Chapter 39: Chapter 78 – Cresta Gets in Trouble with Valeanor

Although it was nice to have my room back from Val, I haven't entirely gotten rid of her.

The elven queen in question took advantage of the fact that I left my door slightly ajar to peek into my room. She probably thought she was being sneaky and that I wouldn't notice. Unfortunately for her, I mastered the art of pretending to study in class. If I managed to fool faculty and parents alike, what hope did a spoiled queen have?

Amusingly, I was currently reading her and Irapesha's papers that Professor Markel had finally sent. Suffice to say, they were substantially greater than any of the other tenants combined. Though I shouldn't be surprised in the slightest given their backgrounds.

"Okay, Val. You've been standing there for half an hour. Did you need something?" I asked from the desk.

"H-How long have you noticed? Never mind that— If you had noticed, why did you keep me waiting and not present yourself from the start?" Valeanor kicked the door open and came in with her hands behind her back.

I thought it would be funny, was what I wanted to say. Seeing her flustered was a rare treat, but I knew better than to push her buttons too much.

One of the things I had just read about Val was that she had been crowned monarch at birth. Which was a surprise to me since she behaved mildly well despite having been spoiled her entire life. To be honest, I expected someone more insufferable.

"You're right! My bad. Next time I notice, I'll speak up," I said

Val was hiding something. She was already fidgeting suspiciously where she stood, like some drug dealer with something to hide. Not to mention, she wasn't the type to come to just hang out like Cresta or Ines.

"Good. That is the proper thing to do. With all that I saw on your magic screen, there is no way I can know if you and Angeline are philandering like animals in heat!" She wrinkled her nose towards my bed.

"N-Now hold on there. You were peeking into the room and would've known— Forget that, I don't have to explain myself for what I do in the privacy of my own room. Did you need something from me?" I inquired, shifting gears to change the topic.

She beamed as soon as I brought it up. "Well, I'm glad you asked! Since you were so kind as to acquire me seeds from Weyera, I thought you deserved the honor of first laying eyes on my progress!"

Unbeknownst to Val, a sneaky feline assassin had snuck up behind her and already saw whatever she was holding first. The pair of cat ears twitched with interest, orbiting behind the elf with a curiosity befitting her race..

Val brought forth before my eyes a glass vase, meticulously filled with multiple sedimentary layers. A tiny red sprout upon a spiral stem had breached the surface of the topsoil. If I remembered correctly, she called it an episcus antharian. What was just a baby flower to me was everything to Val, and the glee on her face showed how proud she was.

"What do you think?" Val asked, eager to hear my thoughts on the flower.

"It… looks very pretty! How long will it take to fully grow?"

"Oh, I suppose it can't be helped that you are so curious! The episcus antharian will take three months to fully mature. When it has, you shall marvel at its crimson drapes of flowers, bountiful and edible leaves, and—"

"Val! I wanna see, too!" Cresta threw her arms around Val from behind, startling her and causing the vase to slip from her hands.

I reached out to catch the vase too late and watched it pass between my hands, shattering on the ground. The three of us were frozen solid, eyes transfixed on the broken glass and spilled dirt.

"I-I'm sorry— I didn't mean to!" Cresta immediately let go and backed away several steps.

The silence that followed was somehow much louder than the crash. Maybe it was because of the tenants rushing upstairs to see what the commotion was, or maybe my heart was throbbing loudly between my ears.

"What happened?" Irapesha squeezed her way through the other tenants and saw the mess. She knew right away what had happened at a quick glance between me and Cresta.

Valeanor quietly knelt down to scoop up the episcus bud, ignoring the shards that nicked her fingers. A piece of glass had sliced in half the sproutling's fragile spiral stem.

"Val, wait. Let me clean it up for you, so you don't hurt yourself," I said, kneeling down next to her.

Without a word, Val stood up, walked past Irapesha and out of my room, and returned to her own room. Cresta bit down on her lower lip, both ears drooping and tail tucked between her legs.

"I'll go check on Val—" Tamara was about to make a run for Val's room until Ange held her back from behind and advised against doing so.

"No, sweetie. Valeanor will want some time alone. It is best not to bother her now," Ange said, then corralled the others back downstairs so that it was me, Cresta, and herself left.

"I really didn't mean to spook her like that…" Cresta mumbled.

Instead of scolding Cresta, I clamped both of my hands on her cheek and squished them together until she looked like a fish.

"You have footsteps quieter than an ant, but I can't let you take all the blame. I saw you and should've said something. I just didn't expect you to throw your arms around her like that." I sighed.

"What flower did she show you?" Ange asked. She used magic to separate the broken glass and sediments into a separate pile.

"Val called it an episcus antharian," I answered as I fetched a small cardboard box from the closet.

Her eyes widened for a brief moment, then came to an understanding of something in her mind.

"Ah. The episcus is a hearty plant, easily growing in the harshest of environments and soil. Even after intense deforestation or wildfires, it is usually the first to regrow. To Weyerans, it represents a new beginning," Ange explained.

When I thought about how excited Valeanor wanted to show me the episcus, things began to make a lot more sense. Not only was coming to Earth supposed to be a new start for her, she believed I was important enough to share that new beginning with. Seeing it destroyed must have shattered her heart into more pieces than the glass vase.

"I'll speak with Valeanor and heal her hands, my love." Ange placed a hand on my chest and offered a reassuring smile. "In the meantime, why don't you help Cresta find a way to ask for forgiveness?"

Ange was the only person who could enter Val's room without getting an earful.

After I cleaned up the mess, I went downstairs to a sulking Cresta and other tenants trying to cheer her up. Although Ange convinced Val out of her room, the elven queen was quite clearly giving Cresta the cold shoulder throughout the rest of the day. The assassin, for all that she was able to strike at someone's weak point, found no window of opportunity to apologize and any attempts were met with the other cheek.

Apparently Cresta had one last ditch effort and asked me to stall Valeanor before she returned to her room.

"Hey, Val! Can you come here for a sec?" I called out to her from the door to the backyard as she entered the living room.

"I do not recall giving you permission to shorten my name." Val huffed.

"Forgive me, Your Majestic Hiney-ness." I exaggerated a bow. "I just wanted to ask what you think of turning a part of the backyard into a garden?"

She lit up. "I think it would be a splendid idea! As long as a certain cat doesn't use it as her litter box.

All I could think of was, ouch.

When Val had come to my side, Cresta entered the living room on cue. Now Val had no choice but to face her. Cresta was holding something in her hand, but she had it hidden behind her back. Val followed my eyes and her expression soured seeing who had come in.

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"Val, wait! I really want to apologize, so I brought you a gift. It's my most treasured belonging, so…" Cresta hesitated to show it.

"Well?" Valeanor tapped her foot impatiently.

To our astonishment and confusion, Cresta revealed the fat cat plushie from way back during the first arcade trip. She had named it 'Little Akira' after me. My prayer back then didn't work. Mini-me was mostly shredded up with stuffing spilling out of random parts and the right arm was hanging by a thread.

That was her most treasured belonging?

Both of us stared speechlessly at the toy, and I was sure we had very different feelings brewing.

Val grew infuriated. She clenched her fists, sucked in a deep breath, and furrowed her brows. It seemed like she wanted to smack the toy out of Cresta's hands.

Instead…

"I have no need for such trivial possessions. Please, leave me alone." The elven queen stormed out of the room.

Cresta held Little Akira to her chest and sobbed. "I just wanted to be friends with Val… I feel so bad about what I did this morning! She's never going to forgive me, is she?" 

I put a hand on her head and ruffled the neatly brushed hair into a mess. Now I had two tenants who weren't getting along again.

"Your heart is in the right place, but you're not going to reach her heart with things like stuffed animals," Ines said from the couch, who had been lounging on her side the entire time.

"What do you think Cresta should do?" I asked.

"Cresta, you want to get closer to Val, right?" She got up and sat on the backrest of the couch to face us.

The cat girl nodded at mach speeds.

"Then you need to think about what Val likes and make an effort to understand things from her point of view," Ines explained.

While Cresta fell into thought, I figured it out in an instant. Ines caught on that I did and made the zipping gesture across her lips.

If Cresta was to earn Valeanor's forgiveness, I shouldn't give her the shortcut. Otherwise, I'd be doing it for her. However, she was having a much harder time figuring it out than I expected.

I wanted to give her a hint and saw Little Akira as a chance.

"You know, Little Akira's gotten really dinged up. Want me to sew him back up for you?" I asked.

"Can you really?" Cresta held the toy so delicately, fearful of causing anymore damage to it. "He's so beaten that I've been afraid of holding him lately—"

A light went off in her head.

"I'm going to ask Remmy if I can borrow one of her computers. I leave my most prized possession in your capable hands!" she exclaimed, handing Little Akira to me and racing upstairs.

Hopefully, Cresta had come to the right conclusion.

"Color me surprised that you're actually qualified to do what you're learning to do." I took a seat on the couch and sat Little Akira to the side.

Ines dropped back down and invaded my personal space by laying her head on my lap. With jazz music playing on the television speakers and a book in her hand, she flipped to the next page with a satisfied grin, then picked up the sewing kit underneath the coffee table to hand me.

"Don't mind me. Just getting on your good side so you can help me out with my graduate master's thesis later. Might be a little selfish on my part, but I need you and this dorm to pave my way to becoming the first therapist for netherfolks. I'll do anything to convince you."

Ignoring her flirtatious advances, I snatched the sewing kit to begin repairing the cat plush.

The next day, I tried to return Cresta her Little Akira plush which I sewed back to health. However, she was nowhere to be seen. The last place she should have been was Remmy's room, so that's where I checked first.

"Remmy, have you seen Cresta?" I rapped lightly on her door.

A slimy tentacle opened the door for me. Remmy was playing video games as usual, but the second computer next to her had many tabs open on the topic of flowers.

"She left two hours ago after saying, 'I got it!" and I haven't seen her since," Remmy said.

"Could that troublemaker actually have figured it out?" I wondered aloud, clicking through the tabs.

The front door creaked open. Hurried footsteps rushed upstairs. When Remmy and I peeked out, there Cresta was holding an armful of purple flowers that looked like fuzzy dusters.

"Val! I brought you a gift!" Cresta shouted at her door.

"Will you please stop pestering— " Valeanor gasped when she threw open the door.

"I spent all night trying to figure out how to apologize to you. I really am sorry about breaking your vase and your flower. Which is why I picked these flowers called hyacinths. On Earth, they're supposed to represent sorrow and forgiveness. I promise to be more careful next time, so… Will you forgive me?" She extended them for her to take.

Valeanor took one of the flowers and was immediately stricken by how beautiful they were. Being the difficult elven queen she was, she pretended not to care too much even though glee was written all over her face.

"Hmph. You appear to have reflected on your mistake. Very well, I forgive you." Val opened one eye to peer down at the teary-eyed Cresta and became flustered.

"Really? Can we be friends? I wanna call you Val like Akira and the others do!" Cresta exclaimed.

"W-Why are you on the brink of tears? And I never gave you or them permission to call me by that; refer to me by my full name, Val-ean-or! More importantly, we must hurry and pot the hyacinths before they wither! Come, quickly now!" She ushered the excited Cresta into the room, having seemingly forgiven her.

As the door shut, a part of me suspected that they were going to be fine.

"Didn't you want to give Little Akira back to Cresta?" Remmy asked.

Not wanting to interrupt either of their budding friendship, I said, "I can do it later."

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