.
Miröen… or rather, His Highness Prince Manlon, bowed his head toward me lightly. “Your Highness, it’s truly pleasant to be able to gaze upon your lovely visage two days in a row.”
“Thank you,” I said, returning the bow with a regular curtsey. The pretty pair bookending him looked rather dissatisfied that their man was flattering another girl. They had already claimed an arm each; they tightened their grip on them as they gave me appraising stares.
I noted, “Your station has risen considerably since yesterday morning, Hânnedo (Esteemed Uncle).”
He gave another warm chuckle.”A commoner has a far easier time moving about the land and interacting with the young beauties who populate it. I hope you’ll forgive this foolish old man for preferring anonymity.”
I remembered the celebrity tour vibe he’d had going, back at the border patrol camp. It had seemed anything but ‘anonymous’, but whatever.
“Little Manlon,” the crown prince stated, “You are an unceasing wellspring of magical toys. I’m sure you are carrying an appropriate combat focus for this child to borrow for her fight?”
Miröen/Manlon pursed his lips and considered the question. “Ah, nothing I carry is suitably feminine for as beautiful a fairy as our little niece. But I have gifted my darling disciples here a few toys…”
He glanced to his left and right.
Disciples? I’d been guessing they were a couple babes he’d picked up at the bar.
The older-looking of the two, a brunette cutie, wrinkled her pretty brow and flicked a pouty glance my way. “You want me to give her one of the precious gifts you gave me, master? I don’t want that!”
The younger blond with a bust rivaling Amelia’s twisted her lip and looked equally reticent, but rummaged around in the mage’s satchel hanging at her side, then looked up and seemed to come to a decision. “Well, I suppose I can loan her my brush…”
He nodded approvingly and she produced an object. She cast it lightly outward. It flew across the grounds as if on a zipline, and landed in my hand.
She had loaned me a somewhat hefty writing brush, the kind used for writing talismans and Ancient Fairy characters. The shaft was made of a smooth, translucent material with a warm, intense deep green hue.
“My brush is carved from the finest starfire jade,” the girl explained with pride. “The ferrule is pure mithril and the tip is fashioned from the tailhair of a unicorn. And it’s just a loan, understand? Reverse it to point the handle, as a focus on your target, or swipe with the brush end for a wide casting.”
Mithril, unicorn hair, a six-inch piece of rare ancient jade… I tried not to think about how much this treasure cost as I curtseyed and stated, “I am honored and grateful for the loan of this beautiful writing brush, Esteemed Uncle’s Disciple.”
But the girl hardly heard me. She had already turned to Manlon, eager to be praised, as obvious as a puppy who had just brought back a rubber ball.
“Well-done, Little Talene,” he told her while tousling her hair, then he pulled her to his lips for a very firm kiss.
The older disciple looked a little resentful of the attention her junior was receiving. I looked away, downright embarrassed. That was some pretty serious PDA for a master-disciple relationship.
Ignoring the show, the crown prince raised his hand, and a large black shadow boiled up around Serera and me. It looked like nothing physical, except maybe a solid mass of completely opaque smoke, which is hard to imagine staying intact like I was seeing.
As it engulfed us, the surroundings disappeared behind a solid curtain, but we were not engulfed in darkness the way it looked like was happening. The light inside remained the same strong moonlight as outside.
Serera was taking off pieces of her armor, fully trusting in the prince’s magic, while I was still looking around at the screen.
“His Highness’s magic is called [Dark Veil]. Think of it as [Realm of Silence] for the eyes. Even fairy sight won’t penetrate it. Try it!”
I did, and she was right. My fairy sense was operating, allowing me to sense the people outside, but my fairy sight was blocked.
My vampire sight went right through, thought. I could see the shadowed forms of Mára, Gelon and Feraen, waiting for us outside.
Note to self, don’t rely on this around vampires…
“The dress needs to come off, dear,” she reminded me as she removed her scarf-like top.
I sighed and turned my back to her, pulling my hair out of the way. Although I could manage it myself with a lot of effort, it was faster to let someone else do it. She handed me the top over my shoulder, then quickly undid the buttons above my wings and then the ones down the small of my back. The dress fell away.
I studied Serera’s top, noting with considerable regret how well skin showed through it. But at this point, the only alternative was to wear nothing, so… with another sigh, I wrapped it around my bust.
Her top was amazingly light stuff, thin enough to twist and tie, despite being genuine fairy steel mail. I thought of folding it in half the long way to make it a bit more opaque, but the resulting combination of underboob and cleavage was even worse that wearing it Serera’s way, so I gave up on that idea.
I had to re-do it a few times before I managed to tie it securely. I was still left with seriously disturbing results. Serera’s skin is a healthy golden shade with not much color change to make things stand out, but my tips have lots of visibility against my pale skin.
To borrow the words of my mother on Earth, this was going to be “embarrassing as all get-out”.
Serera was patiently waiting to hand me the leather bottoms by the time I finally finished messing with the top. I looked at them just as dubiously, but now, it was because she’d been commando underneath them. This was no different than borrowing someone else’s underwear…
But the only alternative would be to go out there in my panties…
It occurred to me, I could use both. “Can I keep my underwear on?”
She laughed. “Of course, Your Highness. Only the dress was disqualified.”
With relief, I accepted the skimpy thing. It was basically a cord tied around the hips securing a small quantity of leather to cover the most critical parts.
“You seriously wear this thing without anything underneath it? It looks uncomfortable.”
“The hide of the Golden Hind is quite supple and comfortable, Your Highness,” she answered as she began unbuckling her greaves. Then she mentioned, “My hauberk looks quite good on you.”
She calls this scarf top a ‘hauberk’? I tried not to roll my eyes. Well it was technically mail, but calling something that was nothing more than a strip covering my hills a ‘hauberk’ was a little… yeah.
In the end, I ended up wearing her gauntlets (fairy steel gloves just like the pair I own), her faulds (the skirt-like armor thing that wraps the hips, open in front) and her greaves, but I had to use my silk slippers, because my feet rattled around inside her sabatons. We’re about the same height, but apparently, I have small feet for my size. Nobody had ever told me that, before.
We exited the [Dark Veil] with my dress in Serera’s hands, already neatly pressed and folded using her magic. She had grown her raiment, of course. Instead of modern clothing, this time she grew a fluttery white robe. Coupled with her gray-white wings and her sword and harness, it made her look like some kind of angelic warrior.
The arena had filled with spectators by this time. Gelon presided from the royal dais along with Tenre and another female fairy whom I hadn’t met.
The crown prince’s voice rang out, magically amplified. “Vesirda enelven ëose, cili enda dardiseve hunsâydd enherëodda dâmar cirnëa. Ëili hetomi din nentomi ma? (As a princess of fairy, you have claimed your right to conduct single combat upon this royal soil. Do you appear as the plaintiff or the defendant?)”
“Nanen nentomi ro, Ân Rôn! (I am the defendant, Supreme Highness!)”
I wasn’t kissing his butt. That’s just how you address someone of crown prince status in Fairy.
He looked at Feraen. “Zyli hetoydd cirnëa ma? (What complaint do you claim?)”
Feraen didn’t even attempt to answer in Fairy. In Dorian, she declared, “Your Highness, this monster is a fugitive from justice! I demand she be returned in restraints to Orestania to face her punishment!”
Mára was trying to hush her granddaughter as soon as she heard what she was saying.
Serera immediately snapped, “Objection, Your Highness! This was not the complaint upon which Her Highness was challenged!”
“Lady Mára, counsel your principal!” Aunt Tenre ordered.
Mára spoke to her in extremely low tones. I expected to hear her quietly ordering her granddaughter to stick to the script, but I’m certain she only said, ‘That was enough. Don’t say any more, yet’.
Yet?
It had been the wrong way to go about it, and it wouldn’t have been a good idea to haul me off without a duel, anyhow. This audience had come to see a fight, not an arrest. What was Feraen thinking? And why had it sounded like Mára didn’t actual disapprove of her words?
As if she wanted to salvage her granddaughter’s mistake, Mára told the crown prince, “Your Highnesses, my granddaughter’s outburst was inappropriate, but her claim is the truth. We request, once my granddaughter has prevailed in this combat, that our petition to arrest and extradite this monster will be honored.”
“What?” Serera retorted. “You cannot claim the right of arrest over a claimed insult to your honor!”
“Indeed,” the crown prince concurred. “And even if you could, neither I nor my father would permit a princess of Fairie to languish in a mortal jail. This complaint is a separate thing. The Orestanians must bring it to us themselves. We will consider holding a trial here in Tëan Tír if it has merit.”
“Why would you grant this monster protection?!” Feraen demanded. “To shelter this vile predator of peace-loving mortals…”
“Silence!” Tenre ordered. “Lady Mára, control this child!”
“I would ask Your Highnesses be tolerant of her temper,” Mára responded in a counseling tone. “She has endured repeated false accusations and insults to her lord, our clan’s dear friend and ally, Lord Parna, leveled by this impetuous monster pretending to be a knight. The limits of her patience have long been reached.”
“Feraen? Patience?” I heard a giggling Serera mutter under her breath.
“You assert that a fairy knight has made false accusations?” Tenre asked.
“A fraud knight!” Feraen retorted.
“My granddaughter refuses to repeat her hateful words,” Mára interpreted smoothly.
The crown prince turned to me with a slight curl appearing on his lip, and suggested, “Perhaps Her Highness can repeat them for herself.”
“What?” Feraen responded, and Mára shushed her.
“I can indeed, Your Highness,” I responded. “In Copen, her lord pursued charges against me without evidence. I was held in a mana-restricted cell, at threat to my life as I was unable to replenish my body’s mana, and her lord sought to place me, without trial, in a prison under his own control, where I would have undoubtedly continued starving of mana until death. He further bragged to my face of his intent to eliminate my mother and take her duchy for himself, and to depose the king in favor of the former crown prince, Cullen, a convicted criminal. The insult Lady Feraen claims was my attempt to inform her of her lord’s treachery and warn her of his plots.”
“Yaaaaaaa, you liar!” Feraen yelled and drew her blade. Mára immediately grabbed onto her, holding her back as she shrieked and tried to break free to charge me. I stepped away a few steps, my hand on my blade, ready to defend myself if she broke free.
“Bailiffs!” Tenre snapped, and three fairies leapt into the ring, wings spread, sailing into position around her to ring her with spearpoints. One of them had placed herself directly between Feraen and me.
As Feraen glared around at them, Tenre declared, “This woman is ejected from the arena. Take her somewhere to cool her head.”
Mára let go of her, and she let them peacefully escort her out. Feraen’s submission to them felt a bit too sudden, though.
Does that mean the duel is off? I wondered. I guess I jinxed it by thinking that, because…
“Your Highnesses, I apologize for my hotheaded granddaughter, but the matter of the insult remains. As her second, I assert my right to take my granddaughter’s place.”
On Earth, under Code Duello, the seconds do not take over when the principals can’t fight. That’s not their purpose. But fairy etiquette is different.
Gelon narrowed his eyes and told her, “I had better not learn later that this whole spectacle was a ruse to manufacture this result.”
I guess Feraen’s act seemed a bit off to him, too.
Mára smiled politely. “Never, Your Highness.”
It seemed I would be fighting Lady Mára, instead.
