"You wanted to see me, Duke?" I asked, coming to a stop a good two paces from Eris, Duke and Duchess Nukem. They were in different outfits... well, Duchess Nukem was in a different outfit. Eris and Duke Nukem were still wearing the same outfits, and Duke had just thrown on an unzipped black leather jacket over it. I was a little surprised these people had zippers, but considering that a reasonably skilled earth or void-affinity craftsman could pretty easily make hundreds of the identical, tiny, and honestly not terribly complicated parts out of metal, it actually wasn't that surprising.

Duchess Nukem, meanwhile, was a lot different. For one, she was now a fair bit taller than she was in the Grand Hall, coming up to probably around five foot eight- a respectable height, but neither conspicuously tall nor conspicuously short. Most glaringly, however, she was now dressed more like some manner of knight. Like, actual full plate armor, complete with a helmet that had an articulated visor that could be lifted up and out of the way to give her more vision and breathing room.

It was also early in the morning. I mean, really early. Dawn hadn't quite broken yet, but we definitely were past first light.

"Nah, don't be so stiff," Duke said. "We haven't landed on a deal yet, but still, you can call me Leyla."

"That..." I trailed off, considering my options.

"That what?" the Duchess asked, in a strange, nasally accent that kinda reminded me of New Jersey and its stereotypes.

"...You know what, fuck it, I'm gonna tell you the truth," I said. "You, Duke Nukem, look like an elaborate joke to me because where I'm from, there's a fictional character named Duke Nukem who looks and sounds exactly like you except with smaller tits, and seeing that attached to an aristocratic context keeps bringing me this close to losing my shit. But also, because I've connected you to the character of Duke Nukem, my brain has become convinced that your name is Duke Nukem, and not Leyla Nukem who happens to be a Duke. So, like, yeah, I probably should be calling you Leyla and not Duke, because that will help me separate you, the real person I actually talk to, from Duke Nukem the fictional character, but, all the same... I kinda want to keep calling you Duke Nukem?"

Silence reigned, broken only by the sound of Rachel facepalming behind me, and Eris' hair rustling as she shook her head.

"Hell, I dig it," Duke Nukem said. "Do whatever, long as you're not freaking out about me. It's Abby here you should be worried about."

"Hey," Duchess Abby Nukem said, waving. "Do I remind you of a fictional character?"

"Not in specific, no," I admitted. "It's only Duke who's done that so far."

"Shame, 'cause she's the legend here, not me," Duke said.

"I haven't heard that legend yet, if you don't mind enlightening me," I said.

"I love talking about myself," Abby said, grinning at me. "So, you follow the stream running through the village, and it'll join up with a river. Follow that river, and you'll end up on the sea shore, but right before that, you'll be in Kotor, the biggest city for a hundred miles in any direction, and definitely the biggest city in Nukem." Oh, that's reasonable. The real world city of Kotor in Montenegro was also a coastal port city. "Now, Kotor's a city, and those are weird compared to the rest of the world. Over in Kotor, we're a republic, meaning we choose our own leaders. But, we're still part of Nukem, so we've got formal relationships with House Nukem. And, gettin' to the point, we've got our own retinue of knights, recruited from Kotor itself, and when Nukem goes to war, the Knights Of The Kotor Republic go with it."

I tried to not laugh, I really did, but you saw what she said just as clearly as I heard it. The best I managed was a strangled, rasping, snort-like sound.

"I'm sorry, that's- that's another reference you wouldn't get," I said. "Please continue."

"...Right, well, right next door to Nukem, on the other side of a mountain range, is a place called Tepes," Abby said, pronouncing it tepesh, the way the Transylvanians would've when talking about the historical and legendary voivode (sovereign prince) Vlad III Tepes, also known as Dracula. Or, at least, that's how it was pronounced in Netflix Castlevania. I didn't speak any Romanian, or know any Romanians. "Real hellhole, ruled by vampire warlords. Every so often they try to invade us again, and we have to push their shit in. Real mess. Well, that happened almost thirty years ago. And there I was, a fresh-faced young Kotor Knight, who's been shapeshifted into an alpha whenever anyone was looking 'cause I wanted to be a knight. I'd just finished my apprenticeship when the war started, and I went with them to fight the undead."

She paused, and nodded, continuing, presumably having to consult her memory, or tell how much truth I should be receiving.

"I met," Abby said, "on the field of battle, their war-prince, the one leading the charge, who held all the lesser undead in her thrall. And I wrecked her." She grinned savagely. "There was this priest at the Grand Temple in Kotor I'd been sweet on, and before I left, she gave me something to remember her by. Not a lock of her hair. Not a little portrait of her. She gave me a bottle of holy water. And when I met that vampire war-prince, that holy water sang in my grasp as I pulled it out of the bottle and straight down her stupid rotting throat. Holy water would stun a vampire if you just splash it on the skin, but down their throat? Oh, she suffered from that. I almost felt bad about killing her ass. Did it anyways, though, and that pretty much ended the war then and there. Tepes hasn't invaded in the thirty years since then, when they usually do it every five. They're still feelin' that loss."

Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

"Holy fuck," I said.

"Yeah, no shit," Abby said, nodding. "Well, when a knight takes off the head of the enemy general, the Duke notices. Leyla wanted to meet me, offer me titles and land, reward me for my bravery and skill. So when we met, and she asked me what I wanted, I decided to shoot my shot. I dropped the alpha form I'd been wearing all that time, going back to how I really look as an omega, and I said I wanted her."

"And we've been married ever since," Duke added, smiling down at her wife.

"Huh," I said, carefully appraising Abby and the revelations she brought. She was an omega, by all accounts, but she did, when contextually necessary, take on the form of an alpha- well, probably only most of the form; I can't imagine boners are terribly comfortable when wearing plate armor- without seeming to really have a problem with it.

Her daughter, Eris, was an alpha by all accounts, but who by contrast seemed wholly unwilling to take on the form of a beta or omega when contextually appropriate. This was probably the source of rather a lot of arguments in House Nukem behind closed doors, considering that Rachel represented a prime opportunity to reintroduce some void-aspected blood to House Nukem while also reaffirming the nascent but probably very desirable tradition of "if you're a knight and you prove yourself spectacularly enough, you get to join House Nukem."

It was a bit of political theater, but an eminently sensible one; motivating knights to try their hardest was a thing lords wanted to do, and offering rewards for good service was a straightforward and productive way to do that. And if the reward is "living in ducal luxury," and possibly "marrying the Duke's daughter," well. That could be very motivating for a young alpha with a sword and a boner. Plus, it makes the Duke look generous, which is nearly always a desirable image for lords to cultivate.

"Anyway!" Duke said, clapping her hands. "Now that storytime's over, let's get back to why you're here."

"Oh, shit, right," I said. "Forgot about that. What's up?"

"It's a good thing you know about Kotor now, 'cause we gotta go there," Duke said. "That's why I wanted to see you in court when I did- if we'd waited any longer, I would've been too busy preparing for the trip. I gotta go down to Kotor once a year for a ceremony- Kotor's a republic with my blessing, but I gotta go down there and give that blessing every time they have an election, to keep up relations."

"Makes sense," I said. "Is Kotor also where your council is?"

"Kind of, yeah," Duke said. "I mean, I got a marquis out in the foothills who keeps watch over Tepes and makes sure their shit stays pushed in, and sounds the alarm whenever it isn't, plus a handful of counts takin' care of the rest of the countryside. But they'll be coming to Kotor to see me and the rest of the council, so, yeah, this trip to Kotor is where I'll get my answer for you. Wish me luck, 'cause we're both gonna need it."

"How long will you be gone?" I asked.

"It should only be a few days," Duke said. "The election blessing only takes an hour in total, and the council meetings have never lasted more than three days. But, while I'm gone, as is tradition, Eris is in charge. She speaks with my voice, and acts with my hand. You give her any shit, you're giving me that same shit."

"You seem pretty chill," I noted.

"She has to, because she never had the makings of a knight herself," Eris said, exposing my ears to her voice for the first time. "As a Red Wind, and the daughter of Abby Van Helsing of the Blue Wind, I very much do. You will find me far more capable of insisting on the respect due to a Duke."

"...Duly noted," I said, nodding. "Although, I do find myself curious, Duke- if you're bringing the Duchess-"

"You can call me Abby," Abby chimed in.

"-bringing Abby with you," I said, "why not bring Eris as well?"

"Two reasons," Duke said. "First, my last seneschal died a few years ago, which was after Eris got to an age where she could represent me while I was gone, and had spent a few years studying under my old seneschal. She's responsible for training a new one, who'll serve her when I'm gone, but for now, whenever I'm gone, she's basically the seneschal. We call her 'Acting Duke,' because seneschal is a permanent position that doesn't have as much prestige, but they're basically the same."

"That's... honestly pretty reasonable," I said, nodding. "If she's gonna be in charge someday, then yeah, absolutely you need her to get as much experience as she can get before it's permanent." Of course, I feel I should note that this 'raised from the cradle as a master administrator' stuff did not justify hereditary aristocracy, and that, if they weren't the best way for me to get what I want while also not being so conspicuously awful as to need immediate assassination, I would probably be working towards killing them. As it stood, though, my political ambitions ran more towards further legitimizing and empowering the Republic of Kotor, until their government metastasized and absorbed all of Nukem, spreading the light of "when the ruler is a cruel asshole, they can be removed from office in the next election instead of just waiting for them to die" across the land. "...Wait, what was the second reason?" I definitely wasn't gonna tell them why I'd gotten distracted all of a sudden.

"Pretty simple, really," Abby said, before picking Duke up and slinging the large, buff alpha around until Duke sat on Abby's shoulders like a child. "Two, she's not bringing me. I, the one with affinities for wind and water, am bringing her."

"Just 'cause Abby's a Duchess doesn't mean she stopped training," Duke added. "She's got a Physical Enhancement skill of thirty. With her doing the running, we should be in Kotor before dusk."

I whistled, impressed.

"Well, good luck, Duke," I said. "Hurry back."

Because holy shittering fucksticks did I not want to spend any more time than I had to in the same town as an Acting Duke who hated my girlfriend and also probably me.

This was gonna be bad.