Princess Life

[Kender Bard]

A brilliant idea occurred to Luminous after she'd bid Lucid goodnight the prior night. She needed to resume her duties, guest or no, but she didn't want to neglect him all day.

Yet if he wanted to be with her, he would need to be a part of such daily tedium. She wondered if he would be up to the task. At breakfast, she sent a servant to knock on his door.

[Devon]

Lucid was already awake, making sure he was presentable before answering the door. "Yes?" he asked the servant on the other side.

[Kender Bard]

The servant bowed politely to Lucid. "Her Highness wishes to breakfast with you in the morning nook," the servant said. "I will escort you to her at your convenience."

[Devon]

"Well I'm ready now," Lucid told the servant. "Please lead the way."

[Kender Bard]

The servant brought Lucid to a small table set in a sunny room with windows and sunroof. It was warm, too, but not uncomfortably so, given the weather. It was already starting to get cold in the mountains even during the day.

Luminous smiled brightly at Lucid and gestured to the seat next to her own as she lowered her fork. The kitchen had whipped up ham, goose eggs, and raspberry oatmeal with cream. "Good morning," she greeted.

[Devon]

Lucid took the seat next to her, leaning over to give her a kiss on the cheek. "Good morning, this looks good," he said, ready to eat.

[Kender Bard]

Luminous smiled brightly at the kiss. "I'm glad you like it." She didn't want to spoil their appetites with talk of the day to come so simply sat and tucked into breakfast with zeal. Once they'd both had their full, she finally broached the subject she wanted to. "As much as I'd love to spend the whole day entertaining you, Lucid, I'm afraid I must see to my duties. However, you're welcome to join me if you like. I would love to get your insight on some of the problems my kingdom grapples with daily. It'd be a bit boring, though, so I understand if you'd rather entertain yourself."

[Devon]

"I'd love to," Lucid replied. "I need to start learning more of all this anyway, I try and sit in with my mother back home so I'm a little used to it."

[Kender Bard]

I'm not sure how well our governments translate, Luminous thought. But it suited her goals well enough. "Well no time like the present. I need to go to Lady Calder's home to begin. Do you need anything before we go?"

[Devon]

"No, I'm ready to go now if you are," Lucid told her.

[Kender Bard]

Luminous nodded and had a coach brought around for the short trip to the Calder residence nearby, guards included. Once there, Laura seemed ready and waiting for Luminous's arrival and greeted the other woman with a hug.

"Laura, I want to introduce my friend, Lucid, son of Mother Cascata," Luminous said with a gesture to Lucid.

Laura curtsied to him. "A pleasure to meet you."

"Is it all right if he sits with me today?" Luminous asked.

"I can't see the harm," Laura replied after a moment of thought. To Lucid, she said, "Generally we hold a closed audience daily for a limited amount of time. Only the queen holds open audiences. We also take time to sort through written petitions and contracts. We do a bit of paperwork, admit someone for an audience, then do more paperwork... It breaks up the day."

Luminous rolled her eyes at that. She didn't find the day terribly broken up. "Any preference on which to start, Lucid?"

[Devon]

Lucid bowed to Lady Calder. "Nice to meet you as well," he replied. Thinking for a moment he said, "Let's start with some of the paperwork so we can get it out of the way."

[Kender Bard]

Laura nodded and grabbed a sheaf of papers, flipping through them and giving one to Luminous to look over.

Luminous glanced over the text, reading quickly. "This is a requested contract between the stonemasons and quarry workers and the kingdom to raise taxes on all stone goods for citizens while it remains in demand or--failing that--to raise them for double the demand-time once the demand has gone down... slightly." She glanced at Lucid. "Sounds like extortion of the people to me."

"Most of our rebuilding has finished," Laura chimed in as a reminder. "They can't know of Lucid's presence in the city or they'd have specified exports as well."

[Devon]

"Its possible they do and want to see if this will pass first," Lucid mused. "But this seems like something easily deniable. I'd just like to know why."

[Kender Bard]

"They likely wish to receive better compensation for the work done thusfar," Luminous remarked as she eyed the document over again. "The quarry is, technically, property of the nation. My family and so forth. As are a few other operations but people have been less eager for gold and silver since the attacks. At any rate, the people petitioning us would stand to gain money overall. Especially if they pressured us to leave the new tax rate once raised."