The residential area that we're currently staying in is not at all far from the palace, it's only around 300 meters from here, which I could easily walk there in a few minutes, or seconds if I decided to fly. We'll go by car though.
So we don't really have to worry about the time for our appointment, really.
That is, if these goofballs of an imperial family didn't decide to meet us 8 in the morning. The hell were they thinking, waking up early when your eyes just refuse to open is the worst thing ever.
Fortunately, my tactic yesterday did succeed, I offered my body to my girlfriends right after dinner so I didn't get ravaged all night, which help us to get a pretty nice sleep.
There's about 2 hours left before the time, so now we're all getting dressed up by the attendants here. They're assassins, but also maids at the same time, how scary.
We spent quite a long time for skincare stuff, though the makeup itself didn't last very long, as our bare faces are already beautiful enough to surpass every noble ladies out there, just a few touches would suffice.
Despite yesterday I forbade any attempt on sucking or biting my neck, the marks left when we were doing it in the car are still there, so I was embarrassed when the maids had to use makeups to hide them.
For our hair, we decided to not do anything special, my hair I just let them flow down to my butt, Emy's a bobbed cut anyway, and Liana's just a long twintails.
Now onto the dresses, despite the fact that I'm very tempted to let my intrusive thought win and just wear short and a T-shirt to meet the imperials, we still need proper dresses.
Apparently our dressmakers back in the kingdom sent quite a lot of dresses here, there's like, a lot of them. Enough to fit a whole room. We each need to choose two, one for the audience in the morning, and one for the ball in the evening.
The first dresses we decided to choose something matching, so we all went for an academy-uniform-looking style, all white with a few black touches. With white stocking as well. Can't go wrong with black and white.
For the ball, I decided to go with a dark blue, short ball gown with a lot of white and silver stars on it, really beautiful, maybe with white stockings, that should be good.
Again, we wanted to match, so we got the same design, but Emy's color is black, the stars are yellow. Liana's one is green, with yellow stars as well. I'm glad they made the dresses to match out eye colors and such.
Wearing our matching academy dresses, we're now ready for the audience.
-----
Of course, we're not going alone, there's dude Julius, Justia, Adam and three people from the S.D squad as well. Except Julius, the rest will be our bodyguards.
The sight is pretty bizarre, all of them are wearing black suit, looking very professional. And then there's us, goofy-looking high school girls. Well, can't do anything about that.
So we got onto our cars, and headed to the palace. What was the name again? Crimson, yes, Crimson Palace.
-----
A whole 2 minutes later, now we're at the gate, there's two guards with muskets blocking us, again.
After checking our appearances a bit, they let us in.
Getting out of the car with my companions, I can now see that the palace is insanely big, as expected from the world's biggest country. It is mainly white and red, with quite a lot of large buildings connected with each other, each around 4 stories tall, and then there's a super tall one in the middle with pointy roof as well.
''Welcome, esteemed guests, we have been expecting you. Please go this way.'' An old dude greets us at the main entrance to the very tall building.
We follow him inside, with me, my girlfriends and Julius at the front, the others trailing behind us.
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The interior is also luxurious, I can literally see money oozing out of this place. I wonder what would the food here be like. At this point I'm just curious about the food.
The old dude led us into a spacious room on the 5th floor, with shelfs of teas, books, wines and such, and a big table at the center, surrounded by 3 long couches, positioned like an U letter. I'm assuming this is the guest room.
Oh, hey, there's a balcony too, the view here should be good.
''Please sit in the table and wait for a moment, His Majesty and his children will be here shortly.'' The old man bows and exited the room.
Nah bro I'm good, Imma head out to the balcony.
''You guys sit first, I'm going to the balcony for some fresh air.''
''I'll go too.'' Emy said.
''Well, go ahead, I'll call you later when they come.'' Liana said, sitting down on one of the couches.
''Thanks.'' I replied. walking out to the balcony.
The balcony itself is pretty spacious, with of course, railings to prevent falling, wait, are these all real gold?
Whatever, it is a little bit windy out here, which is actually very nice, the scenery, as I thought, is very spectacular, I've always dreamed of going to one of the countries in Europe before just for the cityscape scenery, this one right here is close enough, I suppose. I think I'm smiling right now.
As I was lost in thought, looking at the city, I could feel a gaze on me.
Turning to my left, I can see Emy staring at my face.
"'What's wrong?'' I said.
''...I want to kiss you.''
''Puh- heheh, sure, honest as ever, my love.'' I leaned in an kissed her on the lips.
*****
In the another room of the Crimson palace, a man is sitting on the throne. He's a man with bright long red hair, presumably in his thirties, with a pair of sharp burning orange eyes.
The 12th emperor of Aragon, James Alistaire Aragon.
Beside his throne are three more smaller thrones, made specifically for his children. The emperor has three children in total, two sons and one daughter.
Jeremy, the crown prince is sitting next to his father on the left, and William, the second prince is on the left of his older brother. The daughter Christina is on her father's right side. All of them have the same features: Red hair and orange eyes.
They are now hearing a report of one of the minister, while at the same time waiting for the envoy from Everwood.
On the two sides of the minister are Imperial guards, a special team of 10 people whose only purpose is to protect the imperial family. They are talented, strong and loyal, even the weakest member is at 2 star Advance level.
The report was interrupted by an old man in a butler suit, opening the large door.
''Pardon my intrusion, the envoy from the Everwood kingdom has just arrived, they are now waiting in the guest room.'' The man kneels down to the emperor.
''I see. Let's continue the report later, it's time to meet them.'' The emperor said with a dignified voice, standing up and walk towards the door, his children and the Imperial guards, and the old man following him.
Shortly after, they arrived at the guest room, which the old man steps up to open the door.
''His Majesty is here.'' The man announces.
Entering the room, the four Aragons see one middle-aged elf in a suit, and one beautiful elf with a rather unfortunate chest genetic sitting on the couches.
The two stands up and started the introduction first.
''It's an honor to meet you, I am Raeliana Seymour of house Seymour.'' Raeliana bows lightly, putting her right hand on her flat chest, the other hand raising her dress a bit.
''It is delightful to see you again, Your Majesty, ah, for your Highnesses, I am Julius Nixon, Everwood kingdom's Minister of foreign affairs.'' Julius calmly bow and said.
''I see, nice to meet you too, lady Seymour, and good to see you again, Count Nixon.'' The emperor nods.
''But I heard the crown princess is coming too, where is she?''
''Ah, about that, she is now outside in the balcony, please excuse me, I'm going to call her in.'' Raeliana said, walking towards the balcony.
*****
As I and Emy were on the verge of making out in the balcony, a voice interrupted us.
''Hey, what are you guys doing?'' Liana said.
We broke out of our hug, I nervously reply back:
''Ah, hey Liana, did the emperor arrive?''
Liana lets out a sigh, fortunately she's not mad because we were doing it without her or anything.
''Yes, he's inside right now, so stop making out and get in.''
''Alright.''
-----
Going inside the room, I see four redheads all looking at me with their eyes open wide. What, what's wrong? Why are you guys like this?
Whatever, let's just greet them and sit down, my legs are tired.
''It's an honor to meet you, I am the crown princess of Everwood - Sylvia Everwood.'' I bow very lightly with one hand on my chest, another lifting my skirt.
Emy did the same. ''Emilia Campbell of house Campbell.''
...They're still looking, what the heck, actually, are they looking at my chest? What, never seen a busty elf before? I mean, the girl over there has pretty big ones too, not as big as me though, is it that unexpected?
Fine, whatever, just sit.
''Now, should we sit down and have a nice conversation?'' I said, smiling.
''Ah, sure, let's do that. Edward, can you prepare us some tea and refreshments?'' The emperor said.
''Understood, Your Majesty.''
''Ah, wait.'' I stopped him. ''Edward, right? Can you help me with some simple dishes as well? We haven't had the chance to eat anything today, so we might be a little bit hungry.''
''...Understood, I will have them prepared.'' The old man left.
Call me shameless all you want, because I am. It's their fault for having a meeting this early, I'm not starving in here, never.
So we all sit down on the couches. On one side is me, Emy, Liana and Julius. On the other side is the four redheads. Both our bodyguards are standing behind us.
It's negotiation time, baby. I'm not doing any of that, though, when will the food arrive?