Dafni was sitting on one of the marble benches in the garden of the Leventi estate, her brown cat Phoebe next to her, teaching her small tricks through baiting her with treats. She was not a good teacher, trying to teach too much at once and generally treating the poor cat more like a dog, but luckily Phoebe had the patience of a little angel and generally liked her mistress.
All in all Dafni had lived through a rather boring day: Melina had told her stories, she had put on some outfits, made her hair twice and went to the agora without finding anything good to purchase. There had been food, some lessons and someone scolded her once, though Dafni could not remember whether it was her mother or her father. Or why it happened.
Now Phoebe was her last chance for entertainment today, but you also could only fill so much time with a cat. Even the most patient cat would certainly not be trained all day and so soon Dafni was sitting alone on that bench a handfull of treats in her hand left, looking after Phoebe, who disappeared into some bush chasing a butterfly.
"I really want to meet someone interesting for once." Dafni sighed to herself. Pushing herself off the bench she walk around the garden, feeling like she knew every crook and nanny and had given each flower a different name, over the time she had forgotten them, so her sad game was renaming them or remembering their old once. Maybe she should write them down? She had done that once, when she was a child. And many years ago Dafni had made up a song with all the different flower names in it. So she sang it to some made up melody and slowly got into a mood.
Switching in the middle to some love song about a man coming home from the sea, having experienced adventures in far-away lands and finding his wife with another man, having lost his connection to her, wandering from woman to woman till he found the one. It was a song from a book Melina had given her and Dafni had not even bothered to read the story, just skipped to all the different songs in it. There was no melody to it, so she made up one and practised so often, till she felt it was perfect. It was cheesy by all accounts, but her voice could carry it.
Strolling through the garden singing her song, she started picking some flowers making a small bouquet out of it, losing herself in thoughts and fantasies, where of cause she was the one and got all the attention. Without realising she got way to close to the office windows of Fotios.
Fotios heard Dafni coming. Knowing that the voice singing in his gardens belonged to his youngest daughter - for there was little that his family enjoyed, did or even thought without Fotios' knowing it - he had assumed the child's voice to have grown louder and then diminish as she moved away from the area of the house that was known for containing the rooms of Fotios' reprieve and work. Eirini (and himself, though the orders to the household never came directly from his own lips but through the effective administration of his wife) had always made it perfectly clear that his sanctuary of study, quiet room and library were to remain in eerie quiet. Given only the background noise of the soft breeze and the foliage knocking against the sill of the window, Fotios was able to concentrate. Anything else and his curious and inquisitive mind latched onto it and became distracted by what was going on.
He only had to yell at a servant once for making a noise in the hall outside of his study to ensure that that particular slave or maid never made the mistake twice. And his daughters had grown up with the accepted fact and law that his work was the most significant pursuit of any of them in the house and was not to be disturbed.
Which meant that Fotios was surprised when the voice of his youngest daughter grew stronger rather than quieter as she redirected her steps. Clearly, the girl was lost in whatever it was she was doing and hadn't seen fit to redirect herself away from Fotios' open windows.
Unable to concentrate on the papers in front of him, Fotios set aside his stylus and quill, ensured that the ink before him was dry and then folded his arms on the table and waited.
He listened as the dulcet and actually quite pleasing tones of Dafni's singing grew closer, his expression hard and defiant, as he waited for her to come into view. The song she sang was one of utter nonsense about a man stupid enough to leave the woman he loved for years dedicated to the sea, only to be surprised when the fickle creature had turned to the warmth of another man's bed. The song was wrong on so many accounts it irritated him. One, no woman of worth who truly in love would turn to another man and commit an affair against he whom she had pledged her heart - ergo, he was better off without her and, two, the man was a fool to pine away for a woman who clearly wasn't the perfect partner for him. Either way, the protagonist of the melodious tale was an idiot and Fotios almost rolled his eyes that, of course, Dafni would find some romanticism in it.
After a few moments, the lithe and thin frame of his youngest daughter came into view, passing by the open window of his study. The window was large - to allow for maximum light - and the wooden shutters pushed back so they were simple a gaping hole to the outside world and gardens. A chasm he could easily make Dafni's whole frame and profile though.
"What are you doing, Dafni?" Fotios snapped through the open window, likely startling her if she hadn't realised how close she had come to his private work quarters...
Dafni really was lost inside of her fantasy world, while she was performing the lines she had sung so many times. Inside her head she was nearing the end of the story, but then she realised she could just add new parts to it. Maybe a young noble daughter sweeping in, stealing all the glory with her beauty and poise, stealing the handsome adventurers heart and going with him to some far away continent, where they would live in freedom and peace. No parents, no rules, no icky physical stuff, just them walking each day through the warm sand of the endless beach.
What are you doing, Dafni?
The sudden bellowing of her father was too much for the girl. She screamed at the top of her lungs, lost her balance as she was trying to take the next step, lost her balance and fell headfirst into a bed of flowers. Getting somehow entangled in them, Fotios got now the prime-view of his youngest spawn fighting against the flowers and for a while it surely seemed like the flowers were winning.
A minute later a dirty, messy Dafni made it back on her feet and look up to the window her father was looking out of. Trying to clean some dirt of her cheek, effectively just making it worse smudging it also on her arm she gave him an anxious smile.
"F-Father, how nice to see you. Are you well?"
That was not enough. She knew it. She had to deflect the situation somehow. She had to take his mind of her. There had to be some way to save the situation. It was not like this was the first time she was in a situation like this. On the contrary. She had tried pleading, crying, running away, hiding, telling jokes, falling unconscious and faking injuries, but nothing ever worked with her father. Maybe she should try being more political about it? And what were politicians best at? Flattery and lies.
His eyes widening slightly at Dafni's excessive reaction to his call - which hadn't been all that loud, simply startling when she had supposed herself to be alone - Fotios blandly watched his youngest daughter surprise herself into a tumble in the flowerbeds. His expression was one of great calm as he placed his hands on the ledge of the window chasm and leaned out to watch where she fell and wait for her to bring herself back to her feet with limited grace and no poise at all. He felt a family acid reflux in his stomach as he watched the way in which his youngest was clumsy and not at all in league with her cousins regarding how to behave.
This was why he had yet to seek any matches for the girl. She just simply wasn't beholden to represent the family name and put herself forward as a viable candidate for political union.
It was frustrating to the extreme that each of his daughters seemed to have inherited a piece of what would create a viable and stunningly attractive woman for marriage had they been found in a single person. Agape held the mind and cunning of her mother, whilst Melina had all the demure appearances of her sex. Dafni had the beauty. No single girl occupied all the features of the others, rendering them only a third of what they could be.
His jaw tightening in frustration, Fotios kept his voice calm and unemotional, but his words were clipped and blunt in a way that would hurt someone of a softer nature. He attempted to be kind in his words choice for it was not true that he cared nothing for his children. But his efficient manner for fixing problems did not yield itself to a soft approach.
"Get up, Dafni." He ordered, watching her scramble to her feet.
When The young girl greeted him perfectly appropriately, he nodded, only to find her spoiling the effect but jabbering away in a manner unbecoming of both her rank and with a word choice that was hardly appropriate.
""Well" will suit just fine, Dafni." He told her. "Men do not respond to compliments on physical aesthetic as women do." The comment was not hard hitting but it was designed to be listened to. Even when spoken casually, Fotios' words were carefully selected and meant to be lessons in influence and information - not simple passing comment or idle chatter.
"What are you doing in the gardens?" He demanded, after clearing up that particular faux pas (he hoped). "What of your lessons for the day?"
Dafni never knew what the right tactic was with her father. She had tried honesty, as well as deception, usually changing between the two, hoping to catch him off-guard. But she never did, he was unwavering, like a rock withstanding the deep sea. Her curiosity however got the better of her.
"Men do not respond to compliments on physical aesthetic as women do."
"So, if mother would compliment you for not looking your age, you would be untouched by it?" God, why could she never keep her mouth shut. Reminding Fotios of his age was surely not a good way to get out of this situation. So she just flashed him a panicked smile, after this remark. Actually a few seconds too late, so it almost looked comical.
"What are you doing in the gardens?"
Well, there was no way deception would work. He must have heard her singing and he must have heard the words. So she chose honestly this time. "I was bored and lost track of where I was going. And I was singing, I made most of it up as I walked. I'm so sorry! I know I should not disturb you, father." She knew that was not good enough, Fotios never expected less than perfection and she had never delivered that.
"What of your lessons for the day?"
Dafni looked at him blankly for a moment. She felt a defiant feeling grow in her chest, softly knocking against her vocal cords. The truth was that her teachers were often fed up with her, staring into the distance, closing her eyes or simply day-dreaming, so that they sometimes finished the lessons early, because of how fruitless they were.
"I will never leave this estate or marry anyways. I might as well stay dumb."
Some woman next to Dafni must have uttered those words, because she would have never dared to say them. But a few seconds she recognised the sound of her voice, and one shaky hand carefully touched her own mouth, still open like a smoking gun directly after the shot. There was no other woman, she had just dug her own grave.