"Nice to see ya." Vanysa said informally as she approached the Queen with a happy wave.
Draudillon snorted, the demoness was as informal as ever, she seemed categorically unable to really use titles when it came to most royals. She reserved formal deference outside of ceremonies, only with either the Pope or His Sorcerous Majesty, or certain denizens of Nazarick.
With all others, she treated them more as peers and companions. In small doses, Queen Draudillon even found it to be refreshing. The 'country yokel' personality that seemed to come so naturally to the folksy sadist was much the same. Charming… in small doses.
The memory of the beautiful, bouncy girl bearing the knife and more or less prancing in front of the crowd, the way her hand flew as she cut apart nobles a piece at a time before the blood hungry crowd, it seemed so at odds with that radiant smile and friendly demeanor. The chill went up Draudillon's spine as the demoness in human skin came close, and the Queen extended her hand.
Most would have taken it, turned the knuckles up, and kissed them in deference. But Vanysa simply grabbed it in both of her hands and gave it a vigorous shake. "So, knife day, isn't it?" Vanysa's pearl white smile and sparkling eyes 'almost' hid the stark raving insanity just beneath the surface.
But to the guilty Queen who bore the burden of the woman's forgiveness for her own part in shaping the madness that lay beneath the surface, the pun was less a joke than it might otherwise have been. More than once the Queen lay awake at night and wondered, 'Will she ever take revenge on me for my part in her ruin?' It was an unlikely thing, the beautiful sadist considered her to be on the same side after all, and never showed outward resentment.
But in the twilight hours when sleep was hard to come by and her body craved a drink again, that thought, and what it looked like to have seen her exacting her vendettas, was hard to escape.
But the Queen buried it deeper than Vanysa could bury her eccentricities, and gave a charming smile back to the woman. "Ahh, yes, but I wasn't expecting someone from His Majesty's intelligence agency to come calling… is there a problem? Something I can help with?" She said, 'Something I've done?' The dreadful thought came after.
"A little bit." Vanysa answered, "See I gotta do a background check on a guy who used to live here, one of them vampires what took the amnesty His Majesty done gave out to all them monsters what wanted normal lives and what wanted to come out an stop playin hide'n seek. A guy named Inta… see I got some good intel… real good, an learnt a lot about his early life an all that. But then… there's a lot what gone missin. I figured I'd stop by the Royal Library… see whatcha got here, that alright?"
"You came all this way for… for vampire history?" Draudillon asked, briefly dumbfounded by the absurdity of the request.
"A'yup. An as this here palace," Vanysa gestured to the walls around her, "has still got the best library in the Kingdom, I thought I'd stop in, say hello, and take a look around… see I got to thinkin that since this here city got built, it couldn'ta had a big monster presence. An what gets ridda monsters like other monsters, am I right or am I right?" Vanysa asked the rhetorical question with a shrug, and to that, Draudillon could only nod.
"I- I see." The Queen answered, though it was a lie. "You can use the library, of course… and ah, if you stay long, there's food to be had if you're hungry, I'll just make sure the chefs know to prepare something for you if you ask."
"Mighty neighborly of yah, thankee." Vanysa said and gave a sweet smile at her former ruler, "I 'member the way, so doncha worry your pretty head about guid'n me there."
"I'm… sure you do." The Queen acknowledged, the unusual brilliance of the peasant woman wasn't lost on the royal, despite the folksy 'don't know nuthin, ignorant peasant' role the demoness sometimes slipped into.
Vanysa didn't look behind her when they parted ways, though she felt the eyes of the Draconic Queen on her back until she was out of sight and quickened her steps a little on the path to the library.
The gray stone of the castle brought many an ugly, unpleasant memory to mind. Astraka's castle looked a lot like this one. The walls closed in around her, and her footsteps quickened, her toes scrunched inward, thankfully the Queen kept only a relatively small staff compared to most royals, and having visited before, she knew the paths to take, and those were little used.
Her footfalls echoed off the empty walls of the long stone hall that carried her, guided her, toward the great double doors. The ceiling was high, no less than twenty feet above her head, and the double door was no less so, each side of the heavy oaken door was the entire width of her wingspan in her demonic form, and heavy enough that it wasn't uncommon for a grown man to struggle to push the door open.
Vanysa put a hand to the flat brass metal panel and pushed. The ancient iron hinges of the door creaked and groaned, but the door gave way to the pressure she applied and she slipped into the greatest library in the country.
It lived up to the title, the stone shelves were built unto the wall itself along the sides, stone columns rose up from the center of the floor to the high ceiling which was at least twice as high as the ceiling of the outer hall. And around every column were circular shelves of ancient, polished dark wood on which yet more books were lined.
Long straight shelves of the same sort of wood, sat in long rows had tall wooden ladders secured to small wheels and nestled into little metal tracks allowed people to reach the higher levels, and high above, many small windows opened the room up to be flooded with natural light, casting shadows over the floor from the many tables, chairs, and shelves alike.
A feeling of rightness came over the demoness and she clapped her hands together and rubbed her palms together with vigor. In the far more open space, away from the confines of the narrow hall, her spirits lifted. "Alright… let's see what history has to say aboutcha, Inta. It better be good." She told herself and breathed in the musty air of ink and ancient paper that all old libraries were saturated with.
"Deus ex demonica." She used her skill, and began to walk the shelves in search of answers from a forgotten world.