Oh boy, all this Caronavirus nonsense is really giving me a beating in my job. I actually happen to work in the healthcare field. The front line of all this craziness. I work in what will be the very last field to ever close. If a quarantine happens, it will take the form of me being trapped at work rather than home. It's been crazy.

 

Well, I suppose it's better than being out of work and stuck at home worried about my financial future, but still, my body is wearing down. It's also most definitely taking away from my writing time. So, I didn't really want to have to do this until after finishing the 3rd book, but I very well might have to go to a once per week release schedule until things settle down a little.

 

Anyway, for now, I do hope everyone enjoys this chapter.

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Aerien’s POV

 

Much like planning a surprise party, the best way to keep something hidden from someone is to have them off performing perfectly legitimate business, something it makes perfect sense for them to be doing given the circumstances. Fortunately, where it comes to Sagel, I had just such a task available for him. I most certainly did feel that the assistance of one of the great fairies reincarnated from Earth would be instrumental in helping me to teach the queen’s subordinates about Earth’s knowledge of chemistry, but more importantly I absolutely did not want him looking over my shoulder when I was working up this spell. If he were to know the things I was aiming to do, I had to assume he would report it to the queen.

 

I did not want that dragon queen’s nose too far in my business. Having a spy that was literally attached to my soul though would certainly prove a challenging prospect to deal with. In fact, I was quite certain he realized what I was up to soon after he left on his business. I felt him become a bit concerned toward me through our link at about the same time as I was discussing the matter with Gaerien and the boys. Well, he can know what I’m doing on a general level all he wants. So long as he does not have the chance to read the spell in detail though he should not be aware of any of the specifics. I will just have to work based off of memory while he’s around, form my ideas for what can be changed at that time, and then go over the spell when I have the chance whenever he’s gone. Perhaps I can manage while he’s training the boys or something of the sort.

 

There was one real benefit to our familiar link though. It went both ways. While he was perceptive to the fact I was pulling one over on him, I was also able to sense when he was on his way back with the person from Earth… yes, it seemed as though it was only one judging by the feelings I was getting off of him. I wasn’t quite certain how the strange signals I was getting from him translated to one person, but subconsciously I was able to interpret them all the same. The one thing that was missing was why exactly he had only retrieved one. I would have to ask him about it later. At any rate, it was time to clean up what I was working on. I folded up the paper and tucked it away, and then took a seat on the side of the couch. This was a rather informal setting, so calmly sitting on the couch seemed like the most formal appearance a princess could take under these circumstances.

 

A moment later, the wall opened and Sagal motioned a female great fairy into the room. I was going to really get my perspective thrown off on the concept of ‘great fairies.’ The smaller ones were called fairies. They were not called pixies, sprites, or demi fairies or anything of the sort. The mere fact that it was the human size fairies that had the modifier “great” to their name would imply that these more powerful fairies were the unusual ones, and the smaller ones the standard. However, I had yet to meet a single standard fairy and had instead met an entire string of great fairy after great fairy.

 

I did my best to force these intrusive thoughts from my mind. It was a distraction. I had business to attend to and a guest to entertain. Speaking of that guest, she seemed to be in a bit of a daze as she looked around my room. Yes, the room was big and lavish, too much by my reckoning. It was more a house than a room in a lot of ways. But, it did not seem like that was the thing to occupy her attention. Her eyes traveled across Gaerien and the boys sitting on the floor, flicked over to me for a moment, and then scanned the room. With Logrim/Taminarda out of the room and Gwilitphen and Esgal now effectively barred from the room more or less for the sake of their own safety, I was the oldest appearing person in the room. She must have been surprised not to have at least seen something that would amount to a servant in here.

 

Well, the one person who could fill that role had just been the one to show her in. Sagel, taking up the mantle of this role, stepped past her and closed up the entrance, then came in front of me and gave a respectful bow while gesturing toward the new arrival. “Your highness princess Aerien.” He addressed me rather formally. “Per your request, I present to you Veronica, eldest of the Earth-souled great-fairies still present within the capital. I apologize, I used my discretion and evaluated the remaining three to be too young to be of service for what you wished to request of them. Miss Veronica, her highness princess Aerien.” He finished off, gesturing in my direction before stepping back.

 

“Welcome Miss Veronica.” I greeted her promptly. “Please relax and take a seat. I do not see any need for formalities. It is only us here, and I do not want to have to act like a princess in front of someone who is from Earth like me and the rest of us here.” I gestured toward Gaerien and the boys with my last words, directing her gaze in their direction as well.

 

“Umm… yes!” Veronica responded and glanced over toward Gaerien and the boys before looking back to me. “Umm.. I’m sorry, I was just a little surprised… uhh… your, umm… familiar he called himself?” She glances back to Sagel. “Umm… he told me on the way here about how you all started as infants unlike us, but hearing it and seeing it is a completely different thing all together. But… you’re quite a bit older though? He told me about that too, but I still don’t understand…”

 

“Yes, I am not completely sure I understand all of it either.” I told her. “To sum it up, it seems like some specific conditions about my spirit just made me stronger than even the rest of the people from Earth. My infant body was too small to hold all that power, so the response was to forcibly age my body until I was the physical age you see now. I am actually only six months old in this second life though.”

 

“My children would be jealous.” She commented. “It has been two years since we got here, but they still look like they are the exact same age as they were when…”

 

“Hmm… so that’s what Sagel meant when he said the others were too young.” I commented. “The other three who are here are all your children then? How old were they at the time?”

 

“Oh no!” She responded. “The oldest, Kelly, is not mine. She is unrelated to us, but she was around 16 or so. My children, Malissa and Joshua, were 8 and 6. Malissa was 8 and Joshua was 6. I think that was probably the strangest thing coming in here, you look almost the same age as my son.”

 

“Well, you can feel free to bring them by sometime.” I said, feeling a little more light-spirited hearing their ages. “I had some grandchildren before my death back on Earth, it might be a strange interaction when I appear to have the same physical age as them, but I do enjoy being around such energetic young children.”

 

“Oh! I am not so certain that’s a good idea.” She responded, I could practically see her skin go a shade whiter as she spoke and looked toward the wall. “I would be too afraid they might damage something in this fine area.”

 

Hmmm… that really was a point to consider now that she mentions it. I had hoped to potentially get some proper playmates to draw out my younger side for a while, but if they are a hyper sort and would damage the fine items here then it might be a bad idea. I had only been living here for a few days myself, so I really did not feel I had ownership of these items such that I could simply say something like telling her not to mind it.

 

“Well then, we will have to arrange some conditions under which I can visit you or we can meet in some other location. I really am getting tired of all the stuff that is of this world creating stress and problems for me, a chance to just live like I had back on Earth with more people from home would be a welcome distraction.”

 

“If I may your highness.” Sagel spoke up. “It would not require very much effort to add a second teleportation room adjacent to the training room. I believe that ought to fill your purposes. We can set it up with the spirit of the great tree so only those from Earth would be allowed to designate that room as their destination.”

 

“I take it from that suggestion, it would not be considered ‘proper’ for me to go to their room?” I asked.

 

“That is something that can be done, but it would make a few things difficult. I figured however that the training room is a more appropriate location for rowdy children, as it seems they are.”

 

“Well.” I said, looking back to Ms. Veronica. “I suppose that’s settled then. Perhaps we ought to get into the details on how you can assist me. For starters, what is your background in chemestry?”

 

-

 

Well, it seemed this would work out a fair bit better than I had thought. Ms. Veronica, or rather, Ms. Baker, Veronica Baker, turned out to have been a high school teacher in her past life. About the only thing that could possibly make this better is if she had actually taught chemistry. But, no, she was a social studies teacher. However, she did have enough of a background on the subject. She knew the periodic table, valance electrons, and most importantly she knew how to put together a lesson plan. There is every chance she would be better for the job than me.

 

The only issue with this whole deal, now I had committed myself to something that took away from my ability to complete my spell.

 

“Cool! There’s a bunch of swords on the wall!” A young boy who I assumed to be Joshua, Veronica’s son, hovered near the wall on fluttering fairy wings. “This room is huge!” He cheered and flew up into the center of the room and did some areal acrobatics. It made me wonder what he would think if he knew just how big Isanil’s crown was.

 

I watched from the side of the room as the boy enjoyed himself. Meanwhile, Sagel was crossing the distance toward me from the corner of the room he had set up the entrance to the new teleportation room he had set up. He was not the only one to come. Veronica had brought the entire crew this time. Along with her, there was also her 8… or rather 10 year old daughter, and the teen aged girl who was looking straight across the room at me had to be Kelly.

 

The teen girl nervously yanked on Ms. Baker’s sleeve and gestured in my direction. Based on how nervous Kelly looked at whatever answer she was given, I could guess pretty easily what they were talking about. “Joshua! Come down from there!” She shouted. “The princess is here!”

 

“What!? Princess!?” He said, and then looked across to where I was with Gaerien and the boys. He flew straight over. The information seemed to get his sister excited too, because she had also taken off from the floor and was flying low across the ground and came up just behind her brother who had gained a lot of speed due to his dive.

 

“Well, he’s a pretty good flier at his age.” I commented, just as everyone was touching down. 

 

The rest of the week proved to be fairly interesting. I decided to start teaching Veronica’s kids some basic weapons work. Just the stuff I would normally teach in the kid’s class. In a style where the hand-to-hand used joint locks which could seriously injure a person if done wrong, it was actually the weapons that were considered the safer thing for kids to learn. It was also a bonus that kids tended to be wowed by the weapons more, and they were also a good way for the kids to learn control. It was nothing like the serious sword training the boys were learning, it was more casual and mostly to learn some degree of self-control.

 

The one real issue was that Rolwen and Levin seemed to be getting jealous watching what I was teaching Veronica’s kids. What they were learning was serious. What I was teaching these kids was practically half play. I would quite gladly include Levin, Rolwen, and even Gaerien in these lessons, but unfortunately none of them were coordinated enough on their feet yet. I would have to make it up to them once their legs worked a little better.

 

One of the real challenges with Veronica’s children was refusing to succumb to the temptation to train in the air. It was something I would absolutely have to learn eventually, but since there was the chance it could injure my younger side again if I pushed my training in any way, I had to hold back on it. I had to restrict Joshua and Malissa to keeping their feet on the ground, and lead them to believe I did not have anything to allow me to fly myself. I have to admit, it was rather frustrating being held back like that.

 

‘Why don’t you tell them about your younger side and let her be the one to experiment?’ Gaerien suggested when I told her about my frustrations. ‘She effectively uses the same meditation as you, the experience ought to force her to grow, it would correct the imbalance a little. You’ve finally got some training partners, use them!’

It was a good idea. If my younger side could become stronger, and we could become more balanced, it would really change a lot.

 

“Your highness…” Sagel came in on me as I was in this conversation. “A message from lady Esgal, her majesty would like to talk to you about your progress on the spell you are working on.”

 

Well, this was predictable. It had certainly been taking me a while. This works out for me as well though, let’s find out if the arbor committee has made any progress in finding Dryad’s hiding place.

 

-

 

The court had been cleared out completely when I came up to the upper branches. Every time I’d been up before, there were at least a few fairy nobles flying around. This is the first time it has been only me and the queen. It wasn’t only that. It was not something I was ever aware of before, but the area also FELT empty. It was not something I could appreciate before, but I could always sense a maryid of overlapping spirit energy signatures of all the different fey around, and I could sense it even over the far stronger powers of the queen and Isanil. Now, however, it felt relatively empty. Those two powerful energies were the only energy sources I could feel at all. It all seemed rather eerie in a way.

 

It was clear what was happening. She wanted a private conversation with me. Whatever she wanted to talk about was clearly going to be important.

 

I flew up to her nose as I always did, and began a silent mind-to-mind conversation. ‘so, mother, I was told you wish to know about my progress on my spell?’

‘I do, but that is only what I told everyone else. There is also something more important I wish to talk to you about.’ Yeah, thought so. Considering how open she was about discussing the subject the first time around, it did not make sense for her to suddenly get this secretive about it this time around.

 

She’s coming out and telling me about it then, huh? Well, that’s definitely the logical and intelligent route to take once the target has become aware of it. I would be more impressed if she’d told me something I didn’t know or suspect.

 

‘This is a problem.’ She continued. ‘You cannot trust your own familiar, and this is severely limiting your actions and the progress you can make. You must take full control over him soon.’

 

Well, what a fantastic mess this is. And, it turns out, the solution is something that partially benefits him as well. It forced me to wonder whether or not this was on purpose to force my action.

 

 

What a difficult to evaluate piece of advice. It seems she wants to act like a proper mentor now. The advice seems good, and it also resolves many issues I have been having. However, a part of me is really wanting to find fault in it, and really wants to discredit the source. I still could not forgive her for what she did a week ago, but everything she’d done and said since seems to have been spot on, and that fact was almost the most infuriating of all. She wouldn’t give me something to perpetuate my anger toward her.

 

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"Sure, give more power to the guy you don't trust because the queen you don't trust told you it will work...."

                                                                                                                                                                                   -Asekhan

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Yay! New book is getting commenters inspired again!