When Summer Dies
Chapter 3: The Makings of Friends

After dinner a day midway through winter, Maria opened her bedroom door to replace two huge bookshelves pushed against one of the walls. “Dinna!” she called frantically, just barely keeping her voice from becoming a shrill shriek. “Why are there bookcases in my room?”

Dinna, as loyal as ever, trotted over to her and inspected the offending shelves. “I – I don’t know,” she admitted, frowning softly. There was a moment where she bit her lip and frowned harder, before she lit up and smiled. “Oh! This must be what Corel meant!” she exclaimed. Before Maria could ask for an explanation, Dinna turned to face her with a grin. “He told me that you were in for a surprise, and that you could blame Cerron.”

Deciding to think about the bookshelves later, Maria blinked owlishly at the young servant. “Did you just call him Cerron?” she asked, narrowing her eyes in disbelief.

Instead of acting ashamed or sheepish, as Maria had expected, Dinna nodded. To be fair, the nod was a bit shy, but it was by far not ashamed, nor was it sheepish. “Yes,” Dinna beamed. “He granted me permission to use his name almost two years ago, when it became obvious that I was going to be his servant for a long while.”

Maria frowned, her stomach sinking. This was stupid – she shouldn’t be disappointed that Cerron was on first-name basis with his servants. At feeling her heart soar, Maria scowled internally. By Nie, she shouldn’t be proud either! Why did it matter to her, whether Cerron was nice to his servants or not?

Growling at herself, Maria strode into her rooms with a muttered ‘come’ at Dinna. Instead of kicking something in frustration – like she wanted to do – Maria forced herself to calm down while she went over to the fireplace and sat down. “Cerron granted permission to a servant?” she asked, when her heart had stopped racing in her chest. “No offense, it’s just not that usual back at home,” she hurried to add, before Dinna would take it as an insult.

Dinna, who’d sat down in the chair opposite of her, looked away from Maria’s curious gaze, toying with the hem of her worn sleeves seemingly unconsciously. “I’m – not a normal servant,” she muttered, and lapsed into silence. The fire was crackling, as it always was at this time of the year, but Maria found that she became acutely aware of the sound when the silence just stretched on.

Finally, Dinna sighed. “I’m an orphan,” she admitted, the words so quiet that they nearly drowned in the sound of the fire. “My mom was a servant, and at some point, she became pregnant with her co-worker, Mathias.” Here, Dinna took a deep breath, and her eyes darkened slightly. “Mathias disappeared, and mom died during childbirth. It was decided that I would stay at the castle, and be trained to become an excellent servant.”

Maria sat back in her seat. Dinna sounded… strangely distant. As if this was a story that she had told many times before – as if it didn’t concern her.

“When I was fourteen,” Dinna continued, and her voice grew warmer as she smiled fondly. “Cerron asked me to be his personal servant.” She finally looked back at Maria, and there was something bright and happy in her eyes. “Since I was crushing on him pretty badly at the time, you can imagine how happy I was to say yes.”

Maria’s eyebrows shot up into her hairline. “Really? You were crushing on Cerron?”

Dinna giggled. “Don’t sound so surprised! Cerron is polite, of high status, and handsome. At the time, he seemed perfect for me!”

Rolling her eyes, Maria nodded deliberately slowly. “Yes, because something between you two would definitely end with happy marriage,” she mocked, grinning when Dinna pretended to be insulted.

“Excuse you, I knew that there was no hope for me in that section – so I settled for becoming his friend,” Dinna informed Maria, and then the sharp, mocking expression softened into something akin to pride, or perhaps even joy. “Which I did.”

Maria gave a confused frown. “And you are still a servant?”

“It’s something I enjoy,” Dinna shrugged. Her eyes widened. “And on that note,” she added, abruptly standing up and nearly causing Maria to fall out of her chair. “I believe you have new books to look at. I shall leave you to it, your Highness.” Dinna bowed, before excusing herself and leaving the room.

Maria stared at the closed door for a moment, before sweeping her gaze back over her rooms. There were no other major changes, fortunately; the fire was burning, the rugs were still on the floor, her king-sized bed was still king-sized, and there were still blankets thrown over the backs of the chairs next to the fire.

However, the two large, wooden bookshelves were still new – as well as the books inside of them. Frowning, Maria stood up and crossed the room in the blink of an eye. She pulled one of the leather-bound books out at random, and took a moment to appreciate the intricate flower design on the cover. The moment didn’t last long, however, and Maria opened the thick tome to the first page.

Botany and Gardening for the Educated.

Maria smiled, despite herself, and made a mental note to thank Cerron later.

“Thank you,” Maria said, at breakfast the next morning, and Cerron’s eyes shone at her from across the table.

He gave no reply other than smiling softly, but Maria found that strangely, that was enough.

The conversations they had while eating gradually became lighter and less awkward as the weeks passed by, much to Maria’s great relief. It had been taxing to sit, rigid and still like a rock, whenever she was supposed to enjoy herself and make small talk.

She shamelessly took advantage of this fact, of course.

“How was your day?” Maria asked, breathing in the delicious scent of cooked meat. What kind she didn’t know, but Cerron was fond of foreign dishes, so her lack of knowledge was no surprise.

Cerron hummed, and took a sip of his goblet before answering. “Well enough,” he huffed, an uneasy line digging into the flesh between his brows. “Although I cannot think of a way to get the täken across the sea at this time of the year without ending it in disaster.” Confused, Maria blinked, and racked her brain for information of what Cerron might be talking about. Hadn’t he said something about the Hybrid Queen wishing for a handful of native Demon Plants, during their last weekly walk? “The blasted Hybrid ambassadors are not making it easy for me, either.”

“That’s unfortunate,” Maria offered, looking at her food – maybe some kind of fish? – instead of Cerron. She didn’t know what to say. Her dad had refrained from teaching her politics, since he was going to be leader for quite a while longer, so she couldn’t give Cerron any tips. She couldn’t even participate in simple conversations like these.

Nie, she should probably get someone to teach her politics. She didn’t want to annoy her future husband by a lack of knowledge, after all.

Cerron, perhaps sensing that she was unsure of what to say – or maybe he just didn’t want to linger on the thought of the Hybrid ambassadors – shook his head and helped himself to a portion of potatoes. “But I shall not trouble you with my musings. How has your day been, my Lady?”

Maria smiled, despite herself. “Good,” she replied lightly. “I read out the last of the gardening books you got me. They were interesting enough, and had a lot of information about plants from your realm.”

Cerron raised an eyebrow. “You mean to say that you actually learned something?” When Maria gave him a puzzled look, he put down his fork to explain. “I did not know which level you were at, knowledge-wise, and had to guess. Quite randomly, in fact – I feared I had misjudged you completely, but if the books were not too complicated, and you were able to learn something from them, then I must have hit the nail on the head.”

Ignoring the warmth blooming in her chest at the realization that Cerron had put so much thought behind the books, Maria nodded. “You did,” she said. “Besides, I didn’t know that much about Demon flora anyway.”

“Oh? Why not?”

“It’s not… it’s not something you learn a lot about, among Humans. Most of us rarely make contact with you anyway,” Maria explained, shrugging half-heartedly.

“That is unfortunate,” Cerron said, and frowned. “I make it a point that when teaching kits, one should teach them the same amount of information about all the Kingdoms – except if they are to be an expert, of course.”

To be honest, Maria had never really thought about that before. It seemed obvious that one should learn most about one’s home Kingdom, then not so much about the other ones. “You have a point,” Maria said. Her professors had taught her nearly nothing about some of the aspects of Demons, after all.

“I always do,” Cerron sniffed, and grinned. “But yes. I do not believe that one kind of Creature is worth more than another, and therefore we should all learn as much about each other as we can.”

Something shifted inside of Maria, and she could feel her blood rush through her veins for a short, breathtaking moment. She hadn’t – she had never realized that it- oh.

“You’re evil.”

“I am a Demon.”

– and they were not the same.

For one, terrifying moment, Undera tilted, just a little further, just a little longer, and Maria’s knuckles went white where they clutched a fistful of the white cloth covering the table. “What can we do about it?” she whispered, fear making her eyes wide and her voice harsh as she stared at Cerron, desperately hoping for some answer, damn it, hoping for a solution -

Cerron sighed. “Unfortunately, not much.”

“Dinna?” Maria whispered, her voice shaking in a question that was most definitely not a command.

Dinna took a step forward, which placed her almost directly next to Maria. “Your Highness,” she muttered, and bowed.

“Do you think there’s anything that can be done,” Maria began, turning towards her friend with a wild desperation in her eyes, “about the situation in the world?” She had known, or at least been aware of, that there were problems between the species – but never had she thought it was so bad -

Nie, why hadn’t she seen it? It had been there, right in front of her nose, the whole time! Blatant disrespect, hate, and even fear! Cerron was being used as bait, for goodness’ sake! Dad could have chosen any Kingdom to ship her off to, but he had chosen the Demons. “Because they are the most feared,” he had told her, when she had asked why. “It sounds more logical for them to kidnap a Princess, rather than, say, the Merfolk.”

And Maria had accepted that answer. Oh, now she wanted to hit something! She’d been so utterly, horribly blind!

Dinna blinked, and then frowned. “I – I do not know,” she admitted. Her posture melted a bit, allowing her shoulders to sag in a slightly more comfortable posture, and she put a hand to her chin as she thought. “Not in the immediate moment, I think,” she muttered. “Change will have to be slow – and there will have to be people that want change. Or else it won’t happen.”

Cerron was shooting weary glances between Maria and Dinna, shifting between raising his eyebrows and frowning, almost as if he didn’t know what to think, but if he didn’t speak, Maria was going to ignore him.

Maria nodded thoughtfully, some of the fear dimming. She knew there was something wrong, now. She could work to fix it. She would work to fix it. “Yes,” she agreed. “I can see your point. But how do we make that change?”

“Teaching our kits,” Cerron said, abruptly breaking into the conversation with wide, surprised eyes. “We cannot make a whole generation change their ways of thinking overnight,” he elaborated, leaning forward and resting his elbows on the table as he grew more invested in the conversation. “But if the kits can learn how to be a decent Creature, then half of the problem is already solved.”

Dinna frowned. “I don’t think it’s as easy as that,” she argued, and Maria could tell that she was clearly enjoying herself.

The Princess sat back to watch the chaos and confusion she had caused – and she smiled.

Maria was oddly expectant about what Cerron had pulled her into the study for. The last time she had been here, his eyes had flashed darker than the darkest night and he had been snarling in anger – although now, he was only smiling warmly at her.

Without a word, he handed her a thick, leather-bound book. It was old. She could tell as much by the worn edges and the way it almost seemed… tired in her hands. She took it anyways, and turned it around to see if there was any title.

There was.

Meruntancer: Täk-Common, Common-Täk.

Maria gasped, and looked up at Cerron with wide eyes. “Is this a dictionary?” she asked, voice high-pitched in surprise.

Cerron nodded solemnly. “It is. You did want to learn Täk, did you not?”

Wordlessly nodding, Maria opened the book and flipped through the pages at random. Four familiar letters screamed up at her, then, and she stopped flipping pages to squint at the one in front of her. “There’s a word here… cerro…”

“You are pronouncing it wrong,” Cerron interrupted gently. “It is cerro, like my name,” he corrected, making the ‘r’ sound sharp.

“Oh,” said Maria. “Thank you.” Cerron inclined his head.

…like his name?

“Wait, is your name based on cerro?”

Cerron grimaced. “No,” he said, but it sounded strained and drawn out.

“Liar,” Maria accused, and had to fight the grin that wanted to spread over her face.

“It is not based on cerro,” Cerron mumbled. “It is cerro, but with a ‘the’ in front.”

“Cerron is a word?”

Cerron nodded. “The ‘n’ at the ending makes it… well, it makes it specific.”

Maria hummed in appreciation, and turned back to the book to replace out the meaning. She snorted. “Your name means the Dark?” she asked, looking up from the book with a twinkle in her eyes. Cerron nodded tightly. “What a pity that you ended up with blond hair,” she said, and smirked.

Cerron’s expression tightened even further, and it reminded Maria of that one time she had played a prank on her dad by adding the juice of three lemons to his water. “Mother was very much aware of my hair at the time of my naming,” he forced through his clenched teeth.

Maria gaped. “Your name is a joke?” she asked, befuddled and bewildered at this aspect. To think, she had thought Cerron was quite a nice name – and then it turned out to be a joke, of all things.

“Unfortunately,” Cerron sighed. He shot her a dirty look when she burst into laughter, but Maria couldn’t help herself.

“That is too precious,” she gasped, and wiped some tears away from her eyes. “Oh, Nie, Cerron. I’m sorry for laughing, but that’s hilarious.”

Cerron grumbled something dark underneath his breath, before sighing and turning to face Maria again. “Do you want to learn Täk?” he asked sweetly, smiling a smile that was very obviously fake.

Maria went completely silent and straightened up in her chair. “Of course,” she said, all trace of laughter gone from her voice. “When do we begin?”