Mei Ruan April 17th, 20XX

“Lillian”

The shadow fairy stared at me with a conflicted expression but said nothing, instead tightening her lips to an even straighter line than usual and represented her forced silence through a coy expression.

Ordinarily seeing such an open show of expressions from Lillian would at least serve to amuse me but as of now it only served to tick me off.

Why do I have to see such a thing from a fellow female on my way to meet the prince?

Especially after I had procured a portrait of him from Aruna I was more than unwilling to keep looking at the overly familiar faces of my soldiers and other females.

As a general I usually spend a lot of time on the battlefield and the few times i had returned were usually spent in training, doing petty tasks for Jaya and spent the rest of the time winning over Akseli. I hadn't really spent a lot of time around the fairer side of the species.

“ What is it.”

She only looked at me blankly but her own eyes betrayed her and lingered on the clothing I had put on for the day. I straightened out my shoulders from the hunched position they had somehow taken on, exchanging embarrassment for bluster.

“ This is the one and only chance for the clan to be a part of the Royal line. A chance which may never come again. If the price I have to pay for this chance is my dignity then so be it but I shall go in clothes I am comfortable in.”

She nodded firmly and began to get onto the flutter moth but a certain annoying beast popped into my field of view.

“ Mei! MEI!”

Aruna hurtled into me at full speed and using my instinctual resistance to harming her, both as my little sister and the duchess, she tackled me onto the ground and transferred the gauzy mass of cloth she had in her arms.

“ You ABSOLUTELY cannot go to visit the prince wearing your armor! Are you going to propose marriage or war?!”

She shook out the clothes she had brought and revealed it to be a long transparent flowing robe that could comfortably fit over my light armor but somehow made it look...Vulgar.

“ Aruna...have you spent so much time in the human world that you forgot where you were?”

Her small frame shivered and she looked up at me almost resentfully as if reproaching me for even coming up with such a notion.

“ What nonsense are you spewing? Between learning everything about the dukedom as well as managing my own square of the dukedom I haven't even had time to sleep… That reminds me!”

Using the strength she had gotten from taking Jaya’s magic ( as well as my unwillingness to resist) she pulled the robes over me and then all but climbed onto Lillian, making the shadow fairy incredibly uncomfortable.

Aruna cheekily buried her face into Lillian's chest and said in a muffled voice,

“ You can't take Lillian. Seriously, the dukedom will collapse.”

Well, to begin Lillian had been under the intelligence unit of the Ruan family so I hadn't really thought about taking her to the royal family with me but it looked like Aruna had been worried.

Lillian finally spoke up of her own volition, choosing to throw me under the bus in order to distract the little beast that was now the duchess of the Ruan clan. It seemed that once the rebellion had succeeded she no longer felt the need to listen to me as a subordinate.

“ All jokes aside, the Duchess is correct. One fears that the Royalty might think you are reporting for war if you go in your armor. It is advised that you wear the robe. It may seem vulgar to you but it is actually the highest in fashion in the Capital at the moment. ”

Seeing as the two were so adamant I fixed the robe around me to fall in a moderately flattering way and grudgingly let Aruna put two heavy bronze orbs she called ‘Earrings’ into my ears and loosen half my hair from the tight bun to fall around my back and shoulders while the rest of it was captured in a tight ponytail at the top of my head.

I refused to have my eyesight obstructed simply for fashion so despite her whining she could only give up on the bangs that would 'frame' my face....what ever that meant.

Although the style was popular with the politician women in the capital I was rarely around them and preferred to stay within the army where we wore our movement specialized clothing and tight buns to prevent our hair from being safety hazards.

I would have probably cut it all off if not for Jaya’s previous instance that I do so.

Still I protested at the actions of my younger sister and subordinate, relishing the feeling of actually being able to protest even though I knew it would come to nothing.

“ Its see through! Why couldn't I just wear the armor then?”

Once again I was rewarded with a scowl and I was pushed into the barriage and sent on my way to the palace.

As we arrived I were greeted by the aide of the previous queen, Esmeralda. I couldn't help but frown a bit as she began to speak in an annoying ingratiating tone that hadn't changed a bit since the last time we met.

“ Mei Ruan! It's a pleasure to meet you! Oh it's been so long! You are still as beautiful as always.”

I scowled as she complimented me on such an insignificant thing and it only deepened as she continued to fawn over us. I quickly cut her off before she could complete her next sentence.

“ Esmeralda.”

Like a clam, her mouth slammed shut as if protecting a precious pearl and she quickly led us into a room that was expensively furnished with gilded couches and a royal throne at the head of it, then had us stand to the side according to tradition.

The golden doors that were reserved solely for royalty swung open and the Prince was led in by the two aides that had been assigned to him from birth.

The legendary Combatant Cambridge, who despite her straight forward countenance had managed to single handedly disarm an entire country’s rising rebellion in a matter of days through underhanded means and the mighty Corin who despite her warm appearance was a notorious demon on the battlefield, supporting her younger sister’s subtle warfare with straightforward carnage. Despite their powers being sealed at the moment I knew I would only be able to win a victory against the two at a heavy cost and even that was if i faced each independently.

On top of their overbearing prowess on the battlefield they were also notorious for their undying loyalty to the queen and their overprotectiveness of the little prince. That was why it was so surprising to see them only escort him by his side rather than support him as was popular with males in the upper class.

It was a popular joke that the Prince had learned to fly before he could walk because the two had never let his feet touch the ground.

The second thing to catch my attention was how incredibly pretty this prince was. With large mischievous green eyes, short lightly curled hair that framed his oval face and long eyelashes. Vitality and curiosity rolled off him as he looked around the room in a daze, as if each scene that entered his line of vision was a beautiful painting. His gold hair whipped back and forth with every movement that he made and he couldn't pay attention even as Lillian performed the frankly insulting mockery of a bow.

Although she only did so under my orders I still flinched in annoyance at the sight, after all the main loyalty of any duchy is to the Crown even if it was just a prince. Corin and Cambridge tensed and their hands went to their swords in a synchronized motion but they couldn't spill blood in the throne room without explicit permission. They instead settled for glaring the both of us down with murderous gazes.

We both waited for him to flip out and order to have Lillian killed and I gripped the Royal exemption tablet in hand, prepared to take it out before he could finish the order but we were rather sorely let down.

Corin gently redirected his attention to Lillian and the prince looked at her for the first time, as if he hadn't even seen her enter the room. He nodded to acknowledge her presence, completely ignoring her previous actions and resumed analyzing the flying lizard around the room.

He squirmed in his chair and gave me the impression that he would have gotten up and chased it around if he could.

Yet, even though he seemed as harmless as a puppy I couldn't shake off the feeling that there was more to him than he presented.

This feeling was backed by his half frown at Esmeralda's slip up when Lillian revealed we knew he had been lost for the past 17 years. He had tried to play it off but the irritation in his eyes couldn't be mistaken.

I continued to analyze him, at first discreetly, but seeing as he didn't seem to mind I continued less covertly even as I conversed with Esmarelda.

Half of my impression of him was overwhelmed by his looks but the other half was the overwhelming amount of magic that he generated.

I had heard of this effect before and my mother had spoken about it a million times, yet I hadn't believed her.

After all wasn't it just magic? Even if it felt a little cleaner it wasn't like it's had any direct combat benefits was my line of thought but after experiencing it directly I realized I couldn't have been more mistaken.

Beside me Lillian was surely feeling the same effect but not as strongly as she didn't have as much access to magic as i did.

Being in his presence was like coming into a clear field after being surrounded by city smog your entire life. I felt the urge to cast a million spells just to have this magic course through me and cleanse out the old.

And maybe it was because of his mixed heritage but I could guess that he generated more and at a much better quality than was normal. My guess was validated by Esmerelda who had grown up at the previous Queen's side. The fairy had an enthralled expression as she took in the feeling but the expression fell off her face every time she looked at the Prince and remembered the source.

I made a mental note to investigate into why she seemed so resentful of him.

As the prince was the only active member of the royal family that remained she should at least have had some protectiveness or some sense of self-preservation to keep herself as an aid of the royal family. There was the slight possibility of holding on to the matriarch or the prince’s grandmother but she had descended into rest for the past decade or so, even though she had the power to rule she was far from having the mindset or will.

Finally, curiosity and greed overcame me and I stretched out a thin tube of magic, only intending to funnel a bit of the clean magic he generated and save it for later. I was so absorbed in the task that it came as a double shock when I felt it snap and disintegrate.

At first, I was enraged, much like an alcoholic that had their second glass of wine snatched from them but I couldn't help but be pleased.

It looked like I wasn’t to marry a dunce after all.

As well, the fact that he hadn't tried to take advantage of my actions to dish out retribution for the blatant disrespect earlier only put me in a better mood.

After all, my biggest fear was not that he would think overly highly of himself, after all, if he didn't think highly of himself as a member of the royal family then who could?

My fear was that he would be unconfident in himself and seek that validation by trampling on others, much like my elder sister had.

Even though he was a male, the gap between Royalty and dukedom was much too large. Even if i could manage to defeat him it would have to be with my experience and the victory would definitely come at a heavy cost. There was also the fact that I was unclear on just how much power he had received from his mother, seeing as there was very little precedent of a royal male fairy.

It was common practice for the royalty to pair with a Goblin in order to produce an offspring but in such cases the male children would always be goblins with a heightened perception of magic, but nothing more and the girl offspring would be fairies with heightened physical abilities.