The Dossier of the Premier

'You're my prisoner now- I shall never lose you. If you grew tired of me and left me you'd leave your real self there on the wall!'
-Ralph Grancy, Part III, The Moving Finger by Edith Wharton

I

March 12, EC 147

In the bright voice only a ten-year-old like him could muster, my son piped up and eventually persuaded me to concede to Queen Yufina's fervent requests for me to play the violin on yesterday night's ball in the Marlon Royal Palace.

Ten years had passed without me noticing- or maybe it was me being too preoccupied to notice anything else. I gave birth to my son and raised him with as much finesse as I could, and with all the love I could give him. He has his father's hair, but he has my face, and yet, he has the courage of his father in fecklessly reprimanding those who had mocked both him and I.

It was, of course, something that I could never bring myself to do.

But he is all I have of him, and all I have in general.

When you have numerous things in your mind, you don't think of how everything hurts until much, much later, and in this case, it was true of my fingers, my legs and my feet. 'The premier must dance,' and dance she did. As if it wasn't enough that I had already played for the ball itself! Unfortunately, the queen had the delights and the temperaments of a little girl, and I am only a woman of two and thirty with a young son to bring up, and she demands so much of me.

As limited is the human memory, thus the written word can only convey exaggerations or unreliable happenings from only one point of view, and thus, I can safely say that this is my account for the happenings of the world from my point of view. It is limited, but in this way, I can offer my thoughts for either a hefty price, or for free.

But as of now, you will know and have smelled the first of my flowers, and I do beg you for my forgiveness as I will readily admit that as I write in this stormy night with a small fire to warm the dark room, I am humming a rather insipid lullaby to maintain my son's sleep. The thunder doesn't bother his sleep, but the sound of footsteps would shock him awake and make him as vigilant as a watchman in the night, and this boy of mine, much to my everlasting surprise, is my son, and will always be my son.

My boy, my beloved son, my life, my trap, my everything.

King Karchess is delighted with him despite everything; my boy is the brightest among his peers, and he speaks so many languages that he offers to translate everything he touches to me. When he was a boy of three, I played games with him in where I would point at an object or a person (silently, of course) and ask him what is the first word that would come to his head, and he would answer. I still play such games, and now that he is ten, he plays it with me instead, with him as the questioner.

The King of Marlon speaks to me of war; the Beelzenian Empire, in which I have formerly hailed from, is preparing for war against our countries. "In such a case," he had consulted me, "we only have but a naval army, and Elphegort has the famed forest."

"The forest is sacred," I said, in defense of my faith. "They will never win against us."

"And we know the seas better than the fish," Karchess returns, yet I notice that there is no pride in his words.

"They grudge against you," I pointed out, as I sipped my wine. "You overthrew Martius Beelzenia, and they grudge against you. I know you have no fear, yet you must think in their position to properly plan."

"And what are your plans, Athalia?" Karchess asked me teasingly.

I remember that I scoffed at the name. "Kill every royal family member," I laughed. "Blight their mansions. Off their descendants. Kill the male heirs."

Karchess repositioned the wine bottle and sighed. "You have had too much to drink, Gumina."

"Yes. I have played and danced; I have made merry tonight, and I am drunk," I dully said. "But the King of Elphegort fears for you, my friend. And I do as well. An alliance is out of the question; you must go to war."

"I have once thought of luring the Beelzenians to sea," Karchess told me, brooding over his wine glass. "But I do not have many generals, and Yufina is worrying."

"It will be too obvious if you are to lure them to sea," I returned. "In which the King of Elphegort has told me that I can recommend you one man to help you overcome this problem."

His face looked surprised, yet I wasn't entirely enthusiastic in who I wanted to introduce. "Who?"

"Chief Commander Beranger Erhart," I answered.

Karchess howls with laughter; he knows of my history with Erhart well. It is well know and well said that a prime minister and a military commander can never get along in a kingdom, and that one will constantly have the upper hand than the other. While I have civil officials under me, and my king to serve, he has the army in his hands, and it is true in word and deed that we have never liked each other one bit.

Reinard, my son, however, sticks to him like stubborn glue.

"Erhart!" Karchess exclaimed. "The good man!"

"Don't you start!" I retorted. "I can hardly stand him."

In which, it is true that I can hardly stand Beranger Erhart in all of his composition- I am barely impressed with his skills with the sword, the bow and arrow and the lance, for he has a mind like mine. We had played chess once; Reinard was with us in the same room, and we were both without help, and instantly, Erhart knocks over one of my pieces and my son, surprised, exclaimed in complete shock before I could even realize anything.

"Mother, it's a checkmate!"

I was the talk of the ministry that day.

But as the King of Elphegort has stationed me in Marlon to await for Erhart's arrival, I patiently wait with my son, until we can discuss more about the war that is to come. The storm is receding- I am certain that my son is very deeply asleep that not even footsteps can wake him now, and I shall end my entry here accordingly, until tomorrow.

Even tomorrow, I will still remember.

-Gumina Glassred

A/N: Maguro is making a fanfiction compilation of alternate universes to this fandom, and I still have no idea where to even start.

For further detail on the fanfiction, this will be a compilation of possible diary entries by Gumina Glassred, after her installation as the Prime Minister of Elphegort. The son in question is her son with Duke Venomania, in which Maguro had named him Reinard Glassred. This will cover a very important event: the Calgaround Issue.

-Nairo