Chapter 253: Chapter 240 – The Winter Festival VI

Chapter 240 - The Winter Festival VI

“Are you sure they aren’t going to chase us down?”

Natalya glanced out the window as she took a heated stone from the pile and tucked it under her blanket. The whole party was gathered in her room, seated around the coffee table next to the fireplace. There were a number of dishes scattered atop, foods from the city’s various restaurants and stalls, as well as Claire specials, centerpieces and desserts brought into the world by her Llystletein Authority.

“We can never be completely sure, but I don’t think they will.” Matthias answered as he took a sip from a cup of stale tea. The mantis’ scythes were covered in large mittens, both to protect them from the cold, and to keep him from accidentally mauling the furniture. “They’re likely to spend a bit more time plotting their next moves, with how much shit they just ate.”

“We have certainly dealt them a telling blow. It is a shame I cannot be present to see the look on the harlot’s face, when she is met with the news.”

Arciel spoke in her usual haughty tone, but she was too relaxed and comfortable to command her usual haughty air. The vampire’s hat was the only part of her doing any sitting. She herself was lying on the floor, her head atop a small bubbly pillow, and her hair strewn all over the carpet. It was coloured not in its default black, but the violet shade it took with her transformation undone. Her skin was blue and her long, purple tentacles lay anywhere there was blanket to be found. She refused to retract them, even after Claire had stepped on them, once by accident and three times on purpose.

“Huh? She has a face?” asked Sylvia. “I thought she was a giant leech.”

“She might look like a leech, but she’s technically an elin,” explained Matthias.

“What’s an elin?”

“It’s a race of fish people, and I’m pretty sure at least that it comes from a line of lampreys.”

“Huh? But I swear you guys always just call her a leech.” The fox pressed a paw to her chin and cocked her head.

Matthias chuckled and leaned further back in his seat, but offered no further comment.

Arciel answered after a brief delay instead. She rolled slightly to the side, so she was more or less looking in the fox’s direction, and lazily propped her head up with her hair. “It is a designation that greatly offends members of her race. They are insulted precisely because the term presents them as they are.” Judging her part done, she rolled over again and dragged herself closer to the hearth.

“Oh… Wait, aren’t lampreys just eels, and eels just fish? Doesn’t that mean she’s edible?”

“Bad fox. Stop. Down.” Claire pulled her arm out of her blanket and flicked her vulpine companion.

“Ow! What the heck!”

“Stop imagining how the queen tastes. You can’t eat her. We need to parade her corpse around after she dies.”

“Oh, come on! I wasn’t actually gonna do it! And plus! It’s not like anyone’s gonna find out if I just give her a bit of a nibble!”

The suggestion put a disgusted scowl on the resident squid’s face. “I would advise against consuming her flesh. She is plagued by a rather impressive number of venereal diseases. It was with them that she assassinated my aunt.”

“Oh… uhmm… ew…” Sylvia took a few moments to paw at her tongue before climbing over to the table and emptying a full glass of water. “Where was I again? Oh, right! It’s kind of a shame no one knows about Al. He can make all sorts of weird diseases go away with his weird alchemy stuff. I think one time, he said he that he suddenly grew a bunch of warts all over his schl—”

“Can we please not talk about this right now?” Natalya returned half a sausage to her plate and buried it under a pile of mashed potatoes. “I’m trying to eat.”

“Mmmmnnnn… fine, but only if you can think about something else to talk about instead.”

The cat set her knife down on the table and used the free hand to scratch the fox’s ears. “How about what we have lined up for tomorrow? I think we were supposed to go racing, and that’s bound to be plenty of fun.”

The subject had Marcelle’s undivided attention. The perfectly circular sea cow rose from the couch and floated over while flapping her flippers against her belly. Her eyes were twinkling, and her tail quite literally spinning back and forth, but her excitement went largely unshared.

“No way! I’m bored of that already. We’ve already talked about it like a whole two dozen times!” complained Sylvia.

“Alright uhmmm…” Lia lightly tapped a fork against her chin. “Do you think the girl we found was really the baron’s daughter?”

“Wow, you really suck at this whole talking thing,” mused the fox. “We’ve been over that one already too! Like, literally an hour ago!”

“I-I don’t suck at talking, you’re just putting me on the spot!” said the cat. “You can’t just tell me to come up with something out of the blue and expect anything decent.”

“Well too bad,” huffed the fox. “I already did. Now hurry up and pick something fun!”

“Uhm… errr…” Natalya looked around the room, her eyes eventually settling on a certain closed door. “Okay, well uhmm… How come I never see any of you use the restroom? I swear I’m the only one that ever has to go.”

“What the heck!? I said something fun, not something super weird and personal! And why the heck are you bringing that up anyway!? How’s imagining us using the bathroom supposed to help you eat!?”

“I-I wasn’t imagining anything!” The cat’s face reddened as she set down her fork and pushed herself away from the table.

“Liar!” cried the fox. “I’m looking inside your head right now, and you’re imagining how embarrassed Claire would be if you walked in on her!”

“Pervert,” said the moose, with a reproachful glare.

“Not because I wanted to!” cried the runaway soldier. “I wasn’t imagining anything until you suddenly brought it up!”

“Mmmmnnnn… I dunno. I’m pretty sure you woulda done it anyway.” The fox was doing her best to look suspicious of her feline friend, but the impression was broken by the giggles sneaking through her mask.

“I swear to Tzaarkus, Sylvia. You’re starting to pick up Claire’s mean streak.”

The lyrkress tilted her head. “I don’t have a mean streak.”

Her claim was met with a number of silent stares, but she ignored them in favour of throwing her lizard another treat. He had taken a liking to the silverware that her authority skill spawned, and she conveniently needed a way to get rid of it. Dumping it in the trash was a no go. The staff responsible for cleaning their rooms would put it right back on the table, washed and ready for another meal. Of course, it wasn’t their fault. Forged metal was relatively valuable, and they had no way of knowing that she would receive a fresh batch each time she called for a new dish.

The caster herself had no idea when the various utensils had started to appear. She was fairly certain that it was just the infinite plates that plagued her at first, but at some point, they had been joined by an equally infinite army of forks, knives, and spoons. Thankfully, the lizard’s stomach was on the more impressive side. He could clean up all the silverware, as well as all of the leftovers. But alas, the non-metal containers remained. It wasn’t as if he couldn’t eat them, but rather that the flavours of glass and ceramic were not as much to his liking.

“Whatever ended up happening to the prizes we got from the winter art contest?” asked Natalya, after a brief silence. “I remember there being something about a colosseum.”

“Oh yeah! I almost forgot about those!” Sylvia reached into her tail and rustled her paw around for a bit before pulling out an envelope. She had already ripped the seal off and shoved their other prize inside. “I have them right here, and the colosseum’s pretty great. Claire and I went a few days ago, and we had loads of fun.”

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“It wasn’t bad, but the fights were staged,” said the lyrkress. “That will likely change, now that Pollux has bought it. He may be something of a rat, but his blood is Cadrian as it gets.”

“Wait, that sounds kinda fun…” mumbled the fox.

“It will be. Under a warrior’s management,” said Claire.

“No, not the colosseum, silly!” Sylvia leapt onto the lyrkress’ shoulder and leaned on one of her ears. “I mean the rat thing! A rat centaur sounds hilarious! Just imagine how it looks when it’s scampering around and stuff.”

“Disgusting,” said Claire.

“Oh, come on. Rats can be super cute when they’re not too busy being tasty.”

“They’re not very tasty at all. We only ever had them when there was nothing else to eat.” Natalya pushed her plate away, her face twisted into a grimace. “A-anyway, does it say when it’s reopening?”

“Let’s see…” Sylvia retrieved the printed advertisement that came alongside the tickets and spread it out on the table. “It looks like it’s supposed to be all day on the day the solstice happens.”

“That’ll be the day Count Ray’esce is hosting his party,” said Matthias, with a frown.

“Oh yeah, I almost forgot about that,” said Sylvia. “I think I remember him saying that it was gonna be like super impressive ‘n stuff, but he never told us anything else. Do you think there’s gonna be any tasty food?”

Arciel stifled a yawn as she slowly tentacled her way over to the freshly vacated sofa. “He is sure to supply us with generous meals, but I would not expect a banquet. It is a smaller, private gathering in which only our allies may participate.”

“We can tell him to relocate. We’ll have a VIP box to ourselves.” Claire retrieved another slip from within the envelope and handed it to the princess, who raised her brow as she skimmed over the fine print. “It’d be a good sideshow.”

“Would it not be insecure?”

“I doubt it. Pollux has likely remodeled it already, knowing him.”

“Perhaps I will raise it as a suggestion then, seeing how eager some of our members are,” said Arciel, the lattermost words obscured by a yawn.

“Wait, wait, wait!” Sylvia waved her paws. “Isn’t the colosseum underwater? That sounds like it’ll make it a huge pain in the butt for people like Lia who have to breathe and stuff.”

“I’m sure Pollux will think of something,” said the lyrkress, with a shrug. While only as likeable as a celebrant at a funeral, the marquis was a shrewd man. It would be difficult to convince him to purchase a business lest he could smell clear profit between its cogs. And the colosseum clearly met all his requirements. There was hardly a Cadrian with a head on his shoulders that would fail to see its problems and solutions.

“We should all participate,” said Lia. “There’s a great deal of money just sitting on the table waiting to be taken.”

“Huh? Don’t we have plenty of money? I thought you said we were doing pretty good.”

“We are, but there’s no going wrong with having more.”

“Perhaps if you are a miser,” said Claire.

“You just don’t understand the value of money,” mumbled Natalya. “I doubt you even know how much a loaf of bread is supposed to cost.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Laughter echoed through the room, as it would for the rest of the evening. They continued discussing whatever topics came to mind, relevant to the festive air or not. It was already a brand new day by the time they could be bothered to check the clock, so they hunkered down, grabbed their pillows, and slept right where they were.

___

“I’m sorry, I don’t quite think I heard that correctly. You lost how many men?”

“Sixty two, Your Majesty.”

The massive lizard before the throne lowered his gaze, his body shaking like a twig in the wind. It was not the queen’s astonishment that petrified the kneeling knight, but a reflection on his own incompetence. He had lost three whole scores of seasoned warriors, and one of his most reliable coworkers was among those marked missing. The crocodile’s old friend could not be truly written off without a corpse, but the insurgents had purged the dead before they could return to confirm their losses.

“And you were unable to recover her?”

“I apologize, Your Majesty. We were forced to cut our losses and retreat before we were wiped out.”

“Surely you jest?”

“I wouldn’t dare.”

“Then I suppose we were right to hire the erdbrechers.”

“Yes, Your Majesty. I’m terribly sorry for being unable to live up to your expectations. I will not fail you again.” The bloodsucker shook her terrifying, toothy head, but the man didn’t notice. He kept his eyes glued to the floor, his teeth digging into his scales as he endured the shame. “Next time, I will succeed. Or fall before my good name is sullied.”

With another silent shake of the head, Queen Priscilla slinked off the throne and approached the military officer on the platform below. She advanced until she was at a scandalous distance. Without any care for the rumours spawned, she raised his head with her tail and looked straight into his eyes. “I am glad you lived, Deilos.”

“I am undeserving of such kind words.”

“You withdrew our troops when you realised our loss, as opposed to stubbornly seeing the operation through regardless of the cost. The two score men that remain owe you their lives. You must know that, if nothing else.”

The trembling man nodded.

“Good,” A twinge of loneliness shot through his chest when she removed her tail and backed away, but he fought it back before it could show on his face. “They will likely grow bolder in the coming days. Dispatch units to inspect every notable house in and around Vel’khagan. Focus your efforts on the chancellors and ministers. We cannot have them corrupted by the princess’ temptations.”

“What will we do if they reject us?” asked the lizard.

“Use force.” The leech slithered over to a terrarium and gazed upon a plant whose bright white flowers were in full bloom. She picked a particularly beautiful blossom and held it up to the moonbeam shining into the throne room. “The goddess of glowing rocks will not have this land again. I won’t allow it.” A leg grew from the side of her body. A long, purple leg covered from head to toe in suckers. The limb lashed out, demolishing the flower, ripping it to pieces beneath the light. “Even if it means that I must play her role myself.”

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