literature

Papers and Cake

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    Roses were a curious flower, rife with symbolic meaning yet rarely understood. Thorns and blossoms forming an artistic counterpoint, Lyra ceased fussing with the arrangement and finally turned up her face to acknowledge her tutor. It was a rare concession, but she’d grown bored with the basic exercises she’d already done and knew he wouldn't let her advance if she didn't listen to him drone on about what was next. Oddly, he made no move to launch into one of his speeches, and after a moment she realized he hadn't paid her any attention as she ignored him.

    “Sir.”

    Lyra felt no shame or irony at the reprimand in her voice. Her parents paid him good money; it was his duty to sit and allow her to torment him. Vexingly, he didn't so much as look up, and instead continued writing something in the slim notebook he always carried with him. She'd thought it was to take down his reports on her progress but judging from the way his spidery script filled the book with dense blocks she knew full well it wasn't her progress he was writing about.

    “Miss?”

    Startled, Lyra didn't remember getting up to look, yet there she was, standing at the edge of the desk with her head bent down to read his work. Finally looking up at her, their faces were so close together for a moment that their noses nearly touched. Stepping back, Lyra smothered her embarrassment and instead forced herself to look directly at him. She'd known he was a university student with honors but she hadn't realized what it meant until she'd caught a glimpse of the page. Familiar symbols and concepts danced across it, but made no sense. It was like reading borrowed words from your native language in a foreign text.

    “I'd like the next three sets of exercises,” she said mildly, not quite meeting his eyes as she spoke.

    They were of age but their status was vastly different; she'd been home-schooled her entire life where he'd had to struggle up through the public school system.

    “Three, miss?”

    Lyra didn't like the tone nor the slight quirk of a smile at the edge of his otherwise bland expression, but she ignored it.

    “You said I'd improve faster if I mastered the basics, so I intend to.”

    It was agonizing to imagine the hours of work it would take, but she bit her lip and kept it to herself. As the third-born daughter of her house, her looks amounted to nothing as her father wasn't keen to destroy his fortune further by providing her a dowry to marry with. Intelligence was her only chance to make something of herself, and it was mortifying to know that the young man—little more than a peasant, no less!—trying not to smirk at her was ahead despite her advantages.

    “You mean that?”

    Looking startled as he said it her nod in reply apparently left him struck dumb as he only nodded after she did, expression still rudely disbelieving. It was several long moments before he gathered his wits about himself and shuffled together the papers she would need. He hesitated to hand them to her, and didn't let go even when she had them firmly in her grasp.

    Taking them at last, she returned to her work desk but did not start work immediately, instead her glance drifted back to her tutor. He wasn't unpleasant to look at; roundish with a dark, curly mop on his head, Lyra supposed he resembled a rather dimwitted puppy, an appearance that belied the intelligence beneath.

    “I'm afraid I've forgotten your name.”

    It was an obvious lie, since he'd said it no less than ten times during their first meeting, not taking her cool glance at value and giving up. Now she was likely to pay for it, but she didn't intend to apologize more than she already was in asking.

    “Erick Baker, my family runs a bakery.”

    Definitely a peasant, only one of the lower class could say such a thing aloud without being embarrassed, though she supposed that it did account for his physique as well as his manners rather neatly.


    “Well then, Master Cake, please prepare ten more sheets for me. I'll need them for self-study.”

    The nickname rolled off her tongue before she was even aware of it, but instead of looking to see if it struck a mark, she turned to her papers and started working, her cheeks coloring a bit at the chortle from the other end of the room.

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