Kyou Kara Maou – The Ghosts of Trondheim
Summary: When the royal family goes on winter holiday to Trondheim, Yuuri faces the ghosts of Shinou and Daikenja's most tragic mistake.
Disclaimer: I have no rights to Kyou Kara Maou of course.
AN: supporting materials on the "homepage" link on my author profile include a number of illustrations, a map of Shin Makoku, and a longish summary of the prequel The Trouble with Trolls, which was very long and OC-centric (but the summary has enough background to read the present story). Executive summary: the domain of Trondheim is the Mazoku non-demon bastion of Shin Makoku, dominated by demon-troll mixtures. The trolls were almost entirely genocided by Shinou.
This story is set just after my story Epilogue – Yuuri and Wolfram finally got married a month or so ago. The Trouble with Trolls ended perhaps four months before that.
Chapter 1 – Scaling Trondheim
Yuuri gazed up at the Trondheim Escarpment in a fey mood. Mirrored sunglasses from Tokyo shielded his eyes from the glare of the ice-bound sheer cliffs above. He'd been looking at this grey and white wall for most of the day, riding through the domain of Walde, without realizing it. His fey mood was due to complete and utter surrender to the folly of this honeymoon – family vacation – ski trip.
"High, isn't it?" he quipped to his lovely newlywed husband. Wolfram stood beside him in matching shearling coat and boots and adorable Gwendal-knit hat and mittens. Yuuri's brown knitted set featured cute little bear ears. Wolfram's was fluffy dove grey knitted… rat, Yuuri decided. They're rat ears. Wolfram's glorious green eyes and red nose shone forth unmarred by sunglasses. "Have you taken your dramamine, love?" Yuuri inquired. Wolfram's motion sickness responded well to dramamine.
Wolfram nodded unhappily, beholding a tiny toy box decending the cliff. It was already halfway down, but… just barely visible due to the distance. The ropes of the elevator sang in the cold wind falling down off the mountains. "We should have gone to a beach on honeymoon, instead," he reiterated.
"It's winter, pretty vixen," said Wolfram's father Manfred, as Manfred and his newlywed husband Aldrich rejoined them. Manfred and Aldrich and their sons Efram and Dietrich were with them on honeymoon – family vacation – because they hadn't been at Yuuri and Wolfram's impromptu wedding, nor been on honeymoon themselves yet. "Too cold for the beach. Just right for skiing."
"We're in luck," reported Aldrich. "The wind's not quite bad enough to shut it down, so we can go up tonight." They had to take their honeymoon – family vacation – in winter, because Aldrich planned to plant the seeds of their children – Yuuri and Wolfram's as well as Aldrich and Manfred's – in the spring. Aldrich would lovingly tend the seedling that would become Yuuri and Wolfram's firstborn biological child, along with his own, every day from March to late October. Their guilt level regarding this service made it unthinkable to say no.
Yuuri thought he heard an involuntary squeak from Wolfram. And we would want to go up this monstrosity with the wind almost too bad because… "Ah, Aldrich? Why is this a good thing?"
"Oh, it's much warmer in the afternoon – there's no sun in the morning on this western face. Granted, it's a bit… exhiliarating… when it's this windy. But we'll all have a good laugh and hot cider at the top, eh?"
"Your father went up this?" inquired Brendan Lord Gratz of Aldrich. "Isn't Friedrich afraid of heights?" Brendan and his son Trenton were with them on honeymoon – family vacation – because he'd never visited Trondheim, despite being a close cousin of the ruling family and ruler of a neighboring domain. But he'd finally become friends with his close age-mate and peer Erick Lord Trondheim over the summer during the Dragon Insurrection. So of course Aldrich invited him along.
"Um – oh, Hasgrud! Excuse me," Aldrich failed to answer, heading off to greet yet another acquaintance amongst the crowd at the Escarpment transport base. He ducked a snowball thrown by Greta. Greta came with them on honeymoon – family vacation – because Efram, Dietrich, and Trenton got to come. The three boys formed another snowball team.
Conrad and Yozak returned Greta's snowball volley. Conrad was along for pretty much the same reason as Brendan – he'd never visited his newfound friend and ally Lord Erick's home at Trond Hall. His lover Yozak had joined him for fun, though as a spy he'd visited Trond Hall often.
In theory, they would help Brendan watch the children. So that Yuuri and Wolfram could relax and enjoy their honeymoon. With Manfred and Aldrich. Yuuri's father in law and Wolfram's liege lord. At Trond Hall, which was Aldrich's mother's home. Aldrich's father Friedrich was in residence there too, at the moment…
Murata Ken helped Greta return fire. Murata hadn't supplied an excuse for why he'd come along on Yuuri's honeymoon. Given past experience, Yuuri wasn't sure he wanted to think about what that meant.
Cecilie, Gwendal, Annissina, Adelbert, Günter, and Giesela weren't invited. Had they made threatening noises about coming, for very good reason every one of them would have been disinvited, in no uncertain terms. They were watching small Frieda and Bertram at home instead.
"So, Manfred, you've been up this way before," said Yuuri. "How long until we enjoy this 'good laugh and cup of hot cider' at the top?"
"Well, son," said Manfred, who rather enjoyed Yuuri's involuntary twitch, "we'll stop for a cup and enjoy the sunset at the top of this elevator. Glorious view."
"I thought they were called gondolas," said Wolfram.
"The gondolas are after the elevator," said Manfred. "We'll probably stop for the night after the second gondola, around midnight. There's a nice inn on the road between the second and third gondola."
Yuuri and Wolfram turned their heads in unison to stare at him. "How many gondolas?"
"I think five gondola rides," said Manfred, with a demonic green-eyed smile. "And another elevator," he added. "Another two days to Trond Hall, if the weather holds."
"What exactly is the difference between an elevator and a gondola?" inquired Yuuri.
"Elevators go up and down. Gondolas go more sideways than up. Between mountains, over ravines, and such. Gorgeous panoramic views. Though of course, they all go up and down. Trond Hall's at 6,000 feet, I think. And the pass is higher."
There was no question in Yuuri's mind – Manfred was enjoying telling them this. Yuuri pictured them all hanging suspended from a rope, in a box, dangling over inaccessible mountain valleys thousands of feet below. "And these are… safe?"
"Oh, yes. There are fewer fatalities on the Escarpment than on any of the other passes into Trondheim." Of course, the northern Gratz Pass was shut down altogether for winter. The southern Kriegsbad Pass would have added another two weeks travel time to their journey. There were no other ways into the mountain interior of Trondheim. Yuuri used to wonder about that, in his early geography lessons with Günter – why the domain of Trondheim, so centrally located amongst Shin Makoku's domains, was added last, and almost no one ever went there.
Because it's hell to get there.
"Let's wait inside the guest house and warm up for a while," said Yuuri affably. He feared his beautiful blond firebug husband was about to scorch his pretty grey-tufted rat ears.
After a half hour or so, Aldrich beckoned them back outside, saying it was time to go. Yuuri looked up the cliff and frowned in puzzlement. The box he'd spotted descending before was still descending. Though it was… a lot larger than he'd thought. "Aldrich, I thought we were waiting for that?" he asked, pointing.
"No, that's a cargo container. We were waiting until there were enough people to fill a medium passenger container. There are too many of us for a small one. And you don't want to ride in an underloaded car – they get kinda bouncy..." Wolfram looked a little green at this statement, so he switched to, "Ah, we were lucky. A lady half-troll showed up. That'll help Diet and Brendan and Trenton enjoy the trip." A lady troll's don't-worry-be-happy pheromones would work wonders on all the troll-descended members of the party, including Aldrich if he chose to enjoy it. It wouldn't do the rest of the party any good, though.
They walked out to the base of the rope-elevator. Aldrich's half-troll friend Hasgrud was there, happily explaining how everything worked to Manfred, Brendan, and Trenton, who adored that sort of thing. A half dozen tiny goblins – rolled? surely not carried? – conveyed a windowed container about the size and shape of a city bus to the base of the ropes, a couple part trolls walking in front and behind.
Yuuri stopped dead, affable expression firmly affixed on his face. "Ah, Aldrich?" Aldrich stopped and turned back to Yuuri. "Could you explain to me exactly how that work party operates?"
"The people moving the container, Sire?" Aldrich asked, perplexed. Yuuri nodded, face still amiable, but clearly demanding an explanation. He did not correct Aldrich's use of the term 'Sire' whilst on vacation. "I could… ask one of them to explain… no? Well, what I see is two part-trolls carrying a container and six goblins stabilizing it. Is… that what you were asking?" Aldrich waved Hasgrud over.
"The goblins appear to be the only ones touching the container," said Yuuri.
"Ah, Hasgrud! Thank you," said Aldrich. "Um, His Majesty is concerned… that the goblins are being overworked by the part-trolls, is that… the issue? Sire?"
"Yes," replied Yuuri.
Eight-footer Hasgrud also turned to watch the little party, face blandly troll-pleasant under dark sunglasses. "With respect, Sire, the part-trolls are moving the container. The goblins keep it from rocking side to side. It's all being done with earth majutsu."
\ eight feet is 244 cm \
"Are you certain of this, gentlemen?" insisted Yuuri.
Aldrich shrugged. His majutsu was fire healer, not earth.
Hasgrud nodded. "Quite certain, Sire. Goblins have wonderful dexterity, but not the power to move that heavy a container so far so quickly. Part-trolls have more power, but controlling wobble either takes many more trolls to over-power the problem, or many points of focus with excellent control." He actually meant part-trolls, as Yuuri easily supplied for himself. To his knowledge, there was only one full troll left, and most mixtures much above half-blood troll, stayed in the troll reservation well within the Trondheim mountains. "Does that handle your concerns, Sire?" Actually his blank sunglasses were directed at Aldrich, face still trollishly impassive. Aldrich micro-shrugged.
"My concern is whether the goblins are being treated as equal citizens of Shin Makoku, as is their right. Could one of them be boss of that party, or only the trolls?"
"Hunh?" said Hasgrud, rather loudly. "/What the hell is this midget idiot talking about, Aldrich?/" he demanded in Trondish – the troll tongue, which Yuuri's magically powered world wide translation ability, did not understand. Because Shinou had never understood trolls.
"/Thank you, Hasgrud, I'll take it from here…/" Aldrich replied. "Oh, and Hasgrud, I hope you're coming with us to Trond Hall?"
"Of course," agreed Hasgrud, face restored to troll-bland. He escaped quickly back to the elevator and its more reasonable clutch of stupid little demon tourists.
"Sire," said Aldrich softly, "No. Trolls would never take orders from a goblin. Nor from a pure demon, for that matter. The agreements hammered out this past summer give equal rights to protection under the law, not the right to be treated equally in all situations. That would not be practical –"
"I see intelligent people –" Yuuri began.
"Then you are seeing wrongly. With all due respect. Sire," insisted Aldrich, striking a knife-edge balance between being polite and overly forceful with his liege lord Yuuri Maou. "Trolls are far more intelligent than goblins, or demons. Their earth majutsu powers are vastly stronger. To demand that Trondheim treat them as equal workers is like demanding that we put a 10-year-old girl, a dragon, and a Kraken on a work party together, and let the little girl give the orders because it's her turn. It would not work, Sire."
Yuuri looked like he was about to argue this further, his justice penchant fully aroused, but Wolfram put a hand on his arm. "Yuuri… there were many sessions at the Bielenfeld Conference last summer to hammer out the details of inter-racial equites and inequities. Part of the compromise was inspectors to make sure no-one is being unfairly dominated. Wasn't that right, Aldrich? Yuuri, perhaps you could interview one of those inspectors. And for now, let these good people do their jobs, and let us get on with our honeymoon. Please, love?"
Yuuri, lips still pursed, nodded slowly. "Lord Aldrich, at your earliest convenience, I would like to interview one of these inspectors."
"Ha," breathed Aldrich, the Shin Makoku military response that roughly meant, 'Yes, O bossy one', though Yuuri mistakenly believed it meant 'Yes, Sir', words which no soldier would properly address to him. "If I happen to see an inspector before Trond Hall," as though I'd happen to notice that – I'm Lord of Bielenfeld, not a Trondheim transport tech, "I'll be sure to invite him to an interview, Sire. Otherwise… I will request that Lord Erick arrange this for you." And hopefully between now and then you'll recall it's not my place to demand an accounting from my peer Lord Erick. It's yours.
Aldrich strode away to the elevators ahead of them. Yuuri asked Wolfram, "Ah, is it my imagination, or was Aldrich a bit…?"
Wolfram said, "Frosty. Yes. Yuuri… it's really not a good idea to piss Aldrich off. Especially heading into a situation he understands, and you don't."
Yuuri frowned. "Are you suggesting Lord Bielenfeld would sabotage me?"
"No…" sighed Wolfram. "He just won't prevent you from sabotaging yourself."
"Hardly his job," responded Yuuri righteously.
Yes, that's the problem, thought Wolfram in resignation. Though if you don't piss him off, Aldrich will help you anyway, even when you don't know you need it. You don't have a clue how much he helps you, either, because he rarely admits it. But Wolfram had tried and failed to explain this quirk of his liege lord to Yuuri before. "Oh, look, Yuuri, I think they're starting to board the elevator."
The elevator was comfortable enough, with plenty of padded seats, arranged so most faced the wide open view side of the car. A gaggle of solicitous goblins inquired where and with whom each passenger wished to be seated. A rather bored looking female elf seemed to be supervising them, which raised Yuuri's hackles again. But Wolfram's fingers bored into his arm in warning, so Yuuri perforce let the goblins do their job.
The goblins left, and the elf sauntered in. She asked several people to change seats, then addressed the group. "Your attention, please. For everyone's safety, you must remain seated, in your current seats, with no exceptions, until told to disembark. This will be strictly enforced." She half-drew a wicked long knife from its scabbard, then thrust it home again to underscore her point. "There are buckets beneath every seat, should you need one." She repeated the whole announcement in Trondish. Yuuri couldn't help mentally supplying the airplane equivalents.
The elf stuck her head out the window and yelled, "Well balanced, good job!" to the goblins, with a thumbs-up. The elevator engaged with the ever-moving rope ladder, and within a couple seconds, the passenger car started to move with a sudden jerk. Wolfram, beside Yuuri, dug his fingers into his arm again briefly, but slowly relaxed. After the initial jerk, the motion of the car was fairly smooth.
"So how do we make the car rock?" Wolfram's brother Efram quipped to Greta, more loudly than necessary.
"You don't," said the elf, half-drawing and slamming home her knife again with a clang. To the group, she added, "Anyone who needs a bucket, feel free to puke on the blond brat instead." Several passengers chuckled. Efram grinned at Greta.
Yuuri looked over his shoulder at the view – for Wolfram's sake, they had seats facing the rock face – as Walde and the rest of Shin Makoku dropped away beneath them below the westering sun. Though there were empty seats, Aldrich and Brendan had their sons seated on their laps, as did several other passengers with pre-adolescents. The elven enforcer allowed the kids to clamber up to kneeling on their fathers, within their father's arms, so they could get a better view as they cleared the forest. The major Walde town of Bruschella emerged below them.
"Wolfram," Yuuri breathed. "Look, love." He held Wolfram's hand as the blond cautiously peeked sideways at the view, then turned to drink it in fully. He smiled and put his far hand around Yuuri's bear-eared head, so they looked back over their shoulders with their heads together.
But as the car rose, so did the wind. "Children seated all the way now, please," warned the attendent. The children were drawn down and secured in their parents' embrace. Yuuri overheard Manfred explain to Efram that the car was hooked onto a quadruple rope ladder at 16 points, and in a worst-case scenario only needed 3 hooks and one rope ladder. Yuuri was finding the safety engineering talk too vivid food for his imagination. But right about then, the huge lady troll began to sing, and most of the passengers joined in.
About two minutes into the song, the car began to rock a bit – under gale force winds, this was inevitable regardless of how many hooks it had – and the elf attendent yelled, "Trosh! Silence!" She was immediately obeyed. She listened a moment, looked over her passengers, then bowed slightly. "Good. Please silence this quickly, each time I ask. For now, please continue singing."
As Wolfram snuggled into his arm, doing his best to sing along, Yuuri reconsidered this belligerant elf attendent. Though she acted bored and lazy while the goblins did the seating, she'd been alert and vigilant ever since. The corrections she'd made to the goblin seating moved two rather large men from the middle to the outer corners, still weight balanced, but on a wider area. Then she'd shifted children of troll ancestry nearer the lady troll – Brendan and Trenton von Gratz had moved from their original seat near Conrad and Yozak. She was OK with the singing, but quick to check that she could stop it instantly. She had a wicked knife and Yuuri had no doubt she was willing to use it. She stayed on her feet, her back to a pole toward rock-face side of the car, casually hanging on to a leather strap above her head with her non-knife hand. Several passengers struck up conversations with her. She chatted readily enough, but her eyes never stopped roaming the rest of the car.
She was petite – about five feet tall, and maybe 85 pounds – but her pose clearly showed her ropy muscle. But if one of the trolls or a man like Conrad or Yozak gave her trouble, Yuuri couldn't imagine what she could do about it. Maybe trolls would never give her trouble. In fact… Yuuri shifted in his seat a little uncomfortably at the thought. Maybe every troll would help her control the elevator. Those with visible troll ancestry formed about a third of the passengers. But he doubted very much that Tronds of other races would cross them.
\ 85 pounds is 38 kg, 5 feet is 152 cm \
Wolfram shifted, afraid he was the cause of Yuuri squirming. "You alright, love?"
Yuuri smiled at him. "Yeah, just thinking… I should apologize to Aldrich, huh?"
Wolfram nodded vigorously. "Good idea!"
The elevator slowly rose into the dark of a cloud layer, sleet clattering on the windows, gale shuddering the car and occasionally bouncing it. The trolls switched to a rowdier call-and-response chant, still all in Trondish, but the response part was easy to memorize, so they joined in. The elf halted the singing one more time in mid-cloud, listened to the ropes groan and twang a moment, then led the song back up again. They couldn't see the ground any more after the cloud, just a vast expanse of thinly scattered small yellow-pink cottonballs on a darker haze, as the slow winter sun banked down to the horizon. The ride got a little bouncy toward the top, and two people did need their buckets, but the sunset over Shin Makoku was breathtaking from the top.
The elf attendent cut the singing as they neared the top and explained procedures. Those not continuing to the gondola would disembark first, and wait in the yellow area to ensure they claimed all their luggage before any wagons started rolling. Continuing passengers could expect a wait of about 45 minutes in the orange area, which included half of the elevator-top guesthouse. Three horn blasts and an announcement would prompt them to board the wagons. She encouraged them to use the rest rooms and eat here, because the wagon ride would be long and the rest stop at the gondola end might be as short as ten minutes. She suggested that motion sickness sufferers should visit the blue healers' area before eating or drinking. She invited everyone to grab a blanket before boarding the wagons, because the wagons and gondolas were colder than the elevator.
"And I personally thank each and every one of you for your cooperation as passengers. Welcome to Trondheim. Shamshesh alte'in, gorote." She bowed, to an enthusiastic round of applause.
The jerk was significantly worse decoupling from the rope ladders, but no one minded, because it was the end. Yuuri waited outside while Wolfram visited the healers. He watched the elf attendent direct the goblins who came to clean out the medium passenger box. A male elf met her with a steaming cup of something, and she appeared to brief him on the passengers, pointing at Efram, Yuuri, Aldrich, and the lady half-troll. When they finished their chat, they butted right shoulders in the high-five equivalent used throughout Shin Makoku's eastern mountains, and the male elf headed for the wagons. She met up with a burly part-troll partway to the inn. After a brief interchange, he traded her a jug for her knife, and she headed indoors.
Aldrich had the boys outside, since they needed to move after sitting still so long. Yuuri wandered over to him. "Aldrich… I owe you an apology for down there. I'm… concerned about how the Race Accords are being followed… ah, everywhere in Shin Makoku, really, not just Trondheim. But I realize that I don't know enough to be so…"
"Apology accepted, Sire – Yuuri," said Aldrich. "Though I'm sure Lord Erick would be happy to discuss how it's going. It's really not my business, in Trondheim."
"I do want to understand what I'm seeing, though." Aldrich micro-shrugged an OK. "That elevator attendant – was she special?"
Aldrich glanced toward the inn with a slight sadness. "You mean the elf cop? She seemed competent."
"Cop," Yuuri repeated. "Oh…" He looked around with fresh eyes. Those belligerant-looking elves spaced along the parapet, by the wagon train, at the path toward the machinery area. They weren't in uniform, but each bore the same wicked long knife. The half-troll who'd given the elevator elf a jug, chatted now with Hasgrud by the inn door. He bore a blade too large for Yuuri, but on his eight-foot frame, amounted to a long knife as well. "He's also a cop?" Yuuri asked, pointing discreetly.
"Ah! I see," said Aldrich. "Yes, the ones with the knives are transport cops. He's likely their boss at this station."
"Trolls always supervise elves?" Yuuri asked, determined to try to understand rather than judge the answer.
This proved easy in the event. Aldrich sighed. "Well, their supervisor is never an elf. Only their boss can give the elf cops booze, Yuuri. I've never met an elf who isn't an alcoholic."
Aldrich himself, Yuuri knew, was an alcoholic, and hadn't had a drink in nearly Wolfram's lifetime. He was also one-eighth elf. Yuuri asked very softly, "Are all part-elves alcoholics?"
"No," Aldrich sighed. "Though… they ought to be very careful with it."
"Why so many cops?" Yuuri asked, then answered his own question. "Oh… two passes and the Escarpment gondolas." The entire economic lifeblood of highland Trondheim, with only three viable arteries – only two, in winter.
Aldrich nodded. "And a whole lot of enemies."
-oOo-
The inn between gondolas was too crowded for the newlywed couples to have rooms to themselves. Their whole party shared two rooms, and Wolfram and Yuuri a narrow bunk. Not that it mattered much. Wolfram took the healers' potions before the first gondola, and happily sleep-walked or just plain slept through the rest of the night.
And they made out better than Aldrich and Manfred, since Aldrich was too broad-shouldered to share a narrow bunk. Manfred slept with Dietrich.
The group unanimously voted Murata a place on the floor. At the top of the elevator, he bought not one, but 3 whole strings of garlic to wear as necklaces, then scored the garlic bulbs until the fumes brought tears to his eyes. He explained this was to ward off the ghosts at night. The courteous goblins tried to suit his seating preferences. The transport cops invariably relocated him to sit right by them, to keep an eye on him.
The wagon-train stretches were longer than the gondola rides. But the gondolas swept over vast expanses, the first taking them nearly twenty miles. The Tronds happily put away their sunglasses for the night and kept the gondola dark. Yuuri would have enjoyed silence with the dark, to gaze over those phenomenal, remote mountain valleys below, a rare glow hinting at a settlement of his subjects, isolated by eternal sweeps of snow. He would never reach them, never touch them. Maybe here they never knew or cared his name. But he blessed them all the same.
\ 20 miles is 32 km \
His Trond fellow passengers didn't share his taste for quiet reflection. They also didn't find the dark particularly intimate, being mostly nocturnal. They sang, slow songs of longing when the going was smooth and the silvery snowswept vistas enchanting, rowdy songs when the winds buffeted the little car hanging above the gaping ice-bound ravines, or the wagon road got too bouncy, or odd complicated counting songs that required attention when the swaying proved too much for the ones who hadn't taken potions. As Wolfram slept cuddled in his arms, Yuuri found that almost any fellow traveller – troll or demon, elf or goblin – was perfectly happy to translate the songs and teach them to him. When he introduced himself as Yuuri and asked their names, there was a marked pause. But they saw no one else making any fuss over him as Maou, so they didn't either.
-oOo-
The final elevator down to Trond Hall's broad plateau, came at the tail end of a snowstorm. Though Trond Hall was a popular destination, most travellers accompanied heavy cargo. These had to wait on the packers to make the roads rollable again. Yuuri's party had only personal luggage, so they happily hired light sleighs drawn by charging sheep with attitudes akin to T-Zou's. Aldrich and Hasgrud and Brendan took the reigns and made a race of it, whooping all the way, virgin snow flying in rainbow-tinged clouds of diamonds in the sun. Yuuri was too distracted by holding on for dear life to pay much attention to the habitations and whatnot flying by him on the long descent into the valley.
They declared Hasgrud the winner and slowed to a walk for the final ascent from the valley floor. Yuuri still couldn't make out much of the habitations, although some of the large humps of snow sported chimney smoke. A very strange field turned out to be a park full of snow sculptures. Frozen for over nine months of the year, these rivaled or exceeded the best he'd seen on TV from the great competitions in Hokkaido. A long straight ridge turned out to be Trond Hall itself, its outcroppings the snow-covered greenhouses and other utility buildings. Trond Hall, like all troll halls, was nocturnal, and the three-foot snowfall had stopped after dawn. So the snow still lay relatively pristine around it, though there was a broad packed avenue circling it, looking a little like a moat.
Aldrich bid the party dismount, and sent the sleigh rental drivers to deliver the luggage to the loading dock. Murata still reeked of garlic though his fellow passengers forcibly divested him of his garlic strings every morning at dawn. He went with them to change clothes before greeting anyone officially. Yozak chose to go along as a guide, since he'd of course spied on Trond Hall on many occasions – spying on Trondheim was a perennial precaution for Shin Makoku.
"This is the main entrance?" asked Brendan, looking dubiously down a hole leading into the long narrow building. It looked more like a very large cellar door.
"Tack room," said Aldrich, shading his eyes to see better, attention on the slopes above them. "Everybody's asleep. I'm not sure I want to use the main entrance."
Yuuri followed his gaze to spy a bird soaring downward from the mountain, with a bright blue head, cream chest, brown and scarlet tail feathers. Big scarlet feet. No wings. Not a bird, a skier! It landed in a spume of snow, and zigzagged at speed right for them, skidding to a stop right between Aldrich and Manfred, and Yuuri and Wolfram, showering them all in a diamond-glittering curtain, with a whoop!
Alana von Trondheim herself, Aldrich's mother, stood before them. The blue head was of course her royal blue hair, french-braided down the back. She wore mirrored black sunglasses, shearling earmuffs, a cream sweater, and brown leather mitts and pants and boots, with a calf length leather cape bustle attached to her waist at the back, all tipped in scarlet. These were the von Trondheim royal family's brown-and-scarlet colors, in their native form – brown leather mountain gear, edged with scarlet for visibility. Her skis were a matching scarlet. Downright tiny for a half-troll due to her elf blood, she stood only slightly above 6 foot 6 – half a foot taller than her only child, Aldrich.
\ 6 feet 6 inches is 200 cm Alana, 183 cm Aldrich – are these unit conversions helpful? \
Exhiliarated from her ski jump, she grinned the impossibly wide troll-jaw smile, pearly white fangs gleaming in the sun. "Welcome to Trondheim!" she boomed, greeting the Maou first. "Yuuri, Wolfram. Oh, your little hats are so adorable. Yuuri, you're a little bear, right? And Wolfram… are you a bunny or a sweet little grey pig?"
-oOo-
Sorry this chapter turned into such a travelogue – we definitely get to the ghosts next chapter. I hadn't planned on the long digression on how the new Racial Accords were working out in practice, but Yuuri kinda took over, you know?And most of this actually does advance the plot…
Please review? Even though this story is completed, I still really like reviews…