With her friend at no less than her usual self, and Sir Grymwald affording her the thinnest allowance, Millie found herself caught, and in a different manner than when Anne first appeared. Her own eagerness to advance twisted up in the narrow tightrope walk of presenting herself as a pupil worthy of the painted knight's attention. It took all that she had to keep her hand on her wand, and not at her throat, where her nerves seemed to have joined together in a bundle at every thinly-won escape from dismissal. Millie's eyes drifted over to Anne, wondering if she was going to add another cluster of nerves to her bundle.

This was no Hogwarts professor, who would at least put up with a measure defiance and sarcasm in their classrooms.

"Knighthood, HA! " The noble duel instructor guffawed from his place within the portrait frame, casting out a withering glance at his pupils. "Squires yet you may be, Merlin-willing. The path there is torturous and lined with failures, and with any good chance you will soon join them. I do not suffer fools and nor do the perils of true knighthood. Far too many who call themselves " Sir!" do so by the disdain of their peers and victims alike. No, if you wish a quick path to be knighted, then I have been the fool to suffer a blight of twisted hope. Deliver me, and yourselves, here to the foot of my portrait by fortnight's end, and we shall see if your training has not been in vain!"

Her ears rang from the contorted shape they had to assume, piecing together the vagaries and misdirection in the knight's speech. No wonder she'd been told that Sir Grymwald was a harsh taskmaster, even his words required heroic efforts to unwind. Millie was tired of listening and worn by the lesson, so by the time she could decipher a dismissal hidden in the words it was all she could do not to collapse to the floor altogether. It took her several tries to return her wand to its pocket, freeing the young witch enough to shake away the rest of the ordeal that clung to her as fiercely as droplets of sweat.

"You surprised me, Anne," she admitted, surprising even herself with her own directness. Millie's hands were free to reach for her necklace again, but for the moment she didn't need to. It was an odd thing to suffer, the desire but not the need for the calming effects she found between those silver links. That was yet another thing for her to think about after this day. "I was worried you might laugh at me...learning dueling poses from a portrait."

She had never said the thought aloud, and now it even sounded silly to her own ears. Millie might have laughed, if her fingers were not at her necklace again, surprising her for the third time in as many moments. She caught a glimpse of the portrait figure above them, having returned to the vital matters that concerned such portraits, paying them little attention again. Her eyes stayed fixed for a few too many seconds again before she wretched them away. Millie was conscious of her warm cheeks again, reaching out to clutch the nearest part of Anne she could to lead her quickly away from the portrait hall.

"You're not going to," the young witch wondered, a stark awareness falling over her in that moment. "tell anyone about this, are you?" Millie's own judgement wavered, certain that if it was her being asked, she would have a hard time staying tight-lipped. Fingers tightened against the necklace at her thought, pleading as silently as her thoughts and eyes, hoping that her friend would agree to keep these lessons, and the dashing looks of their private instructor, to herself.

Millie was already looking forward to the next lesson, one she didn't think she could bear if the whole castle knew about it.

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