Chapter 4 Royal Expectations

❄ Snow ❄

The party had finished. Snow was returning to her room to finally get some sleep when she heard noise coming from Lilly’s room. “Look at this Lussuria!” She stopped in front of the white wooden door that had a picture of a flower etched onto its front. Hearing her sisters inside, Snow took a peek. Lilly was on the floor going through her pile of gifts while Lussuria was seated on a chair near the bed reading a book. Gravis was also here, leaning against a wall, staring ahead in thought.

“Hey girls.” Snow entered.

“oh hey, what's up Snow.” Gravis greeted her. Lilly was too busy digging through her pile, squealing happily at anything cute and tossing aside anything that looked boring. Lussuria was nose deep in her book and not paying any mind.

Snow took a seat at the foot of Lilly’s bed holding onto the bed post.

“Did you girls get anything good?” Considering they all had a huge pile of gifts during the reception, probably.

“Nay, just a bunch of ceremonial junk weapons and practice tools. Oh and a combat book, but I had already read that one. I did get to speak to some high ranking knights from the Mountaineer Republic. We spoke about the state of armies and such. Interesting stuff but nothing too important.” Gravis shrugged.

“Well, I got a bunch of new toys! Clearly, I’m everyone’s favorite!” Lilly shouted, pulling out a large model coach from the pile that made her fall backwards.

“I think the one that should have benefitted the most was Lussuria: she received offers from 3 different mage guild representatives for a generous starting rank, and yet she rejected them all.” Gravis nodded towards Lussuria.

“I told you, those offers mean nothing to me.” Lussuria quickly replied and went back to her book, her eyes refusing to leave the pages.

“Really? Is that why you were complaining about the Regalia’s Magi refusing to promote you to Astute rank after you aced every examination?” Gravis called her out.

“That’s different, okay? The only reason why I need to be promoted is to get access to more information, I shouldn’t need to leave Regalia for that. I bet they are scared of getting embarrassed by their lack of ability, which I ensure happens every single test or demonstration.” Lussuria looked annoyed.

“Are you going to put that book down?”

“No, It’s a good read.”

“A good read? Is that why you’ve been on the same page for over a minute?”

Gravis shook her head.

“Lussuria, you seriously can't still be mad at Snow, right? She didn’t do anything wrong.”

Snow was stood up in confusion,

“Wait, What? Mad at me? What did I do!?”

“Nothing. Don’t worry about it.”

“I don’t get it; you get offers from mage guilds and golden game boards and all I got was an outfit from Lazarus.” Snow saw Lussuria’s face tighten up at the mention of Lazarus. That’s when she realized it. Lussuria was a big fan of Lazarus’ clothing lines. Was she mad because of the outfit?

“Wait, are you seriously mad because Lazarus sought an audience with me and made me an outfit?!”

Lussuria closed her book and exhaled. “The great designer Lazarus Rene and you didn’t even get him to make me an outfit, let alone talk to me. Just look at yourself, you got the best gift here! That outfit is better than anything I have.” She pouted in jealousy.

“I tried to get him to go to you! He said he wasn’t interested!”

“Not interested? Wow!” Lussuria looked away and then got up.

“That’s - not what I meant. He just didn’t- “

“Unbelievable.” Lussuria stormed past Snow, stopping to get one more appreciative look at the outfit and then continued out of the room.

Lilly got up, noticing Lussuria was gone, “Wait, Lussuria come back!” Lilly ran out after her.

“I can't believe she's mad at something so stupid like that! She got a million gifts at this reception and she's mad because of one outfit; it’s the only thing I got!”

“I wouldn’t worry about Snow. Lussuria is just a Lazarus fan girl when it comes to his clothes. Serves her right, too entitled for her own good. It looks really regal on you, way more prestigious than before; you’ll be the center of attention at the next event.” Gravis winked.

“Thanks, but I’d rather not go through any more parties, they suck.”

“You can say that again.”

The next day Snow was summoned to her mother’s chambers. Hopefully, this was for something unimportant. Upon raised knuckle to the large intimidating door, she heard her mother call from within.

“Come in!” Seems her mother knew she was already there. After a deep breath Snow pushed into the door entering the grand room. The room was large with light blue tiles and floor to ceiling windows on each side. For a room of this size it held little furniture: A king sized bed, dressers, wall mirror, a magical runecraft table in the corner and a large oak desk in the center of the room which her mother was seated behind. The desk had towering piles of paper stacked on top of it. As Snow approached the desk, her mother’s face came into view. “Hello mother, you called for me?”

“Yes, I did, one moment.” Her mother was in the middle of reading a long letter.

Snow’s eyes panned over the desk at each of the stacks of paper. There were letters, scrolls and number sheets each in their own piles, it may have looked like a mess but Snow could tell it was neatly organized in a way perhaps only her mother could truly understand. “What are all these papers mother?”

Her mother sucked her teeth still reading the letter she was on. “One thousand silver for each crate of iron!? Might as well grab a pickaxe myself. Damned Republic.” She crushed the letter and tossed it at the floor next to her where there was another pile growing, this one full of other crushed missives. She picked up the next letter.

“To answer your question, what you are looking at is the reason for this event in the first place, these papers contain various trade deals, inventory requests, pricings, complaints, and a variety of other nonsense that you should be grateful to not have to deal with yet.” Her mother looked stressed, no... she looked annoyed.

There must have been hundreds of those documents.

“You are pretty swamped then; you do this all by yourself mother?”

“I’ve been teaching Gravis how to answer some and she’s been taking care of the less significant ones, but mostly me yes. Which brings me to my next point. Look outside that window.” She pointed to the tall glass window off to the side of the room.

Snow approached the window and took in the sight. She didn’t see anything special, just an uninterrupted view of the Regalian Kingdom and its newly built districts.

“What do you see?”

“Just the city.”

“Well, I guess it’s not about what you see, it's more about what you don’t see. Regalia has no significant source of natural resources. We don’t have mountains full of ore, forests full of trees, large plantations that grow food year round. We are essentially in the middle of nowhere, yet we are very prosperous. Do you know why that is?”

“Let me guess, it has something to do with the millions of papers on your desk?”

“Precisely. As a central kingdom with no natural resources, we survive on trade, as well as government owned guilds like the construction guild.”

Snow didn’t know she came here to be lectured on the sources of Regalian income. A light began hitting her eyes from the left. Her gaze shifted off the panes of glass to the source which was an icy sword that laid on the runic table surrounded by tomes. Sneaking up to it and getting a closer look, the sword seemed to be alive; Ice was growing and shrinking around the blade while the handle was morphing into different shapes.

“Snow are you listening?!” her mother seemed to realize she kinda stopped listening.

“uh yes! yes mother! We don’t have rocks or trees, however considering the amount of papers that are present I would say we had quite the easy access to woodland, say mom what is this sword it looks kind of cool.” Snow was about to touch the icy weapon.

“Do not touch that sword unless you want to lose a hand.”

“Geez okay mom, it’s not that serious.” She retracted her hand.

“Not by me, that sword is a self-shaping frostblade that I've been working on for a while. I was going to give it to Gravis but it has issues, it impales anyone that touches it. I was going to have Warden Flora take a look at its properties to see if she could tell me what's wrong with it. Here, come sit next to me.” She motioned her head to a chair that was right next to her on the side of the desk to which Snow took a seat on.

“My point is that we survive on these trade deals. We may hold the land and the frost blood gives us the power to defend it, but to have a prosperous kingdom, not just our city but the rest of the country, depends on us being able to have monetary flexibility. The strength of our coin must be able to tackle any outstanding issues that our military cannot. Lord Lazarus is not only a famous designer, do you know he holds a Mountaineer Council seat?”

“No, I didn’t.”

“What is your opinion of him?”

“He’s uh...” she didn’t know how exactly to describe him. “He seems nice and he’s kind of similar to me; he did ask me some weird questions while painting my portrait but he’s okay. He also made me these really nice clothes.”

“He painted your portrait? Hmm... never mind that. Did he mention anything related to their politics or opinion of us?”

Snow thought back, but she didn’t recall anything like that.

“No, he was just asking questions about me. Nothing important.”

Her mother tapped a quill on her lips, thinking deeply, before replying.

“Lazarus has taken some interest in you and it just so happens that we might need his support. So, I would like you to continue your interactions with him if he requests it.”

“Sure, mom I can do that.”

“Good, now to my second point. That stable boy Randal; Brutus told me you had something to say about that?” Snow guessed this was the part where Brutus had said to ‘take it up with her mother.’ She figured she might as well as be direct.

“Yeah, I would like to talk to Randal without having the need to hide it.”

Her mother moved on to the next letter and was writing a reply for it.

“Are you in a relationship with him?” She asked as if that was an answer that would just be given casually.

“What? No! He’s just my friend and I want to be able to speak to him.” Snow twiddled her fingers, face growing ablushed.

“Then I don’t want you associating with him.”

“But why? How is that fair!” Snow couldn’t believe it, Randal was like her only friend, they knew each other since before they could speak complete sentences. He was the only one who she felt normal around.

“His father is wanted by the Mountaineer Republic, Windram has a rough history with them. His presence here has just been leaked to them. I am already doing the best I can by granting him asylum, now officially, but associating with him further will lower our chances to do business with the Mountaineer Kingdom.”

“We are the ones in charge, so I don’t see the reason why I can't hang out with who I want.”

“Being in charge doesn’t give you the right to do whatever you want, that’s how wars are started.”

“I didn’t know talking to a stable hand would initiate a war, mother.”

“Ha...” she took that comment well. “I guess not, but it's about what is good for the country. I suppose I can grant you an exception if you start showing me some progress with activating your frost blood or increasing your capabilities.”

There her mom goes again with the frostblood thing.

“I am working it mom and what does that have to do with speaking with Randal. If I learned how to use the frostblood how would that make a difference in the opinion against Mr. Windram, by your logic my legitimacy would just make it worse?”

“Hmph,” her mother turned to her. “Why can’t you use those wits to further yourself. Why does it take me separating you from Randal for you to deduct something like that.”

“Because I told you I hate the parties, I don’t like talking to these nobles because they are all boring.”

“It's necessary Snow. If you're not fighting with words, you will be fighting with steel.”

Her mother turned back to the pile of work on her desk, sparing her one quick dismissive look.

“Now I believe that is everything we needed to discuss. You may go.”

“Okay...” Snow rose from her seat and started heading toward the door.

“Once you unlock it, you can speak to him again. Simple; you just need to be in the right mindset...and Snow one more thing.”

She was already halfway through the door.

“Yes?”

“You look very nice.”

“…Thanks mom.” She closed the door behind her.