"Your Majesty, the Clawfang ambassador Minoes," Luviael announces solemnly and lets the Ambassador in.
She's very different from Emi apart from the fact that Emi is a fox and Minoes resembles a house cat with warm light-brown fur and fiery orange eyes. It's their minds—their temperament couldn't have been more different. Minoes is indeed as wild as a female Clawfang alpha gets, but where Emi is reserved and strict, Minoes is affectionate and chill.
"No animals in the Royal Office," Vermiel frowns at her.
Only now I notice that there's a black cat following her like a second shadow.
"That's okay, Vermiel, I allow it," I wave my hand and watch the cat curiously. I get to witness Clawfang legendary beast taming in action!
"Your Majesty," Minoes bows to me while the cat timidly hides behind her legs. Is it afraid of me? Sadly, Minoes is also rather fearful despite her otherwise confident personality.
"Please, sit down," I tell her and she slowly takes the chair in front of my desk, putting the cat on her lap. "Does it understand your commands?" I ask to make some small talk first.
"He does," Minoes confirms with a careful smile, studying me. "It took me some time to train him, but it wasn't that difficult. I had him long before the Great Evolution started, so we have been bonded already."
"How do you communicate with him?" I'm super-curious at this point which finally relaxes Minoes. She never expected a Celestial to be genuinely interested in beast taming.
"I can perfectly understand his body language and the sounds he's making," Minoes explains. "And I smell more like him than humans now. I instinctively know how to motivate him to learn new things faster and he naturally likes to follow me around."
"Fascinating," I'm impressed. "Can you train any animal?"
"There are limits," Minoes admits. "Prey animals are generally afraid of us, but we bond well with feline, canine, vulpine, ursine and other predatory mammal species. Not birds or lizards, though. I guess because our smell and way of thinking are too different. But maybe Celestials could give birds a try?"
"Not likely," I shake my head. "We don't have a habit of keeping pets and taming birds wouldn't give us any advantage. I think the Dragonkin might try bonding with lizards, but they aren't great with animals either. I suppose the title of beast tamers belongs to Clawfangs exclusively."
"Beast taming is certainly starting to trend among my people," Minoes nods. "Cats, dogs, foxes, bears, wolves... all those species respond to us naturally. I wonder if we will be able to tame Draconian animals. Should they appear, of course."
"Draconian animals?" Erik puts his hand on my shoulder, puzzled.
"There weren't only hostile monsters ingame," I explain to him. "Some Draconian creatures were rather friendly and Clawfangs were taming them."
Minoes then tells me about her upcoming travel plans. Whereas Rien will remain stationed in our headquarters, Minoes will act as the ambassador for the EU and travel a lot. However, she will be coming back regularly to report.
"I was appointed to be your connection to Clawfangs and directly serve the Draconian government," Minoes states clearly. "Emi is still my Supreme Alpha, nothing changes about that, but I'm willing to take orders from Your Majesty, provided they aren't in opposition to my Alpha's wishes."
I quickly check her feelings. Clawfangs are notoriously known for not taking orders from anybody who isn't a proven alpha and definitely not other races, but Minoes doesn't mind taking orders from me specifically. It seems she considers me a valid equivalent to the Alpha.
"Thank you, Minoes," I nod gratefully and lean forward to try to pet her cat companion. I'm surprised when the animal flinches and quickly hides under Minoes's vest.
"I'm afraid that he's scared of you, Your Majesty," Minoes apologises for the cat's behaviour. "Animals can't feel Celestial mana directly, but they can instinctively feel when someone is dangerous."
"I'm not dangerous," I purse my lips.
Minoes blinks a few times, confused, while Gotrid and Erik can't help it and chuckle.
"Right, you're not dangerous at all, love," Erik laughs. "You can only take down a huge monster on your own without breaking a sweat and you command an army of fierce angels who are absolutely devoted to you. But besides that, not dangerous at all."
"I didn't mean it in a rude way," Minoes says hastily, both embarrassed and scared of crossing the boundaries of what's proper towards the Emperor. "What I wanted to say is that Your Majesty is so powerful that even someone who isn't able to feel mana directly can sense it."
"Thank you, Minoes, it was a pleasure to get to know you. I wish you safe travels," I say when the meeting is officially over.
"I'll stay in touch with both Your Majesty and Rien," Minoes promises. "My Supreme Alpha entrusted me with the role of a liaison officer and I mean to honour it."
And then a huge misunderstanding happens. Minoes gets up a little bit too quickly while leaning forward too much and before I explicitly say that she can go. But just that is enough to startle my guards. A protective shield appears in front of me in the blink of an eye and poor confused Minoes finds herself surrounded by numerous transfiguration symbols. All of them are potentially lethal if unleashed.
"Dissolve your spells immediately, she has no bad intentions," I order, my voice perfectly regal.
I repeat myself telepathically to persuade them faster. The guards dissolve all the transfiguration symbols and return to their posts as if nothing happened. I hope Minoes hasn't been traumatised because she certainly feels scared shitless.
"Minoes, I'm sorry, my guards can be overzealous and jumpy," I apologise for their actions because I know they won't. The guards are convinced that they acted right, even if they were jumping to conclusions.
"Over-reacting is a weak word for it," Erik catches his breath because that apparent demonstration of strength startled even him.
"On the contrary, I'm glad to see that the Royal Guard can react so quickly," Gotrid approves and is satisfied with their performance.
Minoes barely kept herself standing and her fur is all puffed. All of that was because she didn't wait for my dismissal and stoop up too quickly. No wonder other races feel anxious around me. I bet they figured out much quicker than me what the Royal Guard is capable of to protect their Emperor.
When Minoes leaves the Royal Office, I can tell she's deeply relieved. I sigh. That's not the kind of first impression I wanted to make. Minoes is a good person, eager to work for the benefit of Draconians. She doesn't deserve to be treated with suspicion.
"Sorry, did it scare you?" I turn to Erik and take his hands.
"I know what they're capable of," he says, his voice shaking a bit. "I just didn't expect they would be this jumpy, especially when it comes to another Draconian."
"I hate to break it to you, Erik, but Draconians aren't one homogenous group of people," Gotrid has to remind him. "It might appear to humans that way because we have to stand together now and we were forced to unite under one government, but we are very different from each other and this certainly isn't our preferred way of running things."
"But Draconian battle units consisting of all four races are considered to be perfect," Erik opposes because it challenges his current understanding.
"Sure, fighting in mixed groups is most efficient and we can generally cooperate well," Gotrid admits. "What we don't like, however, is living too close to each other. Moreover, under normal circumstances, there's no way other races would be allowed to see our Emperor in person. Except for race rulers, of course."
"I bet you would love to hide Ryuu in a palace high in the sky if you could," Erik rolls his eyes.
"Ideally," Gotrid doesn't think it's all that extreme. "But, unfortunately, we can't, so we're doing everything in our power to protect our Emperor using different means."
Erik sighs, but this isn't anything new to him. He's still finding Celestial behaviour alien and often downright fanatical, but nothing can really astonish him anymore. His only concern is me—he's sad when he sees that my freedom is being limited further and further.
It's okay, I hug him and let him sense my feelings on the matter. I don't mind anymore.
He's sceptical at first, but he calms down when he verifies my emotions. I really don't mind. Not anymore. I love my people even if they are acting fanatical towards me and I enjoy being the Emperor. I finally love who and what I am. I feel like I could conquer the world if I put my mind to it. Figuratively speaking, hopefully.