already be a lot of kids" Lydia started to braid Silalynn's hair and somehow pin it to the back of her head.

"Really? Three kids are too much? My parents had five- Lydia are you ok?!" Silalynn snapped her head back at Lydia who made choking sounds.

"You have four other siblings....how did you not go crazy?!"

Sila shrugged. "Even with my siblings, I didn't see them as much as normal siblings would, probably around twice a week. Well, that is unless we were really young. Back when I was around five or six my older brother, Solid, visited me nearly every day. He...he was a really good brother. And Noelle, also came a lot but clearly tried to avoid Solid and even Nebra or Nozel the few times they came. It was almost like she was scared of them". Lydia smiled as she listened to Sila's ramblings about her siblings until Sila realized that she was speaking too much and shut up.

"I can't help but wonder.." Lydia started. "don't you ever worry that you wouldn't be able to give them all the same amount of love"

Sila froze for a moment making Lydia panic thinking she said something wrong. "Sorry I probably said something wrong didn't I?-"

"No, you're right. I guess I do worry about giving them all the same amount of love. For example, I think I spoil Solid too much. I always tried to get him the best gifts for his birthdays as I could and spent as much time as possible with him. Nozel and Nebra love me but unlike Solid, it's harder to read them so I couldn't do as much for them. And Noelle...I should have done a thousand times more for her than what I did. I should have spent so much more time with her, she's my younger sister, and I couldn't even take care of her"

Lydia stood silent for a minute. "If you ask me, I don't think she would've cared, none of your siblings would've cared and thought you didn't do enough for them. I think...they were satisfied if you were just there with them"

Silalynn let out a small giggle. "Why do you know how to cheer me up?"

Lydia joined in on the other girls growing laughter but didn't give another answer.

"Because your family thinks you're precious to them, and I think you're precious to me too" went unspoken.

Extra:

"Oh, you finally finished?" Silalynn started to conjure up a large lump of mercury that would be shiny enough that she could see her reflection.

"Yup! I think I've outdone myself!" Lydia proudly boasted as she patiently awaited Sila's response.

"Huh, two larger braids that flow down with the rest of my hair at the back with a few strands and another smaller braid pulled and pinned at the back of my head," Silalynn thought for a moment about what to say and concluded that this would be a good answer. "What a strange hairstyle you've chosen," she said with a smile.

"Shiruko!" Lydia looked absolutely flabbergasted as Silalynn started to turn her smile into laughter.

"But just because it's strange doesn't mean I won't keep it," Sila thought now explaining to Lydia that "strange" isn't exactly "bad".