Announcement

[royal_obligation]

Edarial makes a list of necessities for a wife. He has Zevros check it over, who promptly rips it up and throws it at him. He is of the opinion that if Edarial doesn't actually want to marry a specific person, he shouldn't, and Zevros will have nothing to do with any of it. Edarial sighs, rewrites it, and keeps it and a copy of it away from his twin in the future.

He makes the announcement to various interested people that he will be looking for a bride. Just saying it makes him feel sick. Edarial manages to keep it together long enough to give a list of the qualities he's looking for before he flees. He says he's busy, no one will look twice at him being curt and disappearing to get work done. So no one comes after him when he hides in his room and locks the door.

Face buried in his pillow, he realizes that there's no way he can be personable to his - whatever they are. Potential brides, suitors - whatever, he doesn't care. He'll hire someone to vet them, so he doesn't have to torture himself dealing with women trying to persuade him to marry them.

Comments

[come_midnight]

"My familiar. Someone took him."

[aestrix]

"Your -" The little portly man startles. "- Oh my goodness. Oh my goodness, do you know who took him?"

[come_midnight]

"I didn't get their names, the guards at the fountain, he was sick, they wouldn't let me take him to the fountain myself and then they took him - he got a good few chunks out of the one that was holding him but he didn't get away."

[aestrix]

"The guards at the fountain?" asks the little man. "What? No, no, you must be mistaken, the guards would never do that!"

[come_midnight]

"Then maybe they were fake guards, but they were at the fountain and they wouldn't let me in!"

[aestrix]

"Oh my goodness! I will have to file the right paperwork -"

Then he looks at his clipboard.

"... Um. Miss, I'm really sorry about this and you have my solemn word that I will get to the bottom of whatever this is, but I have a job and if I don't do it I can't feed my kids!"

[come_midnight]

Iobel leans heavily on the wall. "What is it your job to get me to do, then?"

[aestrix]

"Just an interview, it won't take very long!" assures the bureaucrat.

[come_midnight]

"Can you get my cat first and then give me the interview?"

[aestrix]

"Trying to find your cat might take a while, I don't know where to begin, there's so much paperwork to fill out! But the interview won't take very long, I promise."

[come_midnight]

"I don't want to be here at all, but they have Cricket and I think they'd kill him if I tried to leave," she murmurs.

But this bureaucrat is not very helpful and she doesn't think holding his survey results hostage will get anything more than wheedling, whereas sending him on his way might actually get him looking however ineffectually for her cat.

"What are the questions?"

[aestrix]

"I'm very sorry for the trouble, miss, I'm just trying to do my job."

There turns out to be a lot of questions. Mostly about how she would react to certain situations, what sort of solutions she'd have to certain problems, that sort of thing. It seems to boil down to be less about her personality and more about if she would be any good as a queen. Or, at least, in the opinion of whoever is getting the results. The portly little man writes down all of her answers, then thanks her for her time, tells her he will get to trying to find her familiar 'Right away' and then trundles off to go do that.

[come_midnight]

Iobel closes the door and cries and then goes and splashes water on her face until her eyes stop stinging.

[aestrix]

The portly little man tries his best to find her cat through normal means. He files various reports, fills out a metric ton of paperwork, and even makes and gives out little pamphlets to guards filled with information on what to do if they see guards they don't recognize. But he doesn't go to Edarial, or even Zevros - the thought doesn't occur to him that either would want to know this happened in the palace. So he goes through entirely official channels.

Someone else working through official channels notices. Nataliem is annoyed, but it's not like this is a difficult problem to fix. The bureaucrat is stonewalled by bribed and threatened officials.

Ultimately, he makes almost no progress at all.

[royal_obligation]

Except, of course, with his survey.

The answers to the questions go to Edarial, who reads them and sorts them into piles of 'terrible' 'not terrible' and 'actually good.' There is only one set of interview answers that make it to the 'actually good' pile. Edarial stares at it for a few minutes, then puts it back on the table and feels a wave of nausea at the prospect of marrying someone he doesn't know. But if he met her, then it's highly likely that he'd back out the first chance he got, and then Zevros would be the one to get forced into marriage.

Starchy formality it is, he'll write a letter. He writes it, hands it to someone to deliver to her, and flops onto the bed, face buried in his pillow.

Whoever 'Iobel Swan' is, he hopes she's at least personally tolerable.

[aestrix]

The letter arrives with a knock on Iobel's door. It's not being delivered by the person Edarial thought - instead, it's the guard from before. The female one, that didn't get scratched. Nataliem is on his game today, his latest candidate made it and he is not about to let her flee and ruin the country's best chances for an actual competent monarchy.

She looks at Iobel, without expression, and offers the letter.

[come_midnight]

"Where's my cat?" Iobel snaps, not touching the paper.

[aestrix]

"Safe," says the guard. "You will want to read this." Letter wave.

(It has a royal seal.)

[come_midnight]

Iobel takes the letter, notes the seal, cracks it, and reads.

[royal_obligation]

It reads, in the same handwriting as the royal order that started all of this:

"Dear Ms. Swan,

I am quite sure you're curious as to the purpose of the interview and questionnaire - I apologize for not being frank with you, but I needed the results to be as accurate as possible, considering the circumstances. This precludes actually meeting you in person, to avoid my personal opinions of aesthetics and good looks get in the way of finding someone competent enough to run a country.

In short - I've read over your answers, and I like them. They're intelligent and insightful, while still tempered by a sense of empathy. Reading them, I think you are the best option for a future ruler of the country. So, I would like to extend to you a proposal of marriage.

I doubt I will make a fairytale husband. It's likely that throughout our marriage I would prefer negligible amounts of personal contact, and focus on various tasks at hand for monarchs. Rest assured if you ask the staff for anything you want, you'll get it.

Thank you for your cooperation, and if nothing else - I do look forward to meeting you.

Signed,
Prince Edarial Cartalian"

[come_midnight]

Oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck.

Iobel translates, trying not to cry again. I'm marrying politics, not a human being. You probably won't fuck up my country if I give you a tiara. Marry me or else. Don't bother me in person about your cat or anything else, my goons will give him back after we're hitched. Act like everything's normal during the ceremony or I might stop being so pleased to meet you, understand?

She resists the urge to crumple the letter. She resists the urge to weep.

"The instant I marry him, I get my cat back?" she asks.

[aestrix]

"Certainly," says the guardswoman. "We would never dream of holding the queen's familiar hostage."

[come_midnight]

If it were just Cricket she might be able to leave him. He might want her to, she can imagine him snarling in his language about how they can all hang for trying this stunt and he'll take bits of them when he goes. But it's not just Cricket. If he dies -

(She has a mental image of her mother sitting up a her-shaped vegetable in bed and force-feeding it broth. Kinder to just kill the unmade, Iobel thinks, but Raney has never believed that, and Iobel supposes unmade she might as well go to serve her mother's preferences since she'll be little fit to do anything else -)

"So when's the wedding?" she mutters.

If they don't give her cat back she will assess the elsewise horror of the situation and maybe she'll just off herself. Cricket gets a clean end that way, she can't exactly ask him but supposes he'd rather it to being shut up wherever they've secreted him away.

[aestrix]

"In a week, if you accept his proposal. It can be postponed for longer, if you like."

[come_midnight]

"I'd like my cat."