”My lady, we’ve arrived at the Fiala estate.”

Lata turns her gaze away from the window to the carriage door that the coachman opened. As she exits the carriage she stares at the building in front of her.

‘I’ve already visited Janthe a bunch, but her home still amazes me every time. It’s so fancy! It really makes me aware of the difference in our statuses...’

“Welcome, lady Zelenka,” the butler bows in greeting, “ Lady Janthe has been waiting for you at the garden. Shall I lead the way?”

“Sure.” Lata follows the butler as he starts heading towards the garden. It doesn’t take long until they’re surrounded by roses from all sides. Lata quietly smiles to herself.

‘Janthe truly loves roses.’

After a short while, a gazebo comes into sight and with it two figures - Janthe and Randa. Lata’s face instantly sours as she sees the latter.

‘Seems like Randa is yet again trying to sell Janthe new perfumes. All of her visits lately seem to be only that. What kind of friend only visits to sell you stuff…’

Lata soon reaches the gazebo with the butler and Janthe instantly shows a bright smile as she sees her approaching.

“Lata!”

‘Aaah, seeing her sweet smile makes Randa’s presence tolerable!’

Lata quickly approaches Janthe with a warm smile, “Hello Janthe! Oh, and,” Lata’s smile wavers as she looks at Randa, “greetings Lady Datura.”

Whether Randa noticed or not, her smile did seem to be more like a smirk than a genuine smile as she answered, “Greetings, Lady Zelenka. I hope you have been well?”

"Uh, yeah. I'm fine," Lata, noticing something off with her smile, slightly averts her eyes, "And you?"

Not batting an eye at Lata's curt responses, Randa responds, "I've been 'fine' as well. Quite wonderful actually, but I sadly can not elaborate as I have some prior arrangements I need to attend, thus having to cut this meeting short."

"Oh, already? In that case I will not hold up any more of your time. Until our next meeting," Janthe gracefully curtsies.

Lata, with a genuine smile now, curtsies as well, "Farewell!"

"I bid you both farewell," Randa curtsies and soon after leaves the garden.

"Now then, shall we have some tea?" Janthe gestures towards the table under the gazebo that has been set up with fresh tea and snacks while they bid goodbye to Randa.

"Sure!"

***

Lata sits back in her chair and sighs with contentment as the servants clear away the tea and snacks, “Mhmm, the snacks were as good as always. I really want to steal your chef away!”

“That would trouble me - I do love the taste of those snacks myself!” Janthe playfully protests.

Lata pretends to think it over for a bit before speaking up again, “Well, in that case I just need to keep coming over to visit you!”

Janthe giggles, “I would not mind that idea.”

“Well,” Lata gets up from her chair and holds out her hand towards Janthe, “I hope you won’t mind my other idea of going for a walk around the garden either.”

Janthe naturally places her hand on Lata’s as she gets up with a smile, “That idea, I do not mind either.”

***

Lata and Janthe walk arm in arm in the rose garden with no particular destination in mind. They wander around for a while, chatting about the flowers surrounding them and anything else that comes to mind.

The ladies arrive near a tree that has a bench under it and decide to take a break there. As soon as they are seated, Janthe leans on Lata, making the latter’s cheeks warm up.

“Janthe?”

“Apologies, Lata, I am a bit worn out.”

Lata instantly looks worried, “Are you having headaches again? I’m getting worried about how many you’re having lately… Have you seen your doctor yet?”

Janthe sighs before answering, “I have, but he has not found anything particular to be amiss, thus he reasons I might be suffering from stress.”

“Do you feel stressed lately?”

“To tell you the truth, I am far from being stressed - if you do not count the times I suffer from these headaches, of course. I would even say that this moment of time in my life is when I have felt the least stressed, ” Janthe gives a small laugh as she readjusts her head’s position on Lata’s shoulder.

“Geez, those headaches clearly aren’t from stress in that case. Tell me, that he at least gave you some painkillers or something. You can’t be suffering from those pains all the time!”

Lata shows a clearly miffed face which makes Janthe laugh again.

“But you know,” Janthe looks at Lata with a sweet smile,”for some reason, being near you lessens the pain from my headaches. Even simply being near you lifts my spirits, so thank you, Lata.”

Lata stares at her for a moment, speechless, before quickly turning her head away  with bashfulness.

“Y-you’re welcome! If you ever need help, you can call me and I’ll help you. With this. I mean, I’ll help you with other things as well, if you need other help, but you know what I mean…” Lata trails off as she increasingly resembles the colour of a cherry.

“I understand. Thank you!” Janthe’s smile grows bigger as she looks at the one next to her.

“Y-yeah! Yeah, no problem…” Lata trails off again as she feels that shutting up would be the safest thing for her to do. For good measure, she covers her mouth with her hand to stop more speech, but also to hide some of her embarrassment. Meeting Janthe’s eyes doesn’t sound that safe either at this moment, so looking at this very interesting pebble by her feet seems like the best choice.