"Have you bathed?"
Quinn turned to glare at Nyssa, her cheeks flushing in embarrassment as she realizes that her close confidant is as far downwind of her as she could be. "Did you find our spy?"
"The answer to that is no, am I to imagine that it's the same answer for you?" Nyssa questions wryly. "My father doesn't believe that a Sparrow is behind this, he vetted everyone personally, you know we aren't able to lie to him."
"I bathed, but do you have any idea how potent drake dung is?" Quinn muttered under her breath, she wasn't even sure how the servant's managed. Was this how Charlie felt? Being repulsive to anyone and every woman she came in contact with? It was torture. "Find out how much the servants that clean out the drake pen's are paid and triple it, it's the worst job in the world."
"You're not upset?"
"Your father isn't always correct, and while I trust his analysis, Charlie despite her many faults is probably correct. We have a traitor, Frannie found nothing out of the ordinary, and I went over the very same documents. The only person who could have cleaned up this cleanly is one of our own, this just confirms it. Which means that we need to move to plan D."
"If you knew that it may come to plan D, perhaps playing that prank on your sister was ill-advised."
"I smell like drake dung, it was ill-advised," Quinn mutters bitterly. "I don't have to trick my sister into drinking, I just have to trick Kara into getting into a drinking competition with Charlie, if we time it right, we can find the information we seek."
"Getting Charlie into her 5th stage of drunkenness is a difficult task, it's far harder than any other stage of drunkenness, there are no precise measurements here Quinn, and you know how her attention span is during that time, we have no guarantee that we will get any useful information," Nyssa pointed out.
Quinn pinched the bridge of her nose, "Brittany likes running her little experiments, lets ask her and Lena for advice. Use Kara as a test dummy, I mean they are pretty similar, Charlie just has all the information that is necessary and Kara does not."
"You should probably give your mother a heads up before you act, or you will forever smell like drake dung," Nyssa's lips quiver when Quinn shoots her a very annoyed look. "If you hadn't gotten jealous then perhaps you would have stood a chance with the beastkin. Though how could you know that she would find Charlie speaking in tongues attractive. Which is all you need to know about her."
"Nyssa?"
"Yes, your royal highness?"
"Shut up," Quinn grunted.
Nyssa let out an uncharacteristic laugh before clearing her throat, and smirking at Quinn's turned back. She really did smell awful. "While we're visiting Brittany perhaps, you should ask her about the smell."
"You do remember that I'm a princess and can have you thrown in the dungeons," Quinn shoots back.
"I can't imagine your father would be pleased with that, I can't imagine my father would be pleased with that decision either," Nyssa hums, her smirk growing as Quinn just lets out a loud irritated sigh.
~ O ~
As far as Cassandra was concerned, she had done her absolute best to keep her niece alive, and couldn't be held responsible if she had met an untimely end in a crystal scorpion den. She just wasn't quite certain how she would inform her mother, or if she should simply leave now and wait it out for a few hundred years and hope that her mother forgot.
A breeze kicks up sand and hits her face, bringing along the scent of blood, sweat and poison. She sits up from the rock that she'd been laying on facing the sun. "Well, looks like I don't have to move to another continent," Cassandra mused as she watched her niece dragging herself back to her airship. With a bit of effort she gets up and dusts herself off before taking a few steps back and running before jumping off the cliff.
She lands directly in front of her niece and drake who immediately rears back and tries to make its escape but is immediately steadied by Charlie who looks absolutely exhausted. "You're alive."
"Hiccup. Stop." Charlie grumbled as she's nearly thrown from her saddle. She really had no idea why Hiccup was attempting to avoid her aunt, it didn't really make any sense, her aunt had saved her. And right now every last part of her body hurts. It hadn't been just one crystal scorpion, there had been hundreds of small baby ones, and she was certain there were quite a few mothers. It had been a miserable experience and she'd been stung countless times. She was sure the poison was coursing through her veins which was why it hurt to simply exist, but she had done it, and had managed to slay the biggest crystal scorpion there with little effort. "It was a battle, far harder than anything I faced in the badlands, and I made quite a few mistakes, probably shouldn't have been stung—"
"I don't actually care, where is my cut?" Cassandra interrupts.
"Your cut?" Charlie echoes, confusion on her face.
"I pointed out the den, you cleared it, I get a finder's fee, that's how it works."
Charlie blinked and pointed back to the den, "Well I didn't take everything I killed, just the more impressive species. I should present a crystal scorpion to Santana's parents, so I can have their permission and then make sure to give Santana the biggest one, and I was going to sell the rest to Frannie and Brittany."
"You entered my territory and I even healed you—"
"Just go into the cave, there are like hundreds of dead scorpions lying around Aunt Cassndra, you can have them all."
"There had better be," Cassandra scoffs, before pausing. "Why are you giving your partner dead things?"
"She's a beastkin, and I read in a book that was the proper way to court someone of her stature, I don't quite know if I'm doing the right thing, but I wanted to show her that I was the strongest partner she could have. And our children will be strong too, I hear that's very important for beastkin."
Cassandra blinked twice, "God you're so fucking stupid."
Charlie paused, "Am I wrong?"
Cassandra decided to ignore her niece, "When you meet my mother, the magic is still being corrupted. I'm not sure if it's because of your new machines, or if it's something else entirely but we need to find out quickly. Or we'll have a bigger problem than the badlands."
"Magic is being corrupted?" Charlie frowned. "Have you tried the elves yet? I mean they actually use magic in its raw form."
"Eleven magic is very specific, smells like trees, and dirt, this smells like rot and death. Necromancy maybe? Forbidden magic."
"The creatures in the badlands have multiplied, I mean I just thought they were reproducing more, but if something is wrong with magic, then perhaps the two are connected. I'll tell Brittany so she can start running tests. If this is something that we need to be aware of, then it's best that we start researching this as quickly as possible."
Cassandra simply shrugged her shoulders. "You should probably leave, the smell of death is going to attract predators and you're incredibly weak."
Charlie scrunched up her face at the insult but she really didn't want to run into that dragon again. "You should come to my wedding—"
"No," Cassandra said, rejecting the invitation. She had been in this form for far too long and her body itched. She had no idea how her mother did it, let alone her sister. "Be on your way now."
Charlie huffed, she would simply talk to her grandmother about making sure that her aunt came to her wedding.
~ O ~
"You are to be queen?" Sansa sputters. "The queen has given her permission?" Charlie was the last born by right; she should have been 4th in line for the throne, at least that was how it worked in the beastkin territories. Her brother before he passed would have inherited the throne, but now it was her turn to protect her younger siblings.
"I mean, it was suggested that to marry into the family I would need to do something that the nobles of the Agron kingdom would find acceptable. They look down on us, and by marrying me it would be a problem to her rule." Santana grumbled. "She wants our territories all of them, I'm sure it's her way to rebalance the power between the nobles and the imperial family. Though I pointed out that we wouldn't accept anything less than being treated equally with our noble counterparts. Our people are too proud they—I would never accept being seen as a second class citizen. There are benefits of course, but if we do this our people might be dragged into a possible civil war."
"They want our lands and the rich resources from it. Is this not proof?" Drogo asks.
"She's my mate—"
"She's supposed to be your mate, she isn't your mate until she's your mate, and we don't mate with humans. And she's not a beastkin hybrid which means she's probably a dwarf or giant hybrid of some kind. They want our lands, and this is just a ploy—"
"My mate—doesn't want war. When she cracked her head and thought that I was an assassin, she could have reported it, she didn't. She went off to do her duties at the border. I plan on talking to her the moment she comes back, and while I was looking around it seems that we're going to have more dignitaries joining us. We need to go on the offensive."
"Have you given any thought to the fact that she's the heir? The kingdom allows for concubines, your mate—"
"She's not going to," Santana interrupts dismissively.
"Because you say so?" Matt questions.
"She's mine, that's what the whole mate bond means, and I don't share well. She needs children, I can give her children, she won't have to look at other women," Santana said firmly. "I plan on informing her of this."
"You barely know her!" Sansa groaned. "She has a duty to her people and that will always come before you—"
"I know that she doesn't actually want to be the heir, she's just the best option and she's capable, the people aren't afraid of her. The orphans love her, the people don't mind yelling at her, they don't live in fear, she'd be the best ruler. And now that she knows that we're mates, and understands it should be easier to converse with her assuming she doesn't trust her twin."
"The parameters have changed Santana, and if you are going to have a conversation with her, one of us must be present. If she's capable, then she knows how to pretend. She's not your mate yet Santana, and even when she is your mate, take it from someone who knows. You're going to have blinders on, it's going to be euphoric, and if she was another beastkin, this wouldn't matter because she would be feeling the exact same thing, but she's not and you won't be able to tell what she's thinking. You won't have the bond that most beastkin have, you'll notice things but she could lie to you and you wouldn't know. You must not rush into mating with her. Court her as a human, go on—what do humans do?" Sansa asks Matt.
"I don't know, they talk about their feelings and things. They go places together. I don't actually know what they do on these outings, but I agree with Sansa, we don't know her enough to trust that she has our best interests at heart, she's to be the heir, Santana. It was one thing when you were interested in the youngest princess, it's another thing entirely to be interested in the heir of the kingdom."
"They have yet to show us an alternative Santana as to who is behind the attacks on our people. I don't think the Imperial family has anything to do with it, it's not policy, but they aren't working very hard to find the truth."
"When I see her again, I'll talk to her—"
"We'll talk to her," Sansa corrects.
"Fine!" Santana hissed at them. A chaperone? She wasn't a child, she would just need to get to her mate before they did and just get on with it. They wouldn't be able to do anything if they did mate.