Christie woke up to a powerful grunt. She was used to the occasional grunts of the mock turtle, but never with this amount of distress. A part of her brain jolted her into action, perhaps part of the drilling training of the academy, as she immediately thought they were under attack.

  Yet all those thoughts instantly vanished the moment she saw a flying turtle.

  “Quakes and faults…” She muttered under her breath as she saw Fran?ois hiding in his shell but levitating a meter above the ground.

  “Oh, hi Christie!” Her ladylove saluted her from the outside of the carriage.

  “Uhm, hi?” Christie rubbed her eyes in the unlikely case she was hallucinating what she was seeing. “Mind explaining why Fran?ois is flying?” Her well-honed, wealthy instruction kicked in, instinctively making her act with composure and a head held up as she stepped out of the carriage.

  “Adrien and I were going over some thoughts about the speed of our journey. Considering all of our resources at hand, we could go even faster than our current speed.”

  “And that is why Fran?ois is flying?” The redhead crossed her arms.

  “He was kind of slowing down the horses,” the blonde said unapologetically.

  “Hoh…” Her stoneshell grunted.

  “He does not seem to like it, Agatha.”

  “Okay, okay. It looks bad, but at least let me try to move him around?”

  Christie sighed. “Well, I guess you already have him in the air, so do what you have to do so this does not happen again.”

  “Thank you!” Agatha beamed a radiant smile at her before redirecting her focus to the levitating monster. “Adrien, are you ready to assist?”

  “Whenever you like, girl!” The coachman said at the other end of the stoneshell, though a bit too enthusiastically.

  Well, at least if Adrien is overwatching this experiment, I doubt anything bad will happen to Fran?ois, Christie thought, yet took little comfort in that.

  Her ladylove extended her hand forward with needless theatrics and said, “Prance forward!”

  The stoneshell started moving, not quite fast, yet still faster than the average pace of the monster.

  “Hoh?” Fran?ois grunted again, though instead of distress, this time there was a budding curiosity in his tone.

  Now, it was her ladylove that appeared to be in distress rather than the stoneshell as she manipulated her agate. Christie had guessed this was the work of lithorica – for nothing else would’ve made sense – but only now did she spot the thin laminate of agate below the mock turtle’s shell.

  “What is the command?” Christie inquired after walking up to her petite girlfriend. She now looked even smaller than normal.

  “A mess, that is what it is,” she gasped a bit as she spoke. Agatha looked at the redhead, and upon seeing her unsatisfied gaze, she sighed and continued. “Amplify Control Anchor Protect.”

  “Four commands, huh?” The nouveau riche mused.

  “Yeah,” Agatha grabbed her head. “A three-command series and an independent one. I put Protect in case my sapphire would crack under the weight.”

  “Is it not too few commands for you to be looking so afflicted? I have seen you using four commands before, and when you were in the Third Stratum, you used three commands for way longer.”

  “I guess I underestimated the added pressure of the series,” the villager giggled softly. “This is a connection of commands far more complex than I am used to. This is not a chain link but something a bit more complicated. First, there is the Control Anchor series, so my Anchor can be manipulated. Then I have to ‘convert’ this series into a single command so it gets linked by Amplify in a normal Amplify plus another command synergy, so the Anchor does not collapse from the weight. Thankfully, it amplifies the Anchor aspect of the series and not Control, even if it does not count as a straight-up Amplify Anchor. That would otherwise be problematic.”

  “Huh,” Christie hummed. “That is certainly complex. I am sorry I cannot help you with this. My agates are notorious for not wanting to get another Stratum.” She personally believed a standard Amplify Control would be more than enough, but she wasn’t the expert lithorist here, so she ended up not saying anything.

  “You do not need to apologize for anything,” Agatha caressed the redhead’s cheek, and Christie slightly inclined her head to press against it. “This is just me grabbing more than I am able to hold with my two hands.”

  Christie couldn’t deny that dissonance, so she just embraced it. It was a fact that she would never get close to understanding how her ladylove felt her with all the Strata and series juggling, but that too was the case with Agatha being unable to completely understand how it felt to have a sea of stones constantly pressing against your very being.

  And that was the beauty of it.

  They could never experience the issues of each other – at least not in their true magnitudes – but they still made the effort to understand them.

  “Huh,” Christie mused as she looked at Fran?ois again. “He seems to be enjoying it.”

  The mock turtle had finally removed himself from the comfort of his shelf and held his head high up as he kicked around synchronously with his arms and legs, not unlike swimming.

  “Good for him,” Agatha snorted. “I think I am getting the hang of this, but Fran?ois is just that heavy. How many tons does he even weigh?”

  “At least ten,” the redhead giggled and caressed ladylove’s hair. “The sheer fact that you can move him around and keep him afloat with a single agate is astonishing. Even the lifts at the academy use whole agate veins. I guess that doing all of this command trickery allows you to ignore Fran?ois’ weight and just move your agate at the speed of Control?” Her ladylove simply nodded at that.

  “Christie’s right,” Adrien joined the conversation, leisurely walking toward them with an eye glued to the air-swimming turtle. “These kinds of efforts would be done with the Merge command. Lithorists typically group all their agates to lessen the load on each one.”

  “Not using Duplicate is the Merge command for me,” Agatha snorted.

  “That’s true,” the coachman snorted. “I think we can remove a load from you if you take the Protect command out.”

  “You don’t think my sapphire’s gonna crack?” It was noteworthy how swiftly her ladylove could change her manner of speech. With Adrien, she was informal; but with Christie, Agatha maintained formality.

  Christie… didn’t fully enjoy that.

  “’Tis a good agate,” the old man said. “That should give strength to the Anchor command as a baseline, let alone the multiplicative effects of Amplify. So yeah, go for it. Stop moving Fran?ois, and I’ll make a safety net, just in case.”

  Agatha grunted affirmatively, and the mock turtle came to a halt, which surprised him.

  “For someone who was protesting over getting separated from the ground, you look pretty deflated after not flying around anymore, mock turtle,” Christie told Fran?ois, which elicited a mocking grunt from the stoneshell.

  “Ready!” Adrien announced to Agatha after a moment, and Christie saw what he was referring to.

  The redhead had known the coachman for a long time, yet she couldn’t deny that she hadn’t seen the man’s agates that much. The occasional usage a person might give to their agates like using Light on a dark night or Chill on a hot summer day, but not much more. Yet now he created a massive platform the size of the whole carriage. Not that grand of a display, but certainly the biggest she had seen him perform.

  But it wasn’t without consequences.

  Christie didn’t know how well Agatecraft interacted with advanced age, but from what she was looking at, not that well. The student could distinguish at least three commands at play: Merge, Anchor, and Protect. It was only three simultaneous commands, something that she had seen several of her classmates use with ease; yet her family’s coachman had a strained look to him, as if he was carrying a heavy load and was about to run out of strength soon.

  Agatha seemed to notice that too as she quickly removed the Protect command from her sapphire. The change was basically instantaneous on her ladylove’s visage as she relaxed in a heartbeat. Perhaps she was still performing a complex command series, but three simultaneous commands were something the blonde was used to.

  “It’s holding,” Agatha said after a deep breath. “It’s holding, but I feel a strain.”

  “Well, yes,” Adrien said, now he being the one taxed as he still maintained the safety net. “You are now only reinforcing the strength of the Anchor command, and while the command itself might hold tens, if not hundreds of tons now, the same cannot be said for the agate itself. Let’s run a quick test. Move Fran?ois around a bit, and I’ll follow along with my agates. If yours don’t crack in a minute, it never will.”

  And true to his words, the blonde’s agate never broke, let alone fractured. Though Agatha looked a bit exhausted.

  “Do you fancy taking out Fran?ois for a walk?” Adrien asked her ladylove as he readied the horses.

  “I mean, sure. I’m tired as depths, but that’s when training is at its best.”

  There was something awe-inspiring in the way that Agatha could see such a tiresome exercise – one that directly pressed on her brain – as training instead of a chore. A good mentality, for starters. But that is just one of the many reasons why I love her, Christie meditated happily as they all boarded the carriage, with Fran?ois floating next to them with more faux swimming.

  “Wait!” Christie snapped her fingers in realization.

  “Something wrong?” Her ladylove exclaimed, though not with much alarm as her mind seemed to be elsewhere.

  “I just realized what the mock turtle is doing!” The redhead announced with boundless joy and pointed at the stoneshell, who was also having joy of his own as he flailed his legs around. “He is mock swimming!”

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  “Ohhhhhh!” The blonde groaned potently and tilted her head backward ninety degrees, or at least tried to. “Christie, I do love you, but sometimes you are too much of a dummy doll.”

  She took that as a compliment.

  ***

  Agatha’s mental stamina was to be praised. Her ladylove protested a lot about having constant pressure exerted on her brain – especially because it was an active use of commands as she had to drive the platform carrying Fran?ois – but she always pulled through. She described her pain as ‘mental fog’. Not quite a headache, but somewhat of a nuisance when she wanted to think. The blonde carried the mock turtle on her mind for a whole week, every time the horses had to rest, before the affliction grew into an actual headache.

  “I think you could lessen the load with Target,” Adrien suggested when they stopped at a caravanserai after Agatha’s load got too heavy to carry.

  “Whazzat?” The blonde asked lazily as she lay on a stone bench, her head resting on Christie’s thighs.

  “It’s a rather niche command that allows you to imprint a target into an agate. Useless in the First Stratum because it just loads that target on the agate’s ‘consciousness,” the coachman made air-quotes on that word, “but has a lot of applications once you get to more complex series. It kinda works like the Protect Control command interaction, as Target on yourself would make a similar effect, minus the protection, of course.”

  “Hmm, interesting…” Agatha mused. Her ladylove looked so cute whilst doing so that the redhead couldn’t help but comb through her silky blond hair. “But I dunno how useful that would be. I would be trading an active three-command series for a passive four-command series.”

  “Nothing is lost by trying,” Adrien shrugged.

  “I guess…” The cute and petite villager nudged on Christie’s lap. “Could you scratch me behind my ears?”

  “Are you a cat, mock sapphire?” The nouveau riche inquired playfully.

  “Is that a no?” She raised a brow.

  “Not at all,” Christie giggled and she scratched behind her ladylove’s ears.

  Agatha then moaned, whether also playfully or in satisfaction, Christie couldn’t tell. What she could tell was that it took all of her might not to be playful – or outright messy – with Agatha right there and then, even with Adrien looking at them.

  ***

  The Target command seemed to work for her ladylove, because even if it was a four-command series, the fact that it was fully passive allowed Agatha to cutely sleep in Christie’s lap whilst the carriage was moving. Of course, there was no need for the blonde to do so, but the redhead thoroughly enjoyed having the girl resting in her lap. Hmm, I fear that I am treating her like a cat, but did I not decide that she was a squirrel? Ah, what a conundrum.

  Ignoring Christie’s earthshattering struggle, the rest of the journey was a simple and fast one. The Target command was an interesting one that scratched that part of Christie’s head that made her think and theorize, even if she herself couldn’t make any use of it because it required the Second Stratum to be useful.

  Agatha’s using Target Amplify Control Anchor, which has interesting synergies, the redhead mused with a book in one hand and a lovely girl in the other. Target has the carriage selected as its objective, but the Target Control allows a bit of leeway. From what I have heard and read in the command textbook, the Target command is mindless, so it would approach the carriage until it collided with it. But adding Control to the equation now gives it more maneuverability, just like with Speed Control, so with that added maneuverability, one can create a buffer zone so the Target command just keeps itself in a targeted area instead of a single contact point target.

  Christie wholly enjoyed lithorica and just couldn’t help but think about it, even if she wasn’t able to practice it with such freedom. It didn’t escape her how Target Range would likely be able to produce a similar result as lithorica had sometimes a more literal semantical relationship with commands than some people expected, but alas, those weren’t things she was free to test.

  Nor did she care.

  Her dearest father had instructed her to eat the world, but Christie was just satisfied with protecting her world. Which only extended to her sea of stones and the ladylove in her lap. Being with Agatha and strengthening herself in the hope that one day she wouldn’t need the Sleep command was enough for her.

  No matter how long it took.

  And talking about time… The redhead softly smiled as she shook even more softly the head of the blonde.

  “W-whuh?” Agatha mumbled with overwhelming drowsiness.

  “Wake up, mock sapphire,” Christie whispered and landed a peck on her ladylove’s nose point.

  The petite girl yawned powerfully as she stretched on the tall girl’s lap. “Are we stopping or something?”

  “In a manner of speech? Yes, we are.” The nouveau riche smiled.

  The villager’s eyes shot wide open at the sight. “I know that vulpine smile. What have you done now?”

  “Oh, my! Such blatant accusations,” Christie pressed a hand against her chest in faux offense. “What have I done to deserve such hostility?"

  “Being a dummy doll, for starters,” Agatha rolled her eyes and straightened her back to sit next to Christie.

  As much as the redhead enjoyed being her ladylove’s cushion, her body greatly appreciated the gesture, as the petite girl’s head was as heavy as her sapphire. Or rather, far heavier than it. Christie took the opportunity to stretch her own legs, and she let out a soft grunt, and as innocent as it was, it brought some coloration to Agatha’s visage. And then I am the one with impure thoughts… She complained mentally, not letting her ladylove hear that.

  “So, what is going on?” The sapphire-eyed girl acted as if there wasn’t a slight blush in her cheeks.

  “We are already reaching the estate, mock sapphire,” the myriad-color-eyed girl giggled amusedly. “So better fix your hair and clothes.”

  Her ladylove had the decency to panic at her current state, which only worked to amplify Christie’s own amusement. There was virtue in taking pleasure in the distress of others.

  As summer had hit especially hard these days, Agatha was wearing the overalls she had recently made, and Christie had grown to love them. Perhaps because with them her ladylove showed more skin, and knowing how protective of it she was – even if the blonde was making progress in correcting that – made it… exciting. No one would ever get aroused over some knees, but when those knees were the ones of your girlfriend that she hid most of the time… It was just lovely to see them.

  “Do you think that your father will approve of my attire?” Agatha said as she straightened the flaps of the overalls.

  “Where is this nervousness coming from?” Christie stood up and slowly circled the petite girl with her arms. Her petite girlfriend had the perfect height for Christie to press her chin against the top of her head. Well, not perfect. Agatha was so cute and small that Christie had to slightly tilt herself forward to rest her chin there.

  “He seems to be very conscious of fashion, and I do not want to let him down,” the blonde explained sheepishly, a hand rubbing her pendant sapphire.

  “My dearest father is not conscious of fashion,” the redhead softly rubbed her chin against the silky hair. “He is conscious of what I wear. Very important difference. He does not and will not care about any clothing that I am not wearing. Not even his.”

  “…have I told you that father is too obsessed with you?” Agatha tilted her head to look at her.

  “Not explicitly, but yes,” she sighed. “This is not anything new. Unfortunately. I guess I now understand more where that obsession comes from after knowing that he blames himself for my mother’s death and the fact that I am his only family.”

  “And what about you?” Her ladylove spun inside the embrace and now looked at the redhead face-to-face.

  “About me, what?”

  “Do you blame yourself?”

  “I…” Christie hesitated for the briefest of instances, “do not.”

  “Christie…” Agatha looked at her with worry.

  “I do not, truly.” She now responded with more confidence. “Nor do I blame dearest father. But I do lament that life had not been different.”

  “That is good to hear…” Her ladylove hugged her back and pressed her head against Christie’s chest. That made the redhead smile. It was wrong if Christie saw her undergarments, but it was totally fine if Agatha dove for her chest.

  Of course, Christie understood the fundamental difference between the two. Agatha didn’t like to be seen, whilst Christie enjoyed her chest being explored. As a matter of fact, the blonde did it too little as far as the redhead was concerned and should have a more adventurous side to her, eager to map the uncharted valleys.

  “Can I say something really horrible?” Agatha said out of nowhere, her voice muted as her head still pressed against Christie.

  “Yes,” Christie stated taciturnly yet honestly.

  “I do not wish life had been different,” she hugged the redhead more tightly. “If both of us had not experienced the hardships that we had, then we would not have met. Or even worse, we would yet we would have never interacted. And I do not like the thought of that.”

  “Oh, mock sapphire…” Christie’s smile held, yet the emotion behind it changed. Softly, she pushed her ladylove away from her chest and pressed a hand against her cheek. “That is not horrible at all.”

  “Is it not?” Whilst not outright crying, the redhead saw the blonde’s eye tremble.

  “No,” the nouveau riche slightly squatted, putting herself closer to her ladylove’s height, and pressed their foreheads against the other. “Because I believe the same too.”

  And then, Christie was infused with massive happiness. Because the scenario called for a kiss, yet the one who initiated it was Agatha and not her. It was a small thing, but being the one receiving the kiss instead of initiating it filled her with indescribable happiness.

  “Oh, my!” A voice announced with great enthusiasm. One that couldn’t be either Agatha or Christie as they had their lips pressed against one another.

  Apparently, that happiness had extended to both girls because neither had noticed that the carriage had finally stopped at the Valasela Estate and that they had an audience.

  “Awawa!” Agatha became a carnelian upon being aware of that small fact and threw the cutest of yelps to ever be yelped.

  Quakes and faults, forget about eating the world! I want to eat her! Christie squirmed internally, even though she remained petrified on the outside. So static, in fact, that her ladylove hid behind her as if she were only a column. Though I guess a world this cute needs some protection.

  “For being my instructor in etiquette, it amazes me how you have no qualms about being so rude as watching someone’s private interactions.” Christie talked with a complete monotone voice as she faced Miss Diorite, who stood outside on the pavement.

  The old maid smiled. “I am afraid your interactions are too public for them to be considered private, Miss Christina.”

  That smug grin on Miss Diorite’s face was way worse after knowing what types of books the woman enjoyed. She was superlatively thrilled by what she was seeing and made no attempt to hide it.

  “Consider yourselves lucky that I was tending the garden and was the first one to spot the carriage.” Christie sighed at her words.

  The fact that Adrien wasn’t around had horrible connotations for her psyche, but Christie chose to ignore them. At least he had the decency of not pestering us, the redhead now sighed mentally.

  “I will gather everyone whilst you ready yourselves,” Miss Diorite let out giggle – which weirded the life out of Christie as she had never seen the old maid giggle – and walked away into the mansion.

  “That was… awkward,” Christie said to her ladylove, to not use far harsher words.

  “Mhm,” Agatha mumbled affirmatively as she hugged her from behind and the waist, her petite and heavy head burrowing on the redhead’s mane. “I did not know that being seen could be so…” Arousing? Christie almost said it aloud. “…embarrassing.”

  “Right,” she smacked her lips. “Right.” What was I even thinking? Now the nouveau riche finally blushed, but for a whole other reason. “Well, shall we get going with the baggage?”

  As Christie stepped out of the carriage – a nervous and cute Agatha trailing closely behind her – she saw that the diligence was without horses. So that is what Adrien was doing whilst we were… making out. Hindsight only made it more embarrassing.

  “Hah,” said the mock turtle that had been left hanging in the air.

  “I think you should get Fran?ois before he develops a thesis on mockery,” Christie giggled as she saw the massive stoneshell floating behind the carriage as he hopelessly flailed his legs. Being static in the air caused him great distress, which was ironic considering he was mostly made out of stone. Being static was his default state.

  Agatha nodded silently, her ears still red from the recent affair, and she lowered her lithic platform. Once Fran?ois and the platform were on the ground, her ladylove recalled her agate and a small cloud of dust rose from the disappearance of the sapphire platform.

  “You need a wash, Fran?ois!” Christie coughed even though she wasn’t particularly close to the recalled platform.

  “Hoh!” Protested the mock turtle.

  With a sigh, Agatha summoned a new platform, and even though it looked identical to the previous one, Christie could instinctively tell it was somehow different. She couldn’t tell what exactly, but foresight allowed her to put one and one together.

  “You are using the old Speed Control Anchor platform?” Christie inquired as she helped her ladylove unload the luggage and place it unto the platform.

  “Yeah,” Agatha grunted and rubbed her temples. “I am now discovering why Teacher Dago did not make big demonstrations of lithorica. My head feels foggy and heavy with all the recent marathons of commands, even if it does not outright hurt.”

  “Judging from how you are struggling, this is rather close to how it feels to keep my sea of stones from escaping without the Sleep command.”

  “I thought it was more of a physical effort. Like lapiloquia.”

  “Honestly, it is a bit of both,” the redhead stretched her arms once she was done passing her ladylove the last suitcase. “Closer to exercise. Lapiloquia and lithorica have very defined lines; you will never get physically tired from commanding agates, but the same cannot be said for exercise. I do get headaches if I exercise too much, you know what I mean?”

  “Unfortunately, yeah,” the blonde grunted and stretched herself too. Whilst Christie had been silent, her ladylove made a grunt as she stretched, but she didn’t admonish the girl for doing so. After all, it was a very cute grunt.

  “Should we get inside?” Christie offered her a hand.

  “Yes,” Agatha smiled at her radiantly and grabbed it.

  It was a small hand and an equally small gesture, but Christie felt herself melting from the fulgurating radiance of her love. As libidinous as her thoughts could get from time to time, these soft gestures were the ones that the redhead enjoyed the most. Together they, with a synchronous step, walked into the Valasela Estate.

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