(Her Queen-memories jumped in disbelief.  She'd asked the "Will of the Multiverse" to bring with her Jenny and Selma; had it really without her asking dragged Kosvin of Trinnshire out of his generations-old grave to act as her father here?)

... but now Ser Kosvin was dead (and she had no way of answering her question, even if she could remember better what sort of person Kosvin of Trinnshire had been).

She remembered (her Lady-Lila-memories) crying over the ashes of her father's corpse that had been all his friends had brought home.  She remembered his funeral - standing up in a new scratchy black dress, with a cold brass circlet in her silver hair to mark that she was the new Baroness, standing arrow-straight both for her father's sake and for her own since she was now a Baroness too.  And she hadn't heard anything but rote words of vague sympathy.

And then, after she and her mother (ah, Selma, she thought!  With a huge sorrow behind her, even here in her second life) returned to their tower, she heard absolutely nothing from all the nobles who'd expressed their sympathies.

So, she realized, she couldn't just wait and trust them.  She realized that she'd need to carry on herself and do more great deeds like her father had.

And on top of all this, she remembered as if she (Queen Lila) had seen it in a tirehroot vision (though she didn't remember when!) watching Lady Lila join the Royal Academy of Villarosa and win the heart of Prince Caspar away from the evil Princess Alicia, and foil the Princess's plot to release the evil demon...

She half-jumps, and ends up sitting up in bed.  No, her Queen-memories told her; here Alicia was her friend!

No, her Villarosa-memories told her; she was the Princess; Lila wouldn't dare just trust her!

She sits like this for a few minutes before realizing she doesn't need to decide this just yet, and jumping out of bed.  She has... a new life?... a better chance?... a new story?... to start on.

Lila comes racing down the spiral stairs to find her mother sitting in her chair knitting, just like usual.  A plate of scones and pitcher of juice is on the small table next to her, just like usual.

"My," she says to her daughter with a half-smile, "you're excited this morning!"

(Lila feels a sudden wish to have breakfast at the hall table like would be proper... but no, she wouldn't do that to her mother.)

"Mama -" (and she has a sudden wave of weird happiness, to be calling Selma that and having it be real.  She'd done it before as a disguise while they were hiding from Barvid, but then - even though she could hardly remember her real mother there - they'd both known it was just a disguise.)

"- I had a dream.  I want to talk with Ser Mattan about what Papa did with his spirit magic."

(Which she also has herself - and which she's used for one almost-disaster that only Papa was able to fix, and she still doesn't know how.)

"I suppose so."  Selma puts down her knitting and holds out the plate of scones to Lila.  "But you do remember you shouldn't be experimenting by yourself."

She's not going to remind Lila of that horror (which she shouldn't have been able to do so young!) any closer.  But she can hardly help but be concerned when Lila has a sudden plan she's obviously not sharing.

"Did you get an idea from your dream?"

She's not going to share everything.  That would ruin the story.  She hopes Alicia isn't sharing everything either.

"I dreamed... I dreamed that I was somehow choosing what Villarosa would be like.  And then... I dreamed that while I was at the Royal Academy, I was defeating a plot to summon the demon lord -"  She glances around; she's now sort of nervous about naming it "- K'xabriguthak.  Even after he was actually summoned.  I saw what it looked like in the dream - but I'm not sure how really to do it.  And I'd like to think that was more than just a dream."

Let... Mama... take that last hint as "prophecy" or "life goal" as she will.  And she's not going to mention the Princess at all just yet; that was the compromise she worked out with herself.

Selma looks at her daughter with a slightly broader smile, and nods.  If some surprising dream is somehow what pushes Lila to start preparing to take up another part of her father's path, she can only encourage her.  "I think the part about the cultists actually summoning him is just a dream.  Your father did say he was fairly sure that demon lord was dead.  But if you want to make the rest real - good fortune."

(No, he's still alive.  And Princess Alicia gave them the last big piece they needed to get around the roadblocks Papa had put in place.  But she's not going to mention that.)

"...And what did you mean by the first part of that dream?  Choosing what Villarosa would be like?"

She suddenly wonders if Lila will be planning to try for the throne when King Ambrose dies.  Well, it wouldn't be totally impossible.  Maybe she'll mention it to Ser Mattan sometime.

"Oh, I was in a courtyard somewhere talking about how the kingdom should be set up, and how much magic we should be using, and things like that, with someone else who was somehow also me, don't ask me how."  She shrugs, laughs at her own fake of dream-logic, and takes a large mouthful of scone.

Well, that doesn't rule out trying for a throne, so much as also rule in becoming an archmage.  Which would be much more possible.  "Speaking of quantities of magic, I'll be sure to watch your next Light-magic tutoring.  Your tutor says you're doing very well."

"Ser Mattan!"  Lila bobs a small curtsey - he's her regent, but she can still do it if she wants to; and she does, since he's one of Papa's best friends and a hero.

"I had a dream, and - I'd like to learn more about Papa's spirit magic, and how you fought demons and cultists."

"..."

The way Lila asked this...  It sounds like trouble brewing.

"...For what purpose, Lila Roisen?"

Lila has never been alone in her seeking of heroic opportunity, for all that many of her father's friends are in the wind despite themselves, and his owed favors worth seemingly nothing to those he left behind.

Ser Mattan Hyas is...

Perhaps it is best to say that he is not a profoundly Good man, but he is a profoundly loyal one.  And Kosvin Roisen earned that loyalty, over the years.

He has done what he can, for his friend's surviving relatives.  Starting with scouring from the earth the cult that took him from them all too soon, before they could get any grander ideas - but extending to serving as little Lila's Regent, when Selma abjectly refused the position - and even before that, helping her practice Spirit magic, for all that he mostly just listens to them.  (He's no grand elementalist; he shoots things until they die.  Maybe that involves cajoling an arrow into carrying the right stuff, but Lila's parlor tricks can probably outclass him on that front.)

"I had a dream about having to fight a demon lord while I was still at the Academy, and that made me think..."

(She doesn't like to lie.  She-in-Villarosa never liked to lie.)

"... that I want to learn how to really use my magic, like Papa did.  Even now, if I can.  Or at least learn as much as I can about how he did it, so that when I can do it, I'm ready."

(Well, one thing she-in-Maranon now knows is that she'll never actually be ready, at least until she's already fought a foe several times over.)

"- Or, as ready as I can be."

"...Lila, you know far more than I do of spirits and how to move them.  I know, you believe I am a hero and that heroes are shining paragons, like your father was.  ...Heroes still have their specialties, leaving aside their ability to make mistakes.

"That said.  I can't train you myself, at least in your magics, but...

"If this dream is the sort that's all too real, little Lila, I would be duty-bound to seek out appropriate trainers for you."

But saying it's a prophecy would be spoiling the story.  And she already took the opposite angle with Mama... though not too hard for her to work out of; she thinks it's possible to have an ordinary dream and a prophetic dream on the same night as long as there's some clear difference.

"You can still teach me the non-magical parts, at least.  You know what all of you did, even if Papa didn't explain how he did his part."

"...It's not that your Papa was close-lipped, little Lila.  It's that Rosen doesn't have the words to begin with - maybe, maybe Gnomic does - and he said, often enough, that even if he did have the words, he was never sure how much his knowledge transferred.  Spirit magic is - intensely personal, for all that it's 'about' communion, and this I can speak to from experience.

"...I can teach you tactics."

"... Yes please.  And also... tell me more about him, and what he did?"

"...I'll try."  His voice is...quiet, almost raspy, like it's rusted from long disuse.  "I'm not...someone who knows how to tell stories.  Not the way he did.  He once talked some aspiring bandits into taking up new careers as druids - the crops weren't enough for them, apparently, not with...it would have been Feldspar, then - Feldspar's taxes, taking a big share - so he told them, and I do remember the quote, 'The way to give of your own effort is not to take from others; if a single one of you can raise the tides, you will lift everyone's boats.'"

"Yes - he told such great stories.  He told me about all sorts of places he traveled... not so much about what you-all did there, though."

(Probably she was too young to hear those stories.  Part of her wants to protest - when she-of-Maranon was eight years old, she was fleeing for her life from Barvid - but looking back, maybe she was too young for that.)

"Mm.  He wouldn't have; he was always such an optimist.  Hoped that you'd not have troubles like his.  I can't say I think you won't.  There's always going to be someone out there with more power than sense, let alone kindness, and consequently in need of a good stabbing to death."

...And he pays very close attention to her response.  Not because he has some strange suspicion - but because whether he tells her anything like what she's asking for depends upon how much Lila can understand that the world is a cruel place, sometimes - and while you might fight it, there will be times you cannot win.

Not at a cost you can pay.

(Now is not the time for grief.)

"Yes - and that means there needs to be someone out there stopping them, as long as they're still people and things like that out there.  Maybe there'll be fewer of them in the future; maybe more people can stay home in peace like Mama.  I sure hope so.  But I'm sure there'll still be some evil people like that for a good long time."

(Does that even make sense, now that she knows there's a multiverse with new worlds still being created?  Whatever; she'll talk about this world; she doesn't know how to make sense of unknown huge numbers like that.)

"And - I'm sure I'll have different troubles than Papa did, because he fixed a lot of them.  But I want to know what's going on out there.  And be ready to help."

(Could she-of-Villarosa have said this without she-of-Maranon?  Maybe.  From the vision, she probably would've said it later, in the Academy - but she wouldn't have thought to say it just yet now.)