“It is,” Crow agreed when Penelope commented on how the quill combined his past with his present. It was quite a thoughtful gesture, in his opinion, and he appreciated the effort she’d put into it. In the next moment, he looked up when he heard Naida giggling at them and reddened slightly. In hindsight, he supposed they should have been a bit more discreet about the gift with his sister sitting right there. He had just gotten caught up in the moment and forgot to keep up his act of being uninterested in the knight. Although, he didn’t feel that bad about the slip up. Penelope deserved to know that he was happy with the things she had chosen for him since she had gone out of her way to help the princess.

At Naida’s question, Crow hesitated for a moment before letting out a quiet, relenting sigh. His sister had already caught on to his excitement over the gift, so he supposed there was no point in pretending to be nonchalant about it. “She did,” he nodded, looking down at the quill and journal with a smile. “Udolf actually just started teaching me to read and write yesterday, so I think I’m going to be using these a lot in the coming weeks. Thank you both.”

As Penelope announced that she needed to leave for a guard shift, Crow looked up at her with a frown. He had been hoping to have a bit more time with her, but it seemed their constant busyness was going to get in the way of that yet again. However, as the two knights went on, he heard Penelope say something else that caught his attention. [i]She’s going to be on the third floor?[/i] He took a sip of his drink to hide a smile. That was close to where his room was. His heart raced excitedly as he thought of an idea.

When the knight moved to stand up, he got up from the table too. “I’ll go with you.” Off to the side, he caught sight of Naida beaming at him excitedly, and he rolled his eyes. “If she’s working on the third floor, we’re headed in the same direction,” he explained.

“Sure,” Naida clicked her tongue at him knowingly.

Crow snorted. It didn’t matter what his sister thought, since the excuse he gave was believable enough to fool anyone else. As long as he would be able to spend more time with Penelope, the princess could make whatever assumptions she wanted.

He put the journal and quill back in the box Naida had given him to make them easier to carry and then turned back to Penelope with a shrug. “We might as well walk together so I don’t wind up following a few paces behind you,” he smirked slyly. “That would just be uncomfortable, wouldn’t it?”