Soft fur, fair as freshly fallen snow, brushed against my neck. My eyes followed the fluff to find the top of a bushy tail swaying side-to-side, obstructed by my bed frame. It slowly disappeared out of view, to be followed by a man's loud yell in alarm.
I wiped the sleep from my eyes and let out an amalgamation of a yawn and sigh.
An alabaster-white fox was waiting for me in the common room, glaring at an anxious looking guard. The soldier was pointing a short spear at the creature. He glanced at me, but before he could say anything I waved him off.
"It's alright, you can stand down."
Once I had the guard pacified and out of the room, assuring him that this strange creature meant no harm, I turned my attention to chastise the midnight intruder.
"You disappear for over a month, with not even so much as a congratulations when I summoned Ignicorus?"
"I was busy. There are more pressing matters in this world than patting you on the head every time you do something good. Speaking of whom, where is our darling phoenix?"
"In the care of the Church for the time being. We decided it would be careless to let them be found out by any spies or malcontents in the city."
"You free an extremely powerful phoenix god from a century of imprisonment, and you hand them over to the church? Alright. Not what I would've done."
"Well, I'm not a Celestial Goddess am I? Also, I'm not entertaining any further conversation with you until we talk about why you're masquerading as a fox. You never gave me an answer last time and it's been bothering me for a while now. And in that same regard, why is Taurus a cat?"
"So you've met my brother then. He's been playing around with the mortals again, huh… Well no matter. He can do whatever he likes. As can I."
I narrowed my eyes and crossed my arms.
"Do you act this way to every Goddess you meet, or just me?"
"Are you gonna tell me, or not?"
"Aren't you just a stick in the mud~ Fine! Fine."
Capricorn leapt to the center of the room and in a flash she was in her normal form, serpentine scales and all—but rather than giving off the menacing aura of power she'd manifested in the Coil, she appeared weak and faded.
The Goddess was almost entirely translucent. I could make out the furniture and walls behind her clearly.
A second later and she was back in the form of a fox.
"Are you satisfied? May I discuss important matters with you, oh high and mighty Empress?"
"Honestly, I've got more questions now than before. But I guess they can wait."
"Great. Glad we can finally get to my agenda. There are two things I want you to do for me. Firstly, there is a personal matter I need you to deal with."
"Personal for who, me or you?"
"Us."
"What sort of thing would be personal to both of us? I'm just a human, you're a Goddess!"
"That is precisely the reason why this had become a personal matter. When we performed the binding ritual, we—I… how to explain this? The imprint on your soul became something of me. Imagine it as if you were my child."
"Imprint on my soul… your child!? I'm not calling you mother, or whatever, I already have a mother. Thank you very much!"
Capricorn sighed and a paw came up to her head.
"That is… Look, stop being ridiculous for five minutes. I don't want you to call me anything. The important bit here is that because you have my Essence imprinted on your soul, there are now some things you can see and interact with in this world that others can't. Your influence may also cause things to occur that aren't normally supposed to."
"Like an undefined item?"
"Exactly like an undefined—where did you learn about that?"
I explained my attempt to appraise the odd shards obtained after defeating the bandit army with my altered CHAOS BOLT spell.
When I told her that Rhia and Dori had been studying them for the past month, Capricorn freaked out on me.
"You can't just hand undefined objects to people! We have to classify them, who knows what kind of weird properties your blacksmith and artificer could have imbued those with!? We have to get them back right now!"
Capricorn jumped down off the chair she had been laid out on.
"Whoa, hold up. It's the middle of the night and it's freezing outside. Those two aren't going to do anything crazy with those shards in the next few hours. I'll get them in the morning."
Capricorn's orange beady eyes narrowed and she plopped back onto the chair.
"Fine. But listen, if you create any new objects you have to tell me right away."
"And how do I do that if you disappear for an entire month again?"
"What? We're connected. Your soul is bound to me. Just… concentrate on that part and talk to me—why is your face doing that?"
"Oh, no reason."
I definitely didn't try numerous ways to contact her that would make me look like an idiot.
"Just contact me next time. Let's get back on track. In addition to the Essence imprinting, there are a group of beings that may now view you differently."
"Differently how?"
"Well technically speaking, as their sister."
"I'm sorry, what?"
"You've met two of them already. My daughter, Vita, and my d—Mors."
"Those two are your children?"
"In the aspect that I gave them life, yes. It's not as though I birthed them, as you mortals do. But they are my children just the same. The first race ever created by any Celestial, the Alaetüs."
"And now they think of me as a sibling? I'm not sure I'm following all of this. What are you asking me to do about this?"
"Most of my children are content in their duties, but there are a few who have been going through a rebellious stage. One of them seems rather intent to meet you in person. I've asked her to wait, but eventually her desire will get the better of her judgment."
"So this personal matter is one of your daughters?"
"Precisely. When you wrap up your business with the elves, please let me know so that I can send her to you."
"Business with the elves? What do you know about that? Do you know where Mei is? She was supposed to report in two weeks ago."
A sinister grin spread across the fox's face.
"Good luck with your new guests, little empress."
Capricorn jumped off the chair into a small orange portal that appeared on the floorboards.
As the magickal ring blipped out of existence, a loud knock came at the door.
-✵-
Rias placed a tray down in front of me and promptly disappeared from the room. Six cups of dark liquid encircled a small bowl of sugar. The bitter, but vivifying, aroma accosted me as I emptied a spoonful of sugar into a cup.
As I took a sip of coffee the others gathered at the dining table followed suit.
On my right, Julius seethed with a palpable rage.
To the left, Hailey stirred her coffee quietly. Half asleep, but trying hard to focus on what was happening.
Across from us sat a trio of elves.
Mei, with her head hung low and eyes shifting rapidly anywhere but at Julius or I; A blonde-haired woman whose posture hinted she may be experienced dealing with court nobles; and another woman with hair a shade of auburn that almost matched Alistaire's.
They were acting as envoys, allegedly, and had traveled with Mei all the way from some sort of encampment in the Forests of Ixia.
The noble-esque woman took a sip of coffee after adding a few spoonfuls of sugar to it.
"Aaah, quite potent. But refreshing after a long journey. My thanks, Empress Vanixi."
"Think nothing of it, Lady Viane. Simply a necessity for such an early engagement."
Hailey tried to stifle a yawn, only to make it more obvious as her hand came up to cover her mouth. She took a big gulp of coffee and then stretched her arms out.
"Ooookay! I think I'm finally awake."
Julius shot a side-glance to her and shook his head. He set his cup down and interlaced his hands together on the table.
"Due to the prioritization of infrastructure and domestic resources in our reconstruction efforts as well as the circumstances of your unexpected arrival, we lack suitable lodging to host a diplomatic party—"
"What Commander Julius means to ask is, would you be agreeable with rooms within the manor estate here?"
Viane glanced over to her compatriot for an answer.
The woman's brow furled in thought, after a moment she took a measured breath.
"We acknowledge the deviation from standard political norms. I do not see any issue with staying in this manor for our visit. Though, we do ask that we be allowed to maintain our own personnel within a wing; as to be given proper recognition of our sovereignty."
Viane nodded her head in agreement.
"Lady Aisling's request is seconded by myself. So long as our guards may keep a section of the manor cordoned off, there should be no issue."
Julius absentmindedly tapped his thumb against the table.
"We have no objection to your request."
He motioned for a guard to approach him and gave the order to show the elven attachés to the second floor's guest quarters.
"Unless either of you have any pressing matters to discuss at this time, may I suggest that we adjourn until later. We can have a proper conference scheduled for this morning in the Citadel."
Neither diplomat had anything else important to go over, and Julius escorted them through the foyer and up to the second floor.
Hailey sighed heavily in relief once they had left the room.
"I never seem to get used to people acting all proper. Julius needs to let that serious side of him take a break every once and a while."
"Diplomats showing up out of the blue was quite a surprise. Wasn't it, Mei?"
I looked over to the elven ranger, who was still avoiding eye contact.
"…"
"Julius will be gone for a bit getting them settled in. It'll be easier to explain what in the Aether happened in the last four weeks without his angry face disrupting you every five seconds."
"… How mad is he?"
"He's been fuming for about a week now. I tried my best to keep him calm the first few days after you missed the check-in window… There was really only so much I could do."
I gave Mei a playful shrug to try to lighten the mood.
"Would you say he's… big mad, or little mad?"
Hailey leaned in towards Mei, glancing quickly at the doorway to check if the coast was clear.
"I'd say he's pissed. But I don't think he's mad at you per se, it's more like he just didn't know how to react to you being missing. Seriousness is like his default setting."
A wild laugh escaped me as Hailey hit the nail on the head.
Mei smiled for the first time since arriving home.
"So spill it, Missy, what's the deal with the extended leave and the band of diplomats."
Mei explained that it took her a little longer than expected to find her people—and once she had, the bureaucracy of it all kept her from returning in time.
Deep within the Ixian forest, the Aestori had fortified a village which she called the 'Enclave'.
This portion of the forest was completely bordered by the Ixian elves territory, but historically it was the ancestral home of the Aestori, so it's remained their territory even after centuries of Ixian expansion.
According to Mei, almost the entirety of the Aestori people now lived in this enclave.
Viane and Aisling were placed under her guardianship to travel to Tolin and assess whether or not we checked out as the legitimate heirs of the Vanixian Empire.
"I'm certain that they'll see you for who you are, and then you can petition the tribunal to rejoin the Empire."
I shook my head.
"Will the Aestori support us just like that?"
Hailey followed my meaning, adding her own concerns.
"What sort of concessions would we have to make? Reconstruction efforts have been advancing, but with our limited supplies it's been a slow pace. We're only making by with food by a slim margin with the help of some talented elementalists."
"If you appeal to them with the intent that you plan to retake the lost territory of the Empire, I think—no, I know they'll agree to help. All of us see the Starfall Forest as our home. I long to see the glades of Lagiri again…"
Mei's expression turned to melancholy, and we sat in silence for a minute.
The sound of a door closing upstairs stirred us, and we listened to the heavy foot falls of someone walking above us.
A floorboard creaked as they descended the stairs.
Mei had tensed back up, looking at Hailey and I in a state of slight panic.
Julius stepped through the doorway and sighed, "They're all set up there. The guest hall is now officially elven territory, as far as the OSW is concerned."
"Hey, dummy. Are you finished being angry at Mei yet?"
"Huh? Oh, yeah. Whatever. I guess so. I just want to go back to sleep right now." Julius stepped behind Mei, and flicked her right ear softly. "Come on, you nuisance, I had a bed set up for you too. No way I'd make you walk alone all the way to the Citadel in this cold."
Despite drinking half a cup of coffee I felt I'd be able to get to sleep pretty quick. Probably in part to the midnight intruder's earlier disturbance.
I was out the moment my head touched my pillows.