Mei Ruan May 2nd, 20XX

“It’s the Witches isn’t it?”

The Durand representative started aggressively, pushing out her wings and keeping her wand out all the while completely ignoring the fact that I was the head of the meeting.

She showed her ingrained bias from her scholarly family through her immediate suspicion of the witches.

It was common knowledge amongst the higher-ranked of the fairies that the Durand family originally got a lot of their research material and topics from the witches.

I supposed it was a bit of a shameful history for them.

The Aslan representative calmly sipped at her drink, pretending to savour the taste of the tea as if we all didn’t know she had substituted it for wine.

The representative from the Nicosia clan seemed to be the only one that had come prepared for a meeting between the four most powerful non-royal families in the Queendom, having prepared maps, trade reports and even general charts showing the overall influence we each held on each field.

It would have been a lot more impressive if she hadn't immediately cashed out whatever lenience she'd earned by casting a cheap illusion spell and taking a long nap. She even went as far as to have her aide support her head from behind her.

When one saw her like this it was difficult to associate her with the same woman that had brutally dismembered her sisters with a faint smile on her face.

I exhaled heavily and tried to calm down, reminding myself that this wasn't a war council and was just a reunion of old mates.

Talan finally looked up from her wine cup and tried to calm Zera down, having seen how irritated I was getting. Or maybe she just didn’t like the noise over her drink.

“Calm down Zera. Even though we are alone you can’t throw those types of accusations around.”

Zera only snorted in response and stood up, flaring her wings even further in an attempt to intimidate us into silence…. perhaps it had been too long since we last met.

“Even though it’s called the interspecies ball the Goblins went into seclusion 17 years ago. If you think there exists a fairy bold enough to attempt to kill his highness than I beg of you to show them to me.”

Aruna shrank into her chair at her tone but quickly fixed her posture when I sent her a look. Soon she would be leading these meetings both as the representative of the Ruan family as well as the younger sister of the queen.

She held too much power to put front such a cowardly front.

I tried to send the message that just sitting up wasn’t enough and that she should say something, but her lips stayed shut like they had been glued together.

Talan looked to Liose for support but was doomed to be disappointed as the Nicosia representative was still peacefully asleep. I finally decided to cut in.

“Zera, that’s enough.”

She flared out her wings once more but quickly closed them and sat down again, having remembered what happened the previous time she tried to go against me.

Aside from being generally familiar with one another due to our clan’s status We had also met when they did their mandatory military service as all females were required to complete. They had served in my army and had personally experienced me not as a friend but as a general.

Out of the three Zera had received the most…attention from me.

“General Ruan.”

I nodded in response and didn’t pursue it, instead of signalling to the Nicosia aide to wake up their matriarch.

“I assembled us today for two reasons. The first is, as you all probably know by now, I recently had to dispose of my elder sister and Aruna had to take the seat of the Ruan Duchy. I wanted to make sure you were all acquainted with one another before she takes my seat in these meetings.”

Rather than the official annual meeting with all of the heads of the families our meetings were much more informal. We were considered the ‘real’ strengths of our families, that just lacked the title for one reason or another.

Zera, even though she was the eldest daughter was still a long way away from taking the seat from her mother since the old fairy refused to retire until Zera got married and had at least two children.

Talan was in a similar situation of being the eldest daughter of her clan but she had abdicated the seat of matriarch to her younger sister since she had ties to the Gagnon family in the castle. She was a kind person, but her drunkard habits forbade her from holding up such serious obligations and since she didn’t need to she chose to go right to be an ‘elder’ of the family.

Liose was a bit of a special case as she had been the third born daughter of her clan. She had killed her two elder sisters who had been similar to Jaya. Bullying and oppressive towards those they felt were weaker than themselves.

In the past, she would walk around with her head low and would avoid them at all costs but when they had almost caused the fall of the Nicosia clan from the four duchies, she had just killed them ant taken up the seat herself.

Out of all of us, she was also the only one with a daughter and was already grooming the infant up to take the seat of the matriarch. She said that it was because she looked forward to retiring and sleeping her days away but we were all clear that it had been an accident that she had chosen to take responsibility for.

Liose finally pulled down the cheap illusion she had cast and made eye contact with me from her restful position, showing me she was awake. Talan put aside the Wine cup having registered the seriousness in my voice but it stayed within reach. Even Zera visibly calmed down, showing that she was, in fact, the eldest daughter of the Durand clan.

“You are all aware that my engagement with the prince has been finalized and I am all but set to take the throne. Correct?”

It was a redundant question as they had all attended the interspecies ball and had seen both of us together, their respective clan’s information networks were in no way inferior to those of the Ruan duchy’s networks.

Zera light-heartedly spat in my direction and jokingly commented but a faint sheen of jealously was clear behind her eyes.

“You beat us all to the march Ruan- Ah the general Ruan. You hid the news of the prince returning and used the extra time to snag the throne for yourself.”

Still, it was clear that she didn’t particularly want to fight me over it, although I would welcome her if she did, it was evident that she was more upset that I had found out about the Prince’s return earlier than she had.

Talan nodded knowingly.

“Still, who would have thought that Esmeralda would be as brave as to abandon his highness in the human world for the past 17 years. When Lieutenant Gagnon finally returned him home, I was shocked to hear of it.”

Liose chuckled.

“Isn’t it a bit much to call your sister-in-law by her title Talan? If you aren’t careful one would think you weren’t close to your in-laws.”

Talan didn’t respond and instead whipped out a flask, having fully abandoned the pretense and that point and took a hearty swig, soothing her sorrows with alcohol. At the sight, Zera jumped in to take a jab at her.

“Have some sympathy, Lio. Could you imagine having to live in constant fear of your husband because his family is so intimidating? - ah”

The three of them as well of my sister shot me a sympathetic look but rather wisely choose not to take it any further than that, instead opting to change the topic of conversation.

Liose took the initiative and started to guide the conversation back on track.

“What do you need help on?”

Zera jumped in,

“Are you unhappy with the leakage of information from the Castle? I can help with that if you would like on the behalf of our friendship.”

She emphasized the word to show that she valued the fact that we were friends in the hope of lightening whatever punishment she thought I had in store for her.

I wasn’t sure why they were so wary of me though.

I had been harsh towards them as the general of the Ruan army but that was because they had applied to my base thinking I would take it easier on them on account of our friendship. I couldn’t have that sort of indulgent mentality contaminating my soldiers.

As well, doing so would defeat the point of having them do a military soldier in the first place. If they were unlucky enough to get an external evaluation at the end of it and weren't up to par then they would only end up having to repeat the service, shaming both themselves and my skills as a general.

“That would be greatly appreciated Zera but this is more specifically about Esmeralda.”

They immediately died down and withdrew into their thoughts, not knowing if this was a test or if I genuinely needed their advice. I continued, wanting to tell them everything before they made a decision.

“We all know by now that Esmarelda essentially abandoned his highness to the human world for the past 17 years, just that would be enough to call her actions into question but I'm afraid that's not where it ends. Are you ware that His highness has All-female attendants, not a single other male fairy is in that Castle.”

Although the Queendom had advanced past its stage where absolute purity was required, we were far from the stage where having a single male fairy be cared for by all females was in any way acceptable. If not for my efforts in suppressing the news leakage from the castle I couldn’t even imagine the sort of condemnation that his highness would have to face. The fact that he was half-goblin didn’t help either as our two races were more often than not on negative terms with one another.

“With just those two as well as a few other examples I can’t help but think that perhaps Esmeralda’s ‘Aide’ bonds have loosened or even have completely broken.”

If the previous queen, Belpheobe had not specifically extended the contract of the bonds to after her death then Esmeralda might have been operating in the queendom as she willed rather than as the Queen’s subsidiary.

If it turned out to be true she would be executed under the terms of treason and all her actions against the prince, which would have been excused under the terms of her doing things in his best interest would be redefined as scorning a member of the royal family, which was another heavy penalty.

Talan jumped in, speaking very carefully and processing each word before she said it.

“Mei, think very carefully about this. If you turn out to be wrong the people will naturally assume that you are being overactive in trying to seize power and you’ll be overthrown. You aren’t like the other royals in that you can be replaced.”

Zera jumped in as well, not wanting to dissuade me if I turned out to be correct but also not wanting to encourage me in case I turned out to be wrong.

“We can’t forget that the Gagnon sisters are also in the castle. If such a thing had happened don’t you think they would have known? Or would at least have suspected it? Even Esmeralda wouldn’t dare to attempt to harm his highness under their close watch.”

Liose, still in deep thought contributed her own two cents as well.

“Whatever you choose to do you know you have the Nicosia family’s support, but I do want you to think very carefully on this.”

I nodded in approval, glad they had at least tried to stop me and went on to describe what had happened the first day that I had met with the Prince. When a loud thump echoed from the doorway and the soft but distinctive sound of a grown fairy’s wings beating neared us.

Liose straightened herself out and replaced her lack expression with a stoic one, Talan gave the Flask to her aide to hide and took on a more aggressive stance as she and her family were known to have and Zera contrastingly straightened her posture and after a moment of thought stole Liose’s papers and arranged them in front of herself, donning a pair of spectacles to complete the illusion.

To the side, Aruna looked at the three transformed fairies with awe, although she tried to hide it. I couldn’t blame her though; their transformations never did cease to amaze me.

The door swung open easily even though it was supposed to be locked and the Gagnon sisters sauntered into the room.

Talan immediately got up and saluted them, folding in a wing in respect and trying to hide her shivering in fear. The rest of us though only got up afterwards, that was enough to show respect to the Gagnon’s as we were all of a similar status.

After a bit more thought I bent a wing inwards as well, which prompted Aruna to do the same even though she didn’t need too.

They were the prince’s caretakers after all, and it wouldn’t cost me anything to pay them a bit more respect.

I looked up expecting to see the usual slightly amused smirk on their faces only to be greeted with a stone serious and murderous expression from the two sisters. Corin took a threatening step in our direction but we all stood still, not knowing if this was an attack or just intimidation.

We all stood at a standstill until Talan took the lead, immediately falling to her knees and almost instinctively begging for mercy. Although she was never a prideful woman, seeing her like this could only be described as pitiful.

“D-Did Jaro end up contacting you after all? I-I swear I didn’t mean that I would completely cut off his funds… it's just that he already emptied the coffers for the next four years in a month…. Even if I dote on him and would never make him unhappy I was under a lot of pressure and ended up speaking rashly- of-“

“That’s not why we are here Aslan… but it looks like we will have to have a separate discussion after this.”

Talan shrank even further into herself and her hand twitched for her flask but even she wasn’t dumb enough to bring out such a clear trigger for the two. I stepped forward.

“Can I ask why you are here General and lieutenant Gagnon?”

Cambridge took a deep breath and looked around the room once more, casting a few more spells around the room to guarantee privacy.

“General Ruan. We came here because, as much as it kills me to admit, we need help.”