Pipperly collapsed into the plush couch of a rather large sitting room meant for important visitors, a three-tiered tray of goodies on the table accompanied by tea and a bowl of perfect sugar cubes.

‘So, still left on the agenda I need to; A) Speak to the Counsel and get control of the Shadow guards. B) Talk to the Grand Mage and magic tower about armor and weapons. C) Speak to the Grand Knight and Knight’s Order to assign a personal squad of on-record guards. And D) Get rid of--’

Her hand whipped up and she tore the crown from her head before rushing to undo the bun, hurriedly scratching at an itch and leaving it a wild mess of hair and half-curls around her face just as a knock came to the door.

‘--THESE STUPID CLOTHES!’

“Come in,” she called, letting her hair fluff out in a lush mess of curls.

The door opened, and Odilia stepped in and curtsied in greeting.

“Your Majesty,” she nodded gently, “I’ve brought the Head of the High Council, the Grand Mage of the Magic Tower, and the Grand Knight of the Knightsguard.”

The door opened completely and allowed three figures to enter and take a respectful knee in unison.

Pipperly was... Mildly taken aback by the youthful elegance of the Grand Mage’s revealed face. The Grand Knight was a goddamn silver fox with his goatee and the Head of the Council looked like he slaved in mines during the day, but tended trendy bars in the evenings.

‘Jeez, did I have to make them hot?’ her thoughts were as exasperated as they were disparaging.

It was hard to feel outright attraction to the people who were practically her children.

“Your Majesty,” the three chorused, “Greetings to the Dragon of the Onyx Dominion. May your blade bring peace to the realm.”

‘I am going to get sick of that, very fast,’ Pipperly inwardly groaned in abject horror.

Odilia looked frazzled for a second, and Pipperly quickly clocked the reason why when the woman glared intensely at a stray, cowlick curl at the side of the young woman’s head.

“Rise,” she offered after a pause. “Take a seat. Have some tea, eat some snacks. We have much to go over, and not enough time to manage it all.”

The Grand Knight looked visibly taken aback by her abrupt behavior, but the mage seemed pleased while the councilman kept a cool expression and sat down politely.

The three sat on the same couch across from her, and she waved for the maid at the side of the room to serve them before beginning.

“First and foremost, you have my sincerest thanks for keeping Duke Whitehall from letting my castle burn to the ground in my mother’s absence.”

The maid spilled the tea.

“Oh-my-I’M SO SORRY MY LADY- I’LL-”

“Easy there,” the Grand Mage’s voice cut into her quickly building panic, a slim, waved hand flickering through the air above the mess-strewn table and causing the tea to evaporate into the very air. Even the tea cakes splashed with the liquid seemed suddenly unharmed.

‘Hmph. As expected of the Grand Mage,’ Pipperly inwardly nodded with a sage resolve.

“No harm done,” the Grand Mage smiled a peaceful, serene smile that had the maid flushing beet red from her chest to the tips of her ears. “Are you alright, sweet thing?”

The maid proceeded to have a bit of a short circuit, twitching and steaming out the ears as she struggled to keep from dropping the teapot from her trembling hands.

“Don’t tease her, Grand Mage Ashwell.”

Pipperly’s unamused voice did the trick of snapping the girl out of it, allowing her to finish her task and hurry to bow and leave the room at a quick pace when Pipperly waved to gently dismiss her. Only two days in the castle and the maids were already picking up her cues. They were good at what they did.

No one questioned how she knew his name, and she didn’t bother offering a reason for knowing, taking her cup and sipping silently at her tea as she tried to center her thoughts.

‘Ugh.. this is going to suck.’

“First and foremost, Council Head Asher Flint, I need you to hand over the reins of the Shadowguard, effective immediately.”

Asher dropped his teacup, splashing himself with tea in the process, though he could only stare blankly, frozen in shocked bewilderment at the woman calmly sitting across from him with a relaxed expression.

“..The password is Griffin-shaped Gingerbread cookies.”

“..Your mother?” Asher asked after a tense pause of silence, where the other two guests seemed to bounce their eyes back and forth between the two like a tennis match.

Pipperly raised an eyebrow at him, then held out her right hand expectantly.

“She said you would keep it in your pocket at all times for emergencies.”

Asher calmly, and very pointedly, got to his feet, making a show of pushing his cloak to the side to allow the room a view of his fingers as they dipped into the pocket of his slacks and withdrew a slim, long chain of silver, which at the end held a gleaming jade whistle.

He reached across the table to place it in her palm, and she held it between two fingers silently for several seconds before nodding to herself and putting it around her neck.

‘One objective down. Only a million more to go.’

She used both hands to toss her hair up and back from beneath the chain, allowing it to cascade down her shoulders and back like a dark chocolate waterfall.

“I’m scheduling a High Council meeting for this coming Friday. Please make sure the proper parties are informed.”

Asher nodded, and Pipperly let out a soft sigh before turning to the Grand Mage.

“Grand Mage Silas Ashwell,” she addressed, as calmly as she could manage with the literal poke of curious energy touching her brain from the nosy crown on top of her head. “I will have an immediate need of your design and production facilities. I have several weapons designs I need you to craft and create as soon as physically possible. Spare no expense, any purchases you make toward this project will be coming from my own savings, not the budget allocated to the tower.”

Ashwell nodded slowly, then ticked his head to the side, long, black silk hair slipping down his shoulders and pooling into his lap. “Might I ask what type of weapons you will be needing?”

“Long-distance assassination and short-range versatility between kill-shots and stun-shots,” she didn’t even blink as she said the words, and, as she knew would happen, the Mage’s eyes became sparkly.

“Oooh... It’s been a while since we’ve had a creative ruler ask things of us,” the mage was practically purring, leaning forward in his seat and resting his fingertips on the table, his other hand drifting to pluck at a salvaged little muffin. “Will you be asking after my services often?”

“As often as you’ll likely allow,” Pipperly allowed herself to give him a rueful, pitying smirk, fueling the man’s curiosity and sending ominous shivers down the spines of the other two men. “You’re going to curse the day I was born for the number of tasks I plan to saddle you with. Your lazy days of blowing bubbles in the faces of your overworked interns and unsubtle pranks on the aristocracy will need to be put on indefinite hold.”

He dropped his mini muffin, the treat dropping from his fingers and bouncing off of his thigh and onto the floor, landing in a little, sad heap beside the fallen tea of Head Councilman Flint.

Pipperly took another long, bracing sip of her tea before finally turning her attention to Sir Jasper Danton, the resident Grand Knight.

“Sir Jasper Danton.” She offered him a small, polite smile and kept her voice deceptively pleasant.

“I want you to go through every promotion and recruit you’ve taken in since the disappearance of my mother and remove anyone found unsatisfactory in their duties.”

“How will I be determining..?” The knight looked more than a little thrown, and having neither tea, nor food to spill opted to let his jaw sag a little.

“I trust your eye and discretion,” Pipperly nodded, finishing off her tea and setting the cup and saucer neatly upon the table before sitting straight again.

“For the next few days, I will be approaching and managing internal affairs within the court, as well as within the castle itself. I have a list of tasks for each of you to complete before our next meeting, which will become mandatory, in the future. A date has not yet been decided for permanence, but I believe a once-a-month venture of sporadic timing should suit our needs nicely.”

“Permission to speak freely, your majesty?” Asher tested the waters with a hand slightly raised.

“Granted.”

“You’re being rather... Proactive with your recently acquired position..?” Asher narrowed his eyes and frowned, but did not look upset. “Do you have plans for the Kingdom?”

Pipperly hummed, reaching up a hand to rub at the back of her neck before chancing a glance to Eun, who was standing silent and vigil behind her, as was his new norm.

Deciding to offer an olive branch, she gave the men a visibly unladylike shrug.

“I think war is ridiculously stupid, and peace talks are my first and foremost priority. I understand tension has been at an all-time high with the other nations due to Duke Whitehall’s.. Trade negotiations, but I have faith in the possibility of alliances. The main problem we’re to face going forward is uniting all seven nations in the event of a worldwide catastrophe..”

“By catastrophe, you mean-”

“Did you not receive the prophecy of the weakening seals, Grand Mage?” Pipperly asked calmly.

The teapot shattered, untouched, while the trio on the couch looked stunned. Eun drew his sword in the blink of an eye and was positioned immediately between Pipperly, who looked unaffected, and the tea table now covered in porcelain and ruined snacks. His sword was angled toward the sofa, a gleam from the light from the windows casting a solid glowing line across all three in a perilous arch, should he thrust the blade forward to follow the lethal trajectory.

Ashton could see his reflection in the greatsword’s unblemished polish, the reflection of his own grey eyes causing him to inwardly flinch.

He could very easily be put to death in this moment.

The Grand Mage had similar thoughts, a single strand of hair fluttering to the floor from his abrupt leap back onto the sofa when he’d abruptly stood.

Sir Jason stayed seated, fingers clenched into the arm of the sofa, his body rigid and unmoving. Years of solid training left him undaunted in the face of immediate and uncertain death.

“Stand down,” Pipperly offered after a second of blank processing. F#$@, he’s fast... God damn...

While Pipperly staunched and buried her absolute panic beneath a mountain of visible apathy and boredom, she reached forward to grab a mildly left-alone cookie and popped it into her mouth with zero hesitation.

Eun obeyed without hesitation, returning to his rigid stance, only he stood about three feet away from her this time, and looked upon all three Grand Seats with nothing short of homicidal warning from the depths of his helmet visor, crimson eyes glowing with unmistakable menace.

“How about we adjourn for the day,” Pipperly offered, mostly to the air as she examined the remains of another delicate cookie broken slightly at the edge. “Here are your individual instructions..” She reached to the sofa cushion beside herself and pushed it aside to reveal the short pile of scrolls she’d written and sealed with aquamarine-colored wax and pressed with the Onyx seal. Each scroll was rather small, about the width of one of their hands from fingertip to wrist, but the sheer volume of the information made them incredibly thick.

She passed them forward after glancing at the initials she scrawled on the outside and sat back again when she was finished.

“Well, gentlemen, I hope the rest of your day is productive.”

The men got to their feet, bowed at the waist, and left after seeing her wave them off toward the door. She was left staring at the mess. Asher glanced back through the door as it shut, the barest sliver of her solemn-looking form the last glimpse he caught before it completely closed between them.