Sexually frustrated didn't even begin to describe how Santana felt, she wasn't even in heat yet, and she was about ready to simply throw her mate on the bed and have her way with her, even if her mate struggled. She was certain that last night had been the night, it had gone well, her mate had been forced to listen to her. They had danced and her mate—Charlie, well she had been caught sneaking quite a few peaks at her cleavage, and she had certainly smelt her mate's general arousal. The fact that they hadn't simply mated last night had more to do with how useless Charlie was. She hadn't come back with her into her room, instead she had mumbled something in that weird language that she had seemed to be stuck in and run off. It had been baffling, she didn't know how much more obvious she needed to be to her mate, for her to realize that all she wanted was for her to get naked and—
"Have you told your parents yet?"
Santana flicked her eyes to Matt, who was looking at her earnestly. "Tell my parents?" she repeats.
"About finding your mate," Matt explains, not understanding why Santana wasn't more excited. Sansa had even decided to back off for now, it was clear that there was something between them. The two of them had danced far longer than anyone else, and all eyes had been glued to them for most of the night. He had heard whispers about a wedding, and while some of the human nobles looked absolutely scandalized by it the vast majority of them didn't seem to care.
"Finding my mate isn't something you tell your parents, you introduce them to your parents after you've mated with them and they can do nothing about it," Santana responds testily. If her parents knew that she had met her mate and hadn't managed to seal the deal—if anyone from the cat clan knew, she'd be a fucking laughingstock. But her mate wasn't a beastkin and there were probably some unwritten rules that she simply didn't know about.
"And why haven't you mated?" Drogo asks, mating was rather simple: you find your mate, and then you complete the mating ritual. The mating ritual could last hours, but all in all mating was the easy part of the relationship.
"You don't think I've tried?" Santana snipped at him, growing more and more frustrated. Everything about her mate's demeanor informed her that her mate clearly found her ridiculously attractive, and that she clearly wanted to mate with her at the very least have sex with her, but for whatever reason her mate didn't simply jump at the chance.
"She grew up in the Agron kingdom as the youngest princess, there is protocol, I imagine. Weddings take months to prepare, and there are so many things that you must learn. Perhaps she is hesitant because she isn't a beastkin, and assuming that she understands us all because she is a hybrid, something she doesn't quite understand herself, is presumptuous of you," Sansa reminds Santana who glares at her darkly. She was right. "Human mating rituals take far longer than our mating rituals."
Santana pulled a face, how much longer was she supposed to wait? She already understood who her mate was, and she wanted to be with her, they could do all the boring human stuff after they mated. "I'll go talk to her then." She was certain that by this afternoon they'd be mated. Charlie just needed someone to explain to her what she needed.
~ O ~
Russell studied the empty seat for a moment before turning to look at the rest of his children and their partners, "Where's your sister?"
"Lena sent me a message that said that Charlie dislocated Kara's shoulder first thing in the morning, and she'd be with the healers, so she'd be a bit late coming in. I imagine she's gone to find the beastkin from last night."
"She took an airship with Hiccup, at least according to Talia, who saw her this morning, she didn't have much gear so I don't think it's going to be a long trip."
Judy scowled, "Who gave her permission to go to the badlands? Now of all times? It's a very precarious time, now is the time to be romantic, to woo this beastkin, and cement the relationship. I imagine if they were to get married all talks of a war will disappear."
Frannie scoffed, "We're putting a lot of faith that Charlie can get it done, we've been here before, it's never panned out. What was with last night anyway? I had to explain to a few nobles that she'd been dropped on the head, they seemed sympathetic but remember, grandma threw her from the balcony when she was five. I still don't quite understand why, but I do understand the urge."
"No throwing your siblings off the roof," Russell says absentmindedly, "Why would she go to the badlands? Britt—"
"No, I'm not asking her to go now that she knows that I've been underpaying her by a lot," Brittany grumbles, throwing up her hands.
"I don't think Charlie minds that you underpaid her, she likes the beer money, she's probably upset that you charged her full price on gear, when really with how much you should have been paying her she could have easily afforded gear," Mike says.
Brittany's jaw dropped and she glared at her husband, "She hates elves—"
"She likes me just fine," Mike reminded Brittany. "She defends me against Kara all the time and she agrees with me about dwarves. They literally live in caves—" Brittany immediately places her hand on his and gives him a look. "Sorry."
"The airships were designed by you, if they had been done by a dwarf we'd never be able to get it off the ground," Brittany smiles at him.
"Back to the topic at hand," Judy says, clearing her throat. "She could not have picked a more problematic time. Your grandmother is coming to visit by the end of the week. To help."
"And is that a bad thing, it would put an end to all talks of the war and—" Quinn trails off as she realizes that speaking up had brought her to the attention of her mother, who now remembered that she had attempted to humiliate her sister last night. Her plan hadn't worked and Charlie had somehow managed to look semi-competent at least at dancing. "Look, if it wasn't for me we never would have known—"
"You'll be mucking out the drake pens for a fortnight," Russell interrupts his daughter, who immediately looks at him shocked. "Quinn there is a time and a place to play pranks, this was a ball. We may not be at the brink of war, but there are international guests, and people watching. Your action made us look weak, it made them question our family. Charlie managed to pull it together, but you know that we have spies Quinn. The Holy Empire has sent me a missive, they are sending a delegation. I'm less concerned about the beastkin, and far more concerned about the Holy Empire. A war with them would be disastrous for the kingdom."
Brittany scoffed and when she fell under her father's stern look she shrugs and looks away. "I'm pretty sure I could create—"
"You were each given an assignment by the royal tutor, it was one of the many tests that were given to you and shown to me so I could determine which of you was best suited for the position. A simple essay to describe which country we should be wary, and strive to have excellent relations with. Frannie and Brittany you both stated the dwarven kingdom. Quinn, you insisted that we have a positive relationship with the beastkin."
"They have no central form of government, our border towns are currently raided on occasion by beastkin, but apart from a few skirmishes they aren't a threat and they do keep the elven kingdom away from us. I worry about what happens when that—" under the harsh gaze of her mother she clears her throat and looks at Rachel. "When Prince Joffery takes the throne, I mean as neighbors go they aren't a problem. I remember that paper, Charlie just wrote a manifesto about why we should declare war on the elven kingdom."
"I remember that essay, I remember it was rather laced with some very fancy expletives, I should have banned her from spending any time in the dwarven kingdom." Judy mused looking at her husband.
"Your sister in that essay laid out a rather in depth strategy on how to dismantle the Elven monarchy, she made a point to answer the question. It was just buried in an expletive filled diatribe about how much she really dislikes elves. The dwarven kingdom is notoriously neutral, and our family and theirs have been friends for at least three generations. But in a fight we would most likely win, terrain advantage, Brittany's military weapons and we have mines of our own that rival theirs. The Draconic kingdom is the same, as Charlie mentioned no central government survival of the fittest. They are unlikely to attack us—"
"For obvious reasons," Frannie interrupts.
"Yes, but as Charlie pointed out killing a dragon is doable, difficult but doable. Plus, we'd never really have a war on our hands. I mean she's not entirely correct in that assessment, but it is close. The beastkin followed the same pattern, they weren't a threat, and they weren't predisposed to war. She already wants to destroy the elven monarchy but her analysis on the Holy Empire caught my attention. So much so that it's been discussed numerous times with the generals. They've always been pretentious and holier than thou, despite their barbarity. But as Charlie lays out the elven people already hate their Royal Family, but the Holy Empire has fanatics and true believers. Every last man, woman, and child believes in their dogma, there would be no winning a war. We'd have to redefine what winning would look like."
"We still have the far superior military, we have airships, we have the skies even they have the seas," Quinn pushes back immediately.
"Given what we spend on our defenses, we should have a far superior military," Frannie grimaced.
"The reason why the Holy Empire is the last war you'd want is because it would be a slow moving coup. It would start with a charity, orphanages, churches, they'd build a presence. Then things would start happening to create unrest, a few children go missing, women disappear, and they'd start rumors. They'd blame the elves, the beastkin in the city, inflaming tensions. Getting the humans riled up, and since there are more of us then there are of them in this kingdom their dogma begins to spread. Like a rot, you can't kill ideas and these ideas would spread like a fire. We'd have to fight our own people."
Quinn froze, she'd never once thought of a situation like that, "How do you counter that?" She looked at Brittany who immediately shrugged.
Frannie opened her mouth, and then closed it. "Let me guess, she also wrote a solution? An expensive solution."
Russell smiled, "They're sending a delegation, and I'm sure a list of demands that I will have to weigh carefully, because for whatever reason you thought it was a good idea to make your sister sound like she was possessed. So you will be giving the servants a bit of a break and mucking out the drake pens by yourself. If I catch you using your sparrows, or dolls, the consequences will be most severe."
Quinn swallowed and looked over to Rachel for a bit of help only to be ignored, it seemed that her wife had figured out why she had played a prank on Charlie and was now currently in trouble with both her parents and her wife. Her life couldn't possibly get any worse.