"Do you drink, Levy?"

"From time to time, but I try my best not to. Nothing good ever came from the mouth of a wine bottle."

"Hmph! Good kid. It's true, you know. How did the phrase go? I think he said it was 'For the drunkard and the glutton will come poverty, and in slumber the shall clothe with rags.' Either way, the sentiment is the same. You'll get nothing of value from drinking or eating all day. That said, I find the occasional beverage is good for the soul, my soul if nothing else." He removed a bottle from one of the shelfs in the cellar. The seal had no clear signs of tamperage and was well beyond the age of potentially being poisoned. "Would you do this old soul a favor and share a drink while we talk?"

"Anything for you, grampa."

"Anything, you say?" Levro received a dangerous glare from his grandfather. "I hate to start our little talk like this, Levy, but I must warn you to never use such language in the future. You never know who might hold you to it, so only say it when you sincerely mean it. Oh, and this is probably useless to you at this point, but under no circumstances should you make such promises in the vicinity of a Terran. Such a mistake was probably the best and worst thing to ever happen to me."

"Best and worst?"

"Let's just leave it at 'the Terrans repay their debts in full plus interest,' shall we? If at all possible, I would prefer to keep what exactly I did for them a secret."

"Then I shall not pry further. Though I must admit I am curious."

"Hrmph. I'll tell you eventually, perhaps when you truly understand just how big of a threat the two of them are. For now, though, how have you been? Anything interesting happen?" Levro graciously accepted the glass he was offered, taking a moment to smell the wine and pretend he knew what the scent meant.

"Truth be told, I think everything has been going pretty shittily. I don't need to tell you about the wars and the debt my father is putting me in, nor do I think you would much care for my opinions of the assassination attempts, but my engagement was annulled almost immediately after the school year began."

"So I've heard. I was never the biggest fan of that family, but your father saw them as a potentially valuable ally. Sorry for not stepping in sooner. I really should have noticed."

"It's . . . thank you. I wasn't able to find someone suitable during the rest of my time there, and given my fathers recent activity-"

"The chance of another giving their blessing is slim at your age, I get it. I've never had that problem mind you, but I get it."

"God, it was like five years of torture. For four years she sucked literal dick in the apartment my allowance was paying for, and in the last year I got labelled as an infertile cuck by the lesser parts of the community. I honestly don't know why I stayed."

"Ugh." Gramps feigned throwing up as he sloshed his wine around in the glass. "I don't miss that culture. Chatty nobles are among my least favorite people, they talk too much shit for their own good."

"Right! Then I get home and immediately fight in a war. I mean, I won't complain about the prestige, but it's just one thing after another. Seriously, I went from war straight to assassination attempts."

"Yep. That's tough. You have to focus on the brighter parts of life though." They clinked glasses together before taking a sip. "As bad as life might be, there are always happy points. Your grandmother was mine, I'm sure you've had something similar."

"As much as I want to agree with you, I feel like I've had maybe seven or eight hours of genuine joy this past year, and four of them followed me kicking her out of the house. The rest was spent training or mingling or something."

"Mm, I can see it. Especially when doing a Terran training regimen. I bet you spent most of your time sore."

"Ah, no actually. I got over my soreness about two weeks into the year. So long as you keep up with the regimen during break, it isn't that bad getting into it properly again. As a matter of fact, I plan on keeping it up."

"Oh? Wonderful. I'd love to join you, but I fear I'm getting a bit too old for that sort of exertion. Enough of the Terrans though, we talk too much about them as is. Did you make any friends? Good friends?"

Levro tilted his head back, thinking hard about who he might consider a good friend.

"I suppose I maybe made one or two."

"One or two friends in five years?"

"Most of my friends were also her friends. After the split my relationships with them soured. I wouldn't say they are hostile to me, but they aren't friendly either." Levro gulped down what was left in his glass. "Mich stuck with me though."

"I take it he is one of those friends you mentioned?"

"Yeah. He was one of my subordinates, the only one in the squad that wasn't a combat crazy hardass. He's the second son of a count somewhere in the Alressian Empire, claimed he only got the chance to go to the Sanctum because his betrothed's father didn't want his daughter to be alone."

"Is she the future empress or something."

"No. Her father is a merchant who works closely with a Terran trade company, hence why he was allowed to join their army. Apparently he makes a ludicrous amount of money doing relatively basic work, their expenditures weren't even a worry for him." Levro thought back to all the parties they went to. While he was always separated from his partner on account of their mutual distaste for one another, Mich and his betrothed were always cuddling together on some balcony listening to the music. "I'm kinda jealous of how perfect they are for each other."

Levro and his grandfather sat in silence for a few seconds before continuing.

"The other friend I say I made was one of my fellow squad leaders. He drank a bit too much for my tastes, but he was fun to hang out with whenever my apartment was, er, occupied." He was getting angry just thinking about it. "I suppose I'd call Edward a friend too, but I don't know if he would think of me as a friend. Most of our interactions were professional on account of status, and his duties and orbiters, but I'd like to think that I was around him enough to be called a friend."

"Hm. Well, what can I say? You've had it rough, rougher than any other I'd wager. What you need right now is to relax, just get your mind off of everything."

- - - - -

Levro spent the rest of his day walking the castle grounds. Patrolling would probably be a better way to describe what he was doing, checking to see if anything might have been breeched or if an assassin was hiding anywhere being the best.

He knew that his grandfather wanted him to take it easy, but after an assassination attempt? Sorry, that simply wasn't a possibility. Now more than ever was the time to be serious, he couldn't be slacking off with his head on the line. 

krrsh

His sword was already in hand and pointed at the . . . groundskeeper?

"Sorry about that." Levro sheathed his sword. An old man wasn't much of a threat to anyone, especially not when his only weapon was a rake. 

"A-ah, n-n-no, milord! I-I should be sorry for s-startling you!"

Levro walked off with a straight face, but his ears were glowing bright red. He had been so focused on assassins, yet he had completely failed to notice an old man raking the leaves not even two yards away from him. How could he possibly expect to protect himself and his family if he couldn't even identify a threat?

Maybe his grandfather was right, maybe he really did need some rest. But where could he do that?

"Um, milord?" The groundskeeper called for his attention. "What do you reckon that to be?"

Levro looked back at the old man before rapidly surveying the surrounding area in search of a threat. It was only after he caught a faint whistling noise from above that he lifted his head.

Suspended in the sky was a shadow, a strange shadow. It possess sharp edges, far sharper than any cloud or bird Levro knew of, and it slowly grew larger in size as the whistling became louder. It was shaped like the head of a broadhead arrow, vaguely, though much flatter and without the notches an arrowhead would need to be attached to the shaft. 

Levro identified this as a Terran ship almost immediately. Nobody else would be capable of such a feat as this, and he had seen this sort of landing performed before. It may not have been from the same angle, but it was difficult to deny.

His only question was why a Terran ship was landing in the palace courtyard of all places. Usually they would land closer to the marketplace so they could sell their wares easier, and their ships tended to be a bit . . . bigger? Yeah, now that Levro thought about it, this ship was a lot smaller than those colossal steel blocks they referred to as cargo ships, Trawlers. To begin with, this ship was a different shape, so it probably served a different purpose. 

Perhaps it was a diplomatic vessel? 

Levro felt his heart sink for a moment, fearing they may have somehow pissed off the Terrans with their recent conquests. It wasn't too big of a stretch for him to believe the Terrans had friends amongst his father's enemies, and now was about the time that a response to the news would have been organized. How much trouble would they be in if the Terrans demanded a return of the seized territory?

"You, quickly, get my father and grandfather!" He shouted to the groundskeeper, the only person present. "I'll handle the guests for now."

"Guests?"

"Terrans!"

"Oh great heavens!" The elderly man practically threw his rake to the floor as he hobbled to the courtyard door to hail a servant that possessed a more mobile build. Levro, in the meantime, did what little he could to clean up his appearance.

Patting down hair, straightening out his jacket, scraping his teeth with a fingernail to get rid of any unsightly junk, anything that might make him appear better in the eyes of an unforeseen guest. At this point, it could be the difference between life and death for their kingdom.

Levro almost passed out when the craft, much larger than he had initially thought, made contact with the ground. A few protrusions had extended from the otherwise smooth bottom, legs that deformed the relatively soft soil of the courtyard. It didn't take a genius to know that this thing was heavy.

pop

The noise ship made as it deployed a ramp nearly sent him the rest of the way to sleep. Much like the legs, he hadn't received an indication that something would happen, so when everything moved so fast it caught him off guard. Fortunately, he was used to the concept of ramps and doors at this point, so the rest was less disconcerting.

A whisper of a hiss told him that the door was opening. The ease at which it did so was in complete opposition to it's thickness, but at this point it wasn't a surprise. It felt weird that the person to do so was by all measures a little old lady.

"Ah, there you are. We saw you on the way down and didn't want to smoosh ya. My name is Kathy, its a pleasure." The elderly Nekh woman extended a hand to Levro, a common invitation to a handshake. "Might I ask your name?"

"I am Levro Hifterg, crown prince of the Hifterg Kingdom. The pleasure is mine."

"Oh? The crown prince? I apologize for my rudeness." The old woman bowed as much as her aging spine would permit. Judging from her light blue eyes, lighter hair color, and small stature, Levro assumed she must belong to one of the snowy Nekh clans, but it was entirely possible for her to just be old. "I am quite relieved to hear we have landed in the right kingdom, though. I take it this is the royal palace?"

"Yes, if you had been planning to land here, then you are in the right place. And I must insist, a diplomat of the Terrans has no need to bow."

"Ha! Perhaps if I was a diplomat you would be correct, but a desk jockey like myself has no right to claim an equivalent status to royalty. Ladies? You can come off the ship now, you are home!"