Mei Ruan May 10th, 20xx
The scout could barely stand on her own two feet, never mind fly, and had to rely on the support of her comrades as she made her report. Various curses hung on her body like shackles and the wounds on her wings showed little hope for a full recovery but she still insisted on finishing before she went to an infirmary.
Recently the witches had been more and more unreasonable with their aggression and I feared that it would ultimately reach a level where ignoring them would no longer be an option.
They were still weakened from the last war, so I had some confidence in a victory but in the same vein, we fairies weren’t exactly in a great state to launch into a war right now. There were also the Goblins, who had been eerily quiet for the last decade and a half.
The official story was that they had chosen to enter hibernation and had closed their borders until the next monarch was chosen but what if they were secretly planning something with the witches?
I wished I could completely dismiss the notion; after all the two races had an almost innate hatred for the other but their partnership would not be unprecedented.
There were even whisperings of goblins going in and out of the witch’s palace were going around.
On top of generally wanting to avoid a war, I also recognized how reckless doing so would be. As of now we still had to settle the gap that not having an official monarch had left for the past decade and a half as well as weed out any roots Esmeralda may have left behind.
I also didn’t want to go down in history as a war-crazed-queen who launched the queendom into battle before she was officially inaugurated.
Call me selfish but being the only Queen to have been dethroned wasn’t exactly a piece of information I wanted to be immortalized by my name.
I hadn’t sent the scout on any official business and it hadn’t been a royal scout, since I didn’t have command of the royal army, so I didn’t think I had raised too many flags but I couldn’t be sure that no one else was keeping an eye on the borders.
Legal routes aside, there were also the not-so-legal deals that the bigger forces were often too busy, or too involved to crack down on.
I couldn’t flood the borders with my own soldiers for fear of raising public suspicion and being accused of ulterior motives but in the same vein, I also couldn’t leave them as vulnerable as they were. Both for the sake of the queendom as well as for the few older generals that stationed themselves there as retirement in all but name.
Even my mother who ‘guarded’ the barrier only had a few tens of fairies with her and I doubted so few fairies would even be enough to secure her safety. But that was better than others who would only keep their aides and a few trusted friends who were also of retirement age with them.
Although there were a few soldiers at the border that I could discreetly ask to buff up their defences I didn’t see how I could convince them without revealing the whole truth. I wanted to keep the situation as contained as possible for one, and only telling those few fairies would leave the other soldiers I wasn’t as close too unprepared.
As things stood, I didn’t think that any fairy of importance didn’t know there was tension at the borders but none suspected anything serious and if possible, I wanted to keep it that way.
While I was sure that the witches were trying to make us declare war first by constantly pushing the barriers and harassing our scouts I didn't want to risk being wrong.
I had also gotten more than a few official complaints from the merchants that travelled back and forth between the lands about the loss of property due to these attacks.
The witches posed themselves as rouges or thieves but the way they moved stank of the military. From where they struck to who they struck… Those weren’t the work of a few plucky youths that wished to redistribute the wealth from the rich to the poor.
Aside from the potential war that loomed over my head, I also wanted to make a bigger push for the education system of the queendom and potentially introduce some more topics into the curriculum so the children wouldn’t be so overwhelmed when they reached the age for their mandatory military service. But that meant a lot of meetings with the formal education clans as well as the more political figures that oversaw the public education systems. It also meant figuring out exactly what the new syllabi would be and training teachers to teach these subjects to students.
The main issue, however, would be getting the support of the bigger clans, who usually taught their children everything they needed to know. Since it didn't affect them directly I knew it would be difficult to gain their support, but that leads to the consideration of a patreon system, which I was less than enthusiastic about.
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On one hand, it would be advantageous for the poorer fairies to be given funding by more powerful families in exchange for the promise of labour after graduation but that ran a risk of giving promising fairies to already strong families and strengthening their forces. There were also no methods to protect any students that may be forced into unfair deals out of desperation.
We as fairies were a blessed race but I couldn't ignore how we were disadvantaged by our strengths. With our magic, the common fairy would never need to train in anything more than the basic spells to be able to live a comfortable life, and non-necessities were an unpredictable motivator.
Things like power and material items could be valuable to some and completely useless to others but without a common need like survival to drive society forward, it was doomed to collapse.
Zera had also been a big pusher on the education front, constantly harassing me on the subject and further stressing me out.
I also needed to organize regular visits to the areas of the queendom that were populated by fairies with less magic than nobles and organize ‘cleanings.’ Although the Prince’s presence was helping clear the air of the queendom, we had lived 17 years without any sort of purification and those who felt it was those that couldn’t process magic as well but still needed to use a lot of it.
While they couldn’t recycle the old magic, they could gather the bad magic and burn it away, leaving space for fresher magic to filter its way to those communities. They would have a bit of a harder time using magic but it was better than risking poisoning and illness.
The millions of things to consider swirled in my head as I tried to figure out a solution to the problem and eventually settled on taking a walk to the post office to send the summons to Zera and Talan.
I wished I could call on Liose but she was still officially recognized as another camp and couldn’t be trusted with such valuable information. I still held out hope that she would come to join my side once her daughter was old enough to support her clan but until then she would have to learn these things as all the other clan leaders did.
As I walked, I willed myself to think of something else, anything else, so I could approach my problems with fresh eyes when I got back and found my thoughts drifting to the prince or rather the lack of the prince.
Four days.
Today marked the fourth day that his highness had stayed in the human world and the fourth day since we’d had that argument.
At the time I hadn’t thought it was anything major and had even been somewhat happy that we were now close enough to have arguments with one another but the longer he stayed away, the more concerned I grew.
He had alerted me that he would be taking a short vacation in the human world and all, but who knew just how long that ‘short’ break was.
I decided to give him a year, after which I would go over to the human world and attempt to find him on my own. I wouldn't really have a choice at that point anyway.
Deep in my plans to visit the human world to locate and quite possibly kidnap my own fiancée back home, I rounded the corner of the building but slowed to a stop when I saw my new aides already in the palace, deep in discussion.
Zera threw her arms up in annoyance and stood up with a nasty expression on her face.
“When exactly is his highness coming back? Its already been three days and with each passing ‘Her highness’ gets more and more irritable. Did you know that last time I went to talk with her about optimizing the education system to help recognize talents and sort them into their proper fields of specialization she almost took my head off? It's hardly my fault that she can’t keep her own man at home.”
The way she sang the title irritated me almost as much as her words but I didn’t immediately fly at her in a rage, instead choosing to wait on Talan's response. While I didn’t appreciate them talking about me behind my back, I appreciated the chance to hear different perspectives on the situation. If it got around that Cai disliked me so much he went back to the human world, or anything just as or more incriminating then things could be bad.
Talan looked at our loud-mouthed friend with a tired expression as she responded,
“So, it’s just not possible that she was mad at you for trying to push an agenda up her already full priority list?”
Zera took a proverbial step back as she considered what Talan said but quickly dismissed it, instead choosing to rib on my relationship as if she was an expert on the subject.
“How could discussing the further education and furthering of the Queendom ever be less than pleasant to the Queen?”
Talan hissed at Zera once again, growing more and more irritated by how sober Zera constantly forced her to be.
“It’s ’future Queen’ Zera. Don’t get Mei in any trouble with your careless words. Right now, we’re the only support Mei has and we should be conscious of that, not going around saying things that could make a mess and give her more work to deal with.”
“but-“
She was cut off again by the uncharacteristically serious Talan.
“Don’t forget Durand, You also have the right to make a bid for his highness’s hand. If you’re so frustrated at how Mei is handling things then you can take your chances but also be aware that If Mei decides to stop you, I'll be behind her with every step.”
I knew that Zera was just blowing off hot air so I hadn’t taken much offence to what she had said, nor feared for any ulterior motives as Talan did but I couldn’t help but be touched at how seriously the drunkard was taking her new role and her apparent loyalty to me. Out of the three friends I had made I would have said that Talan was probably the one I was the least close too but it looked like I would have to re-evaluate that.
Zera, once again quickly backpedalled and began to wheedle at Talan to make her stop being mad.
“Ah, don’t take me so seriously Talan, you know I was just joking around. I’m just as loyal to Mei as you are you know? I'm just… You know.”
She trailed off there but Talan seemed to understand what she was saying and heaved a heavy sigh, affectionately ruffling the other fairy’s hair as she did so.
“It's fine between us, but you need to be more careful. If Mei heard all you had to say I doubt it would have ended with one round on the field.”
Zera chuckled nervously in response and sidled even closer to Talan,
"You won't tell her though right?..... Right?"
Talan pushed the other fairy away and strode off, leaving Zera to chase after her.
"Hey! Hey!"