The Reborn Witch had a nice 'Tea Time' with the Dragon Queen today-Chapter 25: Uh Oh (3)

"My Queen. You seem to be in distress." The chandelier from the Royal Court bowed. The throne-like chair in the office now seemed a throne of thorns for the Elsara the Queen, her blue straight hairs uncombed and her tiara dangled between her thumb, as she leaned towards the long table, her name plague haunting her to do her duty despite the pressure.

"Have you figured where the hero is?" The Queen uttered in distress. Her nobility forgotten temporarily under the dire situation, in contrast to the old, gentle chandelier.

"My Queen, you have overestimated the hero's capacity for impulsiveness and show of might." The chandelier bowed, yet his gaze remained on the Queen's dark green eyes. "Let's not judge our hero based on her youthfulness, and focus on the recent vampires who disguised as war refugees that have been proven a violent threat."

"I would have named you a fiend who would betray the nation, had you not been my Uncle, chandelier Forsak." The Queen smiled wryly, tapping her fingers on the table, as the rudeness of the offense unbefitting of the casualness of her tone.

"Elsara. The hero is not a bloodlust-seeking demon." The uncle's smile curled downwards to a frown. "She's more of a...rash individual who knew her limit. Maybe a few...meteors here and there would do the trick, but the elders can take such a provocation."

"You spoke of a meteor with the weight of a snack in a tea party, Uncle." Elsara straightened her posture as she responded her uncle's gaze with her own. "Let alone the political ramification, the elders would think us betrayers for the peace treaties."

Well, the Queen has deliberately hidden this matter out of concern for this exact consequence, even agreeing to Alice's little games for distraction. Has she known Pippy would suddenly barge in, she would've clarified the situation further right after the elders' meeting with her.

"Not exactly. The elders...possibly could not have foreseen this situation either, but it is also understandable Alice would be angry." Smirking under his beard, the chandelier Forsak chuckled, the urgency in the air unable to disrupt his calmness. "After all, Demond the mage was killed. That old friend may be revived under a different body, but such a ceremony that requires death is something Alice couldn't possibly agree to."

"Reviving...under the different body?" Elsara frowned. "You seem to hold more secrets from me again, Uncle."

"You are naturally uninformed, given your...unnatural closeness with Alice the Hero." The Uncle chuckled. "Regardless, please believe your friend, Elsara. She would...handle this matter her own ways."

Elsara's frown turns to a furrow, as her fingernail was raised and tapped the crown on her head. The symbol of a peaceful kingdom resting calmly, in spite of the grand storm their diplomacy will be facing, is a sorrowful reminder that Elsara could forever faced bowed heads with dignity, and in-turn she would bow as well, towards her people with promises of no more bloodsheds and sweats.

And at the centre of that promise stands her hero, the people's hero. That smuggy, confident grin was always plastered within her jewelled eyes, even removing that symbol of a Queen from her head, constantly swatting her followers off. Play with me, she always ordered, and I would make your worries go away.

A chortle was sounded from the Queen. The recipient knew but her hero didn't, for she was always the one who cleaned their whole mess afterwards, whether it is flaming an entire noble's mansion for demons, or encasing the entire Northland with an anti-teleportation barrier.

So in a way, this is but one of them, one of the hero's unique method to rope the Queen into danger.

"My Chandelier, I couldn't ignore your advice, but I'm afraid my duty has not ended yet." Elsara's smirk now mirrored to that of the chandelier's, the pride of a royal could not be more attested to in this moment.

"Call the other old farts for the Royal Meeting, and arrange a direct communication ray thereafter. We'll assess the damage caused and discuss repercussions needed." The Queen stood up, as with a flick of a wrist, mana swirled up her messy hair back into straightened sleekness.

"Understood, my Queen." The chandelier bowed, his politeness firm yet confidence unyielding in front of her queen's royal order.

The metaphor of how this seems like a trope of how a 'tired wife resolving the mess of her husband', but he figured only his old friend would only nod to his reference, whereas his Queen would be in a fervent denial.

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Alice groaned as she plopped herself down a sofa, unfazed by the utter destruction that surrounded her. She crossed her leg before supporting her chin with her palm on the thigh, as the other arm slipped into her pocket. Taking out a cigarette, her lips met her father's favourite once again, before lighting it with her thumb, the small ember as the only sign of vigor among the cold, dark fog.

"So," she puffed out a smoke, her brows narrowed into a furrow as her icy eyes peered onto the scenery of disaster. "Where's my explanation, perverted hags of the Council?"

The colosseum, once a symbol of arrogance for the Sky Dragon, now groaned under the weight of the hero's quest for revenge. The marble walls and pillars were reduced to rubbles, as icy, dusted fogs of mana splattered throughout the scene. The remains of the meeting room were encased with ice as the sofas cracked with frosted fabric under the pressure, except for the one Alice was sitting at, a weird testament to the hero's precision for her own convenience.

As if responding, a dragon puffed out from a pile of frozen marble, then another from another pile, as Alice remarked how it was like 'digletts' that her father favoured upon back in his old world. Soon, one by one, the heads poked out, before their bodies shook off the debris, the sky dragons' own bodies coated with more browny dusts and chilling snowflakes coating like a second skin, not the teasing kind like the witch's.

"A...Alice..." In a trembling tone, Afina bowed her head as her eyes scoured her siblings, all with no harms except a few frostbites inside the eerily blue glows of the fog. The attack was intentionally non-lethal, or else there is a million ways for the hero to one-shot them. So, there is room for negotiations.

"I...we must have had a misunderstanding, please-"

"Nah-uh-uh, don't use bullshits like misunderstanding or how all these can be rectified blah blah blah, I don't need that crap." Alice rolled her eyes, before she stared back with an icy glitters exuding from her iris, not bothering to hide her bloodlust. "Straight to the point, revival rituals or not, did you order the execution of my father?"

The pressure in the air grew, the icy fogs on the skin was a mere light reminder compared to the utter walking calamity right in front of them. The chilly frosts on their skins stifled Afina's scarred throat, as her keen ears heard a hitch from her siblings. They knew what they have secretly ordered, just that it was the secret of the Queen not to expose it early for Alice, for she knew something like this would have happened.

Then there is implication of betrayals among the council, or humans leaking their secrets of witchcraft, or Demond the witch had some ways to relay her death. But the former old mage would not have blamed them for the troubles...well, not entirely on them for grudges, and the humans' loyalty was ensured with the Magic Contract that bound the Queen's heart. That leaves...

"Answer my question, Old Hag."

"Ah. Yes yes...we did kill and revive your father under a different form..."

Out of a habit from a representative diplomat, Afina gasped as she realised her answer might be a bit...too long for the hero's liking, her claws instantly sharpened as her mind desperately scoured for a way to hinder Alice's berserk, so that her siblings may run away safely.

Then as if sweeping away her worry, a long, long sigh spread across the destroyed colosseum. Afina looked up hesitantly, before realising the furrow of the hero, now reduced a little to a frown, as her similarly azure gaze pierced deeply into hers, as if trying to find a hint of lie, deception or secrecy.

"So, it's true then. That Adrei killed my father and revived him afterwards?" Alice sounded calmly, a calmness that would cast upon a ray of hope among the dragons' helpless predicament, a calmness that she would literally take three days to destroy all of dragons, seventy hours for Adrei, two hours for the rest.

"Y-yes...Alice." Afina bowed her head again, then hesitated, before she swallowed her century-old pride and lowered her waist in defeat, the dragon's ego worthless before the needed survival of her kind, as well as the long-year diplomacy between human and dragon that her queen has started since twenty years ago.

"And for what reason is this prank? Ha, you expect me to go 'oh, you kill him, but it's cool you revive him afterwards so it's fine!'...like that?" The sheer mockery from Alice's tone was like a prickly ice needle across her ears, as the fog of ice grew only thicker under the bubbled tension.

Afina gulped, as her legs kneeled down to the hero. "I am very, very sorry, but it is our Queen's secret for...for um..."

"Um?"

"Um..." As Afina realised telling the truth may, or probably would only further the rage of the hero, the ridiculousness of this temperament was stuck in her mind. "Um...promise you won't be angry?"

"I won't...yeah right, you're not in any position to demand me anything." Icicles formed behind the tiny, cute girl who smoked a cigarette, the disparate scenery brought nothing but a solemn acceptance of her fate, as Afina delivered the ridiculous truth to Alice.

"So...our Queen turned your father into a girl. And...well, married her, forcefully."

Of course, she concealed the details about Leona's 'death', her Queen's groping adventure with the Witch, alongside the witch's acceptance of their marriage. But she felt as if her species would really be extinguished out of existence should she speak a word about it, so smartly, the details were casted aside.

"Ma...marriage?" Alice's cigarette dropped as her lips gaped open for the bundles of information that crashed in on her. The fogs of mana now thinned as the frostbites grew less in size on the dragon's body, as Alice's mana was pressed down under the weight of the surprise.

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"Y-you're serious....marriage." Alice couldn't help but chuckle in nervousness.

"That's right, marriage. After your father has turned into...an appearance suiting the Queen's favor."

Afina's words hung in the frosty air, each syllable echoing through the destroyed colosseum like a death knell for their dignity. The dragons around her shifted uncomfortably, the gravity of the situation setting in like a heavy shroud. They knew Alice's temperament; she was not one to take jests about her kin lightly, especially when it came to her father.

And soon, more icicles formed around the hero, her body grew colder, and the fogs of frost grew denser as if the very room itself was suffocating, the aura of a hero was replaced by a beast that craved vengeance.

"Tell me," and that beast had a gentle smile of an innocnet girl, as if the slaughter she was about to commit was a mere child's play, "How long since we had a target practice together last time, old hags?"

The soft, chilling smile that curled Alice's lips was more terrifying than even the fiery rage from their queen, as the dragons around Afina could feel the tension coil tighter in the air, the cold seeping into their very bones. The slit-eyed Nyoka, the emerald-eyed Jadyn and the ashen eyed Yasen looked at each other, knowing that they would be soon forced into a 'running' session with the hero.

Ah, fuck this. Afina murmured under her breath once again, the responsibiltiy of a diplomat forgotten as her kneels turned to abandonment. Her siblings knew the drill as they followed, the icicles chasing them in a playful dance of doom.