Tuesday, February 17th, N.E. 807, 22:41

Pine Family 3rd Library, 3rd Circle, Royal Capital Arvas, Fredirin Kingdom.

Olivia Pine Fredirin.

I couldn’t very well have a maid brew Tesk tea in front of my siblings, that would require explanations, ones that I didn’t think would be conducive to the conversation I wanted to have right now, so when the maid came back in to replace my missing cup, I had to make do with normal tea.

Frankly, I wasn’t enjoying it, no amount of sugar, milk, lemon, orange, chocolate, or anything else made it palatable to me. It was warm, which counted for something, and provided the only real enjoyment I got out of it.

After giving me a new cup and saucer, the maid had left with the old plate and the white powder that was all that remained of my former cup. She also took the ball of my blood. When I originally made it, it was simply frozen, but if I left it like that, once I stopped supplying it with mana, it would slowly reach room temperature and melt. So using my mana, I allowed it to warm naturally, but at the same time, I crystallized the blood itself. Now, it was something similar to amber, and I intentionally dulled the outer surface of it, so that it would look like a faintly brownish red stone. I also made it brittle, it would crack and break easily, but it would also disintegrate if exposed to water. It would end up in the trash, broken into dust, and then washed away.

I didn’t want to leave it as is, and I didn’t want to reclaim it in front of my siblings, so this would have to do. Still, it would be best to make sure the maid knows it’s poisonous, I didn’t want to accidentally kill one of our family’s servants.

But, just like with the Tesk tea, right now, I didn’t want to explain to my brother and sister that my blood was also highly toxic, and also corrosive come to think of it.

Already, they were barraging me with questions in regards to my magic and bloodline, and I was giving them non-committal responses. As their questions seemed to be puttering out, I figured now was the best time to start on the real topic.

“Brother, Sister,” I began. “Let us leave my magic aside, for now, there is something more important that I wish to speak about.”

“Ah, that is right, you did say there were two things,” Timothy exclaimed, having suddenly remembered that fact.

“But… If your magic awakening, and it being a Bloodline, is not the most important thing…” Pamela said mostly to herself.

“First, I would like to confirm some things?”

“Hmm, go ahead.”

“Then, first, Momm-Mother… had no intention of becoming the next queen?”

“Um, yes, that is correct,” Timothy answered, looking bewildered.

“Then, since traditionally, the losing siblings, would… let us say, meet a sorry ending, our Pine Family is taking steps to avoid that.”

“Of course.”

“Absolutely”

Both of them spoke firmly, seemingly trying to reassure me of our fate.

“Those steps, generally speaking, are to build good relations with each of the other five contenders, along with the twenty-one electors who will pick the next ruler, and the other nobility. But the goal is to also do this without making anyone upset?”

“Er… yes, that is right.”

“Furthermore, the plan is to also increase the value of the Pine Family, so that the next king sees a reason to keep us around. Specifically, our focus is expanding our naval operations in the North West, since it’s only our family that has that capacity.”

Both my siblings nodded in agreement without saying anything.

“Is there anything else that either of you know about?”

Both then shook their heads to indicate there was nothing to add.

“Then, we could also say that this approach is, for the most part, not working?” I asked.

“Well…”

“It is hard to say…”

Both of them weren’t sure what to say to that.

“Maybe not our aunts and uncles, but our cousins clearly see us as a threat, my recent experience shows that. Most likely, our good relations and competent approach are viewed as a threat, because we have a very firm foundation, if we did decide to make an attempt at winning the competition, we would have a good chance. In fact, as far as the others know, we might already be doing all of that.”

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

“Well, you are not wrong.” Timothy agreed begrudgingly.

“The problem is that our intentions are not being conveyed, either they do not know, or they do not trust us.”

“Well, if we just keep up with what we are doing…” Pamela started to rebut me, but even as she said the words, she knew they weren’t true.

“This time, I almost died. I suspect you two had similar situations, our elder brother Jason has probably seen even more than us. And soon it will be Peter.”

“Olivia… What are you trying to say?” Timothy’s voice was stern as he asked.

I didn’t answer right away, I took my time taking another sip of my tea, a tea that had begun to go cold.

“We should… begin to take part in this competition ourselves.” I said slowly as I put my cup down.

“...”

“Olivia… what exactly does that mean?” Pamela asked me.

“We cannot keep ourselves limited only to defense. If we do, we will be overwhelmed.”

“...I do not know about this…”

“Are you joking Olivia? And you, Pamela, what are you thinking? Entertaining this nonsense? If we… If we do anything, it will throw out all of the work our parents have done! What you are saying, is irreversible!” Timothy was flustered as he rejected my words.

“Brother…” I sighed to myself, Timothy seemed to be very against this.

“Absolutely not Olivia.”

“We have no choice,” I said with exasperation. “We’re being surrounded on all sides, slowly whittled down. Our grandfather, King Wilson Fredirin, is 65, but his health is good and he is still very active in the Kingdom, he will not vacate the throne anytime soon. Currently, many of us are still too young to take an active role in the competition, but in a few years, that will change, and the attacks on us will only increase.”

“And we will be prepared for it. Look, Olivia, I know you just went through a frightening experience, but we will make sure that does not happen again.”

“Little Sister, Brother is right, we will double the guards, we will not let that happen again.”

Again, both of my siblings tried to reassure me, but I just shook my head.

“A perfect defense doesn’t exist, you know this Brother. You can defend and wait for a chance, you can defend and wait for the enemy to tire, and you can defend and wait for an ally to strike, but you cannot just defend indefinitely. One lapse, one mistake, one unlucky occurrence, and the worst could come to pass.”

Neither my brother or sister said anything, both sported thoughtful looks, but they were both clearly not happy with the turn this conversation had taken.

“And there is nothing easier than attacking a target that doesn’t fight back. Brother, who has ever lost a fight with a training dummy?” I asked rhetorically.

“Olivia, it is not that I… Look, I know we cannot defend forever, but we cannot hit back. Besides the fact that mother and father would not want us to, even if we did, it would only draw more attention to us.”

“Timothy is right, only a few of our cousins have turned their sight to us, and if we start making moves ourselves, then those that currently are ignoring us, will stop and take note.” Pamela followed up.

“You’re both wrong.” I shook my head again. “You are right, that only a few are moving against us now, but the others are not avoiding us out of good will, but because they are too busy dealing with each other.”

“I see…” Timothy thought to himself for a second before continuing. “You are saying, that even if we step onto the stage, they would still be too busy.”

“Close, Brother, but not entirely. Each of our cousins have their own feuds and fights, most of our enemies are focused on those, only the dregs are currently aiming at us. As long as we do not announce our intention to fight back, they will all assume that our attacks are being carried out by their current rivals.”

“Ah! I get it now!” Pamela exclaimed. “If we move fast and low key, we can make significant gains before they even realize it is us.”

“Correct,” I replied.

“But still… I do not know if we should go through with this.” Pamela had calmed down now.

“Brother, Sister, we cannot just sit idle any longer. Attempts on our lives come from the shadows, we are isolated and bullied at school, our business within the Kingdom get extorted, suffer bandit attacks, and are crushed by their competitors. We are slowly being killed. We need to stop it.” I said resolutely.

“...Olivia… let us… let us just say, we agree with you, what do you have in mind?” my brother was clearly hesitating, but this was a good first step.

“To start with, we cannot allow ourselves to keep losing, without at least making the other side pay first. We make loans and invest in businesses, and they often either disappear with our gold, or they are crushed and forced into bankruptcy, we might not be able to stop this now, but we need to make the other side suffer some form of punitive action. To be honest, I do not know a lot about this topic, so you two will need to take over for that.”

“Hmm, well, my understanding is that we just left these things pass previously, but even if we cannot win, we could still drag it out in the courts. We could also… probably bribe various officials… yes, actually, there is a lot we could do, but we avoided doing so for fear of offending others,”  Pamela began planning out some ideas as she sat there.

“We also need to consider, later on, of course, some more overt methods. Damaging goods, or spreading rumors, that sort of thing.” I added.

“Olivia, that we cannot do, we cannot do anything illegal.” My brother clearly rejected that idea.

“If the other side is not abiding by the rules, it is foolish for us to do the same. I am sure several of our stores have had stock disappear, or suffered unexplained vandalism, right?” I watched as Timothy grudgingly nodded in the affirmative before continuing. “This is not a duel, with rules and codes of conduct, it is a fight for our lives. You understand that, right?”

“...” Timothy had a sour look his face, but he didn’t disagree.

“We need to also expand our business and the like, again, I will need to rely on you two for that. In addition, we need to form a faction for ourselves, we cannot just sit alone in school any longer. The next time someone disrespects us and bullies us in school, they should be sent to the infirmary.”

Timothy looked as if he were about to say something, but as he saw Pamela absentmindedly bring her hand up and rub the area around her covered eye, he stopped.

“That is all I want the both of you to handle, you are not striking back, merely defending yourselves, think of it that way.”

“And you Olivia, what will you be doing?” Timothy asked.

Before I answered, I finished my cup of cold tea and watched my siblings.

Pamela seemed to agree with me, even the prior version of me knew that while my sister hid it, the injury to her eye that had nearly ruined her vision had bothered her. There was no scar, but her sight was fuzzy, and it interfered when she attempted to paint, all she could do was wear an eyepatch and give up on using that eye entirely.

As for my brother, I knew he was still hesitating. He could barely bring himself to agree with what we had already spoken about, but if I went further right now, he would blanche and resist.

“I will… take care of the other things for now. Our cousins need to be kept off balance and distracted so they can’t focus on us.” I said slowly.

“Olivia…” Timothy’s face went through a myriad of expressions before settling on one of concern. Concern for what, I wasn’t sure. “How will you do that?”

“To be honest, before I left the Citadel of the Pines, I borrowed a squadron of Spectres, so I will have all the tools I need at my disposal. Don’t worry brother, I will not do anything extreme” I assured him.

First surprise, then resignation, showed upon my brother’s face, but he didn’t say anything else.

“Now then, I think we should turn in for the night, it will soon be midnight, and you two have school. I will rest tomorrow, the trip tired me, but I will go with you on Thursday.”

We slowly said our good nights, and then the three of us left the library and returned to our rooms.

I felt sorry for my siblings, they needed to wake up early for school, and even if they could get a good night’s rest now, something that was unlikely after that conversation, they would still be short about two hours.

Luckily, I needed far less sleep than a normal human, so I wouldn’t suffer the exhaustion they would.

And… I suspected school tomorrow would be very exciting.