After Viola left, Amy had breakfast with her parents where they constantly ask about her adventures. They do not seem to show any sign of forcing Amy to take the Dragon Test like Viola is studying for. Why is Viola studying for the test and not her? Amy admits that their father wants to give her an extremely difficult task for some reason, like he is setting her up to fail.
She waited.
Together, they head to the market, buying school supplies and just generally being heartwarming. Sometimes, she forgets how intense they are when it comes to displays of affections especially since she found it awkward to be treated like this. They can be loving to the point that it becomes overwhelming.
And yet, nothing happened.
It seems to be a false alarm.
"I have a question?" Boris asked curiously. "Why do you seem so wary of them all of a sudden?"
Amy stopped looking at her notes and material to listen and lean her arm on her desk. "Well, I don't know why but for some reason, I never feel like they are my parents. I'm not quite sure if it's because of me or because of I knew them from the original story."
"What were they like?" Alabaster asked.
In the original story, both of them were depressed and regretful of what they have done in their past. They wanted to shield their daughter after the death of the original's twin sister. But because of them, their daughter who yearns for the outside world, has come out unprepared. Unlike me, this one is no fighter and is quite naive with an innocence that has no place in a world like this. I'm afraid that any minor inconvenience would push them to lock us up like they did in the original story. My plans would be affected, and I would be forced to leave everything behind and take Viola with me.
"They don't seem capable of it. They do love their children." Alabaster said.
Parents that love their children are not all the same. From what I can gather about her, she has never left her manor and lived in seclusion for much of her life. She had no freedom to do anything and can only dream of it. If she had died in seclusion, then she would be safe but unhappy. She never got to live a good life or even had a peaceful death and yet she smiled through it all. From what I can gather, she has strong character even with her gentleness but is left misunderstood. Aron even remembered his mother as a foolish woman and that includes the rest of the readers. I cannot completely trust them. They are good people with good intentions, but it had created lasting consequences. I do not hate or blame them either, but I also do not wish to defend them at all. For some reason, I feel tired just by thinking about it.
Amy sighed and went back to her notes.
Since she came to this world, she admits that she tries to pretend she doesn't at least care for them, but their persistence and sincerity has gone through her, and she loved them dearly.
But that doesn't deter her view from their original counterparts. In fact, she has trouble trusting them at all. In the original story, their overprotectiveness led to their daughter being secluded for eighteen years leaving her incredibly vulnerable when she gets the taste of the outside world, leading to her later circumstances and death. Violet was denied a normal life, friends and common sense. The fact that Amy and Viola haven't been locked away from the world, after everything that happened, is quite fortunate.
Both of them remind her of her sense of self and that she is living a false life. This had stopped bothering her a long time ago but that doesn't mean she doesn't enjoy it.
On the other hand, Viola is a reminder that the world she is in is different because she never existed until now. To her, she is real. It makes growing up less painful and change her to care for others unconditionally again. It gives her a sense of clarity and thus she hopes she grows up worldly and unblemished by training her, helping her and exposing her to combat and magic so that she will grow up prepared for the inevitable ugliness she will see.
Amy had plenty of time to train and practice during their trip. She even received some items after meeting some elves. She taught herself the Ran martial arts from her brief training with Ryo. During the few months since meeting Caina and Ali, there has been much progress though Caina's situation is quite problematic.
It turns out that Caina doesn't have an excretory system, so they have to figure out a way for her to consume human food without the complications that comes with it if she doesn't have a urinary tract.
Just in a few months alone, it is focused on finding a solution to her lack of essential organs in the excretory system. Caina is basically a fish out of water on everything and she needed to be taught human biology and anatomy to know what she will have to go through once the surgeries are successful.
Boris has explained that her reproductive system is basically her digestive system since she consumes semen through sex. It will be difficult to reverse that, and it seems to intrigue him as much as it frustrates him. According to Boris, she also doesn't have a large intestine, rectum or anus. He might give up providing surgeries entirely and figure out an easier solution for her to gather nutrients that isn't the succubus way.
Ali, or as he is now known as Lawrence, is not publicly known as Bowen's ward yet as he wants to wait until the boy is older and better prepared. It will become a surprisingly a big deal if that information were to come out. Furthermore, because of his resemblance to his older brother, Alabaster feels it is not safe for him to come out like this.
As for the young boy himself, he is adjusting quite well and Amy made sure to pop in a visit time to time to check up on him when she can without anyone noticing she is missing.
She has been worried that he is going to want revenge. He did ask questions about Selim from her whenever she visits especially the part about who killed him after all.
It is quite uneasy for her as she doesn't know how to answer that without lying because this kid is sharp. She could say that Sabina, Nathaniel and Viola beat him out of self-defense or rat out the palace guards who arrested him and left him untreated for his injuries or Prime Minister Christopher Durham who left him to die and turn him into fertilizer for magical crystals.
*
Viola stared blankly outside her carriage. Her instincts are right. They always are.