Elsurion opened the door to his chambers. After the familiar left for his task, the king went on his way to meet the diplomat. The meeting took quite a while. So long in fact, that Elsurion invited the diplomat to have dinner with him and stay the night. The diplomat happily accepted. The kitchen served an excellent meal, the goose being the clear highlight. However, the length of the conversation and the king’s invitation to have dinner together, did not come without reason. The diplomat, against Elsurion’s expectations, had a few very interesting things to say. Apparently, the ruler of Deermond also noticed changes in Leopold II’s behaviour. Elsurion suspected that king Maximillian of Deermond had sent the diplomat to sound Elsurion out. The king of Solaria admitted Ayumir having cancelled a trade agreement with them as well. However, he did not mention that this cancellation involved the arcane crystals. The diplomat did not ask for that information specifically either. He also mentioned that King Leopold II would strictly decline all incoming diplomatic visits. Elsurion was unsure if he should feel blessed by or messed with by fate now that it had delivered a few important pieces of info into his hands just like that. Regardless, the king did not regret his decision to send Marius to spy out Ayumir. His friend would deliver on the assignment still. Waving the topic aside, the sorcerer checked on his familiar. Taking a deep breath, his thoughts wandered off to the familiar, establishing a connection. The sorcerer took over the bird’s eyes for a moment. The lonely landscape was the only thing the raven could see. Elsurion scolded himself for hoping that the raven would spot Sarenya the moment he took over. Foolish. The king sighed again. The worries were back now of course. The man shook his head to clear his mind. Sarenya had been his guard almost as long as his father was dead, she was his personal protector, yet he was worrying about her. What a fool he was. Elsurion tried to talk reason into himself. Tried to argue with his thoughts that, if he lost Sarenya, he would lose the best guard he could possibly ask for and that this was why he worried. But of course, he knew that this was simply not true. Sarenya meant something personal to him. He could not deny that. She was more than a servant to him and the way he worried made it crystal clear now. But the king had sworn to himself never to board that ship of thought again. But it was too late. The memories started to creep back and taking over his head. Elsurion wanted to slam on his desk. But he did not want to make one of the guards outside rush in because they thought something might’ve happened to their king. Elsurion waved through the air with his hands, as to weave the memories away, but it was no use. After a minute, he surrendered and let them take over.