Finley Cai Aies Hall May 5th,20XX

My frustrated fiancée occasionally looked at me with a pitying glance, like one would look at a child that had broken a very important artifact and had no idea what they had done, while she rifled through the large stack of papers on the desk. Every so often as well she would mumble a quiet curse word that she thought I couldn’t hear while she read through the reports of the work that Esmeralda had been handling.

I ignored both the looks and the swearing that grew more and more aggressive as time passed and continued to study the notes on Esmeralda’s spell Mei had gotten from her friend. A mountain of textbooks surrounded me as there were a lot of sophisticated theories behind it that I had yet to learn and was even further from understanding. Things would have gone a lot faster if I would have talked with the original owner of the spell or at least Mei’s friend who had unravelled it but when I had mentioned it her face had turned to stone and made it clear that it wasn’t an option, although I wasn’t sure why.

It didn’t matter though because I would get to meet them eventually, both because Mei had listed them amongst those who would be rewarded for helping her earlier as well as because Mei was trying to find a natural time to bring up that she wanted to establish them into the official cabinet of the palace, similar to Corin and Cambridge’s current roles.

I wasn’t sure if she intended to swear them in as official Aides but I made a note to get to researching the different types of bonds. Esmeralda had been my mother’s aide in specific while Corin and Cambridge had been sworn to the throne. Although they were similar their restrictions and benefits were very different.

The two sisters were also planning out a way to tell me that they would soon head into ‘rest’ but since they didn’t seem too rushed about it I didn’t bring it up. There was also the fact that I had no intention of shortening the wait time by letting them think I was prepared for them to leave me or was even aware of the probability.

Mei was currently in official ‘training’ to be the queen, a process that was actually pretty overdue since we had already held an engagement party. The training was only glamorous in concept though as it was really just a lot of studying and paperwork that I had gathered Mei wasn’t a fan of.

I had considered offering to help out but since I didn’t imagine myself regularly helping out in the future I didn’t bother. It was rather selfish of me but I honestly had enough responsibilities to deal as things were and I didn’t know what I would have to do when Theodulus finally decided I was presentable enough to be brought to the goblins.

The main reason for my reluctance to offer my aid was the fact that all that she had to learn was dreadfully boring and the follow up to the knowledge were all bothersome meetings and decisions.

Esmeralda had forced me to cram most of it before and I had always ended up switching with Cai out of a sense of self-preservation.

Still, the origins of all the work that was suddenly piled up on the desk were a bit hard to place since unlike Mei’s apparent view of me I did have a decent grasp on how the queendom worked. Even if there was a sudden lack of personnel to handle things it wasn’t like the queendom was in wartime or any other sort of extraordinary situation that would make running the kingdom any more complex than running her duchy.

I wasn’t so dull as to imagine that they were the same but there should have been more than enough cross over to make the transition easier.

There were just too many things in the air right now that I hadn’t gotten answers on but also wasn’t allowed to take initiative on.

Esmeralda, for all her misdeeds, had been my teacher, and primary caretaker and handled a lot of things outside of the ‘queen’ role she took up. There was also the fact that she had been in charge of my transports and other technology. If it ever broke apart or malfunctioned I didn’t think I felt too confident in giving someone else all my information and making it so easy to find me in the human world.

There was also the concern that I wasn’t sure who would now take up those roles in her place, and if I would be able to get along with them. There was also the pesky matter of Askeli, who regularly sent letters to the palace inquiring about his future appointment as my aide.

No matter how much I thought about it I couldn’t see myself wriggling my way out of letting him take the role, and even though I found him distasteful I couldn’t deny that he was very accomplished for his role in this society.

A bonus would be that he could act as a substitute ‘me’ for any social pleasantries that I might be forced to attend in the future.

Although things seemed to be all good and peaceful now that I had gotten rid of the green fairy I couldn’t dismiss the human world as my primary safe place to flee too, with Theodulus as the final last resort evacuation point. Although it wasn’t like I even knew where he really was.

At first, I had thought he just lived in the closed-off goblin realm but at one point I had tried to get to where he was with a spare transporter. I had copied down the location information digit by digit and had even layered the device with a locating spell but it was like it just didn’t exist.

Beyond it just not being accessible the transporter would often land me to odd places that sometimes led to some pretty sticky situations. Not that I would ever tell anyone about my little escapades.

Another thing I had discovered about myself though was my interest in modifying the technology of the human world and the fairy world. It wasn’t anything super complex so far, and all I had managed to get was a shaky connection between earth and the fairy world since I still wasn’t very sure about where exactly the fairy world was in relation to the human world.

Since I had been stuck here the whole day I had taken the opportunity to get to working on strengthening the connection between the two worlds and had even taken the phone apart and put it together more than a few times, trying to figure out if I could somehow merge it with my transporter so I wouldn’t have to carry both devices separately but it didn’t seem like I would get very far with that unless I found a proper technical expert and introduced them to a fairy engineer.

Self-study could only go so far after all.

Mei slammed another booklet closed, a minor habit that even she didn’t seem to notice she had and put the book aside. Instead of reaching for the next she just stared into blank space, apparently trying to clear her mind.

“Mei, are you okay?”

Once again I fought off the irresponsible ’sense of obligation’ to offer my help and instead tried to find some words of comfort or at least something to make her laugh. But I had never once in my life been considered a funny character and I doubted now was the best time to attempt a debut as one.

The general snapped out of it and sent me a strained smile that was only vaguely more terrifying than I was sure she intended.

“Of course I'm fine-“

She then paused and pursed her lips into a thin line, her brows furrowed as well as she contemplated whatever had crossed her mind but as quickly as it came it passed and her features relaxed.

“Well, I'm frustrated. To speak metaphorically it feels like I’m starting a huge war campaign without so much as a general to show me the way. I can’t be sure if my army is my army and if my authority could reach them even if they were.”

I was thrown off guard by her sudden frankness and had to discard my half-plotted speech of ‘I can't be much help but I’ll support you as much I can’ in favour of coming up with a proper response.

“Ah- ah well. For what it's worth Mei, I'm sure you will be a great queen. While I admittedly haven’t met a lot of fairies the ones I have met couldn’t hold a candle to you.”

It was a weak response and even as I said it, I knew I wouldn’t be of any help. I also had to forcefully ignore a mocking criticism from Cai and even Aies, who usually stayed quiet while I was in the Fairyland chimed in but there was nothing else I could say.

Mei, who was already entering the royal family under strange circumstances was now virtually undertaking the whole thing on her own. It wasn’t like there wasn’t a precedence to marrying a daughter into the royal family, but in that case, the woman that had married in had been supported by the Queen’s full staff as well as the prince she had married.

As much as I wished otherwise, I knew I couldn’t give her as much help as she needed and my mother, being as headstrong as the textbooks showed me she was had trimmed down her staff from the usual number of ten to three. One of which turned out to be a psychopath that wanted to kill me and the other two, as much as they wanted to help, had a lot of responsibilities of their own.

She managed to get out a grateful smile, although I couldn’t attest to its genuinely and got back to work with renewed vigour although the occasional not-so-quiet swear words still slipped out every once in a whole and after finalizing each booklet she would still slam them shut.

Even as I continually debated internally with myself I already found myself tidying up my study materials and walking towards her desk, pretending not to notice the wary glances she shot me as I did so.

I flipped through a few unprocessed documents in an attempt to locate the least hostile stack. Amongst the many things I had been forced to cram over the past few months, there were a few that I had a good enough grasp on to make solid choices.

“Let’s stay away from foreign affairs. Queendom Economics is… not gonna happen. The military, I don’t think I’ve ever been the machoistic type. Staff management… maybe if I can’t find anything else. Castle administration?”

The general, who I had thought was completely lost in her work suddenly chimed in with an explanation to my mutterings.

“It is the running and operation of the castle. Its usually managed to the queen’s aide but in light of past events I was thinking of handling it myself.”

I thought it through and flipped through a few of the top to try to get a feel of the topic. Feeling more and more confident as I did so.

“It's pretty much just household management isn’t it? Take care of the staffing and the budget right? How about I take it off your-?”

“That would be excellent your highness. I would have needed your input on a lot of these things anyway.”

The instant response and odd smile that played on her face threw me off guard but before I could confirm it was replaced with a genuine smile and her eyes brightened for perhaps the first time that day. Something was off and it was probably at my expense but I had already made my choice.

I made to grab the stack and move it over to my desk but Mei had already got up and pulled a chair closer to the table, simultaneously clearing up space for me to work by moving the completed documents to another table.

She hadn’t asked so I couldn’t reject and had to awkwardly stand around as I debated the probabilities of successfully pretending not to notice and just going back to my desk on the other side of the room.

Not to say that I was uncomfortable around her but she usually spent more time with Cai than me.

“Not an excuse. You see and feel everything that I do, even if you don’t acknowledge it.”

The obnoxious voice of my alternate personality echoed in my mind for the first time in a while and almost made me verbally respond but thankfully I got a good grasp of my surroundings and refrained.

“You aren’t going to sit? There is quite a lot to get through.”

“As hesitant as I am to interrupt your time with Mei I'm afraid we will have to put it on hold. The taggers I put on Sparrow just activated. But it's weird. Like she is definitely in this world but nowhere in the Queendom and I can’t find a tagging mark on anyone else that matches the one I put in Not to alarm you but that shouldn’t be possible unless she somehow came here on her own or if the person that took her was skillful enough to notice the tag we put on and removed it completely... it's unlikely but we need to make sure she okay.”

My heart dropped to my feet and I dropped the stack of papers like a sack of bricks, despite them not being that heavy, and took off towards my bag. I grabbed for the transporter on the table and prepared took off, too frazzled to even notice my fiancée’s confused expression. It was only a moment of clarity that convinced me to calm down and put on as calm of a smile as I could.

“Something came up so I have to go but I should be back soon.”

She looked at me blankly for a few seconds then sat back down at her desk, seemingly moving very slowly despite her decent speed.

“Till the day ends.”

Her tone was very heavy, a tad too heavy for the occasion since it wasn’t the first time I had made to disappear to the human world. Maybe she was mad about me abandoning the work that I volunteered to do?

“What? Ah, don’t worry about the paperwork, I’ll definitely get it done.”

The look from earlier, like one, would give to a blind puppy made a valiant return but I couldn’t even calm down enough to get mad about it.

“Your highness. I know that you feel like you can’t tell me what’s going on and I'm not going to ask but at the same time this makes me uneasy. If you don’t return to the castle by the end of the day then I will assume you managed to get yourself in a situation that you cannot escape and will some save you myself.”

I choked out an awkward laugh, not wanting to end things on such a heavy note and also wanting to put her mind at ease. It wasn’t like I was planning on doing anything dangerous or whatever she had in mind.

“Ahaha. Ha. Its really nothing big Mei, I just made a promise and forgot about it till now. It's for a pretty close friend so I don’t want to let them-… down. I don’t want to let them down.”

Despite my choking on my own words as I attempted to have her believe me she had already returned to her desk. Her hands deftly flipped through the paperwork and she maintained a plain expression on her face and didn’t look up to even meet my gaze.

“The day grows shorter your highness. It would save me a lot of trouble if you were already here by the time it ended.”