Chapter Two Hundred and Sixty-Nine - Royaltea

The palace was a grand building, long and tall, with carefully laid stone walls with huge windows. Cleanly trimmed hedges encircled it, only broken up when there was an entrance into the mansion-like building.

All along the exterior wall were small guard posts, not visible from the outside, where sylphs in uniform were standing at attention in the shade provided by their stations.

“This way,” our paladin escort said. He took a sharp turn to the left and led us along a cobbled path around the estate. There were little rock gardens, some more normal flower gardens, and a couple of enclosed greenhouses. The paladin stiffened just a bit as we crossed one such greenhouse.

I looked past the green glass walls and saw a young sylph girl, maybe a year or two younger than me, staring up from where she was trimming something looking like a rosebush. I grinned and waved, and she eventually waved back, though she looked confused about it.

“That’s princess Gabriella,” the paladin said. “She’s the youngest member of the royal family.”

“She likes gardening?” I asked.

“Her flower arrangements are admired and often treasured,” he said. “Don’t repeat it, but she’s often doted on by the staff and her guardians. She was frail when she was younger. Gardening was an attempt to get her outside to take in some fresh air, and she seems to have taken to it quite well.”

“That’s cute,” I declared.

“This way,” the paladin said.

He led us over to one of the side entrances, this one flanked by two more guards with plumed hats and halberds by their sides. After speaking with them for a moment, they opened the door and let us into a long corridor. There was a long carpet across the length of the room, with tiled floors visible along the edges. Every meter, there was a light sconce, with picture frames between each.

I noticed even more guards at the end of the hall. “There’s a lot of guards here,” I said.

“It’s considered a great honour to be a guard at the royal estate,” our guide said. “They receive additional training, as well as additional pay, though the real prize is the right to wear the uniform and crest of the royal family.”

I didn’t quite get it, but I nodded along and followed as we crossed the length of the corridor, turned at a junction, then came to a stop before a pair of double doors.

The paladin knocked twice. “Guests, for her highness, Princess Caprica,” he said.

“Enter!” someone called out from within.

The door was opened and we were ushered into a large, high-ceilinged room. There was a small shelf to one side with some few dozen books, and half of the room was taken up by a small stage on which sat a grand piano. The other half of the room was occupied by plump looking sofas and seats, as well as a small table in the centre.

“You’re here, wonderful!”

The girl that I assumed was Princess Caprica stood with the grace I’d expect from a princess. She wasn’t wearing a very princess-y outfit though. Instead she wore a uniform not too dissimilar from the one I’d seen soldiers wearing. It looked like it was made of a finer cut, and instead of being the same black as all the other uniforms I’d seen, this one was a deep, nearly-burgundy red.

“Hello!” I said with a cheery wave.

The princess approached us and paused a metre or so away from me. She stared at all three of us before chuckling. “It’s a pleasure to meet you. I’m Princess Caprica, but please, just call me Caprica.”

“In that case,” I said. “I’m Broccoli, let’s be friends!”

Caprica
Dreams: To marry her crush and live a long, happy life.
Desired Quality: Someone who will accept her for who she is, another romantic soul.

“Hello,” Awen said next. “I’m Awen.”

“And I’m Amaryllis,” Amaryllis said. “It’s a pleasure.”

Caprica nodded, almost a short bow. “It is! I hope you don’t mind, but I suspect I know more about you than you do about me. Unless Bastion said anything?”

I shook my head. “Nope, he didn’t speak too much about his work with the royal family.” Actually, I could remember him telling me a story about one of the princesses breaking his foot, but that sounded a little embarrassing. “How come you know about us?”

“Oh, nothing sinister. Bastion handed in his report and I had a quick peek at it. But come, let’s sit down. There’s tea being brewed as we speak, and the staff make excellent little pastries.”

Caprica led us over to the seats, leaving a larger sofa on one side for us while she sat primly on the edge of a seat opposite.

“So, what did the report say?” Amaryllis asked. “I have to admit to a certain level of curiosity.”

“Oh, I can imagine,” Caprica said. “I have never been exactly keen on gossip, that’s the purview of some of my sisters more than myself, but I can’t imagine not being curious about a document that mentions me.”

I nodded along. Caprica seemed very nice so far. A bit excitable? She still had the poise and bearing of a noble lady, but it felt like she was just brimming with excitement under the surface. She was bouncing on her seat, sitting right on the edge, and her wings were fluttering every so often. Quite the opposite of Awen, who was more of a born introvert, and certainly nothing like Amaryllis who was all sharp and rough on the outside with a soft squishy inside.

“I hope Bastion didn’t exaggerate our adventures,” I said.

“Oh! I hope he did. The report was a little light, owing to the limited time spent on it, I suppose, but it was positively terrifying to read. I can’t imagine Bastion facing so many challengers, and you with him, of course,” Caprica said.

I nodded. “He was a great friend. We were lucky that he was there with us.”

“He is pretty great,” Caprica said.

“Have you known him for long?” Amaryllis asked.

Caprica shifted on her seat. “Oh, for some time now. He was mostly attached to my older sister when I was a little younger. He’s always been someone that I admire, of course.” She smiled demurely, but I didn’t miss the faint blush touching her cheeks.

“You called us over for tea, are there any tea-drinking traditions in Goldenalden?” I asked. It wouldn’t just be nice to know, I also wanted to shift the subject just a notch. It would be embarrassing to be caught bragging about our adventures.

“Oh, nothing too complicated, I don’t think,” Caprica said.

Tea arrived, served by a pair of sylph ladies in maid outfits who set a tray down on the table between us and then poured us four cups of a fragrant tea. They left some honey on the table, next to cream and milk in little porcelain saucers.

“Thank you,” I said as I took a cup and breathed it in.

A cup of mountain berry and sweet leaf tea, steeped overnight and served with aged honey. Professionally brewed. Provides a boost of energy and assists in stamina regeneration.

“Oh, this is great,” I said as I took a sip. It was sweet, even without the honey. The honey did help, smoothing it. “Do you think I could buy some sweet leaves?”

“You recognized the tea leaves from just a taste?” Caprica asked. “That’s impressive.”

“Oh, I have a Tea Making skill,” I said. “It’s great for making good tea. A big part of my, ah, build, is about buffing and helping make new friends.”

Caprica laughed. “That’s excellent. I don’t think you’ll find many people here who have skills of that sort. We tend to have a more martial focus, though you will find some excellent craftsylphs. My littlest sister is considering dipping her toes into potion-making, for example.”

“Oh, that does sound nice,” I said. “What’s your class? Mine’s Cinnamon Bun Bun.”

One of Caprica’s eyebrows rose. “You didn’t inspect me on entering?”

“Isn’t that impolite?” I asked.

“Oh, it is, but that hardly stops people.” Caprica said. “But if you want permission, then you have it.”

I grinned and fired off my Insight skill at her.

An Indomitable Bastion, Level ??, Intrigued

I blinked. “Your class is Bastion?” I asked.

“It is,” she said quite demurely. “It’s a respectable though uncommon class. Mostly it means that I’m quite hard to move when I don’t want to be moved. I think a few of my siblings have some unkind things to say about the hardness of my head, for example.”

“That’s a neat class!” I decided. “I bet you’re tough in a fight.”

“I can stand on my own, though there hasn’t been too much fighting in my life. Being a princess doesn’t lend itself to many life or death battles. Though, from what I understand, two of you are noble ladies in your own right, and you certainly haven’t shied away from any fights.”

“We’ve been in our share of scraps,” Amaryllis said. “Though I wouldn’t call any of us expert fighters or combattants.”

“Yeah,” I agreed. “Fighting isn’t usually any fun, it’s all scary and you spend more time worrying about your friends and thinking you might get hurt rather than enjoying it. There’s stuff that’s fun around it, though. It’s nice to be able to really trust your friends with your life, and exploring dungeons is super cool. I’ve seen places and things that I’d never have seen if I didn’t take that risk.”

“Interesting,” Caprica said. “I never really had too many opportunities to go out and explore on my own, or in a small group, like that. I must admit to a certain amount of envy.”

‘Aw, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to bring things up that way,” I said.

She waved the comment off. “It’s entirely fine,” she said. “So! Bastion’s report didn’t mention why your group flew all the way over to Sylphfree. Though I imagine it has something to do with the summit coming up.”

Amaryllis nodded. “Indeed. We’re here to deliver a few letters and such. The usual political riff-raff.”

I blinked. That didn’t sound entirely right. Was Amaryllis doing something?

“Speaking of, what do you know about the summit? We might attend, especially if there’s still room for a few extra people to be present,” Amaryllis continued.

“Honestly, not all that terribly much,” Caprica said. “My interests tend to lie more on the military side of things, which I know has had some small changes as of late. But I can’t say that I’m well versed with the political side. Some of my brothers care about that a lot more than I do.”

“We’re a bit worried,” I said. “That's why we came.”

“Worried?” Caprica asked.

I nodded. “Yeah. A lot of the nations on Dirt, or this part of it anyway, seem to maybe be thinking of fighting each other. A war would be terrible.”

Caprica shook her head. “No one would be foolish enough to challenge Sylphfree in an open war.”

Amaryllis snorted. “Some harpies would be eager to do just that, and the cervid outnumber any force Sylphfree could muster ten to one. Your nation has an impressive military, but only when viewed in a vacuum. I think a war on the scale now possible would be a disaster for everyone involved.”

Caprica looked genuinely confused for a moment. She took a slow sip from her tea while considering it. “Maybe I have been a little naive,” she said. “I suppose it’s easy to believe stories about your own nation’s greatness.”

“I’m impressed you can look past that so easily,” Amaryllis said.

“I happen to know that a lot of the stories that are spread around are quite inaccurate. You wouldn’t believe what people think of the royal family. It’s almost as if my siblings and I can do no wrong according to some. They’ve never seen little Gabrielle sick, or my father trip over a loose bit of rug.”

I laughed at the mental image of a fancy king losing his crown to a crooked carpet. “I guess not. We should talk about nicer things though! Being all sad isn’t any fun.”

***