Part 1
The tall Strangers generally towered over her, silent and mysterious. The Dragon Princess rarely did business with these tall merchants or hardly paid them much attention at all. She nodded Hello in passing as she made her way to consult with Bechamel.
“Greetings, Dragon Princess,” said Bechamel gaily. “So nice to see you, as always. How faired your Valentine’s Day fashion contest?”
“Hello, dearest Bechamel,” she said as she greeted him with a hug and kiss on the cheek. “The response was wonderful, thank you for asking and advising once again.”
“My pleasure, as always,” he smiled.
“I just came by today to ask about a new outfit I’m considering,” she said. “Which do you think would look nicer, the . . . ?” Bechamel was not listening but was staring over her shoulder with a troubled look. The Dragon Princess glanced back just in time to see of that one of the Strangers had lurched to a stop just behind her.
Alarmed, she spun to face him. He stood now before, swaying before reaching out with his hand to lean heavily upon her. As he did, he reached into his voluminous sleeve and withdrew an envelope sealed with red wax. Rather than handing it to her directly, he slipped it into her pouch. His shoulders seemed to sag with relief and he removed his hand from her shoulder and placed his palms together as he attempted a small bow. But the bow did not end; he slowly leaned over her more and more before collapsing on top of her. It was then that she felt the cold metal pressing against her belly. Straining to roll the Stranger off her, his robe opened to reveal the hilt of a dagger thrust into his abdomen. He was dead, had died to deliver something to her of great value and danger.
She rose quickly and looked around as Bechamel bent over the fallen Stranger and other Strangers rushed to their fallen companion, but she could see no likely culprits.
All thoughts of fashion forgotten, she asked Bechamel, “Can you deal with this, dearest? I’ve got to . . . to report this immediately.”
“Yes, Princess, I can handle things here. Go and do what you need to do,” and he held her gaze meaningfully.
She shook her head to clear it and bowed before returning to her Dragon’s Lair behind a protected door in her guild hall. Once there, shed removed the envelope from her pouch. It had not been sealed with red wax – it had been smeared with blood, the Stranger’s no doubt.
She opened it to find that it was from Lt. Feron. Strange since he normally contacted her electronically. The contents of the letter soon explained why:
Dragon Princess,
I do not know whom I can trust or to what degree my communications are being monitored, thus I have chosen to contact you in paper through the Strangers. Someone, no, a group of someones amongst both our enemies and our comrades have been hiding a secret from us. Punch and Krogmo were only the first 2 of 6 representatives of the monster population. Those two alone have already provided us with so much, but the other four have been hidden from us.
Assemble a team that you can trust, Princess, but tell no one else! Find the four other monsters who can aid us. What are these additional potential abilities they can grant to us? Where can they be found? And how can they be accessed and utilized?
Godspeed,
Lt. Feron
The Dragon Princess sat at her desk stunned. After careful consideration, she withdrew some parchment from her desk drawer and wrote letters to three special knights.
"Wake up."
Slap.
"...are you still sleeping? Up."
Slap. That one stung even her hand.
Silivrenniel sighed as she raised her hand yet again to slap her sleeping cousin from his slumber, but she dropped it in defeat.
"What am I gonna do with you?"
She swept a silver-white bang to the side casually with a bone-white finger, and tugged down on the push rod of the shutters, allowing the peach Cradle-light to flood into the once-dim periwinkle box. With the light shining directly on her face, her tattoos, burned into her neck, were revealed : an icon of a mountain, a hammer, and a rectangle of three solid lines.
Vin only grumbled as the light chafed at his eyelids, and attempted to turn over before a loud ping noise chirped from a pile of clothing on the mahogany floorboards.
"I'll be making breakfast downstairs," Vren mumbled as she cuffed Vin's head again on the way to the door.
This was how almost every day went with Silivrenniel, the distant older cousin of the Valentinian. She was a harsh vixen, as unrelenting as a winter's storm, and while she did provide a home for him ever since his eviction from his old apartment, it was not without the punishment of paying rent and being pestered by only the most painful of wake-up calls every morning.
With a sigh flavored with his own concoction of dread, he rolled off of the mattress like an angel falling from the heavens. His landing was rough, and immediately he regretted it.
With his skin-suit not but a few inches from him, he dragged his hand across the polish boards as slow as Vren would allow it (slow to her was lightning fast), and clumsily allowed it to wrap itself over his undergarment.
Immediately, he felt an unsettling sensation at the base of his spine, and for a while, his nerves were numbed as the suit melted with his skin.
And all was dark for a few seconds.
You have one new message. Sender : Mommashimono.
Vin snapped his eyes open as he found himself drooling on the floor, and with tisk of irritation, he mopped up the tiny pool with a cloth procured from a drawer sitting opposite to his bed.
He raised his right hand slightly above his head, and dropped it. By command, a swarm of orbs slid down his vision like drops of water on glass, and without even Vin's motion, the mail orb enlarged and centered itself before opening up the whole tab.
"Meet me at the Hall."
Huh...that was rather brief, especially fro-
"Breakfast's ready!" Vren called from below.
With a focus on the crimson X icon, he closed the tab, and began to walk towards the stairs.
Hopefully, today would be...uneventful. Uneventful days would mean sleep...lots of sleep.