Dawn, at Elena’s apartment in the Ancient Cathedral…

Fancy sandwiches, colourful candies, and a few bottles of wine could be seen upon the dining table. There was enough to feed an entire family, possibly with leftovers afterwards as well.

Barefoot, dressed in nothing more than a collared shirt and grey trousers, the elven Lich, Elena de L’Enfer, crossed her arms as she eyed this rather bountiful spread laid out before her. That, as well as the sight of her beloved mortal servant, Claire de la Lune, slicing bread and meat upon the kitchen counter to prepare even more of those fancy sandwiches.

“Claire?”

At the sound of her name being called, Claire de la Lune turned away from her work and smiled at the sight of her mistress. She wore a cloth cap over her yellow hair, and a frilly pink apron slightly stained with splatters of assorted sauces and breadcrumbs could be seen covering the red silk of her bathrobe. And when Elena walked up to her, she leaned in close with her lips, pecking her mistress lightly upon her cheek.

“Hmm… it’s only been a couple of hours…” Elena remarked with a smile as she placed a hand lightly upon that same cheek. “But, I’ve missed ya too. Good morning!”

“Good morning to you too, my love!” Claire said, smiling in turn as she eyed the necromantic green blushed upon her mistress’s face. “Seems you’re out of your room rather early for your morning coffee.”

“Yup. And you’re up earlier than usual,” Elena remarked in reply, as her crimson eyes glanced once more at the spread of food and drink set upon the dining table. “So, uh… what’s the occasion?”

“Well, I’m…”

Before Claire could say anything else, there was a knock upon the front door. And then another, and some more in rapid succession, like someone wanted very much to smash a hole into its wooden surface.

“I’ll get it!” Elena announced as she headed for the door. “Of all the people looking for me in this Cathedral, there’s only one person in all Melodia who’d be up this early to do it…”

When she got to the door, she let out a deep sigh as soon as she had opened it. The sight of her petite and vertically-challenged Archon mistress, Nhaka Mezalune, and that toothy grin of hers alongside the multi-eyed gaze of her purple eyes and the eyestalks protruding from the sides of her little head like crystalline shards, was more than enough to make that happen. Dressed in a frilly pink nightgown and a black cloak that trailed the floor in her wake, she held in both her hands a bottle of wine.

“Elena!” Nhaka exclaimed loudly with a big smile. “You’re up early, my beloved pet!”

“I sense all of this to be your doing…” Elena remarked with a slight frown as she crossed her arms expectantly at the thought of sandwiches and wine set upon her table. “So, uh…”

“Well, I’m glad you asked!” Nhaka exclaimed with an even bigger smile as she foisted her bottles of wine onto her Vizier’s hands. “How would you like to join us for a picnic at Purity Forest?”

“I didn’t ask you anything, my Lady. Yet! And it’s rude, y’know, interrupting someone like…”

“If we leave right now, we’ll be there by tomorrow morning!”

“…that.”

“Yup! Isha’s coming along as well!” Nhaka squealed, tapping her foot incessantly upon the floor as all of her eyes and eyestalks stared at Elena. “So, would you like to come?”

Elena frowned. She looked first at the bottles of wine in her hand, and then at her mistress’s smile. It was nice, admittedly, that Isha Ayan, the Wild Elf scion of Clan Ayan with brown hair and blue eyes who now embodied the living essence of the Blood Shield of Sophia, was coming along for this picnic in the making. But then, she also remembered Purity Forest before the rise of the living god Elicia and the Empire of Arcadia, and the Keeper of the Forest that it once belonged to.

“Yes!” Nhaka asked again. “How about it?”

Elena’s frown turned to a scowl.

“Uh, no?”

 

---

 

Later, on the way to Purity Forest…

The carriage had more than enough space for four on its velvet seats. Affixed in the middle of its luxurious interior, between two sets of those seats placed opposite of each other with plenty of legroom for everyone, was a table with four picnic baskets placed upon its ornate surface.

With Nhaka in her black gown sat on the opposite row alongside Isha in her Convent School uniform, and with Claire sitting next to her dressed in red cleric robes as well as greaves and armguards made of steel plate, Elena sat quietly with her arms crossed and the red hood of her hooded longcoat covering her yellow hair. Expressionlessly, she looked out the window, at the moving scenery that rushed by amidst the sound of hooves beating upon paved stone roads leading out far beyond the walled cities and villages within the Ecclesiarch’s dominion, and up north into the Lord General’s lands where the once-sacred glades of Purity Forest remained.

“Um… since Her Excellency decided to help herself to one of the baskets…” Claire asked Elena with her best smile, breaking the silence as she tapped her mistress lightly upon her shoulder. “Would you like something to drink? Wine, maybe? I think that’s all we brought, actually… and some tea leaves.”

“No thanks,” Elena stated brusquely, her crimson-eyed gaze still upon what lay beyond the window. “I’m still trying to get to grips that she’d use her Command Spell to make me do this…”

“I’m right here, you know!” Nhaka declared out loud with a sandwich in hand, her mouth half-full with bits of meat and bread as she spoke. “And you should consider yourself lucky, disobeying an Archon’s will like that!”

Elena turned away from the window. She glared at Nhaka, who nonchalantly took another bite of her sandwich as all of her eyes remained affixed upon her Vizier’s scowl.

“It’s all part of the Archon’s Privilege!” Nhaka added as soon as she had chewed and swallowed her food. “You should know, since you agreed to this back at Eldia!”

“Yeah. And I’ve done exactly that for you, my Lady…” Elena remarked, her arms still crossed. “I’ve done it all with a smile. Killed ‘em all. And now, you’re seriously making me do this. With her, of all… people.”

“But Elena, we’ve met Elan before, didn’t we?” Claire asked innocently. “I know we had that altercation… but she seemed alright after that!”

Elena turned to her servant and sighed.

“Back there, it was strictly business. Y’know what I told you last time, right? She and I…”

“Have a bad history? Yes, you told me.”

“Then you’d know that it’s awkward every time we meet, even if it’s work-related. Especially if it’s not! The feeling is mutual, I’m sure.”

“You’re precisely right about that!” Nhaka exclaimed, causing both Elena and Claire to look at her as she helped herself to a glass of wine. “Hence, why we’re doing this! This working breakfast we’re about to have! Or lunch, depending on how fast we get there.”

“Oh, yes…” Elena remarked dryly. “Excellent choice of words, my Lady. Did you also invite Anna and Dagon, and Orcus’s dead remains…”

As soon as those names escaped her lips, she paused mid-sentence and frowned. She looked first at Isha’s blue eyes, and then at the brown eyes of Claire. Both of them had yet to say anything, but their eyes, alongside the many purple eyes of her Archon mistress, were upon her in silent judgement.

“Uh, I…”

“I made the request to have Anna come along. I’m glad that Her Excellency spoke to the Lord General on my behalf,” Claire remarked gently, breaking the silence with a wistful smile as she placed her hand firmly upon the top of her mistress’s knuckles. “I haven’t seen her in quite a while… we’ve been writing back and forth, but I miss her very much.”

Upon hearing this, Elena’s frown loosened. She bowed her head, her gaze upon the picnic baskets and the food and drink already laid out upon the table.

“Sorry about that. Won’t happen again.”

It was with this, that she returned to the solace of the window’s moving scenery, the ambience of rolling wheels and thundering hooves upon ice and stone returning once more to the forefront of their journey ahead.

“Aunty Mezalune…?” Isha said, her words both gentle and soft like morning dew as her blue-eyed gaze blinked innocently in Nhaka’s direction. “Who is Elan? And why is Aunt Elena so upset about her?”

“I’m not upset,” Elena stated, her eyes still upon the moving scenery beyond the window. “I’m just… wait, what did you call me?”

“Yes, ‘Aunt Elena’!” Nhaka exclaimed out loud, smiling brightly as she eyed the surprise written all over her Vizier's face. “Has a nice ring to it, yes?”

Elena ignored her mistress in favour of Isha, who simply stared at her in wide-eyed silence.

“Right. Anyway, it’s because… a long time ago, Elan and I had a fight, and I took something from her, and… we haven’t really been on talking terms since.”

“Um… why don’t you give it back to her and apologise?”

“Because… it’s gone. Forever. It’s a part of me, now. Y’know… alongside a lot of other stuff.”

“Oh.”

“And besides, she’s just an unpleasant being in general,” Elena added, raising a finger as she spoke. “Always going on and on with her self-righteous spiel about ‘corruption’, and her damned plants, and ‘defilers’…”

“I think that’s because she’s the Keeper of the Forest!” Nhaka interjected, wagging a finger of her own. “It’s in her job description to care deeply about these things, I’m sure!”

“Right… why you’d recruit such… people, I’ll never guess.”

“I’m so glad you asked, Elena!” Nhaka squealed, her crystalline eyestalks twitching excitedly as soon as her Vizier’s words graced her ears. “Why, it all began, when…”

With a frown, Elena shook her head.

“I didn’t ask… it was a rhetorical statement!”

“Aunty Elena, I’d like to hear about how Aunty Mezalune met Elan,” Isha said. “If she works for Aunty Mezalune like you do, she must be just as cool, and heroic...”

“Well, I…” Elena said in reply, her crimson-eyed gaze darting rapidly between Isha and Nhaka. “Uh…”

“I’d like to hear about it as well,” Claire added with a smile. “And besides, we have a long journey ahead of us. Right, Elena?”

Elena opened her mouth to say something, only to be hushed when her servant leaned in to peck her gently upon her cheek. Isha, on the other hand, could do naught but watch on in complete puzzlement as her Aunt’s face blushed with an unnatural shade of green from a single kiss.

“Well said, the both of you!” Nhaka squealed, beaming from ear to ear as her eyes and crystalline eyestalks gazed lovingly at each and all of her three companions. “Now, where was I, talking about Elan…”