“And why do I have to come with you to the palace?” Hannah asked, possibly very scared about the prospect of spending her time among the racist nobility.
“Don’t be so unhappy. It´s going to be fun!” Another lie came out of my mouth. There was no fun in the royal palace, neither for me nor for her.
“I´m an elf. Going there will definitely be horrible for me.” Hannah claimed timidly, which bummed me out quite a bit. I could push her to come with me, but I seriously didn’t want to risk all the progress I made so far.
“You can stay inside the carriage if you want.” I said, pouting unhappily.
“And the reason for me to come with you in the first place is?” It seemed as if I gave up too soon on trying to coax her into following me around.
“Uhm … I didn’t want to be bored on the way there?” Another lie. I knew she was safer with me around than somewhere else. I didn’t want to burden Mary with her and neither trusted any of the servants enough to constantly keep an eye on her. It wasn’t that I feared she would try to run away, rather, I didn’t want to find her dead because someone didn’t care enough about my earlier words. Killing her would have no recuperations in front of the law after all.
“… we already arrived.” She said. The travel time to the royal capital was rather short with around ten minutes at best.
The door was swiftly opened by a butler and he gave me his hand. Hannah apparently wanted to speak with me though as she tucked on the back of my dress when I stood up. The butler, seeing her pointy ears and actions frowned, but said no more and respectfully waited for me as I turned my head.
“How old are you?” The first interesting question I ever heard from her. Nobody had asked me that before, even though my behaviour was extremely atypical for a young girl.
“Ten.” I stated and raised an eyebrow. She shrank back as she saw that, incredibly scared for some reason. Still, she continued to question my unusual behaviour in a rather interesting way.
“You´re not behaving that way.” A direct confrontation with me was quite unexpected. She was scared, and yet chose to dig deeper.
“Maybe I´m a … prodigy child?” That was close. Nearly called me a genius there which would obviously be the truth.
Without further ado, I turned my head once more, smiled friendly and gracefully accepted the hand of the butler.
“Can you make sure she stays safe?” I asked him. It was better to ask him explicitly than to say nothing here. It was his responsibility now and I doubted he wanted his career to be strained because he disliked elves.
“… certainly,” he answered after a short pause. I waved to Hannah happily as the door was closed in front of me and I was guided into the palace. Interestingly enough, prince Louis was already there, chatting with our tutor.
“A wonderful morning, your highness, Mr. Schlaumeier.”
“Take a seat.” said Mr. Schlaumeier sternly as if I did something illegal. Well, I certainly did, but nobody should know. I did what he asked me to, sat down right next to the prince who was strangely happy about the whole situation. “I was told you are sheltering an elf.”
“Yes.” I said, completely calm and a bit surprised the news already reached this far.
“This is … history will not look kindly upon you.” He said, looking at me with concealed anger.
“On the contrary, I do hope the people of tomorrow will see me as the piece that started to change this world.” I said in return.
“By inviting an elf to work as your maid? Lucy, I do know you are smarter than all of your peers,” Now it was the time for the prince to look angry. Losing against a younger girl certainly didn’t seem too good for him. “but you don’t know how damaging your actions are. If the elves march into the east, and they will, everyone will point their finger at you.”
“They would do so anyway. Fifty thousand died at the hands of the elves under unknown circumstances. Only Arthur survived, but he turned into a vampire. We don’t know how effective our army was, we don’t even know if there is an elven army right at the border. We know nothing as all of our scouts are getting decimated the moment they step foot into their forest. I know very well how hard it is to strive for peace, but I also know that this is the right thing to do, no matter what I feel, no matter how others perceive it in the beginning.” Quite the speech I did there. Louis was a bit more touched than I honestly thought he would, but he quickly remembered that he hated me again.
“The king will support the east in case of another invasion …”
“The east will fall, the king cannot save us. Mum is here to ask for any help she can get, but we both know it´s hopeless. The elves revealed one of their trump cards; they are sure of their victory.”
“You are trying to show everyone that peace with the elves is possible, don’t you? The issue is that you cannot negotiate for white peace out of a position of weakness.”
“It is not my duty to do that. I am only trying to show a way.” I said. Mr. Schlaumeier sighed and then looked at the prince.
“What do you think of her approach?” He asked.
“It is doomed to fail. Nobody likes her in the first place, so nobody will follow her lead.” The second prince claimed. Mr. Schlaumeier nodded slightly and then looked at me again. Both of them were against my actions, but for very different reasons. Louis feared that I would succeed and proved myself capable while Mr. Schlaumeier was concerned about his reputation. Although only for a short time at that point, I was his pupil and my actions reflected upon him to a certain degree.
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“Your plan isn´t viable. It is best if you change your mind on that matter.” He stated.
“And then what? Throw her out onto the street where she will inevitably die?” I asked, tilting my head in anticipation of his answer.
“There are other options available for you.” He said, knowing full well the prince listened closely. He didn’t want to say what exactly he meant, but he was clearly telling me I should let her go to the elven forest, which was illegal.
“There are no other options. Bringing her back is illegal and I highly doubt any elf would accept her presence after she lived so long amongst humans. We don’t know how they would deal with her, but I doubt it would be in kindness.” I explained, even though I hoped the contrary was the case. Otherwise, all the slaves, including the kids, I saved at the market would be dead at this point.
Mr. Schlaumeier balled his hands into fists, realizing he couldn’t change my mind. He sighed and pointed to his bookshelf.
“Feel free to read whatever you like.” He said in resignation.
“Gladly.” I stood up, moved my chair away from them again while scratching it painfully loud on the wooden floor. Afterwards, I took the next book I was interested in and started reading.
Time flew by way faster than expected. The book was very well written, meticulously describing the differences between a lesser cockroach, which was the animal I usually killed with my heels, and the normal cockroach, Felix pet which ate the rat in the cellar. It was the size … what a surprise. But it also contained very interesting information about succubus I didn’t know so far.
“What is the main difference between elven and human society?” Mr. Schlaumeier asked me after he finished the lesson with the prince.
“That isn´t written in the book I have read today.” I nearly thought his question was a trap to find out if I remembered everything, but his question seemed genuine.
“Still, you know it, right?” I frowned slightly as both civilisations weren’t too different.
“They are more communal and share their resources with those in need. But that’s probably not what you want to hear. Their king, along with anyone else who is in a position of power is elected with a bottom up principle. The villagers elect the village chief who in turn elects the provincial lord and so on.”
“And you, as a noble, don’t find that repulsive? It is obvious that nobles are more suited to lead than someone elected.”
“…” I could only open my mouth slightly and then close it again. I couldn’t attack the system this country was build upon in front of the prince. It was easy to defeat his argumentation, but I really couldn’t say that whoever was educated more than the rest had the capabilities to lead, could I?
“See, they are barbarians who live on trees. I can get you an ape if you want, he would probably be more intelligent than your elf.” Louis said. His approach was obviously way ruder than that of the teacher, but also equally unsuccessful. I was dead set on parading Hannah around, no matter what.
“This …” Bully me more, my prince. I wished for him to show the whole world what a fool he was and elevate me with his stupidity. “please don’t say such things.”
“I will say whatever I want, offspring of a peasant.” Helplessly, I looked towards my teacher who only squinted his eyes as I did so and offered no help whatsoever. “Can´t even look without these sunglasses, or so I heard. You really are hated by everyone, including the gods. Why else would they curse you with such a rare illness?”
“If you would be so kind to refrain from bullying me.” I said drily.
“Else what? Do you want to hit me with your pitiful strength or what?” He said. I really had no good reply to his question, thus, I was rather thankful for the interruption of the teacher.
“You two, do this somewhere else. I have work to do.” Mr. Schlaumeier said. I quickly stood up thankfully and curtsied.
“I am sorry for the inconvenience.” I said with hidden sarcasm and left the room, closely followed by Louis who equally bid his farewell. Outside the room, he grabbed my shoulders and pushed me towards the next wall a mere second after the door was closed and he confirmed nobody else was around.
“I know what you are trying to do. You are trying to earn the respect of everyone around you, but you fail to see that all of the influential families look at yours with disgust. The White´s aren’t what they used to be anymore, everyone can see that. The fragile construct your mother created holds for now, but that can change very quickly.” He said, his face contorted in anger.
“And I feared you wanted to kiss me … thank you for the kind warning.” I started to grasp his personality to a certain degree. The slap on my cheek that followed instantly after talking back to him in this manner was brutal for a young girl but also expected. The frame of my glasses even bent a bit, but luckily, they stayed on my face.
“From the bottom of my heart, I despise you. You tarnish my reputation, ruin the prestigious image of nobility as a whole and you are colluding with the enemy. You are a parasite, a bastard who doesn’t deserve the position you are in.”
“Is that so? If everything is undeserved, then winning the wager we had was just a pure coincidence, I guess?” I said and put my glasses back into a proper position.
“You just had some luck, that’s all.” At least he wasn’t trying to debate who won. Reluctantly, he let go of my shoulders and gave me some room to breathe. “I´ll win the next one anyway. Come with me.”