For a moment, there was only silence. Rommel didn't speak. She was shocked, but didn't believe a word Nora—or Monty—had said.
The teacup hovered between them like an unexploded grenade. Rommel's gaze flicked from the pastel bunnies to Nora's smirk, her fingers twitching with the phantom urge to flip a war table.
But there was no table. Just a dainty vanity. And no army. Just a seven-year-old girl in a dress that probably cost more than a Panzer's fuel tank.
"You expect me to believe the Reich fell because of… tea parties and bunny cups?" Rommel hissed, her eyes fixed on the girl in front of her.
"Oh no," Nora said, sipping delicately. "It fell because it was led by a mustachioed art school reject who thought invading Russia in winter was a good idea."She sipped again. "The tea parties came after."
Rommel's eye twitched. A vein threatened to burst in her tiny forehead."Lügen! The Führer's strategies were—"
"—About as sound as your current escape plan," Nora cut in, gesturing at the frilly prison around them. "Look at you. You couldn't storm a nursery in that dress."
Rommel's tiny hands clenched into fists, the delicate lace gloves straining at the seams. She opened her mouth—no doubt to deliver a scathing retort about tactical superiority—
—but what came out instead was a sound she hadn't made in years.A small, high-pitched hiccup of fury.
Rommel blinked, startled at herself.
"Oh dear," Nora said, eyes twinkling. "Was that your battle cry?" She giggled softly. "How cute."
Rommel inhaled through her nose, slowly, like she once had before Hitler himself—measured, formal, hiding the disgust. The scent of lavender and Nora's infuriatingly calm smile filled the air.
Lavender. Not gunpowder. Not the metallic tang of the desert. Lavender.
Nora tilted her head, her smile sharpening into something dangerously playful."Still clinging to your maps of Tunisia, Frau Feldmarschall? Let me draw you a new one."
She set the bunny-adorned teacup down with deliberate softness."Look around. Really look. Does this"—she gestured at the sun-drenched room, the floral wallpaper, the absurdly frilled canopy bed—"resemble any SOE interrogation cell you've ever heard of? Or"—her voice dropped, laced with a teasing challenge—"perhaps a particularly elaborate Bavarian dollhouse?"
Rommel's gaze swept the room again, not with tactical precision, but forced objectivity. The light filtering through the window was too pure, too golden. The silence held no distant rumble of engines or artillery. The very air felt… different. Thicker. Charged with something unnatural.
"Deception requires commitment to detail," Rommel countered, but her voice lacked its earlier conviction. "The British are masters of misdirection."
"Masters, yes," Nora conceded, stepping closer. Too close. Rommel instinctively stiffened, her small frame tensing for an attack that didn't come.
Nora merely reached out—not to touch her—but to trace the rim of the teacup. A faint, impossible shimmer of golden light followed her fingertip.
"But are they masters of this?"
Rommel's breath hitched. The light wasn't a reflection. It pulsed softly, emanating from Nora's touch. Magic. Real, tangible, utterly alien magic.
"Was… was ist das?" Rommel breathed, the German slipping out in shock. The sight shattered another layer of her disbelief. No Allied trick involved pyrotechnics like that.
"That, mein lieber Fuchs," Nora murmured, her voice suddenly low and intimate, the German endearment—my dear fox—both mocking and strangely earnest, "is the first clue."
She met Rommel's wide, startled blue eyes.
"The second? Me. Bernard Law Montgomery, Commander of the Eighth Army, would never be caught dead playing nursemaid to a seven-year-old German Field Marshal in a magical tea party, no matter how strategically advantageous. It's… undignified."
She wrinkled her nose, the gesture almost offensively at odds with Monty's usual austerity.
Rommel's small hands trembled—not from fear, but from the sheer impossibility vibrating through every fiber of her being. That golden light defied physics, defied war, defied everything she knew to be true. And the way Nora spoke—the precise, clipped cadence of Montgomery bleeding through that irritatingly sweet voice—made her stomach twist.
"Magic," she spat the word like a curse. "You expect me to believe in fairy tales?"
Nora's smile turned razor-thin. "Rommel, you once thought Hitler could deliver a thousand-year Reich. Let's not pretend you're above believing nonsense."
A sharp knock at the door shattered the tension.
"Nora? Lady Eris?" It was Malery's voice, warm but concerned. "Are you alright? We're coming in."
Before Rommel could open her mouth, Nora chirped, "Yes, Aunt Malery! Lady Eris just had a nightmare, but she's perfectly fine now!"
Rommel flinched as Nora leaned in—then froze as the girl placed a kiss on her forehead.
"This is our reality now," Nora whispered, her breath brushing Rommel's ear. "So play along, Frau Feldmarschall. Unless you'd prefer the local sanitarium. And in that body…"She tapped Rommel's nose lightly, "...even you wouldn't escape that fortress."
Rommel said nothing as the priestess, the duke, and the duchess entered the room.
She simply folded her arms, chin high, eyes cold. Silent for now—but not surrendered.