~Serana⚜

I was sleeping peacefully in the warmest softest bed I couldn't even imagine. Until something started squawking loudly.

I groan softly at the disturbance but quickly cut off when I feel arms around my waist pulling me back flush against another very feminine, very naked, body.

Carefully I try not to tense up and take account of what's happening. The arms were slipped between my feathers and mid back holding me in a tight yet lazy hug. Peeling my eyes open I wait a moment to let them adjust to the early morning light before carefully lifting the covers and looking down to see pale white skin.

Shifting I become aware of the weight on my hip where one long smooth leg was draped over it.

The squawking starts again followed by something tugging on the blanket slowly pulling it off of me and my new bed mate.

The woman behind me grumbles softly burying her face between my wingblades. Once she gets comfortable I feel more than hear her sigh as warm air rolls down my back.

Shuttering at the feeling I fight to keep eyes open and look around the strange room. The longer I stayed awake the more of yesterday's events I remembered.

Another squawk pierces the air before the blanket is completely pulled off of us. That's when it clicked where I was and who exactly it was snuggling up to me.

A low growl rumbles through the queen's chest and sends small vibrations running across my back. Shutting my eyes for a moment to compose myself, I shift a little to try and get out of the queen's embrace.

She growls again and tightens her grip. Out of the corner of my eye I see one massive white wing stretch out and wrap around me blocking my still very naked body from the cool morning air and warm sunlight peaking through the archway doors behind me. I notice the ever present silver handle of her sword sticking out of her wing. She sleeps with her swords in?

"Skraaaaaaawwww!" The loud cry of the gryph suddenly standing in front of me has me jumping in terror and scrambling back into the safety of the bed and farther into the woman holding me.

My reaction seems to startle the queen into alertness. Her grip on me becomes nearly crushing pulling me tight to her front, the arm underneath me moves and disappears along with the wing wrapped around me. Turning my head I see the queen leaning over me with a confused look on her face. She disentangles her other arm from under my wing leaving me free to move once again.

Rolling onto my front away from her I push myself up until I'm half kneeling on the bed a safe distance from her.

"Sorry." She mutters. I don't look at her until I feel the bed shift and dip as she moves to the opposite side. Once she stands the bed goes still and I'm left alone on the mattress as she turns her back to me and lifts her arms above her head, indulging in a long luxurious stretch.

I try to look away but my eyes are glued to the way the light made the silver on her wings and skin shimmer softly making her creamy white completion all the more alluring. The queen had plenty of soft curves but there was no mistaking the amount of sheer lean muscle that rippled up and down her back, in her arms, and pulled taught under the smooth skin of her thighs and calves as she stretched. Of course my eyes couldn't help but to fall on the thick musclier curve of her still very naked backside.

"It's not polite to stare Miss Vynox." The queen's amused voice breaks me from my trance with a sleepy rasp tainting her word and leaving my mouth dry.

My eyes snap up to meet her's as she turns at the waist to look at me, running a hand through her hair and revealing a silver cuff on her right ear. It was shaped to look like a vine of leaves wrapping around the middle of her ear, a few leaves reached down but the main vine ran up the inside shell of her ear in a sleek beautiful design.

My mouth gets ahead of my brain before I can stop it. "How long have you been wearing that?" I ask, and before I know it I'm crawling across the bed toward her.

"Wearing what?" She ask dropping her hand from the rich black locks letting them fall in curvy waves back over the silver jewelry on her ear. She half turns to face me and watches my approach with a dark quizzical gaze.

If I hadn't been looking directly at her face I might have missed the way her eyes dropped down as I neared the edge of the bed.

Smirking I whisper. "It's not polite to stare Miss Lavaris." I throw her words back at her, using her heirname.

Her cheeks warm a soft pink as her eyes dart back up. Feeling a stupid spur of courage I reach out and brush long black waves of hair away from her ear to reveal the cuff.

I tap the silver with my nail and meet her dark stormy blue gaze. "How long have you been wearing this?" I repeat.

She reaches up and grabs my wrist in an iron grip. "I must have forgotten to take it off." She breaths, it didn't exactly answer my question but it was close enough. It was likely the only answer I was getting from her.

"Are you always this difficult?" I ask tugging on my arm to see if I could break her grip.

In response she lightly digs her talons into my wrist and steps around to stand directly in front of me.

Even kneeling on the bed she was still just a tiny bit taller than me making me look up slightly to meet her gaze.

Her lip curls up in a small half smirk. "Would you ask so many questions if I wasn't?" She counters.

Narrowing my eyes I tap my teeth together before responding. "No, I wouldn't have to." I decide to answer.

This earns a full smile, teeth and all. "Then I guess I'll just have to keep being difficult." She says, her dark eyes were bright with a light I couldn't quite place.

My chest was starting to ache from lack of air and my wrist throbbed from her too tight grip. "I'll just keep pestering you until I find the answers to what I want to know." I husk, my voice was strangled and airy, making me want to cringe at how pathetic I sounded.

The queen's breath caught for a moment and her eyes seemed to glaze over before she quickly hid the reaction. Leaning forward she whispers only a hairsbreadth away. "I certainly hope so." Her breath was warm as it ghosted over my lips, smelling faintly of the berry scented tooth past she had used the night before.

A thousand different feelings warred in my head fighting to dictate my response. Confusion won out and I opened my mouth to ask what she meant.

Before I can find the right way to phrase the question into words, she releases my wrist and walks away toward the bathroom.

"Wait!" I call jumping off the bed after her. "What's that supposed to mean?" I ask grabbing her by the wing and firmly pulling her around to face me.

Spinning around she grabs my wrist again and yanks me forward. Stumbling I find myself pressed flush against her looking up into dark primal blue eyes.

My breath hitches and strains in my chest, constricting my heart in a painful grip.

We stand there frozen for a long moment before she takes a breath and says after a second of hesitation. "You make for interesting conversation." Something in the way she said it wasn't right. It wasn't what she had wanted to say.

I wanted...something. I wasn't sure what, but just something.

A loud yawn has us both jerking away from each other and whipping around to face the source of the noise.

A sleepy looking Etria was shaking her head and stretching from her spot on the chair. Yawning again the vyx smacks her lips a few times before looking around the room.

When she spots Mirandiona and I her big red ears perk up and she scrambles off the chair, sliding on the marble tile and slamming down on her snout. She yelps and shakes her head whimpering softly.

Mira makes a sound and quickly strides over to the crying vyx. "Are you okay?" She half laughs getting down on her knees to check on the little fuzzball.

I hear an airy snort from the direction of the bed and look over to see Ovah making a face and rolling his whole head at the vyx and the woman coddling it.

"Oh hush." The queen says sending a glare in the gryph's direction. "You've never complained when it was you being coddled, so I don't want to hear it." Her voice was firm but not mean. Ovah just huffed and trotted over to the door.

"Can I brush my teeth?" I ask pointing over my shoulder to the bathroom.

The other woman glances up at me, having been distracted by the two animals. "Sure but you'll have to use my toothbrush I'm afraid. I don't have a spare." She says standing back up.

"That's fine, as long as you don't mind." I assure walking toward the bathroom. The air in the room had turned awkward and I wanted to get out of the weird atmosphere as soon as possible.

Opening the door I disappear into the smaller room and leave the queen along with the awkwardness in the bedchamber.

Taking a deep breath I close the door and lean my forehead against the wooden surface exhaling a long slow sigh. Get ahold of yourself! I chastise banging my head lightly against the door. My whole frame was shaking like a leaf, leaving me trembling against the door to hold me up.

After what felt like hours I was finally able to get the quaking of muscles down to a bearable twitch and push myself off the door.

Walking over to the counter I find the tooth brush and set out searching through the many jars and containers for the toothpaste.

Finally I spot one with a half open lid. Unscrewing it the rest of the way I raise the metal container to my nose and take a whiff. The strong scent of berries and honey invade my airway along with the unmistakable undertone of the actual toothpaste itself.

Setting the jar back down I dip the brush into the paste and start scrubbing my teeth. Once I finish, I rinse my mouth out and clean the toothbrush, I find a hairbrush and start coming through all the knots in my hair. Once I can't find anything else to do I set about putting everything back exactly as I found it. Once that was done I looked toward the door, I didn't really have anything else to prolong the wait but I didn't want to go back out there and have to face the queen. I couldn't get the way she had looked at me out of my head. She could kill or entrap with a single look, that I was sure of.

A light knock on the door breaks me from my reverie and brigs me crashing back to the present. "Are you finished?" The queen's muffled voice says from the other room.

Shaking any lingering thoughts from my mind I stand up straight and head for the door. Swinging it open I'm met with the queen's hand raised to knock on the door again and what I thought might have been a worried look on her face before it was wiped clean of emotion. "Finished?" She questions.

"Y-yeah, yeah I'm finished." I stutter, clenching my jaw I try not to cringe at myself and move to step around the woman still blocking the door.

"Oh." She breaths lightly stepping back to let me by.

Now that she wasn't right on top of me I could see what she was wearing. There was a long black skirt loosely fastened around her hips by a thick silver chain, the skirt itself went all the way to the floor in a single flowing piece with a slit that ran all the way up revealing one long creamy white leg that stood in stark contrast the the solid black silk. Her hair was pulled back a bit from her face by a silver hair-beret with dark blue sapphires embedded in the leaves of the design. It closely matched the ear cuff I noticed she as still wearing with an identical one on her left ear as well. Her top wrapped under her arms but didn't touch her shoulders or neck. When she passed me to enter the bathroom I saw that the top was hooked to the base of her wings by a piece of curved silver metal.

"I laid some cloths out for you on the bed, they should fit and there's some jewelry on the bedside table." She calls over her wing before disappearing into the bathroom with a soft click of the door.

Taking a deep breath to calm my nerves I turn around to find the clothes she was speaking of. Walking over to the bed I ignore the gryph huffing and grumbling by the door as the little green tyrant tries to attack and bite out his tail feathers, missing each time as he swipes the large appendage back and forth away from her claws.

Picking up the top I turn it around a few times trying to decipher which way it was supposed to go on. After a couple minutes I give up and move on to the bottoms. Putting my legs through I pull it up and secure the gold chain around my hips. It was a skirt like Mira's but with two slits instead of one and the center piece only went down to mid shin where the rest was long enough to drag behind me a bit. The whole thing was black with a sharp curving red line running along its edge. Where'd she get this?

"I had a maid run and grab something that would complement you." The smooth silken voice of the queen answers my unspoken question.

Looking over I see her leaned against the washroom doorframe fixing the dark blue gaze of her on my eyes and sending an avalanche of tingles down my spine.

"Having trouble with the top?" She continues pushing off the doorframe and walking over with a noticeable sway to her hips. She picks up the top and turns it until it's almost completely strung out. "Here." She bends slightly wraps her arms around me bring the top up under my wings and around my back.

Now that it was in place I could see that the top was meant to wrap around the back of my torso just under where my wings and back connected then cross over my breast and hooked together behind my neck.

Pulling back she gives me a once over before stepping around me and picking up the jewelry from the bedside table.

"Give me your hand." She says picking up a series of gold bangles with dark red gemstones.

I lift up my left hand out of instinct but she lightly pushes it away and reaches for my other hand. "The other one, you don't want bracelets on your dominant hand, it'll just get irritating." She explains slipping the bangles onto my arm.

Looking down in mild embarrassment I notice the leafy armband made of the same silver and in the same design as the rest of her jewelry adorning her upper left arm.

I was so focused on the armband I didn't notice when she picked something else up off the table. I jumped slightly when her fingers grazed my chin and pushed my head up straight.

She pushed my hair back and put a pair of gold cuffs on my ears that ran up the inner shell and a little ways down toward the lobe much like the queen's did, the little red gems scattered here and there in lines along its edges making them shimmer in the light like embers.

There was a gold hair-beret with red gemstones lightly gripped between her teeth as she started running her hands through my hair and twisting it away from my face. After a few moments of messing with my hair she drops her hands and taps my shoulder to turn me around.

Doings as told I turn my back to her and try not to focus too hard on her hands combing through my hair and unintentionally messaging my scalp. I wasn't sure how long she's been playing with my hair trying to get it the way she wanted it but I was starting nod off.

Finally I feel her put the beret in and leave it there. Her hands dropped from my hair and I had to choke off a disappointed whimper at the loss of contact. She grabbed my wing and turned me back around to face her. She studied her work for a moment before reaching over and picking up a small handheld mirror for me to see.

Looking at my reflection I saw that she had pulled my bangs back away from my face and had combed through each piece of hair to get it positioned and curved in just the right way to look elegant with a touch of wild. Turning my head I noticed the shape of the beret looked like fire and the stones running along its edge made the whole piece look dazzling against my dark chocolate locks. The ear cuffs were shaped like a trail of fire as well and even the bangles had a distinctly fire related look to them.

"Wow." I breath looking at my reflection. I barely recognized myself from the hunter that had lived in a sleepy dying little village. "I look..." I trailed off not quite being able to find the right words.

"Like a queen." Mirandiona finishes for me. Setting the mirror down she turns her full attention on me.

I tried not to react but the intensity in her gaze was making me tremble and my whole body shake with the desire to run, to escape her grasp before it was too late.

"I have a plan and to pull it off I need you to do exactly as I say." She begins, shifting a little closer, pinning me to spot. "There are delegates from Darqira here. They arrived yesterday and normally I would be at the castle entrance to greet them but, clearly that didn't happen."

Swallowing the lump in my throat I speak before she can continue. "What does this have to do with me?" I ask my brow furrowing in confusion.

She shuts her eyes for a moment before opening them again looking me dead in the face with a grave intensity. "There was a reason I wanted you in my room last night, the same reason I need you to be with me today." She starts. "Trade with Ocenalos has been severed for the time being."

"What?!" I nearly shout, she holds up a hand to silence me and waits for me to close my mouth before continuing.

"A civil war has broken out among the deamons and they cannot spare the resources. Darqira has understandably taken a hard hit, and many of the lowlands people are upset." She explains. "It is very likely one of the delegates or even on of their guards will try to kill me in hopes of ending our own civil war knocking at the step and getting trade with the deamons up again." She said this calmly, as if the idea of there being people in her castle looking to kill her was nothing new or of great importance.

"You still haven't explained what this has to do with me." I say trying to keep the waver from my voice.

"Of course, the delegates and by extension their guards don't know what I look like, few people outside these walls do." She pauses a moment searching my eyes.

"You want me to stay by your side all day to confuse them, so they don't know which one of us is really the queen." I realize.

A quick nod of her head confirms it. "Yes." She breaths.

I scoff a hollow laugh and shake my head looking away. "And what if they just decide to kill both of us?!" I raise my voice throwing my arms out as I look back to her.

"They won't." She assures. "They'll only have one chance and they won't be able to kill both of us before the guards get them. They won't take that chance in the case that they're wrong and bring down the whole furry of the queen down upon them." She says this last part with a bit of a smirk touching her lips.

I nod my head, she had a point. "What if I'm not convincing? I'm an illegal hunter from a tiny village not a noble, much less a royal." I point out gesturing wildly with my hands, my wings flitting about in my panicked and agitated state.

Mirandion grabs my upper arms and forces me to be still and look at her. "You're far harder to read than you think." She assures rubbing her thumbs in soft circles against my shoulders.

"SKRAAAAAWWWWW!!!!!" Ovah's piercing cry makes both of us jump. Spinning around I see Etria scrambling to hide under the bed as the large black gryph snaps his beak trying to catch her by the tail.