Author's note

I would like to apologize for being late with this, even by my already twice slowed down schedule. I forgot to mention it, but I had a test last Wednsday. It slowed down my ability to write quite significantly.

On a different but slightly related subject, I would like to thank everyone who commented on the FAQ and poll. The negative comments have a tendency to stick out. And, while I can know it in my head that most people reading are probably reading because they like what they are seeing, especially THIS deep into the story, it really does help to get that reassurance in the form it came in like a flood in the improptu FAQ last chapter.

The response was very strong, the overwhelming majority of you like the series just the way it is. So, I will continue to write it however makes sense in accordance with the characters.

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Aerien’s POV

[Incitement of a dryad is a crime in which someone causes a dryad to take actions which harm the people of the kingdom. As dryads are unpredictable and uncontrollable except by those at rank of nobility, if someone who is not a senior noble or a recognized successor noble acting under the directions of a senior noble tries to get a dryad to take actions which result in negative outcomes for others then they can be held responsible for all of the damage which the dryad causes.]

I was lectured by Esgal as I sat next to her at the tea table in my room. As soon as I was satisfied from getting my new pair of pants stitched up and put them on, before I really had a chance to play in the new mobility I could be afforded from no longer having to worry about my modesty, I was taken aside by Esgal in order to be taught about the legal system of this world. In particular, the very crime that Ether-guy was accused of. Of course, in terms of whether it was my younger or older self in control at the moment, we were back to sharing control.

About the only thing this did was it kept me from shouting, which my child side would most certainly do. I remembered what the queen, my new mother, had said. Apparently, dryad had killed over 300 people. That more than beats out any serial killer and goes into the realm of war criminal. If that’s the crime he’s being accused of, then there is only one sentence that would result from it. However…

[But… I heard that dryad did those things because of me, not… him.] I protested in a faintly dazed voice.

[Well, those kinds of facts are what are supposed to come out during the trial. All you have to worry about is learning the law so you can render a proper judgement on the matter.] She informed me.

[Hmm..] I responded as I stared at my now pants covered knees as I was lost in thought. This seemed to be yet another reason why I was a completely inappropriate judge on this case. I was a witness to this event. A material witness cannot be a judge. The justice system of this world was starting to look more and more like a total circus. The worst kind of kangaroo court. And, seriously, holding others responsible for the crimes of the dryads? Nobles having immunity? Yeah, no doubt. This justice system is completely screwed up.

Well then, I guess if we are going to start unraveling this, I had better find out just how screwed up this justice system really is. [So, that’s the crime, but how do I act like a proper judge on this subject?]

[Well,] she said, looking over to Sagel who was talking to the boys and teaching them a proper sword stance with wooden swords off in an area of this absurdly huge room where some furniture had been cleared away. [A… according to your highness’ changeling’s report, you were asleep through the incident. So, all you have to do is hear the facts of the case and render a judgement. If you had seen the whole thing happen, you could even render a judgement right now before this even became a trial. The enforcers will make sure the accused does not speak out of turn, so aside from rendering a verdict your main job is informing the accused when they can speak their case.]

[What about the prosecution?]

[Well, in this case the prosecutor is lord Gailben. He is not allowed to talk over anyone else, but aside from that there is no formal procedure on when he can and can’t speak.]

[Right...] I said, mentally rolling my eyes. Of course it would be something like that. Well, at least it seemed the case was decided on preponderance of the evidence instead of guilty until proven innocent. Still not good, but better than it could be. You would think that a system where people are elevated to noble status instead of birth-right nobility would see them treating commoners a little better than this.

Well now, the most troublesome thing about all this was certainly the words the queen had said when she appointed me to this position. An “interesting test” she had called it. Presumably a test to see how impartial I could be with someone I knew personally on the line for a rather serious crime. Really though, this is the same as asking me to be biased in the other direction. I did not like the sounds of that. It also raised the question, did I really care about what this noble court thought about me here? It’s pretty clear they just want to use me for my power.

No, it’s something else. It’s more like this is some kind of twisted initiation into this noble society. Great. The more I thought into this, the less I liked it. Well, as someone from Earth though, I actually might have an option she had never even considered that would perfectly fill the requirements they wanted of me, while at the same time making them really regret putting me in this position.

[So, since I am the judge and the princess now, am I allowed to change the rules and make my own?] I asked her.

[Ahh! Well...] She had a clearly frightened look on her face now. [Wh... what did you have in mind exactly?]

[Well, it’s just that Earth, the world I am from originally, had some extremely formal rules for how trials were supposed to be conducted. From what I’ve heard so far, the rules in your system seem to be lacking in a way that makes me uncomfortable in several places.]

[I.. I cannot say really.] She says. [I think you will have to talk to the queen about that.]

A smile appeared on my face. [Ok then.] Yes, if I got a proper read on her personality from our little chat inside my spirit, she seemed like the type who might be bored and looking for a little excitement. She actually might go for this. It’s definitely going to give this lord, err Gavin? Lord Gavin something to pull his shimmering fairy hair out over. [I would like to talk to her, the sooner the better.]

-

Levin’s POV

When Levin had asked Aerien to give them their next exercise, this was definitely not what he had imagined. She said they were ready for it though, and this was the appropriate next step. Something to do with the fact they could remain on their feet unassisted and could pick up and handle objects well. It made sense, but still… sword training? They were still 2 years old, right?

No, no, it did make sense when Aerien explained it. Really, the thing he was more surprised at was the fact Aerien was not the one teaching them. Instead, it was the alien looking man who said he was Aerien’s familiar. As soon as he introduced himself as their swords master, he went to the wall and spent quite a while working to have some wooden training swords made for him and Rolwen. The result, if it was being judged as a wood carving, was fairly crude. However, as a training sword, it was actually amazingly good. It wasn’t just a stick with a piece of wood nailed to it. The cross-guard was a bulbous extension of wood coming off of either side like branches of a tree, and the “blade” was polished smooth wood. It also narrowed near the end, which apparently made it feel lighter than he was expecting.

When he was given the sword, he was actually told this was a little bit heavier than a sword of this size was supposed to be. This was strange. He had always heard in his last life about how swords were surprisingly heavy. Instead, this really felt like the tip of the sword actively wanted to strike whatever he was trying to hit with it. It was actually strangely fun to just hold and move the point around in the air. Not really swings, just testing the weight. Levin was not expecting it to feel like this to hold a sword at all.

“Alright,” Sagel, their sword master, said. In the time they were getting used to the weight of the training swords, he had made a third one. “Since you seem to be getting adjusted to those, now you are going to need a training partner. You will probably not get very much out of this going against each other, neither one of you have a clue what you are doing.”

What did he mean? He couldn’t mean Gaerien, it would be cool if it was Aerien but she kept getting pulled off by those fairies. So, was it him!? He was clearly way too big for them to stand a chance! There’s no way that’s fair! Or…. maybe not? About as soon as Levin had this thought, he saw something shocking and disgusting as Sagel’s body appeared to melt into a grey ooze. Wait, he said he was a changeling, right? So, this should be normal, right?

Normal or not, it was a freaky thing to see. The ooze kept a roughly humanoid shape the entire time, but it rapidly shrunk down. After a little bit, he was the same size as him and Rolwen, and his facial features quickly changed and he suddenly looked genuinely human. He didn’t have those huge alien eyes or blue skin anymore. Instead, he looked like a perfectly normal 2 year old black-haired boy, with the possible exception of the fact that he was moving a little bit too smoothly. Even if he was the same size as them now, it still looked like this guy was going to have an unfair advantage in terms of his coordination.

“Alright then, I’m going to run you through some basic drills.” He said as he casually held his child-size training sword to his side. “Don’t worry, Aerien has told me. The real objective here is just to improve your coordination. I do hope you weren’t expecting sparing or anything of the sort, that would just be irresponsible at this point.” Levin glanced over to Rolwen at this point. He had been eyeing Levin since they got these swords and kept trying to taunt him to cross swords with him, and when Sagel said this, he was actually looking down, visibly disappointed.

“So,” Sagel continued, “the swords I have given you are rather nimble blades. You ought to be able to operate them smoothly with some practice. What we are going to try to do is two cross-swings followed by a thrust. Just like so.” At these words, he swung his sword diagonally down from his left, starting at the height of his shoulder, down toward the right hip. Then, he immediately and smoothly lifted the sword back up in a perfectly smooth manner. The blade just shot straight up into the air in a way that looked like it would be much faster than Levin could have even hoped to manage in his past life as a 14 year old. Well, he WAS a girl in his past life, but he didn’t think that gender had much to do with that kind of sword play. Anyway, after this the sword went sailing through the air again down through the other diagonal cut. Then, he pulled the handle back and thrust in the air.

“There, just like that. I would like you to practice this motion until you can do it like that. And… maybe we can think about a little bit of sparing after that.” He said, looking over to Rolwen who gave a nervous chuckle.

“Alwright, soo, like thiis?” Rolwen follows up and does his own set of slashes, looking obviously different and a lot more stiff and clumsy than the beautiful slashes Sagel had performed.

“Well, we can call that alright for now. Keep that up.” Sagel evaluated him. “Alright, Levin, let’s see you try it.”

Levin stepped up. He felt a little nervous about looking stupid doing this, even after seeing Rolwen’s performance that was obviously sub-par compared to Sagel’s. He was very afraid it would come out even worse, but it was clear that just not doing it would be seen as even weaker. So, he lifted the sword and did a few swings at the air and then thrust.

“Well, that’s good.” Sagel said. “You ought to focus a little better, but you weren’t quite as stiff as Rolwen. Rolwen, you were better on the focus, but you really need to relax in your swings a little. Ok, just practice that swing for a little bit. I will show you how I do it again after you have each practiced about a hundred of those.”

What’s with that praise? Levin knew for certain his swings were extremely sloppy, way worse than what Rolwen did. Why was Sagel being so nice about this?

Ok, well, fine. It was probably because he knew they were beginners. He wasn’t going to criticize them too harshly over this. Anyway, one hundred swings like that? That was definitely going to be crazy on their arms. Is that even possible?

While Levin’s mind was reeling about this, he got distracted when he saw Aerien crossing the room toward the wall as she followed the fairy lady. The fairy lady opened the wall, and then lead her out into the hall. Where was she going all of a sudden? It was starting to feel more and more like she wasn’t part of the group anymore. Something about that was starting to make Levin feel a little anxious.

-

Aerien’s POV

‘The princess Aerien seeks an audience with her majesty.’ My caretaker fairy, Esgal, said with a bow as we were transported back to the upper branches. Her name at least was not that complicated, so after a few more attempts in my mind I actually managed to remember her name at least.

There were considerably fewer dragons around in the upper branches now, and it looked like all of the fairies had left, meaning that Esgal was the only one of her kind up here. The few remaining dragons seemed to be milling about.

‘I see, this is sooner than I expected to see you Aerien.’ The queen said. ‘Very well, please come forward.’

[Esgal, please leave now. I will have to show her something, and it will be unsafe for you.]

[Yes your highness. Please ask to be transported back to the treasury hall when you are finished, I will be waiting to recieve you there.] A second later, she was enveloped in greenish light, and then she vanished. So, that’s what it looks like to see it from the outside.

Seeing this, the queen raised her orientation-deceivingly colossal head and looked down at my tiny form with interest.

‘You seem to be concerned. Very well, what is it that you would like to talk about.’

I hesitated to speak. I was supposed to use that spirit speech to communicate up here, but I was very embarrassed about how loud my voice was when I did that. I would really rather not use that if I did not have to. But, it was rather clear why I was supposed to do it. This place was huge beyond reason, and the spoken voice simply did not carry far enough. I caught some movement out of the corner of my eye and looked up, some of the dragons who were still here were flying away. This just made me feel even worse. My spirit voice was really that loud, and it seemed to actually harm the ones who heard it. Of course they didn’t want to be around if they knew I was about to speak.

This made me feel even worse, of course. If it was that loud, I really did not want to speak in that way, especially considering the subjects I wanted to discuss.

I took a deep breath and then shouted at the top of my lungs. “MOTHER, CAN YOU HEAR ME? PLEASE, I DO NOT WANT TO HAVE TO USE THAT LOUD VOICE HERE.” As loud as I was shouting with all of my being pushed into my lungs as though I was shouting my very soul out, it was still quieter than that spirit voice I was using.

A genuinely shocked expression crossed the queen’s face. ‘Aerien? Do that again. I can hear you, keep talking.’

Well, that was not really the response I was expecting. No, the issue was her face, not her words. What had caused that reaction? I was encouraged by this though, so I immediately continued.

“I NEED TO ASK FOR SOMETHING!”

‘No, not like that.’ She said. ‘I told you to do it exactly like you did before. Focus on the feeling in your chest, and hold the same intentions in your mind. Now, try again.’

Huh? What is she saying? Wait! Could this be what I think it is? I was getting excited at the possibility. I built up my spirit, and held every intention in my mind of just having her hear my words, and then I shouted again.

“IS THIS BETTER? CAN YOU HEAR ME!?”

‘Yes, indeed. I did not expect you to figure out how to properly focus your spirit speech with properly proportioned energy on the same day you learned to use it in the first place, although it seems it was on accident.’ I couldn’t help it when I heard that. Both sides of my spirit became overjoyed and I felt a bubbly excitement rising that threatened to overtake any semblance of dignity I got from my older half. ‘Now, can you tell me what it is you came for?’

Ok, ok. Let’s try something else now. If it is really the spirit speech that is carrying my words, then I shouldn’t need to actually shout at the top of my lungs like that. Let’s try this again. What is the prime aspect that is making this work? My intuition gives me what I think is the most likely answer, I just have to speak while focusing on my desire to have my words heard by my adoptive mother who, despite her massive head making it so she looks a lot closer, may actually be as far as half a mile away.

“I have to ask for a few things. One thing is concerning the upcoming trial, but before that, I need to ask for some help. I have to learn to control my aura. It was an accident, but I almost killed one of the fairies who were trying to care for me. I do not want that to happen again.”

‘Hmm… I see.’ She responded. I felt my heart beat faster with excitement. The subject here was very serious, but the mere fact that she heard what I was saying meant that I had succeeded in what I was trying to do in order to have my voice heard, and it did not even require shouting anymore. ‘That does sound like it could become an issue. I do not sense anything now though, so it seems you can suppress it. Do you feel it will be a problem for the trial?’

Well, if nothing goes wrong, it should be fine. “No, it will not be a problem.”

‘We will discuss it after the trial then. Was there anything else?’

“Yes, I wish to discuss the trial.” I told her. Well, that was the most important issue out of the way. It was a light issue, but whether or not just staring at someone might kill them is pretty important. Now it’s time to get into another very important and much more involved subject.

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Subscribers' comments of the chapter

 

"Aerien has already beaten dragons with just her words"

                                                                     -NohVoha

 

"ace attorney mini arc incoming! Objection!! also our little loli seems to be in character as little kid. Look mom i can speak its awesome right!?. This is like my little brothers showing off when they were four, getting all happy over simple things =D"

                                                                     -Roy