Serika Vael sat on the highest parapet of the royal palace of Vraven with one boot swinging over a hundred-meter drop, watching human nobility try to remember how to walk.
The trial was over. So were the coronation and the vassalage. The seat of the nation had finally begun spitting its peerage out into the night, and the show below was tremendous.
Their man had gone the other way, deeper into the palace, toward a private study with the old king and a river of clerks. The girls had taken one look at that particular door and reached a unanimous verdict.
"Let’s spend some quality time together, shall we?" Serika had asked, and led the retreat. Many followed, knowing they’d just crowd the small room.
Now five of the most dangerous women alive lounged along the royal roofline with a liberated bottle of Thornhollow moonwine, and nobody below had any idea the new liege lord’s family was rating them.
"Look at that one," Kitsara purred, pointing with a tail.
An elderly baron was being poured into his carriage by two footmen. His legs had given up somewhere around the second decree of the evening and never reported back for duty.
"That’s the eighth one," the foxy declared with deep satisfaction.
"Seventh," Aurora corrected from her spot against a chimney, a plundered feast tray balanced on her knees. "The count by the fountain walked the last three steps on his own."
"He fell into the carriage."
"Falling forward counts."
"No, it doesn’t."
"Okay, seven and a half."
"Deal."
The Slutty Foxy and nerdy alchemist reached a compromise.
Down in the torchlight, Blossom was helpfully carrying a limp countess to her coach under one arm, tail wagging, radiating civic virtue. She decided she’d increase her beloved Master’s reputation among his harshest critics by being the most lovable ball of fluff to have ever existed.
"Look at her go," Lucille cooed. "Truly the best girl."
"Hehe~" Kitsara giggled. "If she hears that, she’ll combust on the spot."
"...Best girl," Vex repeated, flat.
"Jealous?" Aurora grinned. "You could compete, you know. Go down, help a few nobles into their carriages just so they think better of Quinlan. Prime best-girl behavior."
Vex raised both hands and crossed her index fingers into a firm X.
"Never."
"Not even for the best girl standings?"
"I’d sooner help these sons of bitches into their graves. Iris and hubby will cull half of them soon enough anyhow. Waste of effort. Hmph."
"Heh," Aurora chuckled and left it at that.
"The one in the puce doublet cried during the last kneel," Vex mused. She lay along the ledge with her white hair spilling over the edge, studying the people below. "I could hear his sobs from the gallery."
"You all are having too much fun ridiculing these losers," Aurora said, and ate another tart.
Lucille took the bottle on its next orbit and looked down at the emptying court, at banners she used to cross streets to avoid.
"Can you blame them? These houses have been hunting us for some time. Especially poor Vexie."
"You seem awfully happy, Miss Harem Head," Serika smiled, though she already knew the answer.
"Tonight my father knelt because I told him to." Lucille grinned down at the courtyard, warm all the way through. "The wine helps too~"
"To the misery of every bastard who ever chased us." Serika reclaimed the bottle and raised it at Lucille before drinking.
"Does Quinlan count?" Kitsara asked. "He’s been chasing our booty for a long time..."
"..." Silence and wry expressions welcomed her words.
Seeing her joke didn’t manage to land, she took the drink from Serika’s hand. "Stop looking at me like that! It was funny."
Her eyes drooped as she lifted her head back and began chugging. "Let me drink my sorrow away..."
The bottle went around again. The courtyard kept emptying. Somewhere below, a herald was still calling houses in a voice that had gone hoarse before sunset.
"Actually, yeah," Vex spoke up with an extremely sly tone. "He’s been chasing our booty for quite some time. Mine the longest..."
"..." It was her turn to get wry gazes aimed at her person. But unlike the foxy, she grinned through it all. "But can you say the same, Kitsara? You jumped into his lap on day one, there was no chasing of any kind for your fluffy behind..."
"Grr!!" Kitsara growled, all five tails standing on end. Then they lost their will to fight. "Give me more booze."
"Stop bullying her into alcoholism..." Lucille muttered, reaching over to hold the dejected foxkin girl to her bosom. "It’s okay sweetie. Quinlan likes your booty just as much as everyone else’s..."
"Mommy..." Kitsara nestled her head further into Lucille’s hold. "If only your breasts were bigger..."
"..." The Bloodmonger’s forehead suddenly began featuring a throbbing vein.
"You know what the best part is?" Aurora stretched out across the stone. "A week ago, this kingdom had paper on us all. Bounty notices. Official ones, with the ugly woodcut Quin had."
"The woodcut was sheer slander I still haven’t forgiven that grumpy old man for," Vex agreed. "Hubby is far more handsome."
"And now we all but own the presses that printed them," Aurora went on, savoring every word, "and the walls they were nailed to. I say we frame one."
"He would hang it over the throne," Lucille said.
"He absolutely would," Aurora said. "That’s the problem."
Serika leaned back on her palms and looked across the palace beneath them, the torchlit courts, the banners, the whole velvet nation their man had accepted with a head pat.
"I abdicated a throne to chase that scoundrel," she mused, full of fond remembrance. "Signed the oath, handed him my Shard, and walked out of Vulkaris with one bag."
"And?" Lucille prompted, grinning.
"And tonight I watched a young miss I adore so much hand him an entire kingdom." Serika shook her head slowly. "I taught that man his first proper stance. Somewhere along the way, the student got greedy."
"You conquer by punching. He conquers by headpats." Kitsara nodded sagely into Lucille’s breasts. "Frankly, I prefer his method. It transfers to the bedroom a lot better."
"Ask Ayame which she prefers~" Aurora mused.
"...Let’s not go there," Kitsara shook her head. "You call me slutty, but Miss Second in Command? Now that’s a proper depraved woman I say."
"Hey now..." Lucille spoke up, gently, motherly. "Ayame might enjoy a bit of choking and other questionable acts, but even she doesn’t like being punched."
"Yeah, aside from getting her butt slapped like there’s no tomorrow," Serika snorted, finding that girl’s interests quite amusing to say the least.
"... That’s slapping, to be fair," Vex decided to join Ayame’s defense case. Then, with blushing cheeks, she added, "I myself won’t say no to-"
"Okay, okay. Let’s return to the topic at hand, enough about butts being destroyed," Aurora sighed.
The topic quickly wound down after that. Below them, the last carriages were forming a line at the gates, lamps swaying.
"Iris cried in front of the entire peerage," Lucille said, softer, to nobody in particular.
Nobody needed the name.
"She did," Serika nodded.
"Is she going to be alright?" Aurora asked. A straight question, no garnish.
Serika gave it the honest thought it deserved.
"Not all the way, I’m afraid," she exhaled slowly. "What was done to her doesn’t finish healing, probably ever. Childhood trauma like that is more or less impossible to fully overcome, for she doesn’t have a baseline to return to after having healed. It just stops being the whole of her, that’s all. What I hope for is that she builds a bigger life around the wound until it’s one room in a large house, instead of being the house."
"She has the biggest life on the continent to build with," Lucille said. "A creed, a road, that ridiculous title he gave her."
"Partner in crime," Vex mused, from inside her own smile. "She fought a level seventy-four with a broken arm for it."
"And what a fight that was!" Serika flexed her muscles on reflex. "She made me far too proud."
"And did you see her face in the pile?" Kitsara giggled. "Under all the swearing? Radiant. She was so beautiful..."
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