"You are quite welcome," Alice replied, smoothing the girl's hair down. "It would be smart to know a little bit about weaponry, if only to have you properly school for an actual combat situation. You never know when that will come about, you know?"

Alice lay back a moment, reclining. She wondered about this girl. She looked a bit too prim and proper to be trying for something like this, that was for sure. She could only hope that she was wilder than she looked.

"That remains to be seen," Alice replied. "In fact, you can more or less count that as a maybe. Now then, what shall you be doing next?"