At the end of Maria's meal, a call came in from Elizabeth's estate, an urgent one. On her way out Maria was interrupted by Menagerie's return to the manor.

The beast was just her lively old self, brimming with confidence and a wide, self assured grin on her face as she bowed deeply to Maria. Her hair fell over her face. "Your will has been done, young master. Each and every last one, hunted down, as you wished."

Maria froze for a moment, and rested her hand on chest above her heart. A smile formed on her lips as she walked towards her beast with Sin's help and ran her hand through Menagerie's hair. "Very good. Wander as you want today, I have business to attend to."

The drive to Elizabeth's estate was uneventful, a calm before the storm as they reached the manor proper.

Elizabeth was already awaiting them in the entry hall, tapping her heel onto the floor with her arms crossed. Her lips were a thin line as the two approached. "We are in a very precarious situation." Her voice echoed through the hall.

The lady herself escorted them into her main office, she offered them seats but staid on her feet, pacing behind her desk.

"Time and the press have done a lot for us until now, darling, but I am reaching the limits of what simple word of mouth can do. I've been instigating for martial law, but as you can imagine, not many people are too thrilled by the idea." Elizabeth's hands were fidgeting behind her back as she spoke.

Maria was squirming in her seat despite her efforts to appear calm. "So, do we need to make something up again? Show them just how dangerous their situation is or something?"

"If our enemies would give us that opportunity, it would be easy. But from what I am seeing it is quite something else that they are planning." Elizabeth stopped at her shelves and pulled out a map of the continent, placing it on the desk in front of Maria.

"They're running away. North, south, east, across the ocean." Her hands ran across the borders of the country. "Leave us to set ourselves up while they marshal the resssources of the rest of the world, and if we try to strike at them on that scale, we lose in the eyes of the people."

During her explanation Maria had grown calmer, her eyes following her. "But why do we care about the people? Isn't our goal to make their opinion irrelevant to begin with?"

She was answered with a long sigh and Elizabeth scratching across the table with her nails. "We can hardly take on the entirety of the world, on our own and especially right now. We need to maintain the charade until we erase Samdel and Hertiria from the equation."

The lady shook her head and sat down at her desk, throwing her hands into the air. "But I am surrounded by incompetence. Money, threats, nothing has worked to get me closer to where they are hiding specifically."

Sin leaned forward in her seat, gave Maria a short look and spoke after receiving a nod from her master. "Hunting them down is pointless. Even if we were to discover them, who could we send at that pace to kill them? No, we must make them come to us."

Elizabeth crossed her legs and arms, her gaze now pinned on Sin. "Of course, but how exactly would we accomplish that? They're ceding the country to us, unless we started decimating the population or something similar they'd hardly intervene."

"Yes, we need to do something drastic. Something felt all across the world that they cannot ignore. A check." Sin was grinning widely and stared out of the window, into the pale blue sky. "We should break the seal."

"Under absolutely no circumstance." Elizabeth was running a hand through her hair, her face ghostly pale. "Not with what could get through, not with-"

Sin leaned over the desk, barring her fangs. "Will you quit your childish whining? They are dormant weapons, relics from a past age. The pathways are not. The tremors of it breaking would send them running towards us, they either die trying to stop us, or lose any support that they still enjoy."

The more she talked the more excitement swung in her voice as her nails dug into the desk. "They will have to fight on our terms, and after we vanquish them we can use the ways to spread across every corner of the world, with the use of my sisters we can then even bar anyone else from entering."

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"You mean anyone who you deem not worth entering." Elizabeth's voice was a low hiss. "And you truly imagine I will just sit back and watch while you amass all of that power?"

"Not her, Eli." Maria had risen to her feet, as best as she could with her ankle. "We. We're in this together, no? Dear." She limped over to the other side of the desk. "I see those things every time I close my eyes. I trust you, even after the ball. So I ask you to trust me with this in turn: I am not going to let those things into our world, you have my word."

Elizabeth stared back at her for a few excruciating moments, before she got up and pulled the young master down onto her lap with a sigh. "One day you wont be able to look like a beaten puppy to get your way, mark my words." Both were blushing a dark red.

It was up to Sin to break the silence by coughing. "If we are in agreement, then we should be turning our attention to strategy, yes? Time is of the essence, after all."

The ladies looked at each other, then both cleared their throats. "Yes, how exactly is this going to work then?" Maria managed to speak first, staring at her servant to calm herself.

With all attention on her, Sin began to walk in a circle, hands behind her back. "We will need to have another seed from Yggdrasil and plant her in the world of the Ancients, so that she can grow and work on weakening the seal from the other side. This is something that we will not be able to do in secret, so we need to have our other pieces in position first."

She stopped at the desk, turned the map to it's white underside and began to draw a circle onto it. "Our defences will need to be layered, also in strength. That will let us buy time, as well as force them deeper within the city itself."

"That is all well and good, but with what are we going to defend ourselves? " Elizabeth ran a hand through Maria's hair, looking past her at Sin. "Bringing an army into the Ancient's world is difficult enough as it is, for me to gather one as quickly as they can is not an option."

Sin did not look up, she instead drew another large shape to the west side of the city. "The eternal ocean is a reservoir of our blood, lady Merlayne. With a few days of preparation my sisters will be having a field day making us an army out of that. We just need to send them in first, at best still today."

Her eyes were darting around the paper as she began to draw arrows pointing towards the main circle representing the city. "They can only come from north, east or south, but only two directions since they only have two keys and not enough time to open a third front."

With a look of triumph she laid down her pen and turned the battle plan around for them to see. "We outlast them, we break the seal and have Yggdrasil cut off their retreat. Menagerie bogs them down and overwhelms them with numbers, Tetra and Armoire will take down priority targets while me and Elaine will safeguard my master."

Elizabeth leaned forward and gazed across the scribbled lines. "And I will simply sit by the sidelines while you take on the full might of two noble houses? Hardly."

She grabbed the pen and began to add to the plan. "Our peers across the country know where their lot is now, they will know better than to sit on the sidelines. I will take command of them and take care of one of the fronts. I still have to pay Samdel back for how he treated my darling."

As Elizabeth spoke she ran her hand across Maria's cheek, who squirmed in her seat. "And what do I do then?" The young master looked back at Sin, who bowed.

"You will have the central role, my master." Sin kept her hands behind her back to hide how her fingers were trembling. "You will remain at the heart of our position, to protect Yggdrasil as she grows. Your, loss," Sin couldn't help but look away at those words. "Or hers would mean defeat, so it would be for the best if you both staid in the same place."

"So I'll just be sitting there while we win." Maria lowered her head and stared at the map. "Very well. But I want to finally have a crown when we go through with this. And a new dress!"

Maria needed help from Elizabeth to get back on her feet, but when she was the young master stood proud with her chest puffed out. "We'll finally put an end to them, and when we return to our world it will not be as just high noble ladies and heiresses, but queens!"

Despite her impassioned speech Maria still needed the support of the desk to limp back over to Sin, and lean on her. "I am going to marshal my servants for their duties, Eli. Soon, soon we will finally be victorious!"

Her enthusiasm was infectious, Elizabeth was smiling from ear to ear at the sight of the short, crippled lady who remained determined. "I will begin making my calls as well, darling. Let us reconvene in two days, yes?"

The look from the servants of the estate upon seeing her face, the pain in her ankle, nothing could lower Maria's mood as they made their way back to the car and from there back home. Instead of calling for her beasts however, she made a beeline for her bathroom.

As the water was flowing into the tub, Sin helped her master to undress. "Tell the others of what they are to do, and have them be prepared after my bath, yes?" Maria slid into the warm water with Sin's help and closed her eyes as her servant left.

Motionless she laid there, letting the warmth wash over her. The world was going to be at her feet. They had fought her, taken things from her, near everything. But she was still alive, she was powerful.

She could not help but chuckle and shake her head. The water splashed as she stretched her legs. "Queen Maria the first. Queen Maria the great."

Somewhere, deep in the dark recesses of her mind, a thought was whispering against the frivolous tide of joy.

Asking: "Is it really worth it?"