https://archive.palanq.win/bant/thread/19911043/#19948418As Elyssa steps away to approach another guard, Nikki takes mental notes of her surroundings, endeavouring to be able to get around the castle grounds on her own in the future without getting lost. After all, sticking around in a nice place like this for a while wouldn’t be so bad. It would be almost like being back in the Divine Mansi-
No. This was different, right? She had a reason to be here, access to the Royal Archives. This didn’t make her any less independent, any less capable of standing on her own. And it certainly didn’t make her a parasite or a leech like Carmody said all those months ago. This was just business.
Nikki is pulled from her thoughts as Elyssa mentions Valari. “The cute one with the muscles? She doesn’t seem so bad.”
While Coco didn’t much care for her, Nikki was quite pleased that Valari was to be her chaperone. As Elyssa not so subtly alluded to, she did seem to lack the sophistication of The Queen or Elyssa herself, which in turn meant she’d likely be more… manageable. Nikki was also fairly sure Valari had a crush on her, which could perhaps be leveraged into less strict supervision. And with Elyssa’s clear disdain for her, there was an opportunity to learn what made the woman tick.
“What do you know about this Valari chick, anyway? Is she really some kind of barbarian?” Nikki narrows her eyes. “The Queen seems to really trust her, I mean she brought her to ringside for our match, and chose her to chaperone me. You seem more like the kind of person I’d imagine her choosing for those things, you know?
