Late that night, after a full eight hours of discussion and such, she took her leave and went to bed, head spinning. Her conversation with Buri, forgotten until now, made her chuckle. She must have been blind as a vole, if the servants had been betting on them. She sighed, turned over, and fell asleep.
~^~
The next day, she was summoned to the kings study as soon as breakfast was over. He looked at her over papers and smiled. The queen, now there for the discussions, was next to him, trailing a finger on a map.
"Ah, yes, Xlelon. I must give you something to do. You know of course, that now that you are in service to the kingdom, you need not pay for your stay here. You are a training diplomat, and it needs all of your time. I have heard that you keep a job at billy frogs in the lower district." He smiled at fond memories as she nodded. "I am afraid that you must quit. Your training will be quite strenuous now that we have a goal." He let that sink in. She nodded, she had guessed that this would happen.
"With your majeties permission, I would like to reveal the reason, Jerry took a chance on me, I would like to at least tell him why."
The king looked surprised.
"You have not told them of your place here?"
She shook her head.
"You never revealed your identity in the lower district. I decided that it would be more tactful to do the same."
Jon shook his head and Thayet looked at him pointedly.
"You are right, and you have my permission to reveal your task to your employer."
She bowed.
"Thankyou sir."
The king pulled a face.
"Please stop bowing, we are alone, there is no need for such courtesy."
She smiled and bowed again.
"Practicing sir, Es ist sehr gut. Kann ich bei Buro gehen?"
The king smiled.
"I have not practiced Scanran for an age, what was that?"
She smiled.
"Can I go to my work? To quit? My that sounds strange."
The queen smiled as jon tried to run that through his head.
"Yes, geht bei Buro. Treffen uns fur nachmittag."*
Xlelon chuckled, the king looked baffled. She bowed, turned and walked out, listening to Thayet translate what she had just said. The Queen was quite fluent. After all, Saraine used a form of Scanran, which Xlelon suspected was akin to Dutch. She selected a light jacket, then turned. No one would believe her, she realized, and shook her self. She sighed, there was a way…
~^~(*=Go to your work, Meet us for lunch.)
Xlelon toiled to keep her hem clean, and it worked, bareley. The cloak she was using warmed her, so she wasn't uncomfortable temperature wise, but still! She had considered trying for sidesaddle, then discarded the idea. Now she wore the dress from midwinter, and was hating it despratly. She wished there was another way, but doubted it seriously, Jerry had seen much, but she was sure that this dress, which the treasury had helped pay for, would convince him. She was supposed to be from a small merchant family in Port Caynn.
Walking in, she kept her hood up, knowing that the patrons would otherwise be lewd, especially Garret Nutcracker, who was known for melting even the most iron shod of hearts. Of course, her heart wasn't there at the moment, and she never worried anyway.
A few whistles went up when she crossed the common room to the bar. She drew her cloak tighter, and walked up to Jerry, who looked rather thunderstruck. She sighed.
"I would like to talk to Jerry and Linda please, in private." She said quietly.
Jerry, not recognizing her, nodded and whistled to summon Linda, who came bustling down the staircase, muttering.
"This isn't like her, she's usually very punctual."
Xlelon smiled, knowing that the woman was talking about her, she had come a little later than usual, voting to do it after lunch with the king and Queen.
Jerry led the two to an empty room and closed the door.
"Now miss, what was it that you wanted?" he began nervously, but stopped dead when she lowered the hood. Oh he recognizes me alright, she thought.
And so he did, though why Xlelon was here like…like this was beyond him. He glanced at his wife, she too, looked dumbstruck. The Xlelon-turned-noble smiled and curtsyed low.
"Good evening Jerry, Linda, I have come to discuss some things with you. I'm sorry I surprised you, but I needed to explain. Will you sit down?"
As if in a dream, the two sat and listened as she tried to explain her true family and reason for the job.
"Well, you see….er…" she sighed. "Ok, I am not the daughter of a merchant in Port Caynn. I'm really a training diplomat at the palace, I needed the money because I was not in service to the crown, so therefore had to pay a bit for my lodging. But the king has asked me to be a Diplomat to Scanra and now I am going to train for it speciffically. I just wanted to thank you for taking a chance on me."
Linda was the first to react.
"You mean…all this time…are you a noble?"
Xlelon snorted.
"Hardly, that's why I'm a diplomat, foreign countrys tend to trust people without titles more, they aren't in it for the land."
Linda smiled, there she was, the Xlelon that she knew. Of course, she was a bit dressed up…
"But why? Why tell us? Why not just dissappear?"
Xlelon shrugged.
"I don't do that type of thing, gives me a guilty concience. Quite annoying really. Besides, the king gave me permission to tell you and Quatrine."
"What about the bar-goers? They're right fond of you!"
She smiled slyly.
"Well, why not give them a bit of a surprise?"
Jerry smiled at Linda, Linda smiled in return.
"By all means, just let us watch.
A knock on the door startled them. Linda opened it to a flustered looking Quatrine.
"Linda! Come back! I can't…Xlelon?"
Xlelon nodded. Quatrine just began to laugh.
"Oh my! So that's what they were talking about!"
Xlelon chuckled.
"What are you talking about?"
Quatrine sniggered.
"You'd never believe the stories I've heard. Some of the drunker ones swear that the Threefold Goddess just walked through."
Xlelon laughed.
"Hardly, for one thing, her eyes aren't nearly my color!"
Quatrine quieted.
"I wont ask, come on, you have to show them or they'll never believe me!"
Xlelon excused herself, pulling her hood up again. She and Quatrine walked into the center of the room, to a few whistles and whoops. Quatrine quieted them all and winked, then left. Xlelon looked around, knowing that she could see them but they couldn't see her clearly. Then she smiled widely.
"Good evening gentlemen. You know me." She let the whispers run their course before taking out her arms. She brought the hood down quickly.
"Though I'm not who you expected!"
Half of the men laughed heartily, others looked dumfounded, and the others, the none regulars, looked to drunk to care. Xlelon smiled and waved.
"Yep, tis I! I have come to bid you adieu! Adieu!"
By the time she had hugged Quatrine goodbye, (Linda and Jerry had filled her in) The bar had finally understood her joke. She walked back into the night to small chuckles and a round of the tortallen equivalent to For he's a jolly good fellow. She feverently hoped that they meant 'For she's a jolly good fellow'. She trudged her way back to the palace with an only slightly heavy heart.
~^~
OOOO. We're going at a clipping pace now…*g*
A/N- To anyone who actually knows german, I apoligize for any wrong grammer or anything. I'm ok at the language, but I'm not that good.