My apologies for the tardiness; the last few weeks have been a crazy whirlwind of things, including three part-time jobs, presenting a paper at an academic conference (and the preparations for it), going through a minor surgical operation (which coincided with that academic conference preparation), and just general panic.
"I didn't think you wanted a p-picnic."
"What, I can't enjoy a picnic?"
"Y-You can! I just didn't expect it!"
"Mm. Enjoy the pastries. I am going to."
The two of you are sitting on a small pier jutting out into the lake, evidently one used for pleasure crafts belonging to Elizabeth's family. Elizabeth has her legs dangling down over the side, watching boats move around on the picturesque lake as she enjoys her sweets. You're beside her, legs folded beneath you, enjoying the cool breeze in your hair. The two of you borrowed a picnic cloth from Linda, where a basket of sweet and decadent pastries remains with arm's reach.
"I'm g-going to have to do extra exercises after th-this," you complain. You contemplate the chocolatey cream puff in your hand before nibbling away at it anyway with an air of guilt.
"Why?" Elizabeth asks, innocently. Actually innocently, for once, rather than pretending to be innocent to make fun of you. You're starting to be able to tell the difference. She's working her way through the sweets in the basket with little reverence but much relish. You recall that this same girl bought an entire solstice cake for herself and ate it without sharing.
"If you k-keep feeding me like this, I'll n-never fit into that dress you got me! Or anything else."
Elizabeth looks dimly surprised, as if this were something that hadn't occurred to her. "Ah. That's unfortunate." She follows this up by eating the most decadent, creamy pastry in the entire basket, making it disappear in two bites that you're almost sure is deliberately smug this time. It's impossible, just then, not to take notice of her tiny, slender frame. Of how, in your experience, beyond required training, the most strenuous physical activity Elizabeth enjoys in the run of the day - in between napping and consuming an alarming amount of fat and sugar - is walking to a bakery and back.
"Wh-Where do you put it all?" you demand. In your head, the question had been teasing, sisterly. Coming out of your mouth, it sounds closer to whining.
"All the nutrients go straight to my head," Elizabeth shrugs, as if to say "that's just how things are". She notes your glower with some amusement before giving you a similar up and down look to the one you gave her. Unlike Elizabeth, you flush. "I wonder where all of yours is going."
"It g-goes everywhere! E-Evenly! All at once!"
"Well, it's certainly not going to your height. Or your chest."
"Y-You neither!" you shoot back, face practically glowing as you cross your arms over your chest.
Elizabeth seems entirely unbothered. "Well, the fun of big tits and long legs is more other people having them, don't you think?" She waits just a short moment for your reaction before scoffing, "Oh, don't try to answer that. You might injure yourself."
After a moment, you manage to reduce your reaction to just pouting. "It's e-easy for someone like you to say. You've p-probably had many...m-many..." you trail off, the blush on your face restrengthening, before you manage to barely squeak, "...l-l-lovers."
The tiny elf's tiny lips curl cruelly. "Oh?" she asks, her voice amused and teasing, and already you're regretting having opened your mouth. "What makes you say something so very bold about a proper young lady?"
Flushing, you object, "P-Proper young ladies don't say..." and then you falter, realizing the word you'd have to reference, "...s-say...u-um..."
Tragically, Elizabeth has already caught on, and her smile twists ever crueler, her voice lilting a bit as she drawls, "Yes?"
"I-It's nothing."
"It's very impolite to say something and then refuse to finish it." Elizabeth is leaning in closer to you tauntingly. "What was it I wasn't supposed to say?"
"...B-Breasts," you squeak.
"I never said 'breasts'," the tiny elf scoffs. When you continue to blush and look away and pretend nothing ever happened, she presses, "Well? Say it."
"I don't want to!"
"Proper young Caldran mercenary apprentices don't go back on their word." And after allowing you an extended moment of mortified, incoherent mewling, she seems to give you an out when she asks whimsically, "So who's a proper young lady?"
"You are," you declare very quickly.
"Good." She gives herself a moment to enjoy another bite of her pastries.
You pout at having been cornered as you were. After a long moment, you can finally speak again. "I d-don't need as much nutrients from food as y-you." You glance up at the sky, noting how clear it is, how pleasantly bright the sunshine is on your skin. "I was worried there wouldn't be any s-sun here, when I f-first arrived."
"There often isn't," Elizabeth says. "This is Lindholm, after all."
"It's really n-nice right now, though. And the air is really fresh here, even this close to t-town." You take a moment to silently enjoy that, almost as much as you're enjoying the pastry. The sun and the mountain air, made humid by proximity to the water, fill you with a satisfying energy.
Your host makes a quiet humming sound of acknowledgement. It doesn't seem there's much she intends to add from there, at least until she suddenly returns to a topic that you thought had been mercifully dropped, "As amusing as your insinuation about my having many lovers is, one does not need to partake to enjoy the view." She glances at the water lapping below her dangling foot, and mutters, "Like swimming."
"S-Swimming?"
"Never mind. It isn't particularly hard, as you might imagine, to find willing girls when you're the eldest daughter of a viscountess," Elizabeth quips. She seems to spare absolutely no ego speculating that it's anything other than her wealth and status. "But most pretty girls aren't actually any more interesting than anyone else. It's just a little more pleasant to have them around while I'm tuning out their stupidity."
"... you're also p-pretty!" you point out, feeling a strange need to stick up for her. "And sm-smart." You don't flush as you say it, but only because you're still residually flushing.
"Yes, which are both somewhat overshadowed by my status. I don't blame them, but I'm hardly going to convince myself that every good-looking girl who climbs into my bed has pure motives."
Rather self-consciously, you look at your wrist where Elizabeth had grabbed you for shocking the night before, when you were tricked by two evil maids into waking her up.
Tragically, Elizabeth sees your glance and smirks. "Ah, so that's what you were doing when you crawled into my bed."
"I-I-I was n...!" you start, but are interrupted by a generous piece of pastry being stuffed into your mouth without warning. You squeak in surprise, but eventually allow yourself to begrudgingly start chewing on the dessert. Given how delicious it is, it really isn't hard to allow yourself to be both literally and figuratively shut up.
Elizabeth, for her part, looks entirely innocent as her gaze returns to the lake.
Finally, you manage to swallow your portion of the pastry before noting defensively, "I-I've never had a lover before."
Your companion rolls her eyes. "Trust me, that was not hard to figure out."
"It wasn't?"
"A more obvious virgin, I have never seen."
You blush again, but not too hard, in part because you're quite possibly already at peak blush, but probably mostly because you've already come down from peak embarrassment and pouting seems like a more proper reaction at this point. "So..." you mumble, even now a little hesitant to find out for certain, "...you haven't had a lot of...of...lovers?"
"Not particularly, no. If I'm going to actually spend time enjoying someone's company, there had better be something more for her to offer than just tits." She says the word with deliberate relish this time, watching you cringe with a slightly self-satisfied air. "That's time I could be doing productive things."
You nod quietly, thinking about how conscious Elizabeth is over her status as heir, and how other people think of her correspondingly. "H-How..." your thought trails off almost as soon as the first word leaves your lips, You'd honestly rather retract it entirely, but Elizabeth looks up from her box of sweets, spearing you with an attentive gaze.
"Yes?" she asks.
"N-Nothing."
Elizabeth keeps her eyes on you, hand reaching into the open box on her lap to delicately produce a chocolate. She uses it to gesture at you. "If it were actually nothing, you wouldn't have started the sentence. You do this all the time. Out with it before I zap you."
You can tell that, with Elizabeth's interest mildly piqued, you're now effectively trapped. "I was j-just wondering h-how it feels to be..." you frown, trying to find words as your eyes scan around the parts of Marloch you can see. All the people, all the activity and commerce. "You're g-going to be viscountess someday," you say, changing tact.
"Hm. How does it feel to be a dryad?"
"Um..." you're unprepared for this question and wind up staring blankly at her for a long moment. "I d-don't know," you admit. "I've never b-been anything else."
Elizabeth seems to approve of this answer, somehow. When she reaches into her box next, she produces a sweet and holds it out to you, clearly intending for you to accept it. When she drops it into your waiting hands, she points out, "I was born my mother's heir. So I've always known I would inherit Marloch. Fish swim, birds fly, I'm a future viscountess. It's a fact of reality."
"N-Not like Sieglinde," you acknowledge. The only possible point of reference you have for the sentiment.
A laugh, slightly harsh. "In many ways, thank the Spring." And when you're silent and making a face - something you don't realize until she speaks up again - Elizabeth remarks dryly, "You're unhappy."
"I really don't u-understand how you really feel about Sieglinde." One moment Elizabeth's talking about how she really respects Sieglinde, other times she seems to hold little but contempt as to what she's doing.
"Mm." Elizabeth doesn't seem to have much more to add to this, lazily picking up another pastry and chewing on it quietly. And for a long moment, it seems that she has nothing to add, at least until she suddenly asks after an awkward stretch of silence, "What is it, exactly, that you think Ravenhill is trying to do?"
That, at least in the abstract, is easy enough to answer; you've certainly talked enough with Sieglinde about this. "She's trying to improve the c-confederacy."
"Mm. And how? What is so wrong that she's trying to fix?"
You blink, giving this a moment of thought. The truth is that you can't really think of anything specifically wrong with Caldrein, at least not by yourself. You have never been dissatisfied with your life in Caelon, nor have you ever expected much more. Elizabeth certainly observed as much so many months ago, that you are much more invested in changing yourself than you are at improving the lot of your family, a lot that you already find pretty good, all things considered. The only problems you can think of are the ones that Sieglinde has outlined to you before: Weak diplomacy, political stagnancy, social stubbornness. But you don't think you really grasp these issues - these thoughts that are very much second-hand, in any case - well enough for you to reiterate them to Elizabeth.
Seeing you struggle internally, she does a little sigh and says, "Let me rephrase that question: Based on the amount of whining you hear, what would be your strongest impression of what Caldrein's greatest problem is?"
Well, of course, there is Penelope and her deeply-rooted grudges - shared to some extent with Wendy, insofar as you can tell, and the girls of Squad Twelve - but beyond animosity towards elves and the nobility, you have never entirely understood what fuels Penelope's constantly-simmering anger. "Class?" you venture hesitantly. "And r-race?"
Elizabeth smiles in a satisfied way, as if she expected your answer. "A mix of the two, yes. That the poor are poor and the rich are rich, and few of the rich are human, therefore too many of the poor are human, numbers about the elven poor be damned." She pops the last bite of pastry into her mouth. "Wenches like..." she trails off, blinking. "What was the name of that wench? You know, the one who poured soup on me."
"P-Penelope."
"Yes, her. Wenches like her whine and shout and accost people above themselves because their lives are hard. Because she has undergone legitimate suffering, therefore she must know how to fix things. Never mind that she couldn't read or count above ten before she set foot in Faulkren; she knows best, and her best involves punching people or pouring soup on helpless little elven ladies until everyone's problems go away." She ignores your incredulous look. "Do you think she is in any way familiar with the writings of Aspen Argova or Bria of Grimald? What makes you think she has read treatises on economic distribution? Now that you're learned in the ways of war, how much would you accept tactical advice from someone who has never had your training and clearly has no idea what she's talking about?"
"A-All the more we should teach people." Something about this conversation - about Elizabeth's words - gnaw at you in a way that makes you upset, in a way that makes your features tighten. "All the more we should make sure they have teachers to learn from. Things would be better."
"And things would also get better if we all worked together to find the fountain of infinite youth." It seems like Elizabeth is only barely managing not to roll her eyes. "Or if I had a pony made out of the purest double rainbow. Governance is complicated, and I don't have time for daydreamers. The vast majority of the population can't count past ten, and even more don't know how to spell their own name. That..." she trails off again, lazily trying to conjure up a name from her memories with visibly minimal effort, "...that wench..."
"Penelope." Part of you wonders if Elizabeth has really forgotten her name, or if she's doing so deliberately.
"Yes, she became literate by attending a Caldran mercenary academy, to learn how to fight instead of how to read; literacy wasn't even on her mind when she came here. Do you imagine someone like her would be particularly receptive to someone like Ravenhill? Someone educated and highborn whose ears aren't round enough for her tastes? Never mind who has actually had the opportunity to study and learn about the problem, who had read about how disastrously failed attempts have worked out in the past."
"We can do something about it now. Lady Sieglinde is." You're not sure why you're suddenly appending "lady" to Sieglinde's name, but you are.
"She is, yes. And I do hope she succeeds." Catching your mildly skeptical look, the tiny elf smirks and insists, "I really do, preferably in my lifetime, even if I won't hold my breath. It's progress, and it'd be nice to suffer fewer fools. But no one will thank Ravenhill for what she wants to do. Not Penelope. Certainly not Treiser or Charmaine and people like them either, highborns who have created systems where a poor girl's best bet to learn how to read is by learning how to make war with our Caldran mercenaries. One side doesn't know what a solution looks like, and the other doesn't even know they need one. And yet Ravenhill persists, like the world's least enthusiastic martyr, dragging all of them kicking and screaming to a better society or system of government. She's willing to do this because she doesn't like people, because she doesn't trust them or consider them to be part of the solution to begin with, and she doesn't need to care about their opinions or feelings so long as Caldran society becomes better. It's funny to watch her try - she may even succeed! - but it's also a little difficult to watch."
You're trying not to let too much emotion seep into your voice when you ask, "Do you think you can change the confederacy and its people by not trusting them?"
"Betterment of society is the work of centuries. Unless it is done coercively, it almost always requires a consensus that things could be better, how they could be better...which is something we don't have. If you want to force the issue anyways, you're going against the will of everyone; of course she doesn't trust them." Elizabeth smiles slyly, tossing a piece of pastry into the lake close to a small flock of ducks; the adults converge on the food at once, splashing and quacking raucously. "But do you know who else doesn't trust the confederacy and its people?" She waits for a moment, as if expecting you to answer, but she doesn't seem too exasperated when you don't provide one. "Penelope. See how bitter she is with city laborers and peasants alike, most of whom she deems unable to see the inequalities and injustices committed upon the human poor. See how bitter she is with the aseri, whom she sees as willing to cozy up to the elven nobility for more power." Again with a sly smile. "Another question you can ask yourself: What do you think Penelope finds to be a greater injustice? That there is a 'great oppressive nobility' at all? Or that just not enough of them are human? Or maybe she hasn't even thought that far. Maybe she's just angry."
Elizabeth may be right. You can't say, not without getting into Penelope's head...or talking with her, which you've done little of. Wendy is as close as it comes to that. Still, your elven squadmate's argument is as unsettling as it is uncomfortable. "You don't think it's unfair that you're saying this as a highborn?"
The thought that Elizabeth may be angry at this statement vaguely occurs to you in the back of your mind, but before you can register your terror, Elizabeth merely smirks knowingly. "Ah, yes. I can't possibly comment on these issues impartially because I, too, am highborn. Because I 'lack perspective' and 'put forth self-serving arguments' to 'preserve my power'. I suppose that's not unfair...beyond your insistence that Ravenhill, another highborn, must have the right idea. What makes her more correct than I, beyond her confirming your own biases?"
Falling quiet, you find yourself frustrated by Elizabeth pointing out the flaw in your logic, but also unhappy with the worldview you're presented with. Certainly, you can't dispute the facts with Elizabeth; she'll always know more of those than you, and you can't dispute them, from how illiterate Caldran society is to the ignorance of the common person. But there's just something about how she views the world that's actively upsetting, a form of cynicism against yet another form of cynicism. It feels petty and suffocating, as if there is no room for improvement left in the world, as if there's nothing Sieglinde can do to better the social conditions.
You want to believe there's potential for betterment. That society - if not civilization itself - is destined to advance and become more sophisticated, that the lives of the average person would eventually become better. Even if Elizabeth can present all these facts about why it's going to be otherwise.
"By the way," the elf in question interrupts your thoughts with a surprisingly light tone, "have you noticed you've stopped stuttering?"
You blink, your unhappiness temporarily bested by confusion as you slowly come to the realization that...no, you actually haven't stuttered the last few times you've talked. You were responding to Elizabeth, and somewhere along the lines, you just...stopped stuttering. Because you were upset. Because you were focused.
The confusion you feel must show on your face, because Elizabeth smirks and remarks, "You're adorable when you're angry." Ignoring your blush and the sudden collapse of any bubble of indignation you may have had, your squadmate cuts through your incoherent babbling with a yawn: "I didn't bring you all the way to Marloch so we can talk about Ravenhill or Penelope or some other girl."
You take a moment to recover, even as Elizabeth falls backwards onto the picnic cloth, lying down on the pier with her feet dangling over the side above the lakewater. She periodically opens and closes her eyes, as if slowly transitioning between cloudwatching and dozing off.
Certainly, you'd welcome a topic change; the one previous wasn't exactly what you'd call enjoyable. Quietly, you turn your gaze towards the surface of the lake for a while, watching the ducks paddle around. Fishing in your memories for anything to have a conversation over, you find yourself thinking back to your conversation with Elizabeth in her study. Or, rather, her lecture. "D-Did you ever really try it?" you ask, looking at the lake. "F-Freezing Lake Marl?"
Elizabeth yawns in a way that sounds slightly scornful. "Do you have any idea how much water is in Lake Marl?" she demands.
"A l-lot?"
"Yes," Elizabeth rolls her eyes at your wording. "'A lot'. Do you have any idea the sheer amount of mana that would be required to turn that amount of water to ice?"
"...A l-lot?" you venture, flushing a little.
"More than would be possible for any one mage. Any ten mages. Certainly more than ten of me even now. I wouldn't even get very far before having to stop and lay down for the rest of the day."
"Ah," you say, feeling that her tone is a little condescending for an innocent question to fill a lull in conversation.
"And, like I've said, it's not as though it would stay frozen. Even if I could cover the whole lake thick enough for anyone to stand on, it wouldn't last long on a day like today."
"S-Sorry."
She doesn't look at you right away, instead closing her eyes again and laying on the picnic cloth, unmoving. Then she sighs. "I was six," she admits.
You blink. "Y-You mean..."
"Yes, I tried it. It went as well as you'd expect."
"Were you o-okay?" you ask, surprised.
"I barely froze a square meter, then I had a splitting headache for the next day and a half," Elizabeth confirms. There's a further beat before, with a trace of humour, she adds, "It was summer, and I wanted to go skating."
You're torn then, between sympathy for the imagined child-Elizabeth - in your mind, a tiny, angelic little girl whining and clutching at her golden-haired head - and the full realization that Elizabeth had been practising magecraft at the age of six. Noble child-rearing, you decide, is scary. "I can't even i-imagine myself casting magecraft at s-six," you admit, feeling ruefully inadequate like how you often do when talking to Sieglinde. "Did L-Ladies Diana and Anya also start learning magecraft at th-that age?"
"Of course not," Elizabeth mumbles lazily; she doesn't open her eyes, but you wonder if she isn't rolling her eyes underneath those closed eyelids. "Diana isn't being tutored in magecraft. Nor Anya. Mother had me tutored from an early age because I showed promise. What, did you think all ladies are trained at so young an age?"
"I...th-thought maybe?" you say hesitantly. It does sound silly, but Elizabeth makes it look so easy sometimes. "Y-You did."
"Yes, well, I'm me. You won't find many me's in Caldrein. Not even Treiser's potential was recognized for training as early. Ravenhill came even later, seeing how her house had a completely different heir at first." Her tone takes on a somewhat derisive lilt. "Besides, can you even imagine Celestia being able to do what I did at age six? Sixteen? Twenty-six? Sixty?"
You fall quiet, not sure how to react to this. All things considered, you like Lucille. She may not be as talented as Elizabeth or Sieglinde or Aphelia or Azalea, but you've always found her kind and likeable. Listening to your squadmate describe Lucille in such dismal terms is not something you find yourself getting behind, and an unwillingness to either contradict nor agree with Elizabeth causes the conversation to fall into silence for a long while.
As the clouds drift idyllically by, and as fishing boats sail astride pleasure craft on this lake, you quietly think about Elizabeth's worldview, about how - when you really think about it - her opinion on the state of Caldran society has less to do with any incorrect facts, but more to do with a complete lack of faith in people in general. That the betterment of people and of society is fundamentally constrained by their short-sightedness. Does that mean she has a cynical but realistic outlook about what she is able to accomplish without an increased social consciousness about what can and needs to be improved? Or is this simply an excuse for her not to become involved in that process? Complicating this still is Elizabeth's assessment of Sieglinde; you've always found the taller, raven-haired elf to be much more altruistic in what she wants to contribute to Caldrein, but if Elizabeth really is right, what does it mean when Sieglinde herself also has very little faith in people? When she is acting against the will of the broader public in pursuit of her own vision of how to make things "better"?
You don't know how to make heads or tails of this. It hurts your head, even. You wish Sieglinde were actually around for you to ask her.
But ultimately, you want to be optimistic. "I w-want to have hope in my own fellow Caldrans," you admit to Elizabeth quietly after a very, very long moment, trying to force a tone of conviction into your voice. "I want to b-believe that even if we struggle to understand it, we will s-still recognize what will help us, what will make Caldrein b-better. It feels...m-meaningless if we don't even have room for self-improvement."
You wait for Elizabeth to respond, half-expecting a rebuke, but it never comes. In surprise, you look over at where Elizabeth is lying down on the picnic cloth...
...And she's asleep.
"...Lady Elizabeth?" you whisper, feeling very reluctant to wake her up after your experience from the previous night. Sadly, the tiny elf doesn't respond, her eyes still closed as she breathes softly in her sleep. "L-Lady Elizabeth?" you try again, poking her shoulder as hard as you dare - which is to say, extremely lightly - to no avail; the tiny elf remains asleep.
It is then that you realize - to your dismay - that you're going to carry her back across the town of Marloch, up the hill, and back to the Zabanya manor.
You don't actually need to get very far before people on the streets of Marloch - apparently quite familiar with this pattern of behavior from Elizabeth - offer to help. But not before laughing at the sight of a dryad carrying picnic supplies, a buster sword, and a tiny napping elf who refused to wake up.
For the next week, your stay is quite similar to your first few days. You spend much of your time with Elizabeth reading and talking and napping - although that last one is perhaps a rather one-sided affair - sometimes in the library, sometimes in town, sometimes on walks along the shores of Lake Marl that always result in her turning back well before she reaches the halfway point. In spite of the divide in class, her mother and sisters entertain you as a guest, although the former seems to be busy with various affairs; you quickly understand that difficult local matters have her tied down, that she's late for the political season and the gathering of the confederacy's leaders in Stengard, and that Elizabeth's father was sent ahead to represent House Zabanya in the meantime.
For the most part, the visit is enjoyable. Whatever else her faults - including a propensity to lecture at you with what you find to be a realistic but cynical vision of the world around her - Elizabeth is a gracious host who, when not napping, generally tries to include you in the going-ons of Marloch. You end your touring of workshops, listening in on petitions by artisan groups here to House Zabanya, and having extended conversations with Elizabeth's sisters. All in all, it's a rather enjoyable experience.
But eventually the week passes, and you find yourself back at Tracy's tailor shop to try on your new gown. It is not, to your immense relief, either as frightfully daring as Elizabeth hinted, nor anything like a maid uniform, in spite of Elana's dire warnings. The bodice is tighter, more form-fitting than you're used to, and its scoop neck still displaying your collar bones and the tracery of dryad skin patterns along the base of your throat. However, it mercifully has full sleeves and a sweeping skirt down to your ankles. The fabric is so light and fine that you can't shake the feeling that you shouldn't be allowed to touch it, shimmering from pale green to a darker shade matching the leaves in your hair.
"It's...It's b-beautiful!" you exclaim, staring at your wavy reflection in the full length mirror of the tailor's shop.
Tracy bows humbly at your compliments. For her part, Elizabeth looks pleased - if not outright smug - as she declares, "Good. You'll finally look presentable for Stengard."
You blink, the import of her words not completely sinking in as you blankly intone: "Eh?"
"What," the elf smirks, "you didn't think I was going to take you to political season in your rags, did you?"
"...Eh?"
"...Eh?" you echo as the maids finish packing both yours and the Zabanya household's baggage as your ushered into a horse-drawn wagon alongside the Zabanya sisters helmed once again by Clarine.
"...E-E-Eh!?" you stammer in mild panic as the wagon starts traveling down Lindholm's roads towards Stengard, the political heart of the Confederacy of Caldrein.
"I am beginning to see," Diana notes one day - while Elizabeth is asleep and your wagon continues down its journey to Stengard, after days of interacting with the Zabanya siblings - as the two younger sisters look at you and nod in mutual understanding, "why Elizabeth brought you back."
Your mewls for clarification on that point, sadly, remain unanswered as you ride ever closer to your destination.
In some stories, including RPGs, there are characters who are influenced by the protagonist (like a standard BioWare game), and then there are characters who influence the protagonist. Elizabeth belongs in significant part to the latter; relative to other characters, Elizabeth is "more developed" and her role, in a way, is to be just contrary enough to Neianne's sensibilities that it'll provoke a reaction and slowly make her more assertive. Kind of like how hanging around with Azalea more often will develop a more graceful form of charisma, etc.
I'm admittedly also using Elizabeth to provide a bit of exposition on Caldrein. It's going to be relevant from storyarc two and onwards.
