Mei Ruan May 5th, 20xx

I kept my eyes focused on the desk as the prince sprinted out of the room and resisted the urge to tail him and make sure he would be okay.

It was even more difficult to let him go since he had already found out about the guards I’d assigned to him. My Ruan clan wasn't specialized in espionage or undiscovered movement so I didn’t have any people on hand that could avoid being located if his highness wanted to expose them.

Besides, the fact that they wouldn’t be able to tail him without the coordinates of his transporter and how long it would take to get them outfitted with equipment to operate in the human world made the plan of the guards fall through.

I was equally aware that his highness viewed the human world as a safe place and didn’t want to risk exposing his getaway location to satisfy my curiosity.

As much as my instincts screamed at me to force him to stay and not dive into an irregular situation but I knew to attempt would merely make things worse.

Things were strenuous enough without making myself an enemy.

“Announcing the Arrival of Durand, Aslan and Nicosia. Would you have me guide them to the receiving area or have them meet you here, General Ruan?”

I forced my hands to unclench from my wand as I took in the sudden appearance of the maid and more importantly her words. I must have taken too long to answer, though, as she offered me more options of action with a kind but slightly condescending smile.

“Or would you prefer I dismiss them on your behalf and have them report at another time? I can them know that you are preoccupied.”

“That won’t be necessary, just have them come here.”

She tilted her wing inwards and inclined her back towards me then disappeared just as suddenly as she had appeared causing me to physically shudder in a halfhearted attempt to get rid of the stiffness she had left behind.

My Ruan duchy was far from the wolf’s den I was aware others liked to portray us as. We had manners and conventions just as proper as any other family but as we were a military clan there was a certain level of autonomy that came with obedience. As long as they obeyed the rules and stuck to each point then the lines between didn’t matter much.

It was quite the contrast from the palace where each movement of the servants was polished to fluidity.

The three Fairies waltzed in with bland and proper expressions on their face and just as stiffly as the servants in the palace had, folded in their wings and bowed to me.

The Ruan family was technically a bit higher ranked than the others because of my status as the prince’s fiancée but it wasn’t anywhere powerful enough to demand such formalities from the other families. Especially after we had recently lost a member of our already small clan.

As things were, I had to consider urging Aruna to get married sooner than I had initially hoped for her and have more than the single active member of the Ruan clan as we currently did. Once one could get past her childishness, she was already more than old enough to have married by now anyway.

Her irresponsibility did get to me sometimes, but it seemed that I was more sentimental than I would have labelled myself. The thought of forcing her to grow up any more than she had to was uncomfortable.

The palace fairy excused herself with another stifling greeting and floated out the door, a welcome alternative to the disappearing act she pulled before.

During my official military service, as well as during training I hadn’t been allowed to serve at the borders alongside my mother and had to put down upstarts and rebellion attempts. They were generally untrained and unprepared for the overwhelming force of the Ruan family to squash them but the few smarter groups tended to prefer movement spells like that and utilized them to harass my soldiers.

It wasn’t impossible to guard against, but it was an annoyance and usually signalled a difficult suppression.

As the heavy door swung closed I used magic to bring some chairs closer to myself, relishing the feeling of being able to use it freely for once.

I didn’t resent the prince and knew it wasn’t his fault that I had to live with the bonds, I was even grateful that he was working so hard to adjust the bond and its conditions rather than leaving me with the overall seal that Corin and Cambridge had received but it didn’t change how uncomfortable I was while it was in effect.

“Take a seat. I have a lot to speak to you three about.”

Contrary to expectations they didn’t immediately flop into the chairs as I had expected them too but very civilly walked over to them and settled their robes in a stately manner.

Well, I couldn’t exactly blame them for being nervous as this was the first time they had entered so deeply into the palace. Even as nobles they had been regulated to the outer circles of the building and forbidden from approaching the doors that led to the inner rings of the building.

Even now it wasn’t like we could be considered to be in the ‘inner palace’ but it was far enough 'in' to intimidate the three women.

I was sure if the prince had still been here they might have frozen up completely but I wasn’t sure I wanted them to meet with Cai as of yet. I wasn’t in any way unconfident but the fact that any of the three had just as much right to court him as I did was uncomfortable to think about.

“Try to relax a bit. I don’t have the time nor patience to ease all your minds.”

Liose was the first to snap out of it, relaxing her posture and adopting the same lack expression she carried around us.

“Then why are we here General Ruan? Was his highness unpleased with your decisions to reward us as you did?”

Zera, our amazingly loyal friend that somehow never learned how to keep her mouth shut, jumped in with her takes on the still unexplained situation.

“I'm sure that’s it! After all 3 whole exemptions to the biggest clans in the land, isn’t that just asking for a rebellion? They weren’t even partial exemptions either! If I were so insane, I could even go unpunished for an assassination attempt! ”

“““Zera!”””

The three of us hissed at her reckless words and even the less than half sober Talan seemed to wake up at this.

On another note, I could have sworn she had been completely sober when she had come in and it had only been a few minutes… could I depend on them as I intended to?

Zera quickly realized that she was suggesting regicide inside the royal palace and wrapped her wings around herself to cover her mouth, too shocked to even use her hands.

After a warning glare, I moved on, not willing to dwell on it and be forced to punish her. She was reckless with her words but never with her actions.

“Stop talking and listen before I change my mind… I called the three of you here to ask you to be my royal aides-“

“Of course!”

“Are you sure about this?”

The two voices of Zera and Talan overlapped one another as they responded to my request but I quieted them with an arm, wanting them to hear the whole thing before making any promises. Liose, thoughtful as always, refrained from answering straight away.

I could tell they had been expecting it from the speed of their responses, but I wondered if they had properly thought about all that being an Aide entailed before making their decisions.

Talan would be fine as she was already out of the running for leading her clan but I knew how much Zera had been preparing to become the next matriarch of the Durand family. Liose as well was already leading her clan and had a daughter to think about.

Being the Queen’s aide and being the Queen's friend were two very different things and had to be treated differently as well.

An Aide couldn’t have conflicts of interest, and their priorities would have to be solely to the Queen, not even to the Queendom. That usually meant leaving their respective clans and even living in the same palace as the queen.

An Aide wasn’t a servant but they were subordinate to the Queen and would have to receive orders and punishments that the queen saw fit to distribute.

For the three nobles that would never have had to serve another person as an inferior except their own families, it would be a difficult adjustment that I wasn’t exactly sure our friendship would survive, but at the same time I couldn’t think of any others I would feel safe to have by my side.

“None of you are less intelligent than I am so I’m sure you all know what I am asking and what it would mean for all of you. I know I am being selfish by asking you, my friends, to do this on my behalf rather than on behalf of the throne but It can’t be helped. Think carefully before you all make your final decisions and know that regardless of your answers, I will still consider you to be a good friend of mine.”

As the other two fell into thought, Liose finally spoke. She pushed her light hair into place and spoke slowly like the weight of her thoughts was dragging down her speech.

“As flattered as I am that you asked we both know I wasn’t the true recipient of this offer. I have a daughter and as pathetic as they are I also have a clan to look after. I can’t run from my responsibilities to play the four musketeers with you guys anymore.”

I couldn’t hide my disappointment that my prediction was right nodded nonetheless.

“It’s a loss on my behalf, but I understand. This changes nothing between us.”

The serious expression, which I seemed to be seeing more and more these days melted off her face and was replaced by the usual lax expression and posture that I was used to seeing.

I turned to Zera and Talan and prepared to wait for their responses but found hat they had already made up their minds.

Zera spoke first with a fiery passion burning in her thin and dark eyes.

I held back a sigh of disappointment that the Durand family hadn’t been military as well. It was a pity that someone with so much potential wasn’t on the battlefield.

“It goes without saying Mei. Being the head of the Durand clan would be cool but I'm pretty sure that old lady never intended on giving it to me anyway. She says I’m too ‘volatile’ to be trusted with their ‘delicate and precious’ Durand clan.”

Just as I had expected Liose to reject my offer, I had been expecting Zera to accept but it still made me that much happier when I heard the words coming out of her mouth. I made to thank her and show her just how much I appreciated it when Talan jumped in with her usual unserious attitude.

“It’s not like I'm doing anything anyway and this way I have a good excuse to be out of the hou-“

Talan suddenly cut herself off with a cough but the latter half of her sentence came across clearly. We ignored her as always.

Despite her incessant complaints of her husband and how ‘difficult’ he made life for her she was also the first at any occasion to show off just how handsome and talented he was and if any of us dared to say anything bad about him she wouldn’t hesitate to sober up and fight any of us to the death and back. Zera could attest to that after she had once suggested that she just divorce him so we could finally stop listening to her complain about the man.

At one point when she thought she was pregnant I had considered kicking her out of the group indefinitely but thankfully it had been a false alarm. It wasn't hard to imagine just how unbearable she would be when she had a child as well.

“Zera, Talan, Liose as well. The three of you- What I mean to say is, I couldn’t have found any better people to be friends with.”

It seemed like I was more emotional than I thought, and my voice cracked in that middle of my thanks but I quickly moved on not wanting them to have grounds to tease me on it.

“I intended on having the three of you meet with his highness today and confirm you guys as my aides but he had to go. Perhaps tomorrow would be a better day.”

Liose gave a small chuckle at the discontent that crept into my voice and gestured to the desk on the other side of the room that was filled with odd contraptions and a neglected stack of castle affairs I was ecstatic to not have to deal with any longer.

“Are you sure you just didn’t want him to see us? You seem to have been very protective of his highness these days?”

Zera, ever the reckless jumped in with her own two cents on the topic.

“I heard you even went around to find him, male staff.”

It was a pretty fair assumption that I had sent him out of the study room since most of his stuff was still here and the traces of his magic were still very active in the room but the way the two of them put it somewhat irritated me.

“And what would be so special about the three of you that I would have to hide his highness away?”

Talan, who seemed to be feeling braver today than usual jumped into the mix of teasing me and taking advantage of my sentimentality to do so.

“Well, Zera was a legitimate option as the next queen wasn’t she? You wouldn’t have much to say if his highness fell in love at first sight with her and fought to make her the queen, would you?”

Zera faked a surprised expression and clapped her hands as if she had just realized something.

“That is true! And I don’t even have an ex-fiancée lingering around me!”

Liose and Talan immediately took a few steps away from her as I took a step closer, implicitly severing ties with our still oblivious friend.

One wouldn’t find it hard to believe she was the most intelligent and accomplished of us all for all her appearance and family background… But that mouth of hers.

“Zera, would you come with me to the training grounds? As your general, I feel that you should be disciplined before being allowed into the palace.”

Even as she futilely fought back against my arm on her wings that dragged her to the fields I kept an eye on the clock.

6 hours until the day ended.