xOxOxO
Amelia was being yelled at in her dreams. For people who weren't princesses, that was a sign to get some extra sleep. For princesses, that just went with the territory, because the price of luxurious castle life and an army at your command was never taking a day off ever no matter how much you wanted to do anything else. There were no breaks for working princesses, only opportunities to tune out your courtiers while you took a bath.
She hadn't even had time for a bath, either. Amelia was in the Coastal States preparing to set sail for the western island of Calliope, to confront their leaders about some extremely serious allegations of currency manipulation. It was her first mission leading the diplomatic corps herself, which made her a little nervous; rulers around the world were much more inclined to listen to the Crown Prince of Seyruun than his decidedly less terrifying-looking daughter. But what she lacked in size she would more than make up for in speeches and statistics. When Amelia got through with them, every single person in Calliope would hear the thirty-one specific ways in which the evils of currency manipulation undermined just economies, global prosperity, and world peace.
But then there were the dreams. For five days now she'd had formless dreams full of yelling and waking up in cold sweats. What could they mean? Was she just afraid?
She had no one to ask. The Holy Ladies Tea and Cake Society, the official name for her twice-yearly marathon tea parties with Sylphiel and Filia, didn't meet for another three months. Zelgadis was in Bagrudan, no doubt ignoring what Setsim the Culinary Conqueror had deemed the best grilled octopus dishes on the continent. Lina wasn't there, not that she would have been any help (Amelia could just hear her saying "so what? Dreams aren't real"). Gourry wasn't there either, and, well, Gourry was only ever profound by accident.
And so Amelia had to shake off her nightmare alone while scrambling to get dressed. With her trunks already loaded, there was no need for staff, and it was silly if not unjust to have servants around for something as simple as tying up gowns. But the designers of said gowns didn't account for the opinions of progressive, justice-minded princesses.
Staying awake, lacing up a gown that needed at least six hands or two enchanted ones, trying to remember the speech formally rebuking the prime minister of Calliope, getting to a harbor in a different country on time before her own royal delegation left without her, trying to shake that weird nightmare, and did she mention staying awake? The older Amelia became the more she understood why someone would just run away from it all-well, maybe not abandoning family who loved and needed them very much, but definitely the running away part.
She ran in frantic triangles around the room as she tried to clasp her necklace with one hand and pull on her impractical shoes with the other. The temperature was already too hot for comfort and the summer sun was starting its tentative creep across the eastern skies, providing the barest light around the things she kept bumping her shins on in the cavernous bedroom.
"I could use a little help," she complained to no one.
Amelia was suddenly gripped by a creeping dread, a full-body version of sticking one's foot into a soggy boot, or the slow remembrance of something awful that had happened. She shuddered even though it was by now a familiar sensation.
"Xellos-san," she said. "Did I...summon you?"
Xellos, now perched in midair and holding a pungent cup of pu-erh, chuckled with amusement at the notion that he could be summoned at all. "Not at all! I'm just passing through. I've been very busy around here these days. My, my, it's been quite a while, hasn't it? I don't remember you being so pretty. And tall, too."
The tall part was very generous. Amelia was taller than Lina now, but that wasn't saying much; the infamous El Di Seyruun height gene had apparently eluded her after all. Prettier? She couldn't judge, surely, although her cheeks were a little less childlike these days, and the older palace staff often told her she increasingly resembled the late queen.
"That's very nice of you, Xellos-san," Amelia said, "but I don't have time-"
"Ah, of course." Before she could protest Xellos spun her around and laced and fastened up the sides of her dress. His inhuman fingertips on her back felt like a sad song about suffering animals. "And don't worry about your dreams. That's just a side effect of being an organic life form with consciousness and synapses," he said, as though he was sorry for her plight of being born a lesser creature.
There was a prolonged riiiiiinnnnging sound in some unmeasurable distance. "It's like what you call fear, or love, and so on. It only has the meaning you give it. Now, if you'll pardon me, that's my egg timer."
"Huh?"
"I have to turn over an egg. Goodbye for now, Amelia-san."
"You what?"
He had already phased out of existence, leaving Amelia to finish putting on her last strappy heel by herself. She felt somewhat worse about everything, but at least no one had died and she'd gotten something out of it, which all in all was a better-than-average outcome for any interaction with Xellos.
Amelia placed one hand against the suite's main door, which despite appearances was not fully closed, and so she pitched forward and dropped headfirst onto the ground. The door swung out on its treacherous hinges, spotlighting her pratfall to an audience of (thankfully) just one. With effort she peeled her face off the floor and stared at a familiar set of boxy heeled boots.
"Oh! Zelgadis-san," she said, standing.
"Hey."
Because she had given up on being anything like dignified or graceful around Zelgadis a very long time ago, she resumed putting on her shoe with one hand while steadying herself against the much more reliable door frame with the other. "Why are you here?"
"Duty calls," he said, looking without focus or interest at something on the ceiling.
Right...duty. The same "duty" he'd taken on when he'd accepted a knighthood from her father.
He wasn't really her knight, of course. Or at least not quite. Zelgadis was nominally her bodyguard for certain diplomatic missions, which might have sounded reasonable to anyone who didn't know the word Visfarank. But Amelia knew she didn't need a bodyguard, and she knew he knew she knew she didn't need a bodyguard. Between them, he had admitted that the guard part was a pretense, but never elaborated beyond that. She had only stopped pestering when he asked point-blank whether she trusted her father's judgment. Amelia suspected it had something to do with how she hadn't been briefed on any internal threats to the crown in a long time. It suited him, she thought. Zelgadis had always liked sneaking around and lurking in the shadows. And although he wasn't really her bodyguard, he didn't seem to mind pretending.
It's just part of the job, Amelia reminded herself. It wasn't a full-time job, either. Zelgadis came and went from Seyruun as he pleased. He might spend up to half the year there, but rarely more than two months at a time. Sometimes he charged out on the enormous knightly steed he'd named Viator (for practical reasons, every royal horse in Seyruun had to accommodate Prince Phil's bulk, which in turn had created new breakthroughs in horse genetics, new standards in cavalry combat, and even new language; around the world, people understood any man described "like a royal Seyruun horse" to be exceptionally large and handsome, if not a little silly-looking). Sometimes he just disappeared in the evenings with a bag slung over his back. Sometimes he showed up outside her bedroom door in a foreign country at five-thirty in the morning like it was completely normal for him to be there. In a sense, it was.
"Are you coming to Calliope?" Amelia asked.
Zelgadis half-nodded without so much as an attempt at eye contact, as though the baroque drapery rods were more compelling than her conversation. Feeling stung, she flirted with the idea of mentioning Xellos's visit, but decided against it. "I didn't see you on the manifests," she explained. Not that she made a habit of checking sailing manifests to see whether he was coming along on trips. No, of course not.
"Kind of a last-minute thing...speaking of last-minute, aren't you going to be late?"
"Yes, I know!" she groaned. Shoe secured at last, Amelia hurried out of the royal suite, letting Zelgadis follow behind her. If she hurried she could maybe get to the dock without a scolding from the foreign minister. "Say, how was Bagrudan? You did try the grilled octopus while you were there, didn't you? Was it as good as Setsim the Culinary Conqueror said?"
"I don't care for octopus." Then after a moment, "I guess if you like it, it was fine. Not spicy enough."
xOxOxO
The Gracia Eternal was ready and waiting to set sail for Calliope in the pre-dawn hours-or it would have been, had the princess of Seyruun been there. But she was not, and the harried foreign minister was at his wits' end.
"How can she be so irresponsible?!" The man pulled on the sides of his shoulder-length fu manchu with both hands and turned past literally dozens of courtiers, maids, and messengers to where Zelgadis was trying to discreetly bribe a sailor for some weak dishwater coffee. "Sir Greywords, won't you go fetch her?"
Zelgadis stifled a sigh. He had just arrived from Bagrudan hours before and was in no mood for all the bombastic ceremonies that preceded royalty going anywhere. This was going to be a terrible day. "I'm not her keeper," he muttered, although he knew that he technically did have some amount of Amelia-keeping responsibilities these days, and so he set off to find her in the last gasp of darkness before sunrise.
Being a royal knight was a serious obligation. He had the authority to command troops and issue orders in an emergency. Such a role was the exact sort of thing he'd set his mind on when he was younger, but in the intervening years he'd changed so dramatically that it seemed...weird. It was like a gift for a person who no longer existed.
The problem with jobs is that they have a way of asserting themselves over your identity. For almost two years now he'd been trying to bridge the gap between Sir Greywords, an esteemed royal knight protecting a princess, and Zelgadis, a heartless sorcerer-swordsman who had ransacked almost a quarter of the world's most sacred shrines. Was it possible to be both? Or would he drift away from one, the way he'd been estranged from his pre-chimera self?
His friends didn't think much of it (not that he could count on Lina and Gourry to appreciate or even understand intrapersonal angst). Lina had seemed to find it a perfectly natural development. She had only asked about it one time, at an inn during a late-night snack attack long after Amelia had gone to bed.
"So you're a knight now," Lina had said, head tilted, feet on the table and chair balanced on two legs in her trademark too-restless-for-sitting-upright way. She had been demolishing a third helping of fried calamari and was waiting on a fourth, which the cooks were happy to provide no matter the hour; it was the most expensive dish they sold. "And it's not just about being her bodyguard, eh? Phil must really trust you."
Zelgadis had replied "well, it was an official request," since there wasn't much use in trying to hide things from Lina, but a significant part of being a spy was not telling other people outright that you were one.
Gourry had been more curious about whether being a knight meant getting cool stuff. He had been impressed to learn it came with a sword, and a horse, and a palace apartment, and a pension on top of a commission, and a personal coat of arms incorporating the Seyruun crest. "Wow, what a gig! So many perks!"
Lina had briefly set down her knife and fork, never a good sign, and her self-satisfied grin was more ominous than the phrase 'darkness beyond twilight'. "Yeah," she had said, relishing the moment as she stretched it out for maximum effect, "two big ones!"
It would have been adequate to shove Lina face down into her calamari, but Gourry had choked laughing too, so Zelgadis had just upended the entire table and been done with it. Both of his so-called friends had sustained minor burns from the boiling hot pot and sizzling fried seafood, which hadn't bothered his conscience one bit. For some reason they had never mentioned the whole knighthood thing after that.
Back in the hot and uninteresting present, Zelgadis found the estate where she was staying and used his crest to pull rank all the way into her suite, trying not to wonder about her uncharacteristic tardiness. It was half-past five. If they were going to reach Calliope in time she'd need to get moving.
The inner suite door opened and she promptly collapsed behind it, dropping straight down like a rock before he could stretch out a hand to help her. Well, nobody could protect Amelia from Amelia.
She pulled herself up, face first and then onto her elbows. She was in one of her many bright pink Official Princess Duty gowns, with the sprawling skirts and massive layers of chiffon pleating that always seemed to thwart her at staircases, but this one was more fitted. It looked somewhat less like she was being devoured by a marshmallow than usual. Despite the dim light he could make out grayish smudges under her wide blue eyes.
"Oh! Zelgadis-san." Amelia stood up again, wobbling on one foot and holding a shoe that appeared to be more straps than sole. Her tone suggested she was hardly taken aback, like she half-expected to see him outside her suite in a foreign country anyway. Maybe he was getting too familiar.
"Hey."
She bent over awkwardly to put on the shoe, and Zelgadis directed his gaze as far away as possible, where not even the edges of his peripheral vision could take note of anything disclosed by the bold neckline of her dress. Would it kill her to just stand upright?
"Why are you here?" she asked.
Zelgadis had been summoned to investigate rumors about a strange circle of serving maids that were collecting poisons and psychedelic drugs. There weren't many details, and as threats to the safety of the crown went it wasn't immediate, but Phil was right to be concerned for Amelia's well-being. The Seyruun royal family got assassination attempts the way other people got junk mail. The prince could be paranoid, but he hadn't survived so long through sheer luck. "Duty calls," Zelgadis said, hoping it sounded mysterious and exciting, and not like he was about to spend a lot of time rifling through women's diaries and sniffing unlabeled herb bags. Contrary to popular belief, espionage work was really just doing deranged things and hopefully not getting caught in the process.
"Are you coming to Calliope?"
He nodded.
"I didn't see you on the manifests."
A stray pang of ego wondered if she'd checked the lists for him. He quashed it flat. "Kind of a last-minute thing," Zelgadis said, still not taking his eyes from the ceiling. "Speaking of last-minute, aren't you going to be late?"
Amelia finally finished her struggle with the shoe and took off at a quick clip. Zelgadis went after her, careful to maintain a safe distance from her billowing skirts. "Yes, I know!" she said without turning back to look at him. "Say, how was Bagrudan? You did try the grilled octopus while you were there, didn't you? Was it as good as Setsim the Culinary Conqueror said?"
"I don't care for octopus," he reminded her, because he didn't. Under his breath he added, "...I guess if you like it, it was fine. Not spicy enough."
They sprinted together, out of the formidable estate and into the sandy streets where fruit and meat-vendors were just starting to set up their stalls. A few sleepy seagulls honked at them from along the coastline. Amelia kept up a breakneck pace and never tripped once, all the more impressive for her hostile footwear, until they were up the gangplank of the mighty Gracia Eternal and under its twenty-five emblazoned sails.
There was sufficient space on the ship for a small army, and indeed a small army was present. A company of sorcerers and combat infantry was stationed in addition to the royal retinue and many diplomats, who were impatient to toast the voyage with a large tiered strawberry cake and ample breakfast champagne (career bureaucrats, Zelgadis had learned, were made of sterner stuff than chimeras). The mood was eager and festive.
Even amidst the crowds on board there was no place for a frilly pink princess to hide. "Your Royal Highness!" the foreign minister exclaimed, approaching Amelia as she stood breathing hard beside the railing. The glint in his eye proved he was a man with a plan, like a cook evaluating their daily shipment of sausages. "There you are! Where were you? Never mind. Are you ready? You're scheduled to make your first address in two days, I quite hope you're prepared. Why don't you come rehearse with the senior coastal diplomatic corps?"
For a split second Amelia seemed stricken by this barrage, but she fixed her chin with determination and nodded bravely, newly committed to her mission. The exhausted and frantic princess transformed into a bold and unwavering one. She marched forward in front of her minister, letting him follow her.
Just as she went below deck she turned over her shoulder and snuck a look at Zelgadis, who realized a second too late he was still watching for some unknown reason.
Get cake, she mouthed.
He gave a droll salute and went in search of the requested provisions, as well as a secure place to work. A sympathetic sailor he recognized from previous assignments brought Zelgadis a mug of coffee that smelled like fetid dirt and tasted worse. He drank it with gratitude.
After the ship set sail he took up in Prince Phil's reading room and started to lay out what little he knew about the whole poisoning thing. Another knight with a similar mission had given him a hefty stack of transcribed gossip from the palace servants, most of it irrelevant and frankly depressing chatter about the various tinctures they used to stay awake for long hours or soothe sore muscles. But there were a few suspicious-sounding pieces about someone with blends that were capable of anything, including revenge on a former lover. One person mentioned "experimenting" with the royal family, although the context was unclear; the author had noted it might have been a conversation about cinnamon in the bread pudding.
With so many papers he switched to skimming, looking for words like blend and drug and dangerous. When king came up it was usually about fists and facial hair, while princess was most often associated with a hectic schedule. There were no complaints, of course. The servants had their own code for that. Amelia was "the dumpling", as in "can you believe the dumpling yelled at us for serving veal?"
One particular passage caught his attention. The princess had another nightmare. - What, again? - Yes, don't let her fall asleep in the sauna. Zelgadis saw the conversation was dated three days prior. He selected some of the most recent pages and took a closer look.
Did you hear that scream? - She's fine. - It (she?) must be working. - She deserves it, anyway.
...sheets for the princess's bed. - I wish I had a big soft bed to sleep in and not a pallet in a group house. - Aren't you (crosstalk) - Maybe she'll sleep better.
She yawned twenty times in a ten-minute meeting. - Better add some (inaud.) - It tastes fine. - I don't trust you!
Zelgadis wished he could have gotten a knighthood that involved something more precise. It was going to be a long day.
xOxOxO
After nearly five hours of rehearsals Amelia had successfully begged off. She felt much more optimistic about the coming conference with the additional practice. Besides, the forces of good (not to mention all known international laws) were on her side. Her words might fail her, but righteousness couldn't.
She navigated to the vast royal suite and did her signature five knocks, a quaver between two sets of crotchets, on a particular stateroom door. Zelgadis opened the door with a look of genuine surprise.
"How did you know I was in here?" he asked.
"I figured you'd pick a study, and this one is furthest from all the noisy steerage rooms. Also I asked which rooms hadn't requested any food yet."
He turned away without comment and she flounced in past him, taking the plate of cake off the desk and sitting in a wide, wing-backed leather armchair designed exclusively for her father. The strong smell of its dark crackled fabric was a familiar comfort. Even as a grown adult in high heels her feet dangled far off the ground.
Zelgadis leaned against the desk. His papers had been covered with folios, likely obscuring his secret knightly documents. "So were you working this whole time? How'd you escape, anyway?"
"I told them I had a grave injustice to correct. And it's true," she added before he could ask, despite no hint that he would. "It's been all morning and I haven't had any cake."
"I'm sorry for your suffering."
"Zelgadis-san! How can you joke about something so serious?" She thrust her fork at him like an extension of the Index Finger of Justice. "My first solo diplomatic mission and I almost missed out on the delicious tender strawberry cake made in my honor! It would have been a tragedy. What would I have told poor Doria-san, the best pastry chef in all of Seyruun, who's been making me cakes since I was a little girl?" Her voice wavered with emotion. "How would I tell her I didn't have her cake?"
He just crossed his arms, as he usually did when she got on a roll and he saw no need to participate. Amelia leaned back in the chair and closed her eyes, giving herself a moment to romp through so many fluffy pink memories dotted with frosting rosettes and rainbow sprinkles.
"You're tired," Zelgadis said.
"You're tired."
"I don't need sleep like you do."
For a few moments they just stayed there looking a bit cross at each other, and Amelia thought she might fall asleep in the chair. "Want to go for a walk?" she suggested.
He held up his hands ambivalently. "...sure."
The early morning celebration had given way to a more restrained but widespread good cheer. Some people were still enjoying their revels, either because they paced themselves responsibly or concluded that a hangover couldn't start if they kept drinking. It was hard to blame them, what with such mild waters and gentle breezes. Amelia saw a few people napping in hammocks and was overcome with envy.
"Everyone's in such a good mood," she observed, watching sailors whistle to themselves as they adjusted one of the outhauls.
"There's a lot of champagne."
"Yes, but then people get drunk and the crew gets mad. Everyone's happy."
They continued their stroll, Amelia musing aloud while Zelgadis occasionally made some expression in response. There were some flyers tacked to the base of the masts mentioning something about a party in Calliope; maybe that was it. Or maybe the diplomats and politicians were on their best behavior. Perhaps it was as simple as the novelty of a beautiful day on the water, a rare treat for many in landlocked Seyruun.
"Or maybe they're all full of passion about our mission to spread justice and virtue!"
Zelgadis gave her a look that could peel paint.
"...it's still more likely than the politicians behaving," she sniffed.
They passed one of the flyers again and Amelia stopped to read it in full. She read it multiple times to be sure her mind wasn't playing tricks on her. All at once she felt the same dread she'd felt earlier in the morning, but now it wasn't Xellos's doing. Or is it?
"Zelgadis-san," she said, her voice serious. He reacted at once and leaned over her head to read the flyer, a peculiar work of irregular capitalization and blocky script. A date at the top indicated the festival was set to begin just one day prior to their scheduled arrival.
The Kingdom of Calliope welcomes One and All
To the fabulous land of abundance and plenty, where NO ONE lacks!
Celebrating the Holy Goddess of Prosperity in the Summer Festival
Money and Treasure for All who Seek It!
The World's largest All-You-Can Eat Buffet, free of Charge
They were both silent.
"Are you worried?" she asked.
Even before he responded, Zelgadis's hesitation told her everything. "I wasn't."
xOxOxO