Eventually, the conversation lulls and the two of you silently listen to the idle chatter of the patrons at the bar. They’re talking about nothing of importance, really, but you welcome the quiet. Cass seems to appreciate it as well. 

Soon enough, ${cass_he_she_they} puts out ${cass_his_her_their} last cigarette and turns to you.

“Well, $!{player_first_name}, I must be off. Outfits to prep, things to get ready...you know, the Games are just a few weeks away.” Cass smirks a bit, as if it was some sort of joke. “Godspeed…”

Cass says it in such a sing-songy way, you half wonder if ${cass_he_she_they} joined just to cause a bit of trouble or get something free out of it. In either case, you decide to take your leave as well. You don’t feel as tense as you did earlier and besides that, your king bed was calling.

You make your way back to your own room with Cass' words ringing in your head. The Games were right around the corner. 

It's time to start acting like it. 

*page_break

[b] [i] NOW PLAYING AS: Queen Juliet [/i] [/b]

Queen Juliet frowned a bit, trying to understand the piece of technology in front of her. She wanted to check in with her child, especially since they parted so sourly, but they insisted that they talk over video chat, rather than letters like she preferred.

Well, before Frederick, that is.

Handwritten letters, something she once enjoyed getting and composing regularly, was soured by that one particular moment she refused to think about. Due to that moment, just the thought of getting letters now got her blood boiling. Still, receiving one would’ve been much better than playing around with this stupid tablet.

“Maybe I shouldn’t have sent Lexar away,” she murmurs to herself, about to call him back in her bedroom for troubleshooting when the screen lights up. Queen Juliet winces at the brightness but eventually gets used to it.

Bex was always the tech expert. She found computers too tedious, but you can’t exactly spy on the Odessan Royal Family via magic, so technology was the next best thing. After a quick glance over the tablet screen, she saw on one of the apps, a notification was already there.

She taps on it, panicking slightly once the screen goes black again, worrying that she had somehow messed up again. Her shoulders sag in relief when Bex appears on the screen in front of her, slightly annoyed, if their furrowed eyebrows were of any indication. 

“Juliet,” Bex murmurs. “Should’ve known Lexar wasn’t helping. He would’ve had this up and running in seconds.”

*page_break

[i]'Glad to have your support, dear[/i],' Queen Juliet thinks dryly, but pushes a smile to her face despite Bex’s words. 

“Have you settled in alright, Bex?” She asks and her child nods, moving the camera around a bit to show her their surroundings.

“I’m in Cape Odessa. They’ve set most of us up here, though I haven’t met anybody else really except for $!{player_first_name},” they answer.

Queen Juliet’s eyes widen. “Already? Wow, what’s $!{player_first_name} like?”

*if (bex < 50)
    “Not sure what the big deal is. $!{player_first_name} does look much like the dossier that was pulled, but other than that, there’s nothing outstanding about ${player_him_her_them},” Bex says with a shrug.

*if (bex >=50)
    “We didn’t talk too much,” Bex begins, closing their eyes for a moment in thought. “Too early to get a feel on ${player_him_her_them} good or bad, but...definitely not a threat.”

Queen Juliet nods after Bex is finished talking and the two fall into a rather comfortable silence. She can hear the street sounds from Bex’s hotel room and she knows that they can hear the near silence of the Fae woods.

“I miss it,” Bex whispers suddenly. “I requested plants and what not in my hotel room...so it could kind of be like home. But it’s not home, it’s nothing close. Even if we win-”

“When,” Queen Juliet interrupts firmly. There were no ifs about this. She would not stop until Frederick was bowing at her feet, with the rest of his little perfect family bowing beside him.

She tries to fight back the mental image of the male in question but is unable to. Her mind wanders to a moment in the forest, far from prying eyes.

Frederick is leaving open mouthed kisses against her bare stomach, murmuring lazily about an heir. She’s laughing because humans and Fae can’t mate and have children, it’s never happened. 

“Maybe nobody’s tried hard enough,” he whispers before moving lower, which causes the rest of Queen Juliet’s words to die on her lips. 

*page_break

“Juliet? You alright?”

She presses a hand to her cheek once Bex’s words break her out of her thoughts. Her cheeks were definitely warm, but at least her crown didn’t sprout anything that would’ve clued Bex into what she was remembering. That would’ve been awkward to explain. 

“Fine, dear,” Queen Juliet eventually responds, longing to return to the days when Bex used to call her Mother or belakki. They hadn’t done so in years and she’s pretty sure it stopped once she started grooming them to help her take down the Odessan Royal Family. Something she did regret, of course, but the ends justify the means, even if the means hurt like hell. 

"Well, like I was saying, Dia will never be my home. I belong in the woods. With the Fae," Bex continues. "Humans are…strange. Interesting, but strange."

It was no secret that her child did not care too much for human affairs. Queen Juliet knew that they were only doing this out of duty and the thought that perhaps they could go off and do their own thing once this whole business was settled. Of course, that was simply out of the question as heir to the kingdom. 

The monarch lets out a sigh and decides to save that argument for another time. 

“There’s...one more thing.”

Queen Juliet cocks her head after hearing the hesitation in Bex’s voice. 

“What?”

*page_break

Bex holds up a piece of paper and Queen Juliet spies her child’s name written in neat calligraphy on the front.

“We were sent letters, detailing our next few weeks…”

Queen Juliet immediately tuned out of the conversation, deciding to focus on clenching her fists over and over again. If she did anything else, she was sure she would break something. Queen Juliet knew the letters were Frederick’s stupid idea. Who else could come up with something so traditional and sappy?

It was as if he knew that she was still alive and was doing all of this just to spite and make fun of her. 

“Thank you, Bex. I will talk to you soon,” Queen Juliet eventually says in a daze. She thinks Bex might’ve been in the middle of saying something, but she ends the video call before they could reply with a goodbye as well. 

No longer under the watchful eye of her child, she stands up from the chair in a rush, paying no mind to the way it clatters to the ground. She’s crossing the room in less than five steps, almost floating, to reach her desk drawer.

Queen Juliet pulls it open, sifting through various scraps of paper until she finds it. Sure, it's a bit singed, but she was sure she could find the last letter she got from Frederick in her sleep. It even had her stupid old name on the front, Julietta-Mae. 

She buried that name long ago, like she did with her mother and father and most of her Fae brethren. 

Queen Juliet sighs and opens the paper, skimming over the words she’s read a million times. Words that started a war. 

*page_break

[i] Julietta-Mae, [/i]

[i] My Father always said Fae were dangerous. That they would lead humans astray, damn them to the woods forever, lost to all mankind. But then I met you. [/i]

[i] You were the opposite of every woman I had ever known. Your red hair wasn’t so much hair as it was a raging fire that trailed down your back. Your eyes weren’t purple yet (I wouldn’t see that until we got closer), but beautiful all the same. Your dress was sheer, completely unacceptable by my familiar royal standards, but as I would soon learn, the Fae played by different rules. [/i]

[i] It took me three visits for you to finally stay long enough to have a conversation with me, but once we did, we couldn’t stop talking. Then, the talking turned to teasing and then touching. I wasn’t your first but that didn’t matter, I might as well have been. [/i]

[i] But then our touching soon gave way to arguing and it was less about making love and more about biting and scratching and moaning. [/i]

[i] “This won’t work,” you whispered to me, one day. [/i]

[i] “Just kiss me,” I muttered back. [/i]

[i] Letta, you were right about one thing. It did work. Wining you. Dining you. Whispering sweet nothings in your ear. It got me exactly what I wanted and it wasn’t you, my hekati[/i].

[i] It got me the location of your precious kingdom. [/i]

[i] Your big, beautiful eyes will water when you read this, I know, but then you’ll start planning. How to stop this, how to stop me. But by then it’ll be too late. [/i]

[i] War is coming, my dear and you’re going to be on the losing side of it. [/i]

[i] Fae might be dangerous, but humans are so much more so. It’ll serve you well to always remember that. [/i]

[i] Freddie [/i]

*page_break
*goto_scene chp2_prearrivalday