LUNADAY GNOME-DECAN 42, ND2021

"This is absurd!"

A split second of silence follows the outburst. Then:

"Hear!"

"Hear!"

"Absolutely!"

Buoyed by the agreement, the tufty-eyebrowed gentleman continues with his interruption. There's no trace of the lethargy he'd appeared to have been plagued with yesterday. No, his mustache is bristling with indignation and his jowls are quivering in protest as he rises from his chair. It would be quite an impressive picture, were he not about the same height standing as he was sitting.

"In all my twenty-five years as an esteemed consultant and trusted advisor to three different Grand Maestros, I have never heard a proposal as sacrilegious and outright absurd as yours. It is logically unsound, Duke Gardios, completely unsound!"

One doesn't need to know Duke Gardios very well – one doesn't need to know Duke Gardios at all, really – to know that he's furious. Natalia's furious too (and okay, maybe she's mostly offended on his behalf, because she knows how long and how hard he's worked on this proposal) but before she can even take a breath, a clear, cool voice has already cut above the din of greasy nobles patting each other on the back in agreement.

"I can see why you would consider the reinstatement of Hod as a secular and politically neutral territory to be absurd. After all, the merchants on your retainer thrive on selling weaponry and armour. Your value would be rather worthless should peace finally come about between our nations."

Almost to the letter, those were the exact points Natalia had been about to hit. She, like everyone else in the room, turns to see who the speaker is. With some surprise, she recognizes the young woman who had arrived at the castle in the same carriage as Lord Tufty Eyebrows the day before last. Natalia had assumed her to be his mistress or something equally delicate of nature, but judging from the way his face is less apoplectic than expected, her social status is probably comparable to his.

The room is silent for a beat, before Natalia clears her throat. "You may continue, Duke Gardios."

Struggling to regain his composure, Guy shoots her a grateful glance and looks to the Emperor for his permission as well. Peony's eyes are narrow and quick, studying everyone in the room. He nods to Guy, still appraising the reaction from the rest of the nobles.

Guy forces his gaze to return to his paper. Shuffling them awkwardly, he searches for his place. He hadn't intended to deviate from his speech, but he had gotten carried away by how badly he wanted this proposal to go through. Resolving not to pepper his speech with any more adlibs, he takes a brief swig from his glass of water and clears his throat. He's embarrassed – this isn't going as smoothly as he'd have liked, not to mention he's started to develop a reputation for instigating uncivilized chaos during this conference.

As he continues his speech, eyes fixed firmly on the papers in front of him, Natalia focuses on the woman who'd spoken out (he's rehearsed this speech nearly three times in front of her anyway, it's not like she really needs to pay attention) and sizes her up, from the gaudy jewelry to the obnoxious gown. She's paying rapt attention to Guy, Natalia notes, and is studiously avoiding Lord Tufty's rather intent gaze.

There's something odd about her, Natalia thinks, but she doesn't want to be ungracious and certainly not unkind (most unbefitting for a princess! her manners tutor would say), so she dampens her judgmental thoughts and tries to pay attention to Guy. Not that it's difficult to pay attention to him; as unrefined as he may be when it comes to the art of speaking, there's a captivating quality about him that Natalia appreciates. Too few of the other nobles possess that same easy charisma, which makes her glance out the window again, depressed to see that the sun hasn't budged a single inch from its position in the sky.

It'll be a long few days, trapped in this room.

"Well! If it isn't our fledgling political negotiator himself."

Guy drops the shrimp he'd been about to eat.

"Emperor!"

"Oh, get up, get up. I don't know why you insist on bowing like a fool every time you see me."

Guy chooses not to mention the fact that the Emperor had ordered him to do so – he's finding it pretty fun now anyway, and he spent too much time practicing the elaborate footwork and fancy hand gestures to let it go to waste – choosing instead to smile and inquire, "To what do I owe the honour?"

"I just decided to stop by and note the fact that my favourite young members of the peerage seem to be making quite a number of waves at this year's conference."

Guy notices the two women standing alongside the Emperor for the first time.

Ah, he thinks, I should probably be a little more concerned that Emperor Peony is bringing two alarmingly intelligent women my way. Especially since one of them looks like she's about to collapse from the sheer effort required to stifle the mirth my bow brought about, and the other one looks like she's about to encroach on my personal space.

"Duke Gardios," the latter says with a smile. Guy doesn't know her, but he's already nervous from the way her body language seems to be angling her closer towards him.

On the Emperor's other side, the former simply purses her lips in an attempt to swallow her laughter. Guy knows that look well. There's a hint of deviousness, a trace of anticipation. He's just glad Natalia's eyes aren't narrowing the way they used to when they were younger and he was "her" servant, or else he'd have already been running away by now.

"May I introduce Lady Luske? And of course you already know Her Highness Princess Natalia." The Emperor touches their shoulders briefly, then abruptly turns and runs off. Probably to ruin Jade's appetite, Natalia guesses.

Guy watches him go with a look of dismay that has less to do with his desire to get the Emperor's honest opinion on his proposal and everything to do with the two females who have just now stepped a little too close to him.

Faced with no other choice, he smiles back at the two ladies politely, rigidly planting his feet into the ground instead of backing away instinctively. "You Highness," he nods to Natalia. And to the young woman who had spoken up for him earlier, "It's a pleasure to finally be introduced, Lady Luske."

"The pleasure's all mine, Duke Gardios."

Natalia decides she doesn't like the way the timbre of Lady Luske's voice has lowered ever so subtly. She also doesn't like the way Luske holds out her hand, presumably so Guy can kiss it.

As her hand gets closer and closer to his bubble of personal space, Guy can feel his panic level rising. Trying not to let his eyes dart wildly back and forth, he starts coughing and turns his back to them, hoping both women will disappear before he stops pretending to hack up a lung.

"Oh! Are you alright?"

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees a pale, delicately gloved hand on his shoulder. Freezing up, his mind goes blank and he wills his body not to try to throw itself out the window.

"Lady Luske! Oh, isn't this shrimp just the most enormous thing you've ever seen? Dear me! Its size is almost vulgar!"

The heavy, heavy pressure of her impossibly light touch is lifted, and Guy's breath returns in a gasp that sends him into an actual coughing fit. By the time he's done gasping for air, he has bemusedly noted Natalia and Lady Luske making strained small talk a blessed four whole feet away from him. Luske looks as though she would rather be discussing anything other than the shrimp Natalia is waving under her nose.

Then the two of them dart glances towards him at the same time. Suspicious, he makes a show of fumbling for his handkerchief, eyeing them warily. Now they're laughing, and he tells himself this is no time to notice the way Natalia's eyes are flashing green and blue and yellow as the light catches them at different angles.

"He's really just a delicate, delicate man. Such a weak constitution. Weak stamina, too. Just a dreadfully weak man." He recognizes that stuffy tone of hers, the one she affects when she's secretly making fun of everyone she's talking to.

"Oh my! Your Highness, your sense of humour is... reckless."

Guy has a sinking feeling they're talking about him, and he puffs out his chest as best as he can before returning to stand beside Natalia. She sees this, of course, and this time he can't help noticing the mirth sparkling in her eyes and the unabashed laughter dancing across her face.

The conversation has died, further convincing him that they'd been talking about him, but nowboth women are appraising him in a way that worries him even more (although truth be told, he can't honestly say that he dislikes the way Natalia's looking him over).

"Princess," he says, somewhat nervously, "I do apologize. Swallowed a bit of dust."

"No harm done, Duke Gardios," she replies cheerfully. "We were discussing... the maintenance of our castle. You were quite correct, Lady Luske. Our castle is positively filthywith dust and dirt and other undesirables. I assure you, we will rectify the situation immediately."

With that, Lady Luske is taken aback, and opens her mouth to reassure the princess that she would neversay anything as rude as that! but Natalia has already started giggling, and Guy just knows that Natalia is a bald-faced liar with no shame whatsoever. He shoots her a quick little glare, only to be met with a guileless face staring back at him, innocent and polite. Until the tip of her tongue pokes out of the corner of her mouth and then, as quick as lightning, disappears. It happens so fast that he's almost convinced that he imagined it.

He clears his throat carefully. "So, Lady Luske. I understand you are acquainted with Lord Duftey."

Luske gives a little laugh and begins fingering the necklace at her throat, drawing his attention to the curious little scar on her collarbone. "One might say that, yes. He's my uncle."

Guy blinks, fascinated. "I never imagined... by blood? But... there's no resemblance."

Luske gives a tinklingly full laugh this time. "Oh no! Duke Gardios, your sense of humour is almost as carefree as Princess Natalia's!"

Ohhhh nohhhh, Natalia mimicks in her mind. Duke Gaaaaardiooos, stoooop itttt. You're so baaaaad. She's being bitter and dreadful and she knows it, but she's glad the other two don't seem to know it. Yet. She joins in on the laughter, albeit forcedly. She supposes she'd be more interested in this topic of conversation if she knew who Lord Duftey was.

Not knowing names is something that she's used to. The sheer number of people paraded before the princess of Kimlasca is an impossible number of faces to memorize, and she's long since accepted the fact that the balance of knowledge is usually tipped in favour of random strangers rather than her.

Guy, however, is taking to his dukedom rather well. Rather eagerly, as a matter of fact. He's diving headfirst into mastering the mindless chit-chat, associating names with faces, learning all about the sordid histories and scandals tied to each different person. She's never seen him like this before, gossiping busily about people he doesn't know with people he doesn't know, but it's kind of... cute. He's trying so hard.

Dinner is a quiet affair, tonight, nothing like the rushed meal they had in the midst of the bustling kitchen last night. Guy had protested vehemently at first, not liking the prospect of yet more gossip about the scandalous notion of them escaping, yet again, from the formal decorum of the banquet hall. Tonight, they've found solace in the princess' bedchambers. (Well, the princess has found solace. Guy has found a mildly nauseating sense of nervousness he never knew he possessed.)

At any rate, his unease isn't being helped by the... "chaperone"... he'd insisted upon. She'd called him a fuddy-duddy for suggesting they bring one along, and he would've been more amused about that had he not been absolutely serious. To the chagrin of both Natalia and Guy, however, someone had been eavesdropping on their quiet conversation in the corner of the room.

Which is why Anise is pawing through my things right now, Natalia thinks sourly.

It's worth it, though, she supposes, because Guy's face is even redder than it would have been had Anise not tagged along and ended up in her room with them, commenting loudly on her bedsheets and scents and undergarments.

The last thing he wants is to be there, and he knows it's written all over his face. Aside from Anise's baiting remarks, the two of them are quiet and the atmosphere is stilted. They pick at their food listlessly, refusing to give Anise any more enjoyment than she's already extracted.

A crow of – triumph? – is suddenly heard. They look up apprehensively.

"Has somebody been helping somebody elsewith their appeal for Hod's reinstatement?" Anise waves the stack of crumpled papers.

Guy and Natalia glance at each other quickly. To her extreme annoyance, she feels her face beginning to flush. "I- I was just lending him an ear."

"And a space to... rehearse?" Anise leers.

Annoyed, Natalia snaps, "Oh, sit down and stop acting like a child, Anise."

Unruffled, Anise makes a big production out of her intent to settle herself comfortably in between the two. Looking from one to the other expectantly, it's as if she thinks they'll try to hold hands behind her back, or start a snogging session right above her head with her squashed in the middle.

In unison, Guy and Natalia scoot themselves a little bit away from her and even more away from each other. Anise smirks.

They sit in silence for a little bit, with Guy and Natalia still moving their food around on their plates aimlessly, as she peruses the stack of papers. Finally, she breaks the silence.

"So what did your dad say about this?" she asks Natalia.

Natalia shrugged. "I haven't had a chance to discuss it with him yet."

"You would if we had gone down to dinner like everyone else," Guy grumbles under his breath.

The two girls exchange a look with each other.

"But you wouldn't want Natalia to influence her father's opinion on your behalf, would you?" Anise asks. "That's hardly a noble thing to do, using your relationshipwith his daughter like that."

Natalia chooses to ignore that, and instead agrees, "That's not the way you wanted to do this, is it?"

Sullenly, Guy looks from the one smug face to the other serious face. "I suppose," he says begrudgingly.

He chews on his food for a bit, thinking, then concedes, "Yeah, you're right. I want Hod to be restored because people can actually see the benefits for themselves."

He picks at his food a little more.

"Not that they do, I guess, since my speech was a bit of a fiasco."

Natalia's been watching him carefully. He looks up and right at her, as if he knew she'd been staring at him.

"There's always next year," he smiles, a little wanly.

"Hold on. They're going to discuss everything later on, people are going to speak their minds, decisions will actually be made sometime near the end of this conference. It's only the second day, Guy, you can't just give up like that."

He's not cheered up, exactly, but he is somewhat amused by the stern tone of her voice. He smiles at her for a bit, appreciating her effort to cheer him up. She still looks stern, but there's no hardness in her expression anymore – in fact, her frown is positively melting away.

"Yeah!"

Natalia flinches, and Guy knows that he wasn't the only one who momentarily forgot about their little chaperone.

"Yeah," Anise says again, bright and chipper as always, "you still have a few days left before you find out it's been rejected!"

"Anise!"

"What?" she says. "Let's be honest, princess, it wasn't great."

Feeling his eyes boring into her, Natalia looks determinedly at a point between Guy's right ear and his shoulder. "Well, it was very good for his first time," she says loyally.

"I'll bet it was!" Anise cackles.

Natalia pauses for a second, missing the joke. As it clicks into place, her face contorts.

"Alright," she says, getting up. "That's enough fun for you. Isn't it past your bedtime?"

Turning a deaf ear to the loud squawks and indignant objections, Natalia firmly tugs on Anise's arm and unceremoniously dumps her on the hallway floor. She makes to close the door.

"Hang on, I didn't even tell you what Emperor Peony thought of it yet!"

In a flash, Guy's standing right behind Natalia, preventing her from closing the door on Anise. "What?" he asks eagerly, "He's been talking about my proposal? What'd he say?"

Shaking her head, Natalia lets Anise back into her room. Pointedly, she remains standing next to the door, watching the other two plop back down on the floor in the center of the room with her arms crossed and eyes narrowed.

"Well, he didn't think it was very good either."

At the fed-up looks from both Natalia and Guy, Anise hurriedly continues. Maybe she noticed Guy's clenching jaw, or maybe it's the rather large vein throbbing at Natalia's temple. (To be honest, the muscles popping out of the side of Guy's face are a lot more frightening than Natalia's pulsing vein. The vein's been around for a few years now, and despite its alarming size, it hasn't yet burst. The muscles? Are new.)

"He does think that you've brought up a few good points, and maybe you just need a little more work on your presentation skills. Or something like that."

"See, I've been saying that all along," Natalia says, encouragingly. She'd given up tapping her feet, and joins the two on the plush rug.

Guy nods glumly. "Plenty of time for practice in a year."

Anise shrugs. "It's not impossible. This year, I mean. But he said the only way you'd get people to support you when it comes time to making an actual decision is if you rub shoulders before then. Connections, you know. A lot of them."

"Hang on," Guy says suddenly. "How do youknow? I thought you were supposed to be with the Daath delegation the whole time."

Natalia laughs. "Was it Jade?"

"You've seen him running around, insulting all the bigwigs who're too dumb to know they've even been insulted. He's been hearing stuff," Anise smirks.

"I was in the middle of talking to one of our generals when Jade came over and completely baffled the guy with all those quick and slick words of his. It's a good thing General Roly-Poly's too thick to understand what was being said about the way our navy's managing its funds, or there would've been a war started right there," Natalia says.

The girls are laughing as they delve into the various antics and enormous leeway granted to Jade, but Guy's too busy mulling over the Emperor's words. It wasn't as though the thought hadn't already occurred to him – of course it had – but there was something repulsive about the concept of political machinations that he hadn't yet gotten used to. Meeting new people was fine, and in truth he rather enjoyed it, but approaching them with an agenda? If his presentation skills were being called into question, he'd hate to hear the jabs about his obvious finagling.

"Hey! You in there?"

He looks up to see Anise's hand being waved two inches under his nose. Yelping, he scoots back violently. He loses his balance and falls onto his back, only to get caught again when he tries to right himself as the hook on his belt gets entangled in the long hairs of the rug. Red-faced and ashamed, not to mention frustrated and embarrassed, he pulls himself out of the rug with more force than necessary, almost toppling again as he stands.

"Whoops," Anise says.

With a pinched face, Natalia stands as well. Looking up at their displeased faces, Anise sighs and pouts, looking far younger than her teenaged years.

"Alright," she grumbles, "good night."

She sees herself out, but pauses as she pulls the door shut. Turning back, she hides half of her face as she sizes up the mood in the room. Deciding that there was enough room for one last joke before she left, she announces, "I'm leaving, kids. Remember, don't do anything that I wouldn't d–"

The sheer force of the thrown pillow closes the door in her face. Rubbing her nose in annoyance, she presses her ear to the door in time to hear the lock slide into place, and then the muffled sound of conversation starting up.

She grins, then starts walking away with a bounce in her step. Natalia threw a pillow, instead of that big ol' heavy vase right next to it, so she wasn't too mad. It'd all blow over tomorrow. In fact, she'd go... "apologize" to Guy first thing in the morning.

Her grin stretches wider.

If he wasn't even in his room first thing tomorrow morning, he was probably still in Natalia's room and, well, then it was time to collect on some, ah, wagering bonuses. And if he wasin his room without a single scratch anywhere on his body, she could proudly claim to be an effective chaperone. And then Jade would definitely owe her some money.

She loves win-win situations.