The envoy’s eyebrow raises in surprise as a three-feet-long tray is carefully placed in the middle of the large table. The smell of meat instant effuses around us, golden brown chunks gleaming slightly in the glare of the bright lights. On the other side of the tray is an equally appetizing-looking hill of vegetable fried rice, garnished delicately by edible white flowers and fried rose worms.

“We call this Clokay-clokya, made from legs of hybrid pigs.”Our waiter introduces enthusiastically in broken English."Goes really well with blue rice. Very delicious.”

I ignore the noise and curious looks of the other diners around us as a feeling of Deja Vu dawns on me.

Odd.

The name sounds so strangely familiar. Hybrid pigs? I remember I used to make it from-

Void be with us.

Memories of the past flood my mind and I tug on my hair to stop myself from outwardly reacting.

Void. Void. Void.

Maybe they won’t notice.

I mean-what are the odds they even know history from thousands of years ago? Elves die as quickly as humans. Recordings are often destroyed; they hadn’t even invented scrolls when it happened-

My grip on my hair turns painful as Nick's expression becomes indescribable, picking at the meat with his fork.”It sure looks really special.”

“Yes!” The waiter, oblivious to my internal pain continues, “First dish recorded by Igetis Cyl. Everybody loves. Oldest in history.” Gyaaaaaa.

“That’s good.” He glances at the camera wryly,”Heard a lot of stories about its…history too.”

“Haha! Only good ones, I hope.” What are the odds? Really, Someone do the math. What are the odds.

“Um-no. Actually.” Creed looks up from his plate.”Lots of elves know how it was made, they teach us in middle school history.”

And so I die. Self-immolating from sheer embarrassment and shame.

“Like the dancing plague but scarier.” Sonia frowns, merrily pissing on my corpses to establish dominance.”I’m not even sure what part made it worse, the whole ‘dance till your muscles collapse’ thing or how they just sort of disappeared afterward… But yeah, it’s kinda infamous. Historians still wonder how you guys even did it. Lots of theories but nothing really conclusive yet.” She rests her cheek on her palm, evil green eyes gleaming with curiosity,”Wanna share with us? End the mystery?”

“Oh! Um-“ My fleeing mind is forcibly pulled back to my body and I glance at the waiter who looks equally alarmed. “No! no. I am so, so sorry. There has obviously been a mistake-” The camera coincidentally malfunctions at this moment, incidentally erasing every clip captured today. “-since we are all actually on a diet. Let’s just-get something more healthy, something without meat-“ or any sort of history relating elves.

Envoy Nick waves off the hand of the waitstaff attempting to take his plate.”Nauuh, don’t be shy.“

Please, let me be shy.

He grins. “I bet one cheat day won’t hurt.” It would, it would literally kill me.

“Yeah.” Sonia turns to Vyl, the council member sitting on her left.”You're all in such great shape. Let’s just eat it. Exercise our taste buds.”

“Oh- um, no.” Understandably uncomfortable to be mentioned, Vyls’ gaze scurries across the room; briefly pausing at one of my larger murals in my earlier manifestations.“It’s uh- for religious reasons.”

“Really? What deity?”

I’m not sure naming myself would help-

“Vida.” There. A perfect amicable goddess. Everyone loves Vida. “Mother of all plant life as we know it.” I smile down at them. “We take a week to appreciate the other wonderful options of food we have available to eat.” All excluding elves.

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Which technically isn’t a lie since this is a real Holiday; as of thirty seconds ago.

“Interesting.” Nick muses, “Kinda wish you worshiped Vida a thousand years ago. Could've saved us a lot of grief.” And me a lot of shame.

“Haha!” I don’t meet his eyes. Deflect. Deflect. Deflect.“That’s-uh, just the miracle of time, I guess. You learn something new every minute-oh!” As if summoned by my internal cries, one of the chefs working this shift comes out of the kitchen.”Rryly!" My yell catches the attention of every diner not already secretly watching our table. I know they can hear our conversation. Ungrateful bastards."Yes, Just the man I needed; See-the place looks great, as usual. Everything smells absolutely divine.”

“Oh!” He brightens ”I’m glad you noticed, we’re trying a new batch of fragrance-“ I know, I own the place.

“Yes! yes. Everything has been wonderful so far but- I noticed there's been a small mistake with my reservation-”

“Unlikely.”

“But not impossible haha!” I grip his arm tightly, bejeweled claws almost piercing his skin,“I’d appreciate it very much if we could just have this little mistake remedied or-” forgotten but brain damage has lasting effects, “…hidden by the leaves, as the ancient elves say. Haha!" Why did I even make that joke?"And I’d hate to be such an inconvenience but- I think the goddess deserves at least this much of our respect, Yes?”

He looks deeply confused. “Of course. I wasn’t aware today was-”

"Haha!"

I forcibly transfer everything on the table into his storage dimension, briefly breaking his train of thought.

“Don’t even worry about it.” I give his arm one last squeeze before gently turning it to the side. “You’ve had a busy day, I’m sure you're tired. You, your team; You’ve all worked so hard today.” And-would you look at that, my language changed.

“I’m sure a little break won’t hurt…how’s your English?” A thought runs through my mind and I pause.

“Well…”His smile dims, lightly tugging at his earrings a bit despondently. “Barely eligible in writing but a little better in speaking.”

“Can you hold a conversation?” Or even just say hello. He doesn’t have to speak. Why can’t we all just eat in silence?

Something akin to hesitation crosses his face,” Maybe? I got a ‘beyond expectation’ on my speaking assessment. Not really sure if that counts though, my friend Marly got the same grade but still failed the class.”

“Great!” This is great!

“Really?” Well, No but-

“Yes! Join us for lunch.” Bring your naive doe eyes into the conversation. Everybody loves cute things right?

“Okay!” He makes to remove his culinary robes but I hurriedly stop him “Later. Join us later.” I glance at the rest of the table only to find them pretending not to watch with varying degrees of success. Even my two advisors seemed to have suddenly developed an interest in wall decor. ”l can have you placed on a paid break for the rest of the day, but first- We’ll need a little favor.” or a large favor. It really depends but…yeah!

With the help of the envoy’s linguistic ignorance and Ryrly’s passable language and driving skills, the lunch was saved. Although, the linguistic ignorance part sometimes became awkward when words were mistranslated. But it seems like without me as the focus, social blunders came off as awkwardly charming instead of awkwardly uncomfortable. I tend to have that effect on a lot of foreigners, it’s honestly a bit hurtful…

Nevertheless! As a repercussion of adding a new week-long holiday to the national calendar unprompted, there’s been a lot of discussions on SHARE, the nation’s largest social media app. Some people are understandably upset since meat appreciation day was just two days ago but- that’s a mess for future Cyl to clean up.

Present Cyl is currently stuck filling out the fifty digital documents detailing the current status of my country.

A sizable part of me firmly believes that this is the SRO’s form of petty revenge. I’ve filled these insulting documents twenty times already, not much can change in the span of three years.

No, I won’t answer how my citizens are made. No, my abilities are not going to be listed and I couldn’t care less about being compared to some superheroes. Who even is Catman and how does he relate to my country’s gdp? and last but not least, I am not an alien so please stop asking, I won’t donate blood samples for testing.

”….”

At that question I lock eyes with Envoy Nick, who promptly looks away, suddenly gaining interest in the scenery outside our vehicle.

Every year the questions grow more and more bizarre. I‘m still not sure why I’m being asked about my nonexistent plans for world domination or even my thoughts on the villain league’s ideology.

While a majority of the attempts to infiltrate my barriers made more sense after I did some research on the villain league; I still found them very offensive and plainly rude. As if some common drones or mind-controlled bugs could bypass the defense of my barriers. If anyone is truly curious about my nation then our touring applications have opened since last year. They could’ve been on our first list of tourists visiting during November.

But, they didn’t.

So I made a point to send elaborate gift baskets containing politely worded letters to every spy object I could trace back to a source.

The ratio of secret lairs and military bases receiving gift baskets was honestly a bit of a surprise.

Our vehicle slows as traffic worsens nearing the gated complex of my residence. On both sides of the streets brightly colored signs leading to various business establishments are displayed on every skyscraper. The songs from the latest best-selling artists blasting from all angles; mixing with the ads promoting new core polishes, membership into local groups, or the latest new hair product that makes your hair more luscious and soft, exactly like the one next door but in a fancier bottle.

“Why is everything so loud!?” Sonia yells, unable to hear her own voice over the symphony of sounds. She looks vaguely uncomfortable. The envoy and creed both have their hands over their ears, expression pinching in a grimace .

“It’s the city square! Everybody shops here!” Vylys attempts to explain over the noise.

“What!?” Her efforts are proven futile so she gives up, turning her head to the side and making a vaguely round motion with her hands.

“Wait for the barriers!”

“What?! Can you speak lou-oh! There we go.”

As the vehicle stops, I barely have a foot outside the door before I’m besieged by a group of stiffly smiling councilmen from the planning committee.

Void be with us, I completely forgot about them.

“Igetis Cyl! Why-"

“Igetis Cyl! We need a new budget-“

“Igetis Cyl! How do we-“

At the corner of my eyes I see the envoy looking a bit alarmed by the group of forty all trying desperately to talk over each other. Or maybe it’s just the height difference…I’m not really sure. Elves always look weirdly fragile next to- I realize I’m getting lost in my head and hurriedly reel back my thoughts.

“One,”

“-the new holiday clashes with-“

“Two,”

“-we’ll need copyrights from the dryads-“

“Three,”

“We already have a holiday for Gaea as- Aruggggg.”

I snap my fingers and they all begin groaning, ineffectively clutching their heads to lessen the sudden pain.

“Have we all calmed down?”

I ask after a moment of silence, only getting mutters of agreement from some of the congregation.

“Good. You’re scaring the visitors. We can talk about the uh..issue, at the meeting.”

“But-“

“After I get settled. Yes?”

““Yes Igetis Cyl.”” The crowd murmurs before slowly dispersing despondently.

I turn back to the envoy, my already grin in place.

“I am so sorry for that upsetting display. I’d understand if you're feeling tired from traveling so far. Would you like to see your rooms?”

Envoy Nick nods distractedly, busy taking in the architecture and the councilmen milling about.

“Great! And remember, if you have any request, anything at all, please don't hesitate to ask.”

Or do. Take your time, hesitate a lot actually. I don’t mind if you never ask!

Haha…