Hello, I'm actually not dead.

Beta'd by Magikarp Karp.

Today's warnings: Penny and Scarlett being two smug shits who know things and aren't inclined to share, much to everyone's frustration.

[Regalis: in search of Peace and Quiet!]

•chapter five•

Girl goes to the Capital. Girl meets the queen. Girl encounters even more secrets.

•••

A full week didn’t even pass, and the elves of Ifa Nalore were already yapping about their ‘poor, lost, kidnapped, and potentially dead’ prince. They sent foreword, but they were coming to Sheothia, either to demand the prince be returned, or to forego all niceties and just go straight to declaring a war. The news came to them one morning during the breakfast that Shelor was finally strong enough to actually walk to on his own with only mild assistance, and caused quite a ruckus. Children got restless, Penelope was darkly amused, Crawforde started ripping his hair out and Shelor and Adetta both tried banging their head on the table to see if that helped.

It didn’t, but Adetta did it few more times just in case.

“Is there going to be a war?” Elijah asks, well and truly spooked. Crawforde keeps tugging at his hair, but Shelor raises his head and looks at the boy.

“No,” the elf says, and then turns to Crawforde; “I’d like a carriage to the Capital. The envoys are likely to arrive there within maybe two days, if I’m counting right, and- Ah, fuck, what a fucking mess.”

“Amen,” Adetta mutters, and then sits up very abruptly, eyes glittering. “Mother, I want to go to the Capital!”

“This isn’t a trip-!” Crawforde begins.

“Of course! We can make it a family trip!” Penelope says over him. He looks at her with something between indignation and resignation, and sighs.

“Alright, we can make it a family field trip,” he say, resigned. He knows better than to argue with his wife, especially if it’s not a big thing to begin with.

“I’ve never been to the Capital before,” Elijah says, very eager to turn his attention away from the war-related topic at hand.

“We’re going to go there for next year’s Winter Ball anyway,” Adetta tells him. “Might as well go see a bit now, no?”

“I wanna go to the Winter Ball, too,” Rosaria says from over her carrots, and Penelope shakes her head.

“In six years, darling.”

“But I want!”

“Your siblings had to wait, and so do you. End of discussion.”

“Awww.”

War aside, it was nice knowing that Rosaria couldn’t tantrum her way into getting things just because Adetta got them—she had to either wait, or get them herself, if that was what her sister did. That was, she could tantrum all she wanted, but one disappointed look from Adetta was usually enough to calm her down.

Why was she letting her parents to use her as a disciplining tool for the other children again?

“Alright,” Penelope stands up from the table, a determined glint to her eye. “We will most likely need to go to the Capital no matter what, as Shelors current caretakers. And the children also should, given that they are ones that found him. Not to mention, I just want to see how Adetta deals with all this.”

“Just admit you want her to scare people,” Crawforde sighs, and she smiles down at him.

“Are we going then?”

“Yes, yes, have maids pack your things-“ his gaze falls on Adetta. “Or pack yourselves. It’s a rather dire situation, so do be quick. I know it’s very sudden, but the situation calls for it, so I’d prefer to leave today. We’ll ride into the night, keep that in mind—I still have some documents to look though.”

“I can help you once I’m done packing,” Adetta volunteers, and Crawforde nods.

Adetta proceeded to stuff her face with the breakfast then, for once in her life forgoing manners in excitement, and when she was done, she took off towards her room. Rosaria and Elijah did the same thing, anyway, more than excited to see the Capital. Adetta didn’t particularly care for the Capital itself, but there was one thing certain—the bookstores there were many, and they were much bigger and better stocked than the little provincial store that was funded to begin with by her father for her. The people in this fantasyland had an amazingly high literacy percentile, too. Well over a half of the populace could read and write fluently, and so bookstores and libraries were becoming popular.

Still didn’t beat Ifa Nalore, where, from what Shelor said, literacy rates were somewhere around ‘almost everyone’, and most could speak and read more than one language fluently. Shelor could—after all, he spoke both Elven and Sheothian.

Adetta just really wanted to visit the bookstore. If she had to suffer through stuffy, official meetings to do so, so be it.

♦►☼◄♦

Adetta prided herself in having a family that was unlike other nobles—as in, they were functional and capable of logical thought. This was why they were able to leave relatively fast, mere hours after the arrival of the message. How long would they be staying in the Capital, Adetta didn’t know. What she knew—or, rather, what she learned earlier today—was that they actually had an estate there. The parents just much preferred the provincial life, at least until the children were old enough to start attending parties, which would be next year. Adetta, personally, thought that their trip now would be a good way to see if she wanted to live in the city later.

Very possibly not, but something might change her mind, so she wasn’t so quick to rule it out. While she wasn’t keen on living among the noise and people, Mary did, once upon a time, live in a huge, bustling city, because everything there was on site, conveniently close. She disliked it, but in that crowd, everyone was anonymous unless something was happening. In a world like this, with population of all intelligent creatures not even a quarter of that of twenty-first-century Earth, even the Capital would seem small.

And Adetta, the eldest daughter of the archduke, would surely garner attention.

Yeah, maybe living in the Capital wasn’t that good of an idea after all, if she couldn’t be plain, anonymous Mary. She liked being alone a little too much, and in this day and age, people were a tad too stupid, a tad too righteous and much too old—fashioned for Adetta to want to have anything at all to do with them.

Even Elijah learned that she was much more amendable to his constant company if he left her alone for few solid hours every day, or at least made himself unnoticeable if he was having a particularly bad day and wanted to stay with her no matter what. Rosaria, too, slowly, but she spent a lot of time with Penelope, or with Fenrir, learning to read and write together.

Rosaria was very adamant that she learned to read and write at three, because she heard that Adetta could, too, around that age, the fact of Adetta having an advantage of a life once before lived not mattering at all. If her big sister could do it, so could Rosaria, end of question. Fenrir just wanted to be able to read, seemingly for the sake of it.

And they were making massive progress, both of them. For Fenrir, it was normal—he was six.

Rosaria, however, was three, and could already read simple sentences.

Genius little midget. Adetta was proud.

When they packed themselves into the carriage, Rosaria went in with a small, square, wooden kiddy-book in hands, fully intent on reading the story of Blue Apron—Sheothia’s version Little Red Riding Hood, except in blue and with a bear—all by herself.

Fenrir went with them too, of course, a tiny child that tried very hard to be a proper servant. They even got him a downsized uniform, and even if he wasn’t allowed to do much work yet, he would run after the housekeep and pester them to teach him. It was honestly adorable, when he tried to help Adetta get into the carriage, and she indulged him, even if she could do it herself just fine.

The whole carriage ride took even longer than the one the week before for the picnic, to the outskirts of the territory. It passed rather uneventful—save for Adetta’s retelling of the original, handdrawn Disney movies, one by one, at the insistence of everyone and their dog—and they arrived late into the night. Or, Adetta thought they had, at least because she was half-asleep when Penelope managed to coax her out of the carriage and into a house that looked vaguely like a plus-size renaissance villa to Adetta’s sleep-addled consciousness. The only difference was that the house was surrounded by other buildings, not trees, and she kind-of hated it.

♦►☼◄♦

Waking up in a bed not-yours was a jarring experience for Adetta, and she did not like it at all, especially since she didn’t quite remember how she got there in the first place. It took her a few moments of confusion, further fuelled by distant but very present sounds of society (ugh, disgusting), before she realized that she was no longer at the manor, but instead, at wherever the Bellvilles had their other house in the Capital. It helped that the other kids, as usual, also were sleeping in her bed—which, Adetta noted, was actually bigger than her own. The whole room was bigger. The room itself was grandiose, purple and obviously meant for her, but—as she mentioned, it was grandiose. Marble, gold ornaments, even bloody pillars, type of grandiose. There was no empty space on the walls, taken instead by paintings right on the stone, or sculptures in small inside-shelves, and Adetta hated it. It made her head spin—too much, too gaudy, too… Just too much, kind of in a way a Novae Richie would flash their newfound money.

Adetta thought her parents had more taste than that.

But then, they might have very possibly just hired a person to do this room, few years back, and told him to do it in purple and then they did what they thought a rich and prominent family wanted.

Adetta hoped to find them and yell at them, and then make them fix this gaudy mess.

She stopped, blinked for a while, and then hid her face in her hands. Oh problems of first world rich nobility, how have you warped her?

(It was just a room, she could tear down the gold and repaint it herself. Why on earth would she leave it to others when she was the only one who knew what she truly wanted anyway? It would just end up in a mess again and upset her, and repainting the room by herself could be fun.)

♦►☼◄♦

From what Adetta gathered, the whole Capital, despite being technologically more in mid-late Renaissance than further, actually followed the fashions she knew from the Baroque art period. Or that was what the maids were attempting to wrangle her and Rosaria into.

Face with tight, heavy, immobilizing and downright uncomfortable cage of a dress—complete with a steel frame, no less—Rosaria threw a fit.

Adetta didn’t.

She just calmly threatened people for making her sister cry.

(And for the dress. Her dresses, the ones she had tailors custom-make for her, were much simpler, much more comfortable, and, in her humble opinion, actually prettier. She would always pick her currently favourite, fairly simple Victorian, Gothic and Lolita fashion mashup of a gown with no metal supports or corsets that only took one person to put on over those garish baroque cages. She was merely going more forward with fashion than it already was, after all.

If one needed further affirmation, there was the fact that Penelope took to Adettas dress designs like a fish to water. And if that wasn’t enough, apparently the queen herself inquired about them. Actually, it was good Adetta went to the Capital after all—if Queen Scarlett would like to buy her dress design, she wouldn’t say no. Having private money just in case was always a good thing.)

When the maid showed her a Rococo-esque gown, the one with the ridiculously wide hips, Adetta honestly considered signing the woman up for an exorcism. How could anyone ever consider that monstrosity fashion was beyond her.

Besides, she was eight. Why they were attempting to put a corset on her in the first place? She might consider wearing it, but that would have to wait until she had figure she could try to further outline.

She was in the middle of wrangling with a maid when Penelope strode in, clad in something straight out of prom girl’s wet dream. The dress was pink, of course, because it made Penelope seem slightly less as if she were planning the mass extinction of human race, and with a rather big skirt, but it managed to seem full without any sort of metal supports. It had good few layers, and a lot of embroided flowers—the top and three-quarters sleeves were almost fully covered, and the flowers continued fair bit down the skirt part as well.

Adetta wasn’t even ashamed to admit that the design happened only because she used to spend unholy amount of time on Pinterest as Mary and could recall a lot of dresses.

Dresses aside, Adetta would like to be able to send maids skittering away with just one look, too. Alas, that power was beyond her grip just yet. However, with the maid gone, Adetta could finally wrangle Rosaria into her dress—a rather basic pink Lolita with a lot of frills and laces—and then dress herself up into a dress that looked more like a purple coat, with a skirt with a full, detailed pattern. It was quite long on her eight-year-old body, but that was fine, because Adetta could nonetheless reach an impressive—for a child—speed in this dress without the threat of tripping over the hem of the skirt.

All dresses were custom-made by her design, but price was of no consequence for the Bellvilles. Actually, Adetta was rather proud for having come up with expensive but simple commissions that would ease a lot of their seamstress’ worries for the following months and satiated all of her own comfort and fashion needs.

(Her dresses were still less expensive than those ladies typically wore in Sheothia. And as much easier to actually make as to put on.)

♦►☼◄♦

Sheothia’s Capital, Adetta eventually learned, was called Cainore. It was quite odd that, for the first eight years of her life, she never learned its name—she was aware of a Cainore due to studying geography, but not that it was the Capital—but in her defence, the Capital was just the Capital, and everybody knew what the talk was about. The Capital could have very well been this city’s name, as far as Adetta was concerned, and nothing would change.

The Capital itself however, she found, was—disappointing. Granted, Mary was used to NY, LA, Chicago, Houston being called big cities—metropolitan with population counted in seven digits. With the talk centred around Capital, Adetta kind-of gave it that type of sticker of approval, and consequently, learning that the population within it didn’t even reach a hundred thousand citizens, let alone a million, disappointed her. By standard definition it was merely a town! A large one, sure, but a town nonetheless, and not even a city at all! It needed give-or-take twenty or thirty thousand more citizens to classify as a city.

In hindsight, though, it shouldn’t have disappointed her, not really, since the town was equivalent of that of late sixteenth to early seventeenth century, and expecting it to meet the standards of Mary’s time was unfair.

Crawforde spluttered when she referred to Cainore as a town that morning, but Adetta just deadpanned something along the lines of ‘tell me when it gets thirty thousand more citizens to qualify as more’ and that was that.

♦►☼◄♦

Bellvilles arrive at the palace shortly after breakfast, and while the Ifa Nalore envoys would not arrive until afternoon, and technically the family needn’t have come, Penelope insisted, for once gleeful with this childish innocence, happy to be seeing her friend again. The palace itself was a big, sprawling, white building on a hill, surrounded by gardens and a moat that was more decoration than anything. A big, stone bridge led to it.

Frankly, it looked exactly like Château de Chambord, a renaissance castle from France. Adetta would know, Mary actually visited there during one of her holidays. Better yet, creators of [Regalis] straight-up admitted that it was, indeed, what they were attempting to recreate. Not like she could blame them—up close, the place was massive and very beautiful, regardless of the world it was in.

(Now, thinking of French renaissance castles, she finally remembered what her home reminded her of; Château d’Écouen, albeit a bit downsized. It was smaller than Chambord, but no less extravagant. Frankly, it was more grandiose than the little city villa they had in the Capital. Don’t get her wrong, this one was still a proper, if small, Château, but it didn’t compare to home.)

Also, why the fuck was Sheothia so French? They spoke English here! More archaic version, sure, but English nonetheless! Not that Adetta minded, as long as nobody tried to feed her frogs. (She tried once, never again.)

Well, while the authors of the game were good in making proper, 3D, believable, and likeable characters, it was universally accepted in the community to just not—not poke the hornet’s nest that was their worldbuilding. The creators themselves figured as much, and so, the politics and worldbuilding and all those other things were only mentioned if it was absolutely needed. They took the ‘tell very little’ approach instead of ‘make a world full of plot holes’ approach, and it was appreciated.

However, now it infuriated Adetta. Mainly because she lived in this world now, and if it wasn’t for the history books and politics lesson, she would have been in a really bad spot.

(Nonetheless, she would have very much liked to know why the hell Ifa Nalore so eagerly accepted Penelope in the Original Timeline—especially now, after Shelor told her just how wary of the woman the elves truly were, and what consequences, if any, would that secret thing have in Adetta’s own future.)

She remembers going into Château de Chambord with the tourist group, and everything there was so… Museum-like. Here, lead by a servant, she passed those very same, very similar hall, and the difference was stark. They looked lived-in.

They aren’t received in the throne room, or anything like that. On one hand, Adetta finds it kind-of odd, since what she knows about medieval and the world tells her that their arrival should have more fanfare, as probably the most prominent noble family about, especially once so removed from the Capital. On the other hand, her parents are friends with the royal pair.

They’re received in the king’s study. The man himself is sitting behind the desk, looking at some documents. He looks younger than the scarce CGI’s in the game depicted him, less haggard and just generally happier. Well, this man did not lose his wife and ended up with a crippled, half-insane daughter on top of having to wage a war, so, Adetta supposed, he would look better. He had brown hair, which neither of his children had inherited, and the same, starkly-yellow eyes she was used to from all of Alastair’s CGI’s. They looked even more dangerous in real life, though, those eyes.

The king wasn’t who truly caught her attention, though. Behind the chair, stood a woman. Tall, fair-skinned, in a dark-red dress. Her hair was straight, the same brilliant crimson that Alastair had, but her eyes were frightening. Sharp, amused, scheming, and very red, further accented with kohl she put around them.

Adetta had no idea that the queen’s eyes were red.

What these eyes held, however, was familiar. Scheming amusement and the glint of danger.

No wonder she and Penelope were friends.

“Crawforde,” the king—Tobias, but Adetta is not on the first name basis with him—stands up from his place, and moves to clasp her father’s hand. It’s familiar thing. Friendly. Two school friends, lagged with life and responsibilities, seeing each other after a while.

“Your Grace,” Crawforde bows his head, and the king laughs.

“Please, we’re not in public,” he says. “Unless you’ve already forgotten your best friend’s name?”

“…Tobias,” Crawforde sighs. “It’s good to see you again. I wish it were in kinder circumstances.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Penelope sniffs, moving to embrace the queen—Scarlett—with casual familiarity. “I visit the capital every once few weeks.”

“You are not lagged with piles upon piles of paperwork, dear,” Crawforde chides, and she just laughs.

“Now, Scarlett, I didn’t think it would be so soon, but here are my children,” Penelope grabs Scarlett by the hand and leads the amused queen before Adetta. “Adelia, Rosalie and Elijah.”

Adetta curtsies gracefully. Rosaria tries to and almost trips, and Elijah doesn’t, because he’s busy catching her. The women both laugh.

“It’s an honor to meet you, Your Grace,” Adetta says respectfully.

“None of that, young one,” Scarlett waves her hand. “I would have been your godmother, hadn’t it had the potential to cause a political upheaval. Just call me Aunt Scarlett. All three of you.”

Elijah stammers, face red, but Adetta has dropped all the pretences instantly. Crawforde looks at her, and there’s resignation in his eyes, because he sees what’s coming next already.

“Does it mean that we’re also allowed to refer to His Grace as uncle?” she asks, innocently. She’s only eight, after all.

Crawforde groans, hiding his face in his hands, and Scarlett laughs.

“Of course,” Tobias says indulgently, and Adetta smiles at him. She rarely does so, and usually only towards the people who really deserve it, but Tobias is the king of the nation. He casually pats her head, and turns to Shelor. “And who might you be?”

“Shelor Alytharion, Your Grace,” Shelor says with a shallow bow. “Third Prince of Ifa Nalore. Currently, I’m the guest in Bellville Archduchy after they have saved my life.”

Tobias looks at the elf, then at Crawforde, and back at the elf. Shelor, curiously, is looking everywhere but Scarlett and Penelope’s general direction.

“So the claims of Elves are true then?” Tobias asks. “That you were attacked on Sheothia’s grounds?”

“Yes,” Shelor says easily. “However, I assure you, my assailants were not human. Or Sheothian for that matter.”

Adetta’s head snaps to the blonde and away from Scarlett cooing at her before she can even process that she wants to, gears turning. So somebody did attempt to assassinate him, knowing full-well that Ifa Nalore would hold Sheothia responsible. (Scarlett just turns her attention to Rosaria.)

“You mean to say that someone is trying to provoke a war?” she blurts out. He looks at her and smiles sadly. Why are they only learning this now? Well, it’s not their business, that’s why, but still-

Ugh.

“I am terribly sorry that a family squabble nearly threw your country into a turmoil. Worry not, it will be dealt with,” he reassures.

“So you’re here to help us settle the envoys?” Tobias asks, pointing at one of the chairs in the office. Shelor, out of breath and pale, sits down gratefully. He’s been recovering well, but he lost a lot of blood, and it would take his blood cells—the actual thing he needed to properly function—around two more months to recover fully. Until then, he’d have to rely on others.

“Settle them? Not really. Yell at them and send them back to my mother? Yes.”

Adetta knew there was a reason she liked him.

“So, you ending up in the woods, bleeding all over and ripe for my daughter to stumble upon was someone’s plan,” Crawforde says. It wasn’t something they asked for before, and Shelor himself seemed rather concern-free.

“Indeed. Alas, as I said, it will be dealt with. I apologize for the issue, however.”

“Ah, it’s fine,” Tobias waves his hand. “When are the envoys due to arrive?”

“Few hours,” Scarlett answers. “By dinnertime, I suppose. No matter, they will be here when they will, and we’ll take care of them then. For now, I would like to introduce the children. What say you, Penny?”

“Well, Adetta might end up punching Alastair if he behaves how you told me he does,” Panalope sighs. “But, I suppose.”

“Adetta, you’re not allowed to punch the prince,” Crawforde says almost instantly, and she rolls her eyes.

“I swear I will not,” she says, and there’s relief creeping in her father’s eyes. “Unprovoked, that is. If he pokes a wasp nest, it’s only fair he gets stung, no?”

Crawforde hides his face in his hands, and Tobias laughs.

“And who might you be?” Scarlett asks, as her eyes finally land on Fenrir. He came too, mainly because he was part of the group that stumbled upon Shelot. The boy blushes and bows down.

“Fenrir Grimm, Y-Your Grace,” he stammers. “I-I’m Lady Adetta’s servant.”

“My, my,” Scarlett coos, and pats his head like one would a puppy. She wants to say something more, but the second her hand comes in contact with his head, something flashes in her eyes, and shadows seem to shift. Scarlett smiles. “Oh, you’re an interesting one,” she says, and Adetta looks between her and Fenrir with confusion and worry.

“Is- Is something wrong, Your Grace?” Fenrir asks, but the queen shakes her head.

“No, not at all,” she tells him, and turns to Penelope with a smile. “He’s the fourth I know of, at least within Sheothia.”

“Fourth what?” Adetta asks, but both women just smile.

“That’s very fortunate, actually,” Penelope says. “I had my suspicions, but confirmation is also very good thing to have.”

“You’re very fortunate having one in your daughter’s vicinity,” Scarlet says, to Adetta’s growing confusion. Fenrir whimpers, and half hides behind her. Elijah and Rosaria moved to Shelor the moment they realized that they aren’t likely to understand a thing from the conversation.

“What. Mother, tell me!” Adetta says in a way that’s almost bratty whining. Penelope laughs.

“You’ll know when it’s time for you to know,” the woman laughs. “But you’re very fortunate to have found Fenrir indeed.”

Adetta just sighs, shakes her head and shrugs, because whatever. If Penelope says she’ll eventually figure it out, she will, and it’s no use asking now. Neither of the women is the type to divulge information—no, they’d much rather make it a big, scary secret and watch their victim squirm.

Adetta never gives her mother the satisfaction, shrugging off the secrets until it’s time for her to learn them. It’s not use, after all, to occupy her mind with a puzzle she won’t solve unless she’s given the pieces, and so, she’ll just patiently wait for the pieces.

She has three secrets now; her family in general, and the elves’ attitude towards them, Shelor’s family drama (?) that lead to his attempted (or successful, depending on timeline) assassination, and now this—whatever it is, surrounding Fenrir.

If she kept thinking about those, she’d probably eat her sleeves in frustration.

(Why couldn’t [Regalis] developers just have put in a bit more work into their worldbuilding? Then she would have arrived here already armed with answers to first two problems. The third she couldn’t even be mad at not knowing, as she was fairly certain that Fenrir was dead in the Original Timeline.)