"This love letter? How seriously will Germania take it?" Lady Sakuya asked.

Cardinal Mazarin grimaced. "The Princess made her drafts available to me after confiding in me the existence of the letter." The Cardinal leaned against the conference table for support. "The best we can hope for is that Germania will demand punitive terms be added to the marriage contract. More likely, the elements opposed to the marriage will use it as grounds to void the whole alliance. They'll leave us to draw the attention of Reconquista while building up their own defenses."

"That seems absurd." Mortimer observed clinically. "All over a love letter?"

Sakuya gave her fellow Lord a sideways glare. "Such letters can cast doubts upon the line of succession an legitimacy. They can be toxic to any agreement sealed by marriage." Turning back to Henrietta and Cadinal Mazarin, Sakuya asked quickly. "Then what does this mean for Tristain?"

"I cannot fathom any good outcome." Mazarin replied. "I would say invasion is by far the most likely. Without Germania's aid, Tristain cannot resist. We have less than half as many ships as Albion and no standing army to speak of beyond the Cavalry forces and garrisons. Reconquista will not wait for us to prepare. They will attack as soon as they've finished with the Royalists. Tristain's Royal Family will either be executed or exiled. What will happen to you Faeries, I cannot say."

"Nothing good." Lady Alicia concluded flatly. "Kirito-kun says Reconquista has really gotten behind the propaganda bandwagon calling the Faeries heathen demons of the land. Sounds like the best we can hope for is getting burned at the stake."

_
Oh boy. Drama!

Oh no, what happened to Wales now!?

The Dragon Knight looked surprised when she didn't simply bounce back. He began reinforcing his shield, slowing but not stopping her progress. The tip of her spear sank a quarter of the way through, 'almost there', half way, 'almost there', three quarters, 'almost there!' Asuna didn't notice the second rider raising his wand, she didn't hear him beginning to chant or see the wind currents forming and taking the shape of a spear.

All that she heard, all that she sensed, was one word.

"SWITCH!"

Asuna had never heard the voice that called out to her before in her life, but the tone was so familiar that without a second thought she obeyed, kicking off from the barrier just in time to miss being skewered on a shaft of compressed wind. A heart beat later, Asuna's place was taken by a black blur that struck the barrier like a cannonball, bursting through the already disrupted shield and cleanly overtaking the mage rider.

There was a glint of steel, there was a splash of blood, and then the mage and black blur parted company, the mage slumping forward in his saddle and the blur skidding to a halt on the ground nearby. The remaining mage seemed as shocked as Asuna. She tried to make sense of what she was seeing. How could she describe it?

Standing opposite her, like some sort of mirage, was the interloper, her rescuer. A girl, slightly shorter than herself, long black hair spilling down to the middle of her back, pale skin almost glowing in the diffused light. She was dressed in mono colors, boots, pants, shirt, and jacket all of a mat black only broken by her breast plate and sword. In her right hand she held a long one handed blade possessing a faint silver aura.

Asuna felt like she was no longer in her body, like she was an observer looking in. Who was this person? Where had she come from? And how did she know that term?

The girl's face was a mask of complete focus, watching the remaining Knight and the now riderless dragon. The first drake was still confused, its rider's body seated in the saddle but offering no instruction. It hadn't gotten through the giant lizard's skull just yet that the man was dead and the dragon was obediently awaiting instruction that would never come. The second dragon with its still-living rider was by far the larger threat.

As one, dragon and knight turned to meet the new threat, rider swinging his Cane-Wand and letting fly with a shower of nearly invisible wind blades that shredded the ground where the dark haired girl had been standing. Whatever she was . . . she wasn't human. That much was certain. No human could be that fast. She was already moving, making a weaving approach for the dragon.

The fire drake roared, belching forth a fireball into her path, the blast throwing the girl through the air, she came to a halt in a controlled roll, kicking off with one leg and sliding beneath the dragon's forelimbs. The next roar was one of pain as her sword licked out and bit deeply into one scaly forearm.

'This style.' Asuna thought, watching the girl's motions, the exact way that she moved, the half improvised swordsmanship, that look of concentration . . .

The girl rolled out from beneath the dragon's body just in time to be struck by the drake's lashing tail. She was knocked back, rolling to a stop with a cough after the air had been driven from her lungs. She looked up with a glare, wiping at her cheek, and then she was a blur again.

The girl let out a shout, crashing into a wind barrier constructed by the dragon's rider. This one was different from the last, the rider had been given time to prepare, the barrier wasn't just a shell of compressed air but a spell of a more powerful type that actively burst to throw an attacker back. The girl was beaten back once, boots digging into the ground, only to come at the Knight again, and this time . . . Asuna's eyes went wide.

_

Reunited and it feels so good!

Well, kriti is off to save Asuna.

No zombie friends now attackers! O.o

Oh 'midori' sure told Guichi off but he deserved to have a wake up call.

Oh no, he's got those corpses and could find out about the fairies!

_

He froze as the Duchess stepped forward and circled him once. He had the distinct impression that she was memorizing the details of this face. "Princess, with your permission." The Duchess gestured with her wand.

Henrietta blinked in confusion and then shook her head. "Of course, you would know best."

"Excuse me?" Kirito raised a hand.

"This is nothing harmful." The Duchess explained before performing a short chant and pointing her wand at Kirito's chest. A cool almost electric tingle had run down Kirito's body, his skin prickling up like gooseflesh before subsiding. The Duchess frowned. "It appears that I cannot dispel the illusion." Turning to Lady Sakuya and Alicia Rue the Duchesses' eyes had narrowed. "Just how many of your people can use this spell?"

Sakuya and Alicia exchanged glances. "It's a Spriggan specialty since it's illusion magic. But even then its a pretty specialized spell." Alicia thought aloud. "I'd guess maybe a couple thousand people know how to do it."

"It would have been appreciated." The Duchess said slowly. "If you had mentioned this some time before now. You must understand the danger that illusion spells pose to legitimacy. The risk for subversion. An illusion that can't be dispelled easily only complicates the matter. If this became public knowledge among the nobility it might cause problems."

"It's not actually that useful." Kirito explained as he brushed an annoying strand of hair back behind his ear. "The spell doesn't let you choose your appearance, so its not like I can use it to impersonate someone. And once the spell is cast, the appearance is locked so you can't just recast until you get lucky." The Duchess looked unconvinced, eliciting a soft sigh from Kirito. "Do you really think I would have decided to look like this given the choice?"

The Duchess stroked at her chin as if trying to weigh whether this was the case. Wait, she couldn't really think that he would choose to be a girl? Could she? "Princess?" She asked.

-

Well, even still a illusion that can't be dispelled, even if you can't chose the form, is still very useful.

Being suited for a more respectable clientele, the hotel possessed stables fit even for dragons. The Viscount's Griffin and Guiche's own precious Verdandi had proven no difficulty. The bear sized mole sniffed happily as its master came, receiving a tender stroke on the head and the offer to lick his hand. Deciding that Guiche hadn't brought any food, Verdandi sniffled unhappily and turned around in her pen, settling so that she didn't have to look at him.

"Verdandi! Don't be that way my darling! Did your meal disagree with you. I must say, ground meat surely is no substitute for proper earthworms but we must all make sacrifices for the good of the mission!" The mole snuffled indignantly. "I do believe I remembered there being an empty lot beside the hotel. Let me finish here and I'll let you out to scavenge for some after dinner treats." Guiche said.

Verdandi snuffled again as if to say -Really?-

"Of course my darling!" Guiche promised." Just let me finish with the Viscount's mount and we shall go. The mole trundled back fearfully. Verdandi and the Captain's Griffin . . . didn't get along.

_

Awwww I didn't know his mole was a girl, sweet. He warns points.

Oh, he loses for trying to spy on midori.

Rofl oh Lord, and he gets Wardes instead, and falls into rose bushes.

Dear lord, Wardes wears the hat to the tub?!

Just as well Louise didn't marry him, he would've worn that hat to bed.

The man squinted in disbelief and muttered something about 'frickin shut in virgins.' "My point, is that you have sixty thousand people, most of them are either hormonal teens, college students, social recluses, or lifelong gamers who are middle aged or up. They're all young again and in their physical prime, hell about quarter of them have been turned into their physical ideal, and they've been denied a lot of their old outlets for entertainment and diversion." The man took a drag from his cigarette and exhaled. "Put simply, they're gonna fuck like bunnies."

-

Pfffffft! Rofl and kirito being a overprotective dad!

So, they now know Others From Japan ended up in Tristan, and they will seek out the poor pixies

So, Sayuri deafed.

_

What is it now?" Louise asked, "Are you going to tell me my technique isn't passionate enough?"

"No, when it comes to throwing your spell around you're plenty passionate." Kirche took Louise by the wrist and extracted her wand from her hand. "But all the passion in the world won't help you cast with this." Louise frowned and looked closely at her wand. A crack ran the length of the focus from wand tip to handle. When had that happened?!

"Something wrong?" KoKo asked.

"Louise broke her wand." Kirche explained as she examined the ruined focus. "We'll need to get her a new one. Maybe on our way back to the academy."

"You can't just borrow one?" KoKo asked curiously.

"Well you could." Kirche admitted, "But then we would have to have it properly tuned and it a bit of nuisance to do." The Germanian handed the focus back to Louise who looked it over again.

"I must have broken it right after the battle." Louise decided, but when exactly? She'd always been careful with her foci. It was sort of funny that she would end up using her wand all through a fight for her life and then break by accident after the battle had ended. Louise decided to let this one slide. The last few days had been difficult for everyone. Mistakes happened. Besides, there was no use crying over it now. At least, after this, Mother and Father probably wouldn't complain about her getting a replacement wand.

_

Sayuri could sense it, I hope this means the breaking of the wand is Louise growing in power

And it's discovered that wardes is a traitor!

Farewell, Arthur!" Fernand shouted right before a set of Dragonfly wings struck his cheek with a hate filled scream. Thought beaten and bloodied, Sayuri was not yet finished. The Knight's cry was drowned out by Fernand's own as she plunged her needle sword into the man's left eye. Screaming, Fernand clutched as his face, tearing the pixie free and tossing her to the ground. Holding a hand to cover his ruined eye the mage let out a roar as his flames grew in intensity, but something was wrong. Fernand waved his wand desperately. Yui squinted, the flames began to flow back towards him.

"You may have corrupted it." The Count shouted as he fought to take a step forward. On his shoulders, the Pixie girl's glared at the traitor while clinging closely to the Count. "But this is still my spell! Fernand, for crimes against your Lord and Liege, I sentence you to death!" The Count thrust forward and the sphere of flames washed back towards Fernand.

The flames spiraled past Fernand until they came back to their source, and then the entire world was fire as an intense heat washed across Yui's face and she was forced to look away from the dazzling light. It wasn't an explosion, more a very fast, intense flame, burning brilliantly but briefly, and when it died away, only a few small fires remained surrounding a charred body.

The Garden was silent. Nobody spoke, nobody moved. The Pixies who had come to ground all looked among themselves and then to the Count as he took a few hesitant steps forward, pace growing quicker until he stood before Fernand. Yui felt sick the man was still alive, though his condition was terminal. His body was covered in severe burns where there was even skin left. The left arm was nothing but a charred stump and the right was seared straight down to the bone. How he could still be conscious, much less lucid was utterly beyond her. All of her knowledge of human physiology and psychology suggested that the trauma had been so sudden and severe that he simply wasn't able to feel it.

The Count starred down at the man, breathing slowly, but didn't look away as Fernand shifted, his lips moving, cracking, and streaming blood. "Beautiful . . . Arthur." And then there was nothing.

_

Damn, he got what he deserves but it's still not over!

Oh no, disaster!

Oh no, children I. The woods and a dangerous worm monster on the loose!

Not just about that." Leafa said. "I mean, thanks for everything. For looking out for Onii-chan and me." Leafa smiled sincerely, "You may not look it, but you're a really nice guy Klein."

Klein's head sank down, now if only he could get someone a bit older to say something like that to him.

Well, there was that fire mage chick . . . No, on the other hand, bad idea.

'Eh, Why not?'

Because she looked like she was going to eat him alive!

'So, wouldn't that be a worthy death?'

And besides, she was still too young to go drinking with.

'Not by the local standards.'

Damn it! He had to uphold his own standards. 'Come on Klein, where's your honor as a Samurai!'

-

Oh go for it Klein, salamanders of a scale, flock together lol

Oh dear, what's the plan Sayuri has?

So Fernando caused some trouble, and has some survivors, almost worried he was pinning the pixies like Koko!

Louise looked about for a conversation starter. The cottage was better built and furnished than the homes of the commoner villagers, but that was to be expected, even in a small village a healer's services would be in high demand and it was likely that Florine also worked for the Lord of Tarbes when had need of a water mage. Her eyes wandered to the windowsill overlooking the houses small garden.

"Those are lovely flowers." Louise commented, noting a Trio of vibrant blue blossoms that sat in small clay pots beside the window.

"My, do you like them?" Florine asked, "Euphrasie brought them back with her from the forest a couple of weeks ago and I've been quite taken by them. They only just bloomed."

Both girls nodded, the flowers certainly were beautiful, each blossom the size of a teacup and delicately ruffled. "If you don't mind my asking, what are they?" Louise asked.

"I don't rightly know." Florine confessed, "I'm fairly knowledgeable about the common herbal plants and flowers but I found nothing in my books about them. Though it wouldn't be the first time. Truthfully, the Lord of Tarbes is a much more devoted botanist than I. In fact, he was very interested in those flower when last we spoke and I gave him one to study. These tea leaves were a gift of thanks . . . Euphrasie? What do you think you're doing?"

-

Oh no are those the unborn sisters!?