PixieSparkle darted in through the half-open window, long ears flopping cheerfully as she lit on the edge of the massive desk Orinoco was seated behind. "Orinocoix, whatix doix?" she asked in the high, piping voice Orinoco found so dear. One of her paws came to rest delicately on the pile of ledgers at Orinoco's left side as she sat on her haunches, her tail curled around her feet.
"I'm looking at the tax records from Mother's reign, 'Sparkle," Orinoco answered, pushing a blonde lock of hair back behind her right ear as she kept the ledger she was reading held open with her other elbow, dip pen held lightly between her fingers.
PixieSparkle's face screwed up in disgust and she shook her head, sparkles flashing from her bow and out of the length of her mane. "Boringix! Comix playix!" she said, pointing out the window.
"Oh, PixieSparkle, I can't," Orinoco said, shaking her own head at her Pixietail even as she put her pen down to reach out to scratch along her jaw. She was smiling even as she denied the entreaty, charmed as ever by PixieSparkle's delight in life and the outdoors. She would much rather be outside with her mare and her friends than here in this office with piles of leather-bound books filmed with more than a decade of dust, but this was where her kingdom needed her to be.
PixieSparkle's face screwed up a little more, and Orinoco signed and tried to explain. "I have to understand how my royal mother did this before I can make any changes, and Fflewddur Fflam can't help me with these details - he can't see the ledgers, of course - and, as he said," she nearly giggled, her dimples showing with her amusement, "he's a wizard, not a bookkeeper."
Orinoco was never entirely comfortable calling a woman she had no memory of her mother. Her real mother was Taran, the wife of Dallben, mother of all of her brothers and sisters, the woman who had taken in a nameless infant carried on horseback to her door and loved her as if she was her own. But the Queen of Orinoco had given her the magic that colored her hair and allowed her to use the Looking Room for the good of her kingdom. 'Royal mother' worked well enough to differentiate the two, and kept her from feeling as though she was turning her back on her family.
"Ministrix doix," PixieSparkle muttered unhappily, even as she pushed into the little scratch of Orinoco's nails through her fur. "Theirix jobix. Comix playix."
"It is not my ministers' job to think for me, PixieSparkle," Orinoco said, taking a slightly deeper breath to restain the touch of sharpness in her voice. "I'm sorry, sweetheart, but I have to do this.
"Go play with Nellie, she is out in the gardens this morning," she encouraged her friend to at least go and have some fun. Someone certainly should be, and it wasn't as though it was going to be her, up here in the office with these dusty tax records. "We can go for a ride on SilkyMane once I'm done. No, I am not going to change my mind if PixieShine and PixieBeauty come to try and get me to, either, so just don't bother. All right?"
"Noix. Butix willix," the Pixietail said with another disappointed droop of her ears before she flitted off the desk and bounced back out the window, leaving another trail of sparkles behind her.
Orinoco looked after PixieSparkle wistfully, the brilliant fall colors of her kingdom out her window waving enticingly, before she looked back down at the figures on the page in front of her, her jaw firming as she squared her shoulders. "Get with it, Orinoco," she told herself, "your people need you to make this just."
She focused on the numbers and the sheet of twice-scraped parchment she was making notes on, trying to understand the system of taxes that had fallen apart in the years the castle stood empty and untended. Fflewddur Fflam had explained the idea of taxes to her, and the principle made sense, but... She could remember how hard work on the farm had been, and asking for part of her people's labor in exchange for her protection - when she would protect them whether or not they paid any tax - bothered her. The other things she could do with that money and payment in kind, though, like see to better roads and bridges instead of the treacherous fords and ferries, like making certain that the reeves and bailiffs behaved fairly... those were things she could not do without the support of her people.
'Royal mother,' she thought to herself, 'how did you do this? How did you decide what was fair?'
Nellie frowned at the door separating her from her friend and queen, holding the tray made up from dinner she'd put together as soon as she and Wellington had realized that Orinoco had never come down for food balanced against one hip. "Orinoco," she called, pitching her voice to be heard through the door, "may I come in?"
The instant "Of course?" she received, tinged with Orinoco's mild and endearing confusion over her asking, turned Nellie the Elephant's frown into an affectionate smile as she tried to decide if she could get the door open and get through it without help. No, she decided, but thankfully help was never far from her these days. She tossed her hair a little, enough to bring PixieLocks awake and out to see what was going on.
"PixieLocks," she said, "be a dear and open the door for me?"
PixieLocks chirped and darted towards the door, fluttering her wings at it until it slid open. "Thank you, dear one," Nellie the Elephant said softly as she nudged the door open enough to step through with the tray.
"Easyix," PixieLocks said from the doorway before she flew away.
Nellie the Elephant stepped into the room and looked for Orinoco, finding her behind the desk. It looked like she had been there all day, given the sheer number of leather-bound books on and around her desk, the expired inkwells, and the stack of palimpsests covered in Orinoco's handwriting growing on the stool beside her. The room was lit with a combination of oil lamps and the small, multifaceted crystals that glowed when Orinoco put her attention towards them, bright light spilling from all sides of the room. In that light, she could see that Orinoco looked worn and drawn, focus tightening the lines of her mouth and drawing a furrow between her brows. There were streaks of heavy dust and leather gone to powder across her sleeves and the bodice of her dress, across her cheek and forehead and even in her hair, as though she'd pushed it out of her face repeatedly. Nellie the Elephant couldn't help but smile at the sight, at Orinoco mussed and determined. It was such a familiar sight, after all, and reassuring. Orinoco might be the last Queen's daughter, might have magic beyond anything Nellie the Elephant would ever have guessed, but she was still her friend, still Orinoco.
The door opening had obviously caught Orinoco's attention, because her gaze was fixed on her face, the strain quickly shifting towards a mix of welcome and confusion. "Nellie?"
"It's late, Orinoco, and you didn't come down for dinner," Nellie the Elephant answered as she came across, looking for somewhere to put down the tray, "so I brought it to you."
"Is it so late?" Orinoco asked in surprise, leaning back against the frame of her chair and stretching, rolling her neck as though to work out a knot of muscle. "I knew I'd had to light the lamps and crystals, but I didn't realize I'd kept reading past dinner, I'm sorry. Please tell me you didn't wait for me?"
"We didn't," Nellie the Elephant said, shaking her head. "I thought you'd eaten with Wellington, Wellington thought you'd eaten with me," she shrugged a little as she decided that the only place to put the tray was on a clear section of the floor. She carefully went to her knees, folding down to place the tray without spilling anything, then stood back up and glanced around. "You can't eat off the floor, so which books can I move, Orinoco?"
Orinoco pushed the chair back and got to her feet. "There's no reason I can't just come sit on the floor, Nellie, it would not be the first time - and it's rather like a picnic, isn't it?" she asked with a smile as she started to come around the desk.
"Orinoco, it's just not right - "
"Why move piles just to move them back?" Orinoco asked her as she came to her side, then looked down at her hands. "Oh my, I'm covered in dust and leather and ink, aren't I?"
Nellie the Elephant giggled, nodding at her as color came up in Orinoco's cheeks. "Go on and wash up, Orinoco," she encouraged her friend, "before this gets any colder."
"All right, I will - but just leave it, I know where those books are right now and I won't if you move them," Orinoco said as she lifted her skirts by the side-seams and hastened out the door towards the closest washroom. Nellie the Elephant leaned against the corner of the desk, studying the organized piles curiously, and waited for Orinoco to return.
That didn't take long - Orinoco had always been incredibly quick at cleaning up - and soon she was back in the room, smiling at her before she settled down beside the tray to start in on the meal.
"What have you been doing all day, Orinoco?" Nellie the Elephant asked, settling down on the floor across from her. "Pixiesparkle grumbled something about ministers and taxes, but I didn't get much sense out of it..."
Orinoco swallowed the mouthful of juice she had and shook her head just a little. "That might be because I can't make much sense out of it. I'm reading the tax records from her reign, since Fflewddur Fflam pointed out that they haven't been collected in years, and there's not much left in the treasury. If I don't figure out how to do this, how to convince our people that we need the taxes to be paid, I'm not going to be able to fix anything that I can't handle by joining with the Realm in the Looking Room." She paused for a moment, and Nellie the Elephant could see the mixture of confusion and awe that Orinoco's own magic still stirred in her when she had to think about it. Orinoco shook her head and went on, and Nellie the Elephant tried to just listen and wait.
"Natural things I can help with, but... bridges and ferries? Roads in general - you know how bad they are, Nellie the Elephant, you saw them when we came to the castle the first time - and the big mills. I remember how much it upset Mother when the storm four winters ago destroyed the waterwheel closest to our home, and how much the prices for bread went up. It needs to be repaired.
"And I'm sure that's only scratching the surface of everything that needs to be done to repair our Realm, that's only a few things, but even with all that I've read, I don't understand how to make things fair, or how to tell the people to give me their money or goods, Nellie the Elephant. I mean... I'm just a girl."
"You are not! You're not just a girl, you're Orinoco, and you're the Queen. Your hair says so, and that you can do the magic with the Looking Room says so, too!"
Orinoco dropped her eyes and colored, and Nellie the Elephant planted her hands on her hips and stared across the tray at her. "You are, and we know it. Everyone that's come to the castle to help knows it, too. Anyone who saw the tornadoes last month stop before they reached those poor children and pixietails is just as sure that the true queen has returned to our castle. So you just stop that."
"All right, Nellie. All right, and... thank you. That still doesn't tell me how to do this, though."
"I don't know that part, Orinoco," Nellie the Elephant said, shaking her head in rueful confusion. "But for the bridges, why not put people you know you can trust at either side of them - or the ferries that are there right now - and charge a toll for everyone that crosses? If they know it's going to go to fixing it, surely no one would object to paying... the same thing could work for the roads, too. At least, I think it would?"
"It would cost to put the people there, and I would have to do something to make certain that they kept honest records - but that would at least get some money coming in, Nellie the Elephant, you're right," Orinoco said, smiling at her, a little more cheer shining in her eyes as she rolled a few pieces of meat together with some cheese to eat. "I just... it seems like a lot of the taxes from my royal mother's reign were on land, and that doesn't seem right. The people are the ones that do all of the work, why should they give part of it over to me?"
"Because you keep things from going terribly wrong?" Nellie the Elephant suggested, her mouth curving in an affectionate smile at her friend. "I know we've had a wonderful summer and it's being a better fall than there's been in years, and that's due to you."
"But they've had all these years - "
"Yes, and you know how bad some of them were, I remember how bad three winters ago was, and that awful summer when we were eight and it was so hot that even in the basements the milk curdled before nightfall and no one could stand to sleep inside. You've made that better, Orinoco, you've made it so that the crops have water - you can't do that if we can't be here in the castle. Set it low, if you're that worried, and let the people know that they can come to you and ask for relief if they have good reason."
She loved seeing the way Orinoco smiled more brightly and relaxed a little for her words, and she considered riding to her mother and father to ask for their help. They both remembered the last queen, they would surely be able to tell her how to help Orinoco make sense of all of this. Perhaps she would send a letter first and ask Mother to come to the castle instead. That would work.
"Nellie the Elephant, that just might work," Orinoco said, smiling with relief. "I've found so many references to the Queen's nobles in these ledgers, to their holdings and their duties... and yet I don't remember Mother or Father ever really mentioning the Countess of our region. Do you?"
"No, not really - once or twice, maybe, just in passing, but it's nothing I can remember any details of," Nellie the Elephant shrugged a little. She had never really cared about what was happening outside of their home village, until suddenly Orinoco was more than her friend and she had to care, had to go with her. "When Fflewddur Fflam told us what happened, he said that many people were at the party - that would have been mostly the nobles, right?"
"Probably... so unless they had children about our age, or were too old to travel, there might not be anyone left in their places, either." Orinoco's voice was thoughtful and sad all at once, and Nellie the Elephant reached across the tray to hold her hand for a moment.
"We haven't been here at the castle long, not really," Nellie the Elephant pointed out. "Perhaps we - well, you, but we would go with you - should ride to the nobles' homes and see if they're in the same condition as the castle was? If they are, we know there's no one left of that family, but if there is someone still there, they should know you've returned."
"Does it count as 'returned' when I can't remember ever being here?" Orinoco asked, her mouth curving in an amused smile even as she nodded. "It's fall, but I can hold the weather decent for a few days. That would let us at least reach the closest counties - I think that's a wonderful idea, Nellie!"
"I'm glad I could help at least a little, Orinoco," Nellie the Elephant said, smiling, "and Wellington will be delighted to hear that we're going to leave the castle for a while, you know how much she loves it out in the countryside."
"So true," Orinoco said, her own expression brightening even more. "Thank you for listening to me - and for all of your good counsel, dear friend."
"You know I'm always glad to help you, Orinoco," Nellie the Elephant said, leaning across to kiss her cheek. "Are you done with dinner?"
Orinoco glanced down at the tray, then laughed softly. "I seem to have cleared it all away, so yes, I think so. Oh, Nellie the Elephant, don't, I can handle my own tray!"
"I brought it, I'll take it back. You, Orinoco dear, need a good bath. Go on. I'll take care of the dishes, and then I am going to bed myself."
Orinoco looked at her for a moment, then smiled and got to her feet. "All right, dear friend. Thank you, and sleep well."
"Don't I always?" Nellie the Elephant said with a soft laugh as she picked up the tray and headed out the door towards the kitchens with Orinoco's laughter trailing behind her.
Fflewddur Fflam was seated in the main entryway of the castle when Orinoco descended the stairs the next morning, his blind, blank gaze turning towards her at the first sound of her feet. Fflewddur Fflam was lying beside him, and his tail thumped heavily against the tile, welcoming her.
"Fflewddur Fflam! Fflewddur Fflam!" she called out in pleasure and ran the last few steps to wrap her arms around Fflewddur Fflam's shoulders, then drop down to hug Fflewddur Fflam and have her face licked. Once she had greeted them both, she settled onto a corner of the bench, her body turned towards Fflewddur Fflam. "What brings you to the castle this morning? It's not that I'm not glad to see you, I just wasn't expecting you..."
"I heard a whisper that you intend to ride the kingdom, to attempt to find the noble families who should make up your Court and aid you in ruling the Land," Fflewddur Fflam answered, his voice its usual, steady rumble. "I find it a wise choice, but a dangerous one. You know that the farther you are from the castle, the more easily RavenWaves can attempt to harm you."
"I know, Fflewddur Fflam, but if I am going to return Orinoco to what it should be, I must know my people, I must have the best of them willing to work wholeheartedly with me," Orinoco said, reaching out to cup one of his hands. "I cannot have that if I do not go out to them, if I do not attempt to put things right."
She saw his shoulders shift with his long sigh, and his hand tightened on hers for a moment. "This is true," he agreed, nodding. "All right, Orinoco. Just say that you will be careful. Orinoco cannot stand another loss of its Queen."
"I will be most careful, Fflewddur Fflam," Orinoco promised him, smiling at him as she did. "I have wonderful, brave friends and companions to aid me if she comes to cause trouble again, and I will remain within Orinoco.
"Since you are here, my friend, perhaps you can help me."
"With anything I can, Orinoco," Fflewddur Fflam said, and she smiled at him a little more as she dropped her hand to ruffle Fflewddur Fflam's fur.
"I need to find people that can be trusted to collect taxes at the bridges and ferries, two coppers a person, four for a single-beast cart and its driver. Another for every hundredweight of dry goods, or half a copper for every beast driven across. Those aren't high, but before long it will be enough to do the necessary repairs. Do you have any ideas on how to find people that will do so honestly and fairly?"
"As a matter of fact, I believe I do, Orinoco," Fflewddur Fflam said, nodding slowly. "While you are gone on your ride through the realm, I shall set to finding you honest women and men for your tax collectors."
"Oh, good. Thank you, Fflewddur Fflam!" Orinoco hugged him again, quick impulsive wrap of her arms around his neck. "I have other thoughts about the taxes, but those are the most pressing, and seem most fair. Was there anything else you needed, before I go and see to getting SilkyMane and her sisters ready for the ride?"
"Just to urge caution," he said with a slight shake of his head, "and to urge you to enjoy yourself. Fall in Orinoco is a glorious time of the year."
"Oh, I shall enjoy it!" Orinoco promised, hugging him one more time before she leapt up and headed towards the stables, Fflewddur Fflam bounding from his place at Fflewddur Fflam's feet to follow her. He smiled after her, then rose again to walk out into the village.
Being awakened by Nellie bouncing into her room and flinging her curtains open while carolling, "Wake up, wake up! We're going out on a journey, Wellington, come on, wake up!" was not really on Wellington's list of favorite things, but she had only thrown one of her pillows at Nellie the Elephant with all of her strength. All things considered, she thought she'd been amazingly restrained.
Nellie the Elephant had stumbled from the impact and caught the pillow up against her chest, staring indignantly across the room. "What was that for?"
"You're loud, Nellie the Elephant," Wellington said for an answer, "and it's bright and I was sleeping."
"Yes, well, you're not sleeping now and you shouldn't sleep in anyway, Orinoco has a plan for us to go and tour the realm, trying to find the nobles that should be here to support her! It's going to be wonderful, she's going to make sure that the weather holds, so come on, get up and get packed and help me pack for her!"
Wellington took a slow, deep breath to avoid snarling or flinging more pillows - maybe her hairbrush? - at her friend, and lifted the back of her hand to her eyes, rubbing at them as she yawned. PixieColor, curled up on the bed beside her, opened one eye just long enough to chitter in annoyance at all of the noise. She stretched her other hand over enough to pet her pixietail, looking at Nellie the Elephant through narrowed eyes. "You are disgustingly cheerful this morning. What do you mean Orinoco has a plan, she was locked up in the study all day yesterday."
"Well, yes, but I took dinner up to her last night and we talked and now she's decided she needs to ride to all of the counties, to all the properties that the old nobles had and see if we can find any of them, or any mention of children that should be here to help her."
"We're here to help her," Wellington said, finally pulling herself out of the bed, now that she was certain there was no way she was getting back to sleep today. "But Orinoco is a big place, and we are here at the palace. All right. So Orinoco wants to ride throughout the realm? That - well, it will be interesting. And more fun than more cleaning!"
"I thought that's what you'd say," Nellie the Elephant said with a bright smile at her. "I even agree with you. So. I'm almost all packed, let's get your things done and then we can go see about Orinoco's bags. If she's going to be visiting the important people, she can't just have her travelling clothes!"
"No, of course she can't!" Wellington agreed, coming alert and intent on what needed to be done if they were going to get out of the castle any time soon. She wanted breakfast before they left, but first the packing. She wasn't going to bother dressing until after the packing was done, there wasn't much sense in it. Packed, dressed, turn PixieComb loose on her hair, breakfast somewhere in there, and then they could be out of the castle well before noon. "Orinoco has at least a mental map, right?"
"I think so? We can ask when she comes back up from the stables, and if not, we'll go find a real one," Nellie the Elephant said as she pulled open Wellington's closet door and started dragging out the saddlebags that had accompanied her to the castle the first time.
"Nellie the Elephant," Wellington said, patient and calm, "I can pack for myself. Will you please go track down breakfast?"
" - oh. That's what I haven't done yet, thank you, Wellington! Yes, of course. I'll be right back." Nellie the Elephant darted out of the room, her riotous auburn curls nearly wrapping around the door handle as she left. Wellington smiled wryly and shook her head just a little, then walked over to deal with deciding which skirts, bodices, and full gowns had to go with her.
"PixieColor, PixiePoo, come help me pack these," she called out, and both of them came to join her, darting around the clothes in quick circles before they started folding them up as tight and neat as they could. She gave her aid where she could, and before Nellie the Elephant came back through the door, they were done packing. She was almost dressed, PixieColor pulling the laces of her bodice tight, and she waved at Nellie the Elephant's reflection in her mirror.
"Yes, we're through packing, I've just got to get my hair finished," she said at Nellie the Elephant's expression, "and then I can come help you."
"Good. Breakfast will be in the kitchens by the time we're ready," her friend promised, and PixieComb darted over with her brush. Pixietail magic and nimble fingers combined to have her hair falling perfectly in mere moments, and Wellington glanced over her reflection in the mirror. She decided it was more than good enough, and followed Nellie the Elephant to Orinoco's room. If they left it to Orinoco, she'd go with just her sturdy travelling clothes and cloak - and thus leave entirely the wrong impression on anyone with power that they met - and they both knew it. She needed to have her best clothing with her, so that at least she could pull it out when needed.
"Bless pixietails," she said across a dress to Nellie the Elephant, "we'd never get the wrinkles this is going to cause out with just an iron."
"Perish the thought!" Nellie the Elephant said, shaking her head hard enough that PixieCurl flew out of her hair, chirping indignantly as she flew to perch on a corner of Orinoco's bed and preen her feathers back into place. PixieLocks, PixieComb, and PixieBeauty - all of whom had been observing from other places around the bedroom - chirped and chittered with laughter, and PixieCurl fluffed up her feathers as much as she could, cheeping indignantly at them.
"Perish what thought?" Orinoco's voice asked from the doorway. "Good morning, Wellington, did you sleep well?"
"Oh, Wellington was talking about trying to get wrinkles out without pixietails to help," Nellie the Elephant said cheerfully. "I'd rather not have to think about it, and told her so."
"I can understand tha - oh, dear ones, you didn't need to pack for me, I can get my own things together," Orinoco said, and Wellington looked over her shoulder at her.
"Of course you can, Orinoco. But you were doing other things, and breakfast wasn't ready yet. We'll be able to go sooner now that we've got almost everything packed. PixieBeauty thinks we've done well, don't you?"
"Wellix, yesix. Beautifullix," PixieBeauty nodded quick and repeated before she darted over to rub her cheek against Orinoco's. "Goodix, isix," she insisted, and Orinoco smiled.
"All right, I know when I'm outnumbered. Thank you, my friends. Did I smell breakfast as I came back inside?"
"Yes," Nellie the Elephant said, "you did. We just need to finish this last dress, and then we can get going. You do know where we're going, right?"
"I found the last map from my royal Mother's reign," Orinoco said, pulling out a leather tube from a previously-invisible slit in her skirts, "and it's in here. So yes, I know where we're going first."
"Good," Wellington said cheerfully. "Always a good thing."
"Yes," Orinoco agreed. "I've told SilkyMane, SatinTail, and SilverHooves where we're going, as well, and they seem excited."
"SatinTail and SilverHooves are taking Wellington and I?" Nellie the Elephant asked, smiling with delight. "Do they care who rides which of them?"
"I doubt it," Orinoco said, shaking her head just a little. Not enough to draw PixieSpine and PixieSparkle away from what they were doing, but enough to say that she really didn't think so.
"Oh, good," Wellington said as she and Nellie the Elephant tucked that last dress into her saddlebag and closed it up. "There. We're all packed."
"Wonderful. PixieBeauty, will you help the others take our bags down to the stables?"
"Yesix, willix," PixieBeauty said, her voice as brightly cheerful as always as the several pixietails in the room hooked claws and talons into the straps of the bags and began to fly off with them.
Wellington and Nellie the Elephant spoke in nearly the same breath, "Breakfast now!" as Orinoco's eyes followed the pixietails, and Orinoco's eyes snapped back to them, her eyes dancing with amused laughter as she nodded.
"Yes, dear friends, yes," Orinoco agreed, and she closed the door to her bedroom with a smile once they were headed down the hall. She would be back to her castle soon enough, but right now she had a beautiful day, the best company anyone could ask for, and a wide-open (if somewhat battered and worse for wear) road to travel on her quest.
She knew there would be trouble ahead, RavenWaves was always lurking somewhere and ruling was rarely as simple as it appeared to be, but with her friends beside her, she could get through anything.