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[Padge's perspective]
I sat groaning at the stupid way Miyako had suddenly barged in while the Forge King and Queen sat awkwardly with Lady Miyako across from from them.
"Miyako, this was why I asked you not to show up today, I already had to protect my guests from my overprotective brother." I muttered and the Goddess on the sofa next to Seleris and Alina, and she simply shook her head.
"How could I not check up on my niece when she's studying?" Miyako asked me casually and I rose to my feet annoyed.
"Perhaps keeping requests from family in mind isn't your strong point, but quit messing around all the time Miyako!" I yelled at her and tried to soothe my rage before I turned to face the two dwarven Royals.
With a deep sigh I turned around and made a polite bow to the dwarven King and Queen.
"My sincerest apologies for my sudden outburst, but I had to try and keep my family in check." I spoke and saw the eyes of Queen Thruna constantly drifting to the bowl of Devil's Tears candies on the table while she held her cup of tea on the small saucer that came with it in hand.
"Feel free to try one of the candies, they are homemade by our head maid, a speciality of her kin, so to say. Our daughter loves them." I spoke to her, easing her nerves about the candies on the table and Alina hopped from Seleris' lap and quickly snatched one of the honey drop shaped candies and popped it into her mouth.
She began chewing with a beaming smile on her face and climbed back onto my sister's lap with a content smile as she chewed the small candy.
"Is it truly alright?" Queen Thruna asked me and I nodded.
"There should be a bowl in the personal quarters I had prepared for you and your husband, Your Highness." I replied calmly and she gracefully set down the saucer with the teacup and carefully picked one of the candies from the bowl, inspecting it carefully.
"I have been curious about these since I saw your daughter eat several of them already." She spoke and, while holding one hand in front of her mouth, calmly placed it on her tongue.
The moment she tasted the sweet sugary and cinnamon taste of the dark brown candies, Queen Thruna's face melted into absolute bliss as she ate the small half an inch sized candy.
"Oh my, these are good, Sweetheart, you have to try one." She spoke, smiling all the time as she ate several more.
It seemed the dwarven Queen had let some of her fine etiquette slip as she enjoyed the small candy, taking one after the other, leaving Alina glancing jealously at the slowly thinning amount of Devil's Tears in the bowl.
Slowly the evening progressed and Alyssa and I excused ourselves for a moment from the Forge King and Queen.
"We shall be right back, we have to put our daughter to bed, a growing child should not be allowed to stay awake half the night." I said and took Alina's hand as she reluctantly rose to her feet, from Seleris' lap.
"Come dear, let's get you to bed." Alyssa spoke as she took Alina's other hand and we led her to her room together.
"Mommy, Daddy, will it be alright to have them sleep in Palace?" Alina asked while gazing up at us quizzically.
"Yes Dear, they came here to talk about bettering connections between our countries. So the King and Queen are here to help prevent problems with other countries as well." Alyssa spoke calmly and I opened the door to Alina's room.
While Alina changed into her pyjamas she pulled her halter top shirt over her head and tied the straps of the shirt behind her neck.
When Alina stood proudly in her fine cotton pyjamas she hopped onto her bed and Alyssa pulled the sheets over her to cover her.
"Good night Dear." Alyssa whispered and kissed Alina on the forehead where she lay.
"Good night." I spoke softly and placed a gentle kiss on my daughter's forehead and gave her a quick hug as she began searching for a comfortable position and spread her copper scaled wings under the sheets.
Silently leaving the room Alyssa and I closed the door and returned to the parlor where the Forge King and Queen sat with Miyako and Seleris, but I was a little worried about having left our two royal guests with those two.
"Miyako!" I shouted the moment Alyssa and I came around the corner, returning to the parlor.
"Oh heya, you're back!" Miyako called cheerily as she sat seductively in the lap of Fore King Jornit Mourningforge as he did not know where to look with a bright red blush on his face.
The blush I could certainly understand with his dwarven posture, hs face was at the same height as Miyako's large and almost entirely exposed bust.
Queen Thruna sat next to the two with an expression that clearly showed her inability to act upon this odd situation.
"Seriously, I'd have thought the Mother of Kitsune would know better than trying to seduce royalty while his wife is sitting right next to him!" I thundered and saw Miyako's large vulpine ears flatten against her head as her tail all began to bristle.
"Wh-what!?" She exclaimed in utter shock and leapt from King Jornit's lap, leaving him with a slightly saddened look and a face so red a tomato was lightly colored in comparison.
"I-I d-did-dn't do anything!" She exclaimed in futile retaliation but all I did to respond to her denial, was summon Tyrfing.
"You want to challenge me... my sister taught me a rather useful spell..." I spoke with threatening tone and Miyako's ears perked, before turning forward alertly.
"Y-you wouldn't... would you?" She whimpered, knowing all too well what spell I talked about, while I could tell Alyssa did not completely get the gist of the argument, luckily.
"Try me..." I answered Lady Miyako, who now stood cowering before me as she lowered her head.
"I'm telling Odin-Boy about this!" She screamed as tears flowed from her eyes as she ran off into the hallway and vanished from sight.
"I... I didn't think you would threaten a Goddess like that, Brother..." Seleris spoke in utter shock as she turned to face me after watching the crying Miyako run off like that.
"Well... I wouldn't have used that spell on her, I don't intend to kill our own Gods. But I just had to scare her a little to get some sense into that thick skull of her." I replied and heard a shriek from Alyssa next to me.
"Y-you threatened her w-w-with th-that spell...?" She asked in confusion and I silently nodded, hanging my head as I knew I had 'spoken' of using such a dangerous spell rather lightly, even if I myself knew I would not wipe Miyako's existence from the history books, Alyssa did not know that from just hearing me threaten the birth mother of her kin like that.
"Sorry for that Aly, I can tell you for sure I was not actually planning on using the spell itself, only threaten her with it. She really need to learn some common sense." I replied, apologizing to Alyssa who stood trembling next to me.
"We shall retire to our room for tonight." Forge King Jornit Mourningforge spoke and rang the silver bell the stood on the table in the middle of the sofas.
"You rang, Your Highness?" Orinya asked as she came from the room adjacent to our parlor and the King and Queen of Medrus rose to their feet.
"We shall retire to our chambers, please show us the way." Queen Thruna spoke and Orinya nodded at them and gestured to follow.
***
[Alyssa's perspective]
The day had passed rather smoothly and we stood in the large open ballroom of our Imperial Council Hall.
The day of my eighteenth birthday had come at last and we were currently at the 'mandatory' Council Banquet to celebrate.
"Congratulations on your Eighteenth birthday, Your Highness." The City Council leader of Wolven Hollow spoke as he shook my hand and made his place for the next person in line to give their words of praise for my birthday.
I hated this annual event just as much as Padge did, but we had no way of dodging this, unfortunately.
Since we both wished to stay in close contact with our people, we had the past years, made an tour through the Empire at the turning of seasons from summer to fall and from winter to spring.
But I mostly enjoyed the Yule Celebration Padge had set up for the first time a few years ago, we had even drawn in a lot of tourism with the last time the celebration happened.
Word of Yule was spreading through the world and Padge was rightfully proud of it.
But I slowly made my way through the mind numbing effort of accepting all the words of congratulations from all our nobles.
The Imperial Council had even passed a law last year that it was mandatory for all nobles in Yggdrasil above the rank of Knight to attend this event.
I had demanded that the orphans from the Ganrosia incident would be present as well as guests of honor, since I chose to make them all nobility of a whole separate line. They all shared the surname Dreamseeker, granting them a place in nobility without the pressure of the majority of our nobles, but still having the same rights as our lesser nobility.
I pushed through a few laws regarding the Dreamseeker family name to ensure the name would remain true to the families of those we saved in Ganrosia.
For one, all members of the Dreamseeker family had the right to a government funded financial support until they turned eighteen to help them gain experience to live independantly.
I also passed the law that any child born from only one Dreamseeker member, may only carry the name if the mother bears it, a simple precaution to prevent unjust spreading of the family name by a male Dreamseeker having a child with someone without the name and getting the financial support where it is meant for the child and not the family.
And lastly, I defined the dreamseeker family as a Clan where the actual family name that would be used before Dreamseeker would be the name of the person's family.
The last measure was t prevent any odd glances from two members of the Dreamseeker clan having children while in fact not being related. So to prevent any issues there, Dreamseeker is a surname that is a second in line, after the person's own surname.
This decision led to the fact that all the orphanages throughout Yggdrasil had sent guarded escorts with all the members of the Dreamseeker clan to join us here.
And that also meant Alina was having a great time with some of her closest friends after Ghaan, the half kobold who ran the Imperial Family's drake stables, who unfortunately was not allowed to come by demands of the Council.
"Almar!" Alina's voice ran out around us as I saw two young dark elven siblings run by, almost being tripped over by Caroll who stepped forward to congratulate me.
"Ho there... watch where you run Almar, I know you, Esta and Alina are currently playing games, but try to avoid causing trouble for the adults, okay?" Caroll spoke as she just barrely caught the nine year old boy as he shot by in front of her.
"O-oh, sorry... Congratulations Your Highness..." The boy spoke and turned very formal when he noticed me standing directly on the other side of where Caroll held him as he had almost fallen himself.
"Almar, Lina is going to get you!" I heard Esta's voice call from a distance and briefly saw her dark gray skin before she vanished into the crowd again.
After I had finally finished the terrible duty of accepting everyone's words of celebration, Padge and I stepped up on the small platform in the back of the massive hall that was normally used by the populace to communicate with the government.
Many desks lined one side of the hall, but those were now lined with food and all sorts of delicacies instead of being manned by our civil officials.
The platform was normally where a few Valkyries stood watch for safety so they could easily overlook the entire hall.
But now it served as a stage for five people.
Up front stood Padge next to me, with Forge King Jornit Mourningforge and Queen Thruna Mourningforge a slight distance behind us.
"I wish to thank you all for attending my birthday celebration today, but today also mark a new start together for both the Empire of Yggdrasil and the Kingdom of Medrus. The past day, our Emperor and I have spent a lot of time discussing matters of international cooperation with the guests of honor. Forge King Jornit Mourningforge and Queen Thruna Mourningforge. We have already come to the agreement that Medrus officials will remain here in Yggdrasil for a longer time and an embassy for the Medrus Kingdom will be established within Wolven Hollow." I spoke and gestured for the King and Queen of Medrus to step forward.
At their 'actual' appearance on the stage, the entire crowd of Medrus nobility gave a cheer and our own Yggdrasil nobility offered the many Medrus nobles a toast of a good future for our nations.
[Padge's perspective]
I stood next to Alyssa who gave her speech about the agreements we had made with the King and Queen of Medrus this morning.
To my surprise it was mostly caused by Queen Thruna's sweet tooth. She had fallen in love with Orinya's Devil's Tears and almost begged me to start trading them with her country.
Standing on equal footing with me and Alyssa on the stage right now, Forge King Jornit cleared his throat and spoke up to address his own people who were present at the banquet.
"As Her Imperial Highness, Empress Alyssa Baerne has already stated, Our Queen and I have decided to leave the International Allegiance of Nations. We have been lied to by the Ruflourus Republic and been made fools of by their ministers.
The threat they claimed this Empire would pose to all nations around Motis, is a blatant lie. There is not a single hostile intention from the Emperor and Empress of Yggdrasil, not from any of their Councils." He spoke and I could heard confused voices from the many Medrus nobles who had come along to protect their King and Queen after the lies they had heard from Ruflourus civil officials.
A few oddly placed 'boos' could be heard throughout the hall and King Jornit continued.
"I assure all of my people who are present here, that Yggdrasil, in no way poses a threat to our Kingdom as Ruflourus made them out to be. The name their messengers claimed the local army to mean, was a blatant and insulting lie. We have been informed the true meaning of the abbreviation Y.S.D.F. does not stand for Yggdrasil Supreme Destruction Force, but it actually stands for Yggdrasil Self-Defense Force. We have been made a fool of by Ruflourus in their petty attempts to erase religion worldwide. At present there are drafts being made by our scribes, both from Medrus and Yggdrasil for a trade agreement between our nations."
The Forge King continued and the entire room turned silent.
I could tell the Yggdrasil nobility was enraged at the lies spread about our country.
And the Medrus nobility was enraged at the fools they had been made to be by Ruflourus.
"The fact Ruflourus drew us into an alliance under false pretense will not be excused. This very morning, I have sent a messenger to the Ruflourus Ministries to demand reparations for their blatant and insulting lies. Emperor Padgett Cornelius Baenre has already sent word to all other members of the Allegiance that they have been fooled and flat out lied to by Ruflourus and a message to the very nation that through deceit and lies created the Allegiance to cease the operations of slandering Yggdrasil at once!" King Jornit spoke, his face red with rage as he stood addressing both his own and my people.
After we had given our speeches, the celebration continued throughout Wolven Hollow as the entire populace of the city was in pure joy over the celebration.
Alyssa and I guided the King and Queen of our newly allied Kingdom along the many stalls that sold different festive foods.
After we had finished our tour of the city, Alyssa and I took our guests back to the Palace and sat down for the only official business we would attend to today, as I had already explained the two dwarven royals this morning.
We slowly discussed our way through what the trade agreement would entail. But those talks went very easily, seeing I could use the Queen's sweet tooth as leverage to get a lot of things agreed upon easily. But I did not want to abuse that option, so I mostly refrained from doing so.