The Conquerors bloodline

By far Ferry was proving to be the fastest learner of the two. Lili tended to get stumped on the complex details of things such as large mathematical questions or even the more intricate details of historical happenings.

Velvet considered this more of a reason that Ferry was getting the simpler lessons, the small sums and the general geography of Vale and its surrounding cities and villages. Things that were just barely above bar for ten-year-olds.

It was quite astonishing how fast Ferry was learning everything. Math, history, Grimm biology, even some minor dust dynamics, the girl just seemed to be absorbing everything like a sponge. And as she did so she became more confident in herself, more mature as well.

If she were to compare Ferry's mental state from when she first met her it was like she'd aged five years overnight. Of course, she hadn't but just knowledge-wise she was more confident and from how she kept running up to Velvet excitedly telling her stories of how she could follow Professor Oobleck's history lessons, truly showed her improvement.

A few more months, maybe even another year and she was sure the two could catch up to the rest and join the lessons proper. The thought was disheartening, Velvet liked the girls thinking that she'd stop seeing them was both fulfilling and discouraging.

Lili for all her stoicness and bottled up anger was still a pleasant girl to talk with. Often they'd just sit around the table and eat their lunch just chirping off small talk while they ate.

But there was one thing that was proving to be less of a frustration and more of a nuisance. At least when Ferry and Lili were around, and that was Professor Evans—though he preferred it if she called him by his first name and without the honorifics.

He didn't quite stick himself to the girls but just the fact that he was in the room was enough of a distraction. She wasn't sure how the students in his lessons could focus, even she was struggling to keep herself from looking his way every few seconds or minutes. Something that Ferry was suffering more so than the others.

An alarm rang from Velvet's scroll and she quickly shut it off and said, "all alright, pens down." Lili dropped her's shrinking in on her seat looking like the world was weighing down only on her while Ferry neatly set hers to the side, lips squirming as she looked down at her paper. There was more than the last time they'd had a test and she was sure at least five of the questions were correct.

Ferry puffed her cheeks, pushed out her chest and grew a proud smile as she nodded her head heartily.

It was cute, albeit it didn't last long before she got a slight bump on the top of her head from a passing Parc.

Ferry turned her head up to him, smiling brighter than before only for Parc to roll his eyes and smile. "Don't get so cocky you." He huffed, watching through the corner of his vision as Velvet collected up the two tests.

"How'd it go?" he asked.

Lili shrugged and Ferry beamed.

"It went well!" the donkey blurted excitedly.

Parc looked to Velvet and saw her scan through the page, her expression growing increasingly astonished and confused. Not in a good way that is. The answers were all over the place and barely more than vague scribbles. Even the ones that were correct were very obviously done during a fit of excitement, the letters were wonky and large and didn't fit in the box assigned to the question. Same with the multiple-choice questions, they had at least ten different circles around the answer to ensuring Velvet saw them.

"I'm sure it did." Parc ruffled her hair. "And you Lily, how'd it go for you?"

The girl shrugged, muttering, "fine, I guess."

The way she spoke reminded Velvet of her childhood when she had gone through her short gothic phase where she had no will to talk to her parents and just locked herself in her room. That thankfully didn't last long, a few months at most before she collected all those horrible black dresses and burnt every remnant of her horrible mistake to ash. Except for one earring, a carrot with a long smile and devilishly pointy teeth. It was cute, a terrifying type of cute, but still cute.

*****(A/N, From here on I'm trying a new way of formatting. Having the dialogue separate from the actual describing paragraphs. Let me know what you think.)

"Are you fine or do you guess? You get one or the other. Maybe even a third option called 'it didn't go well.' A fourth, 'it went amazingly well,' is also on the table."

Lili huffed but couldn't hide the slight upturning of her lips.

"It went fine. I think. I answered most of them but I got stuck at a few questions. Probably screwed those up."

"Doesn't really matter if you screwed up. Not like any of this is going to mean anything in ten years. I learned maths and the only thing I have to remember is how to weigh metals and the price, therefore."

"It's still useful to learn."

Velvet added her two bits.

"While much of this isn't important it's still nice to know things. I find it makes me feel smarter and gives me a bit more confidence in myself."

Parc bobbed his head, the hand patting Ferry's head slowly found its way to her flicking ear and began to scratch at the base of it. The girl immediately shivered, her ear flicking faster as if to swat away the fly that was Parc's digit but was unable to.

As he moved one finger around and into her ear, he lightly began to massage and played with it like he was fiddling with a dogs. His other hand joining taking the other ear in hand and set off calming waves of pleasure through the donkey girl.

"That's a plus. I still think most of this is superfluous in the grander scheme of things. A hunter doesn't need to know how to blend dust, just how to be safe using it and how to use it properly. Leave the more complex learning to the scientists."

Velvet's expression strained, her cheeks pulling up as her head bobbed side to side.

"In the grander scheme, yes. But we are all in the little scheme, if that makes sense."

"It does."

Silence took them and Velvet's focus turned down from Parc and onto Ferry. Her mouth lulled open, hanging like a gaping sinkhole practically flittering between sanity and euphoria from how her eyelids were flickering.

"You look like your enjoying that."

Velvet giggled into her hand. Helplessly amused by the girls almost childish expression.

"I'm meeeelting…"

Ferry whimpered noises, Lily couldn't handle it and puffed a tired breath and began packing up her pens and highlighters. As the zip shut she rose, lifted her bag and hooked it over her shoulder.

"I'm going to get dinner. If you want to keep creaming yourself feel free, but I'm hungry."

"Lili!" Velvet guffawed.

In response, Lili stuck out her tongue and with her tail swishing behind her hastened up the steps.

Parc released Ferry letting the girls tensed muscles finally release and let her collapse onto the table.

"Comiiing."

She whimpered, sluggishly stuffing everything into her bag before heading off. Not noticing she'd forgotten to put the cap back on her yellow highlighter.

Her feet pattered weakly before fading softer behind the closing arched doorway of the cantilever classroom.

Parc took her seat and began to roll the cap around the table.

"They're getting better."

"I have been teaching them."

Velvet gave a light pat of her chest. She wasn't normally so prideful, normally she was shrinking on herself stumbling about her words but with Parc and the girls, she was as calm as she was with the rest of her team. If anyone else was in the room, well, she was still a blubbering Lapine mess.

Parc gave her the stinkiest eye she'd ever seen therefore and before she knew it she felt a knock on her head. He'd vanished and reappeared behind her in the blink of an eye and stilling any false place pride she may have had.

"Errr, sir?"

She gulped nervously, head inclined so she could look up to his mischievous smile that was setting off hundreds of warning signals in her body.

"I think someone else is being a little cocky, no?"

"No?"

Her voice squeaking.

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As I so kindly interrupted earlier, I did the latter portion of this chapter separating dialogue and the descriptive, narrative paragraphs. Does that make it easier to read? Just curious.