No Need for a Core?

As Moriko was ushered into the backroom, Princess Kagami asked, “She has a curtained-off area, mind if we follow and continue to talk?”

“I have no problem with that, Your Highness.” Moriko had very little body shyness, so she’d have been only a little self-conscious about it even without the curtain, but she certainly appreciated the consideration of being asked. The curtained-off area in question contained a pair of magic circles inscribed onto the ceiling and floor, where she stripped down under mistress Ula’s instructions and stood in different poses while lights zipped about her. Ula said that this was taking her measurements, and Moriko believed her, she’d just never had this level of magic scanning before. It did take her a moment to understand what the poses were for, they made various muscles strain in different ways which in turn would allow measurements to take her movements into account.

The conversation from the princesses on the other side of the curtain was carried on mostly by them, and for the most part, it was just small talk that helped Moriko learn a bit about her … hosts? Maybe not technically yet, but it felt a lot like that’s how they were acting, and she was feeling obligated like a guest. She couldn’t think of a better word for it.

The rest of the afternoon and the early evening became quite the busy flurry of shopping, with the first part being a second dress to leave the shop in rather than her uniform. It seems that Mistress Ula kept a selection of ‘last minute’ dresses available in a near-ready state for the princesses’ convenience, requiring only a minimal amount of adjustment to fit one intended for Princess Tiriana to Moriko, as they were the most alike in stature.

This allowed Moriko to see why the royals were confident that Ula could pull a complete dress together in two days. Once the decisions were made, the chosen dress was dropped onto a wooden mannequin that adjusted itself to match the measurements taken of Moriko. Ula eyed the dress a moment then grabbed several spools of different color and weight threads to put onto a set of spindles built into a nearby table. With her preparations complete, Ula drew a flat tool kit from her dress to reveal several rune-etched needles of silvery metal, a small pair of scissors, and a stitch cutter. With a touch and murmured word these devices sprang to life and moved to her will. With expert swiftness she threaded each needle and set them to hovering, then went to work making her adjustments, drawing in or letting out where needed, switching out a couple of panels of the skirt to make it move better for Moriko’s needs, and other small adjustments as well as finishing up the edges. She was doing the work of at least a dozen normal skilled seamstresses with the added advantage of not getting in her own way.

In less than half an hour Moriko had a brand new dress ready for her to head out on the town with the princesses, and her normal soft boots would do well enough for this. Then it was time for accessories. The four princesses were definitely showing off, every place they brought Moriko to had deadly options, many of which were close enough to the weapons Moriko had trained in to be useful to her.

Fancy, delicate-looking fans had ribbing of adamantine with concealed sharp tips. Parasols and umbrellas had options ranging from a short blade you could draw from the bottom like a dagger to a blade that could pop out from the top to make it into a small spear. The embroidery on slender gloves hid tiny metal studs, which were backed by thin but surprisingly tough leather to protect the skin beneath. Hairpins that doubled as thin knives. Weighted handbags. The list went on, and many were selected for Moriko with little chance for her to say no.

Then there was jewelry. Everywhere they went the royals compared several pieces on Moriko, and always bought at least one expensive piece, ‘for the shop owner’s time and trouble’ if nothing else. They were talking around a subject, but it became clearer towards the end of the shopping spree when Moriko was instructed to not wear any of the jewelry on the night of the dinner, it seemed that she would be loaned a small selection of royal jewelry for the duration of the evening.

During all of this Moriko got a better feel for her hosts. Princess Kagami was the one she felt closest to in many ways, they were both the eldest sibling of large families, and it showed in the ways she guided and subtly manipulated conversations of her sisters to keep the peace and avoid topics wandering too far afield. Kagami was also only two years younger than Moriko herself, though she had been married several years now. Her husband was a younger son from a southern barony

Princess Kitiara was not quite as stern as her cool expression and northern coloration suggested, but her composure was due in part to her focus on military matters. She was married to the daughter of a Marquess from the northern border, who would have been the heir were it not for the issue of producing more heirs. Moriko hesitated a moment before making a suggestion when she learned about this. “Um, if she wants to inherit, the two of you might consider visiting the Azeria clan? The kitsune are shape changers, and might know some magic to help you fix that issue temporarily?”

Kitiara gave a slight smile. “Thank you, but we have already considered that. Neither one of us is particularly interested in the role of father or mother here, and we’d both prefer to be on the front line if anything happened, so we’ve decided to keep things as they are.” It had been almost two hundred years since there were any official conflicts with the Trionean Empire, but even if relations were superficially friendly the different cultures were a source of constant tension along the border, and even without proof many were convinced that many of the bandits in the northern territories were financed by the empire.

Princess Tiriana, the one whose dress had been co-opted for Moriko and who was engaged to an elven noble, was the most enthusiastic about the shopping, and on more than one occasion had to be restrained by her sisters from buying even more things for Moriko. She hoped that the princess’s husband-to-be was well off because it seemed that the twenty-eight-year-old had little care about spending money. At least she seemed to have an eye for quality rather than wanting to buy every sparkling trinket, though that could get expensive fast too.

While Tiriana had the most enthusiasm, Bridgette had the most energy. Scarcely a year older than Kazue, she burned with a passionate intensity that would not be out of place at Sakiya’s monastery though her talents were more towards the magical than the martial. She did not have the sort of excitable distractability that the kitsune did however, she was much more focused and could wax on about her studies in magic given the slightest encouragement. It seems that her magic was fueled by one of their older bloodlines awakening, and gave her magic more akin to that of a druid than a wizard, though with a focus on fire as a medium of renewal.

Lady Yuriko was more reserved and seemed amused as she shadowed the group, though she did occasionally offer a suggestion or bit of guidance. Moriko was fairly certain that the kitsune represented more security than the rest of their guards combined.

Physically Moriko could easily keep up with even Bridgette for energy, but this sort of new socialization was a touch overwhelming and emotionally exhausting, so she was quite glad when the other women declared the shopping finished and that it was time for supper. She was ushered into a restaurant with a discreet, unmarked entrance, where they were then led to a private dining room after passing through a slightly more public area. The guardsmen that remained after packages were sent off to be delivered to Moriko’s room at the monastery took up stations in an outer room to the one where the women would be eating. Once orders were placed, the six of them were briefly alone for the first time since she had been ambushed, and Yuriko brought out a small blue orb and placed it on the table where it began to glow. She stared at it for a moment, then nodded. “Speak freely.”

Princess Kagami sighed as she relaxed, which surprised Moriko as she had not realized that the other woman had not been relaxed until that moment. “I think that went well. Moriko, I need to apologize for something. While we did want to help you shop for everything, there was another purpose. Circumstances have already led to you and your spouses being drawn into some royal secrets, so you now get to enjoy another. Lady Yuriko here is also our current spymaster, as is tradition for the Azeria Clan advisor. Our unofficial public appearance with you has allowed her agents to watch the reactions of surprised folk, and are undoubtedly keeping track of the actions of anyone suspicious.” She gave Moriko a grin. “We may be a peaceful kingdom, but even with our advantages there is some internal dissent, and there are a few external threats. So it’s best to keep track of people who react the most to this sort of surprise information. We can’t keep your dungeon a secret, so we might as well take advantage of the situation.” Kagami then turned toward Yuriko with a lightly scolding tone. “As for you, you know very well that Mistress Ula hates it when you surprise her like that. This is why we do half our shopping when you are otherwise occupied.”

Yuriko made a small show of looking repentant, but Moriko rather doubted the sincerity of it. See, this was why she was nervous about dealing with nobility, none of this had even occurred to her as a layer of what was happening. It might not be as bad as she had been imagining for a public court, but she really hated not knowing or understanding what was going on around her with people that were supposed to be her allies.

Kitiara chuckled at Moriko’s expression. “You wear your thoughts on your face when you aren’t guarded. I understand and agree, that’s part of why my wife Catherine and I have decided to leave things be when it comes to potentially inheriting the position of Marquess. We’ll keep our focus on defending the northern border with our strength of arms, and let this lot deal with politics.”

Moriko blushed slightly at being caught out, and it did not help that she could hear Mordecai laughing in the back of her head. He was curious about something however, and Moriko decided to at least bring it up. “Ah, that brings up a topic. Maybe it would be best to cover it later, but I can let you know now. Our ‘open-mindedness’ when it comes to romance surprises him a touch, especially when it comes to nobility. He doesn’t think it was allowed so openly when he was around previously.”

Kagami held up a finger and the others all waited while she thought. After a few moments, she nodded as she made a decision. “I think it will take up more time than we have to go over such questions in detail. While we will answer what you need to know so that we can hopefully write up an official treaty, I’ll make sure we pull together a copy of the founding charter and subsequent changes to help give all of you a better understanding of how everything works in this kingdom.” She smiled slightly. “I take it you are not a history buff, and only really concerned yourself with rules that affected you? Don’t worry, that’s how most people in any nation deal with laws, but you have found yourself in a position where you need to know more.”

Moriko smiled at that. “Guilty. Oh, Mordecai is asking why you are being so generous with our shopping and with some of your secrets?” She gestured towards Yuriko, their recently revealed spymaster.

“Ah, that one is easy.” Lady Yuriko said. “Having a dungeon near our kingdom is unprecedented, and we want to get ahead of other people’s responses. You are technically situated inside the range set aside for all the various mountain tribes to maintain their own governments outside of our or Danuana’s political or legal systems, but you and your wife are citizens of Kuiccihan, so the situation is complicated. What we are hoping for in broad scope is to convince the three of you to sign an alliance treaty that would make your territory a sovereign vassal. This is not as constraining as a standard suzerain-vassal relationship, not only is control of your territory strictly your own but you have the freedom to work on your own foreign relations separately, given that they do not conflict with the security of Kuiccihan. So to be blunt, we are offering both wealth and access to some of our secrets to entice you to trust us, and we do so with the anticipation that this will be beneficial in the long term for our kingdom.”

So a bribe in other words. “And this is all to help warm us up to the idea?”

Bridgette pouted a little at Moriko’s tone. “Don’t be like that. You are effectively our peer, and we have good reason to consider you truly a friendly state. We normally have to be super careful about making people close friends, but you were thrust into this position and we have a lot of information about you from the temple, so we want to make you a real friend. We just have to also deal with all the other stuff at the same time.” Crap, the girl’s sad face was almost as effective as Kazue’s, she just didn’t have ears or tails that could droop.