>>5924625It isn’t long after that you and the Queen enter the area of the palace reserves for guests and attendants, as well as servants f lower station. The few guards actively on duty snap to attention and bow to their queen, before looking to you and Zith-Zi with obvious concern and confusion. Since Queen Ekaterine is obviously unbothered by your accompanying her, though, and given that she is walking with such purpose, none of them make any move to intercept you, or even raise their voices to question the situation. One individual joins you, though: a rather thin, slightly hunched man with a round, flat-topped cap, a narrow beard, and a fancy-looking dwarven quill with which to write notes upon his partly-rolled parchment-scroll. He falls into place beside you and your all with a curt, professional nod.
“Master Scripner,” the Queen addresses him, and you’re genuinely unsure if that’s just his title or his familial name, “where is the Prince Consort.”
“Two of his associates arrived to hold council with him earlier,” this Scripner replies immediately. “He chose to hold private council with them in the wing of the palace where we have been lodging and attending to the elven delegates.”
“Elven delegates?” you ask, surprised. “But the Sylvan Realms cut diplomatic ties.”
“Different elves, Magus Van Houtzmann,” the Queen replies.
Ah, yes… The ‘dark elves’ you’ve heard tell of. Recalling your encounters with the Unseelie Fey—‘dark fairies’—you stiffen up a little, and your hand drifts towards your wand.
As you approach the quarters in question, the Queen gestures to her Master Scripner, who bows his head wordless and stops, leaving the three of you to proceed on alone. What conversation will come next, it seems, is not for him to hear, or to record, and he accepts this. Ou round several corners and Queen Ekaterine, with a simple gesture and a gentle push, throws open the doors of a guest bedchamber.
This chamber is nearly as expansive as the Queen’s own own. If it is not QUITE so finely furnished, it is certainly more decorative, and its exotic and ornate décor is accentuated by the unusual figures within: two elves with deep black skin, the colour of moonless night or rich earth, with pale and shining eyes of purple and red respectively, one with stark white hair and the other streaked with a violet hue to match her irises; the former has the ambiguous androgyny of many an elfman or elfmaid, while the latter is UNMISTAKABLY female, having perhaps the most impressive bust you have ever seen—nearly impressive enough to distract from the two shining sabres she produces the instant you enter, with such speed that you only notice them in appear after she has assumed a deathly-graceful battle-stance.
(Maybe not quite chesty enough to distract from the fact that she's maybe the ONLY person you've ever seen dress more garishly than your father, though)
