Aerien’s POV

Dryad was just one step ahead of us all the way, and so far the one and only time that anyone managed to pull something over on them was very much to my detriment when the queen tricked me into making that stupid oath. Now, Dryad’s activities have come to affect me very directly, and their advanced action is flat out infuriating.

Virides, the dragon who took me on this whole nearly fruitless venture, seemed upset as well for his own personal reasons. Once again, I was able to keep myself calm by watching others be agitated at the same things that were affecting me. When Lord Baltair, the leader of the Arbor committee, pledged in a panic that he would dedicate an entire arm of his committee to searching for where Dryad had run off to, Virides immediately begged to be included in this task force. This matter may have not been as personal to him, but his humiliation at being preempted by Dryad twice seemed to have hurt his pride quite a bit. Or rather, it seemed more like a culture of honor sort of thing, one of those cases where honor demanded he redeem himself.

In my case, I made it a point of slipping out before the meeting was concluded, dropping to the floor and activating the fairy circle. I didn’t want to try anything fancy like trying to get Isanil to do the same advanced precise location teleports Dryad had, and I felt that it would do me good to have a walk through the hall by myself for once. In fact, I did not make it back to my room. As I walked down the lavish hall, decorated with what must be priceless treasures from over the eons and epochs of this world’s history collected over the long existence of the fairy kingdom, I only had one thing running through my mind. Something that had been an increasing talking point discussed among intelligent circles these days as a criticism of people who are critical of historical figures.

Life is hell, and life has always been hell throughout the whole of human history. It is only in the last hundred or so years that we have managed to get some semblance of a comfortable and peaceful life, and even that is only in the western developed nations. This line of rhetoric is usually followed up by further harping on just how good even the poor have it in the united states compared to the rest of the world to further drive in the point to the people being criticized by this point, but that portion is really not applicable to my situation. In my case, I have been brought back to the very time period that was described as hell in this quote.

Yes, I died making a deal with a devil, a god foreign to my own, and now I am in hell for it.

Everything was starting to really feel hopeless. I would leave and have nothing more to do with this place if only I had somewhere to go. But, the only home I have ever known just literally uprooted itself to places unknown, and the only person to act like a real parent to me was taken away. It was not like world travel was an unfamiliar concept to me, but this was in modern 21st century conditions in which the public order even in 3rd world countries is at least good enough to protect an American like myself from the local warlords. Honestly, the fear of retaliation by the US government is enough that a US passport acts like something of a shield. It is not absolute protection, but it is enough that a savvy enough individual can avoid the worst trouble out there. There are a number of safeties and avenues that simply make travel on Earth easier.

Really, the only option available to me at this point is Sagel. However, he’s a changeling. Changelings are, as others have described them, agents of the queen. He’s attached to me as my familiar now and he has shown himself quite helpful as he helped the Lawyer Mr… errr… Steven. That was his first name, I do not believe I have ever gotten his last name now come to think of it. Well, at any rate, that was something that had the queen’s approval. I have yet to see him take even a single action in my favor that is not also in the queen’s favor. As of now, I cannot put my complete trust in him. In fact, he may very well be another shackle placed by the queen to keep me attached to her. Well, he’s quite effective in that role.

I am becoming hemmed in on every side. Everything is starting to seem hopeless. What can I even do in this situation? There’s no way out. For now at least. Yes, it is the weakness of being a child again. If your parents or guardians are not kind to you, getting up to leave is simply not an option, is it? If I were older and had more connections in this world, I could leave easily. It’s only for now that there’s no way out. I can find a way with time, but right now… there’s no way out. All I have to do is wait it out. I can find my way out with time. I can find my way out by learning more about my power, getting more cards for myself, and forming connections outside the kingdom. Yes, but… that’s what I have to do… that’s the only way out, so… I know that, but… why is it so hard to accept?

When I noticed my knees were getting weak, I looked around and realized I hadn’t moved from my spot standing in the middle of the hall with my eyes on the ground for… who knows how long. So, I went to the side of the hall, finding a place between two of the display pedestals, and slumped down to the floor with my face in my folded arms.

-

Taminarda’s POV

Ah, what a mess. After agreeing to the conditions and being given a briefing on the princess’ situation, Taminarda simply could not think of anything except that somebody must have really screwed up somewhere. So, the base essence of this is that the princess was considered very important because of the power she had, and it was a bonus that she was also rather capable. Of course being powerful and capable was the base requirement for anyone in the nobility, but it seemed the princess’ power on it’s own was rather special in some way. He was told though that the specifics behind how exactly were not passed down to the Barron rank fairies and, apparently, if he tried to learn the specifics himself then his request to go back to his normal life after the princess’ emotional situation was stable would be void.

This had become a pretty messy situation for his part. For the princess’ part, since she was an elf she actually had a birth mother, and said birth mother was just abducted by a dryad with truly absurd powers, including the ability to infiltrate their spirit into that of the great tree. Taminarda wasn’t really certain how impressive that was, but he imagined it was something that would normally be impossible and that was enough. Complicating all this though, it came right on the heels of the princess making her oath of nobility, and apparently nobody told her what an oath meant in this world. Seems such a thing doesn’t really exist back in her world by the sounds of it. Maybe it was bad assumptions, but there was certainly no way to view this as anything other than a screw-up of truly outlandish proportions.

Well, this all explains now why they had to turn to him. Her elven mother was just abducted, so having another elf show up to be her companion could easily be viewed as a slight of some sort. This incident would surely damage the princess enough emotionally to be a concern, but unfortunately at the exact same time she had become alienated by the queen herself, and it was easy to predict her feelings on her adoptive mother may extend to the rest of the court.

The thought process is easy to see, but it is a testament to the capability of the fey court that they would arrive at recruiting him for this job within hours of the incident happening. But still, somebody REALLY screwed up for the situation to have devolved so much and so quickly that their only hope was some gnome metalcrafter working on the ground level. Yes, he was a master of his craft, the best in the entirety of the fairy queen’s forest as a matter of fact, but it still seems quite insane that they want him just to serve as the princess’ confidant.

Ha! The princess’ confidant. Somehow, such a simple position has become a matter which the entire kingdom hinges on. Ridiculous. Again! Somebody REALLY REALLY screwed up!

He was brought to a special chamber to receive the great tree’s recognition. From this moment on, he would be able to ask the great tree to use the fairy circles. The green word of a mere commoner would usually not be recognized for this purpose, but now the great tree knew him. He was then told to transport himself to the delegate’s treasure hall. It seems it had now been repurposed to the royal hall, and since then access to it has been very limited. In fact, Lord Castien was barred from the floor, so between them it was only Taminarda who had permission to go there, and he would be going alone.

He let out a sigh and stood in the center of the teleportation room. “Alright.” He said aloud. He channeled some mana through his feet, and braced himself for an experience like none he had ever encountered before. He closed his eyes as the teleportation light enveloped him and stood in place for several seconds even after the light faded. Finally, he opened his eyes and looked out the arch of the door and down the lavish hall. He could see the display pedestals showing several treasured items. As he began walking down the hall, afraid to touch anything, even nervous about treading on the rather well woven carpet below his feet and wishing it did not extend so far to either side he would likely knock against a pedestal if he tried to avoid walking on it, something caught his eye that just baffled him.

“Wait, is that!?” He turned to look at one of the wall displays. It was an elaborate weapons rack holding two sets of paired daggers and four alra slayers. Two of the alra slayers were of the more portable and practical sword design, and then two others were of the more cumbersome but effective pole-arm design. A slightly bulky wooden shaft made of the wood of the great tree itself, and tipped with a full size alra slayer made with extra weight reducing enchantments to prevent the mere act of swinging it from snapping the shaft.

What’s more, every item on the display rack was embedded with a mana gem somewhere near the hilt, and the single-edged blades had an indentation running the entire length of the bulkier back ends that had been filled in with spell silver to conduct additional spell power through the blade of the weapon.

Taminarda recognized these weapons, as well as the technique of fusing the spell silver and mana gems into the design. He had come up with it himself as an apprentice, an idea to overcome the shortcoming of alra slayers not being able to handle additional magic enchantments since so much had gone into just reducing the weight, and shared the idea with his master. Those dagger sets were his very own proof of concept pieces. The alra slayers were the prototype pieces. They were ultimately declared a failure because the spell silver cracked with use. If those cracks had formed after the blade had the extra enchantments placed on it, the power running through the cracked spell silver could cause a catastrophic failure of the spell placed upon it. It was a good thing this failure was caught during the testing phase before any spell beyond the basic weight reduction enchantments could be placed.

So, they went ahead and displayed these embarrassments of his youth for the most important delegates from outside the kingdom to view and ogle over, huh? Well, they did at least LOOK impressive, so maybe this was the best possible use for them.

Well, if these failures are display worthy, then all this other important looking stuff may not be quite as important as he originally thought. This brought Taminarda several mixed emotions. He was definitely embarrassed over his failed work being displayed, but at the same time he felt he could breath a lot easier in this lavish hall if the displayed items were not truly the most important relics of the kingdom. Yeah… that’s right. Why WOULD they display the really important stuff in a place where outsiders are allowed to just walk through anyway? This stuff is going to just be the things that look impressive, not the stuff that actually IS impressive.

He laughed at himself a bit for being so nervous before and shook his head. This carpet was also something that was just supposed to be impressive to outsiders then, right? Well, Ok, that probably actually meant it was made out of more valuable material. Outsiders could likely at LEAST properly assess fibers and things like that if not these prototype weapons.

Well, whatever. Carpets are meant to be walked on, and it’s not like his shoes are dirty. In fact, he had every last article of his clothing replaced since arriving here the day before. Their attendants apparently didn’t like them wearing such dirty cloths within the great tree, so they provided them with new stuff and likely burned their old clothing or something of the sort. This fresh clothing that had never been worn outdoors would not soil anything.

“Oh! What are you doing here?” Taminarda’s heart nearly jumped out of his chest from shock when he heard the small weak sounding female voice from behind him. He staggered as he turned himself around to see who had just called out. “Oh, I’m sorry for scaring you. It’s something I accidentally do a lot.” The voice commented as he laid eyes on the speaker. What he saw was… someone wearing a formal robe identical to the princess, she looked identical too, but she completely lacked all of the dignity he saw from her when she met them yesterday. She was sitting on the floor with her back to the wall and her legs curled to her chest, and signs that she had been crying until recently. She simply must have been sitting there before, so… why didn’t he notice her when he came by? Wait, no! He didn’t want to know, it probably had something to do with her power that was considered oh so secret.

“Y-your highness? Are you really the princess!?” He asks, scrutinizing the scared looking sobbing child in front of him and comparing her to the girl full of so much power and dignity from the day before. He had heard she was apparently taking this chain of events roughly, but now he understood why it was to such an extent they went to the despite lengths of calling him in to soothe her.

“Y-yes, sorry” She responded, pushing herself to her feet. “I guess I showed you something that is not very befitting of a princess.” She said with a bitter look on her face, after which she almost seemed to shrug and scoff at an unseen person. Taminarda couldn’t be sure whether she was directing that scoff toward herself or, perhaps, the concept of nobility itself. “Anyway, did you want to see me for something?” She continued while straightening out the layers of her robes. “If it has to do with the trial, it has been cancelled. I hope that you have heard.”

It almost made Taminarda cringe to hear her talking in this strange mix between formal and casual speech. It sounded less like the formal and dignified noble from yesterday and more like someone trying to pretend at being nobility. Or rather, no… he realized it’s actually the other way around. It’s the speech of someone who has grown used to speaking formally intentionally trying to reintroduce rougher common speech to her speech patterns. A normal person may miss it, but after having seen her noble demeanor yesterday and comparing it with today, and combining that with the briefing he got about her situation just a short while ago, it was plain to see she was suffering deeply just by this change in speech.

Taminarda sighed. “Well, your highness, it’s a little hard to explain…”

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So, by popular demand, I managed to find a justification to add the crotchety but kind-hearted old man Taminarda to the group.

Also, I think my imagination ran a little wild planning out the plots of future arcs. I just planned out almost the entirety of the 5th arc. Unfortunately, I have done absolutely nothing with the 4th arc. Oh well, I ought to be able to figure out something by the time the 3rd arc is done. Maybe it will involve shrinking the plot I just came up with and making the 4th arc's second half into what I currently had planned for the 5th arc. That... might actually make more sense.

(Either way, I am somewhat proud of this plot. I liked the concept so much, that is why I obsessed over it so much I planned out almost every story beat in the thing.)