For the next few months leading up to the summer months, Reyna suffered. She suffered hours of being stuck in the library with Ikaros reading everything he had on the human kingdoms and their customs. A lot of the books were very old and probably outdated, though Ikaros promised that when she reached Neolandia she could read new books over there that had updated information. At that point she was so sick of reading that she was ready to stab the next book that would be put in front of her.

On top of that, she had to take lessons of "proper etiquette" from someone that the council sent to make sure she knew how to walk with a straight spine, bow at the right times, and know the right utensils used to eat if she went to another kingdom for a special dinner event. Reyna hated every minute of it, she especially hated the tight fitted shoes and dress she was forced to wear during these lessons because everything she wore was not something she should wear during a special event. At least during these hellish months Zolar kept up her lessons in defense and attacks and Cici stayed by her side to keep her company.

On the day she left, a lot of the village came to see her off, including old Mags who refused to stop hugging her tightly until the elves who came to take them to the border had to pry them apart. It took a few days by ambler to cross to the border located in Duren, where several humans were waiting.

"This is as far as they're going to let us come, you behave yourself okay?" Ibis says as her things are being handed over to the humans. "If anything, you can always come home."

"I want to go home, now!" Reyna states, her eyes welling up with tears before throwing herself at her father. "Please, I just want to stay here with all of you! Don't make me go daddy!"

"I'm sorry love, I truly am sorry." Ibis says softly, already crying as he hugged her tightly. "Our family couldn't come, but they snuck some gifts for you in your luggage. Open them when you get there, there's even a gift from your grandparents too since they couldn't be here. Be a good little bird for us, please?"

"Let's go elf, we're losing daylight!" One of the humans yell.

"I will!" Reyna sobbed as she gave Ibis one last hug and a quick kiss on the cheek. "Tell them I still love them, and...and I'll try to be good but I won't let those humans change me."

"That's my girl, my little brave crow." Ibis says, giving her a proud smile through his tears. "We'll see you again, I promise little chick."

Reyna nods, unable to say anything as the humans led her away, her father slowly becoming just a speck as they cross through a dense and thick forest and into the human kingdoms.

It was until after they got out of the forest that more humans were waiting, these ones dressed in black, white and gold armor save for an older woman, with numerous large animals. Elephants, much smaller than an ambler but weighing much heavier than a hot cat.

"Well, there she is, the blushing bride." The older woman comments when the elf got close. "You ready for your big day, Reyna?"

"No." Reyna responds, her voice hoarse from her crying. "If possible...could I see my family again soon?"

"I'm afraid not dear, we were lucky to slip you in here without the dragons noticing. Otherwise we'd all be burned to a crisp."

"O-oh, I was...hoping to see them again after the wedding."

"Cheer up kiddo, perhaps if this treaty goes well, you could see your family again." The woman assures her. "Come on. Ever ridden an elephant before?"

"Umm...no we don't have those where I come from." Reyna says as she is led to one of the creatures, this one bearing white paint decorating its trunk and legs. "Is...that safe?"

"I promise Kiki won't bite, she likes watermelons more than skinny little elves." The woman chuckles as the beast shifts the large trunk on her head to touch Reyna, who jerks back in alarm. "It's fine, Kiki, be nice now. You're going to be spending quite a lot of time with her, so no mischief."

The elephant made a bellowing noise and held her trunk out to Reyna, who carefully pokes it. The skin on the nostrils felt soft while the skin around it felt hot and leathery, and the elephant carefully wrapped it around Reyna to hoist her onto her back. The elf yelped in alarm at the sudden movement as she was placed on the top before the woman tossed something up to her.

"Head scarf, put that on when you see sand. It's gonna get quite hot on this journey."

"I'm gonna die out here aren't I?" Reyna mutters as she searches and finds a large rope around her mount's neck. "Hey not to be rude, but do I hold onto this or does it choke her?"

"Grab it unless you want to fall off!" The older woman yells as she climbs onto her elephant as the armored humans mount smaller creatures that almost resemble unicorns. "She'll follow me, so no need to worry about guiding her! Now, let's move out!"

🪶⚔️🪶⚔️

The whole trip to Eboreus was just...hot. The second they reached the desert, Reyna was feeling overwhelmed with the heat and even the scarf wasn't helping. She felt so hot that she was just tempted to throw off her clothes just to free herself of the awful stuffy feeling. At least when they stopped at an empty oasis she was allowed to strip and cool off in the water with the elephants (after one of the soldiers checked for no danger in the waters first) before they had to go back on their journey.

It took a while, but they soon arrived at the bustling capital. Reyna could feel all eyes in her, even with the cloaks she was forced to put on to cover her grey skin. Many humans had yelled some not nice things in her direction, but the soldiers at least kept them from getting close to her elephant. Someone did get close, but Kiki put a stop to it by charging forward immediately until the soldiers caught up.

"Alright, we're here!" The older woman exclaims when they arrived at the front of the palace, where several more soldiers and finely dressed humans were waiting. "But if you are bored and wanna take a little ride on Kiki again, just ask for old Amal at the stables."

"Uh, thanks?" Reyna asks as the elephant is helping her dismount. "I don't know when I'll have time for one, but thanks."

"No problem, besides I think Kiki really likes you, and she hardly ever let's anyone but my grandkids pet her and ride her for no more than a few minutes."

"That's good, I guess." The elf says as Kiki sniffed her hair. "Thanks for the ride."

"So you must be Reyna, right?" An older man dressed in armor asked as he approached. "Come inside, the council and the royal family are waiting for you. The servants will take your things inside."

Once again Reyna could feel all eyes on her as she followed the man towards the palace, the looks from the more finely dressed humans feeling somewhat judgemental.

No, don't let them intimidate you. You will not be afraid of a bunch of perfumed big shots who do desk work. She tells herself as she straightened her back like the etiquette teacher showed her to and held her head high. I won't be some meek little elf they will bully. You've handled and dealt with elves worse than these people.

"Great, we just had to get a scruffy elf for this sham of a wedding." She heard one of the men scoff. "Couldn't they have sent us one with both horns?"

"Are you the one marrying me then?" Reyna asks loudly. "If not, shut your mouth. I didn't ask for my horn to break when I was a child."

"Rude!" A woman gasps.

"Serves him right." The armored man chuckles. "Alright you lot, this here is lady Reyna of Xadia. Behave yourselves around her, the king and the dowager queen expect you and your families to be polite. Come on, your in-laws and husband are inside."

Reyna followed the man in, the finely dressed humans and soldiers following behind them. Ahead were more soldiers, these surrounding a large crowd consisting of mostly children, an older man and a boy who looked her age. They must have been the royal family.

"Welcome! You must be Reyna, it's a pleasure to meet you!" The older man greets when they get close and grabbed Reyna's hands to shake them wildly. "I'm king Ahling, again it's a pleasure to meet you!"

"Nice-to-meet-you-too!" Reyna yells as her hand is shaken rapidly before Ahling stops. "Ow...oof not even my father shakes that hard."

"You're way too enthusiastic about this." The older boy mutters loudly. He must have been Kasef, and Ibis was right, he was young. He seemed somewhat handsome, dark hazel green eyes, fluffy dark hair pulled back and secured behind a crown, muscled, and much taller than her.

"Umm, hi...I'm Reyna." Reyna says as she extends a hand to the teen. "I...I'm going to be your wife?"

"It would seem so." Kasef responds coldly, not even bothering to return the hand shake.

"Son, be polite, she's going to be your wife soon." Ahling scolds. "We talked about this!"

"Big brother is being gwumpy again!" One of the children yells loudly.

"Are you gonna introduce us dad?" One of the other kids ask.

"Oh where are my manners? These are Kasef's younger siblings. There's Sharifa, Amir, Sanura, Salim, Aquila, Talora, Jamar, Rashid, Kafele, and Nijah. Say hi kids! This is Reyna, she's going to be your sister-in-law starting tomorrow, so be nice okay?" Ahling says gesturing to the children.

Aside from Kasef, she counted about ten other kids all staring at her. Goodness she pitied the human woman who gave birth to all them.

"I'm Nijah!" The smallest of the children yells, a little girl with bright hazel green eyes, as she runs forward and grabs Reyna by the hand. "Kasef she's really pretty! She has face feathers!!"

"Skywings don't have body feathers." One of the boys states quietly. "Only from their backs if they're born with wings."

"Actually, we do have feathers somewhere else, on our arms." Reyna corrects him and extends her arms to the kids to show them the rune drawings. "Wanna see what I can do with this?"

"Yeah!" The younger kids yell as she takes several steps back and held her arms out in front of her.

"Manis. Pluma. Volantis!" Reyna yells as each of the three runes glow when she says the spell, before the familiar itchy feeling started to spread from the tips of her fingers all the way up her arms and to her shoulder blades. Black feathers began to grow from her arms, earning terrified shrieks and gasps from the humans as more and more began to grow and her arms changed and bent to be the shape of bird wings. Once done, Reyna threw her arms back to reveal the wings, sending a powerful gust of wind that sent some feathers flying.

"Daddy daddy she's got wings!" Another child yells as she grabs her father's arm. "That's so cool!"

"These are strong enough to lift me off the ground. I had to do a lot of push-ups just for that." Reyna laughs as a lot of the children move forward to touch her wings. Kasef however, hung back with his father, casting her a skeptical frown. "Geez, who spilled ambler piss in your oats this morning?"

"He's mad cuz he's gotta get married." Nijah says with a giggle. "You can marry Sharifa or Amir if Kasef doesn't wanna!"

"Nijah!" Kasef explains as two of the siblings, presumably Sharifa and Amir, look at their baby sister in shock. "Don't say that, that's rude!"

"Ah...no thanks I'm good." Reyna says with a nervous laugh before letting the feathers shrink back into her arms or fall off. "So...where do I sleep?"

"For today, a guest room. Tomorrow evening you'll start sleeping in Kasef's room." Ahling explains. "And the day after that, sleep where you feel most comfortable."

"Better clean your room up big brother!" One of the kids giggle before Kasef smacks their head. "Oww! Daddy, he hit me again!"

"You don't have to smack them to shut them up, I don't smack my own sibling when I get annoyed with them." Reyna scolds as she walked over to the child who got hit and carefully hugged them. "You are not a nice brother."

"You don't have to live with them every day!" Kasef sapped. "Actually starting tomorrow you will, so you'll see how annoying they are."

"Someone needs lessons in patience."

"And someone needs lessons in manners!"

"Alright enough fighting you two, you haven't tied the knot yet and are arguing like an old married couple!" Ahling says getting between the both of them. "How about we take Reyna to her room and let her rest and wash up, she must be tired from the journey."

"Fine." Kasef mutters as Reyna childishly stuck her tongue out at him. "Lets go then."

Reyna could feel the eyes of those humans from earlier on her and turned to face them as she walked by before sticking her tongue out at them, earning her a giggle from the children as they led her away. They soon came to a room, a rather simple but very spacious room with a large bed, a desk by the balcony and a dresser with a few chairs surrounding it. All her things were here too, placed right at the foot of the bed.

"This will be your room for now, and if you don't feel comfortable staying with my son, you can stay here." Ahling says as Reyna walked over to her stuff. "You'll have some servants to tend to you, they'll be right with you shortly. They'll draw you a bath, and when you are done come to the hall to join us for some family time and dinner so we could get to know you better."

"Oh, thanks." Reyna says as she sat at the edge of the bed. "If it's okay, could I be alone right now?"

"Of course! Children, let's leave her alone for now to adjust and rest, you'll see her again at dinner."

Once everyone had left and she was alone in the room, Reyna lets out a relieved sigh and flopped back on the bed. The journey was over - for now at least and she made it here in one piece thankfully. She gets up and knelt down next to her things to go through them before finding several items wrapped in parchment with her family's names written on them. The one from Zolar read "do not open until wedding", the one from Ikaros was of a book of old tales from Xadia that she recalled having read to her and Cici when they were children, the one from Cici was a small bird whistle and a simple leather bracelet with her favorite colored beads, the gift from Ibis was a small framed portrait of their family, the gift from her grandmother also had a "do not open until wedding" note on it, and finally the gift from her grandfather was of a beautifully decorated bottle of ink with a feather pen and a leather bound book. Well if she could not write home to her family, at least with this she could write everything she wanted to tell them.

"My lady? Are you awake?" Reyna hears someone call from the door.

"Uh yes! Very much awake!" The elf yells as she hastily shoved her things back into their bags and kicked them under the bed. "You may enter!"

The door swung open, allowing several young women to enter the room. Reyna counted at least six of them, each dressed in a simple light brown and white dress and carrying a large copper tub and several jugs of steaming water and some smaller clay bottles.

"We are to tend to you for the remainder of your stay." One of the women say as the others lower their heads. "So we are to help you get ready for your bath and your dinner tonight."

"Oh, I can dress and wash myself just fine thank you." Reyna assures the woman. "You...you are dismissed."

"I'm afraid we can't be dismissed right now my lady, the king ordered us to stay by you until it was time for you to go to bed."

"Does no one here know how to wash and dress themselves?" Reyna asks with a small frown.

"People here do know, we are just here to help you get ready for it." The woman from before states as one maid briskly hurries to a closet and pulls out a large dark robe. "Please undress while we draw you a bath to help you wash off."

With an annoyed sigh, Reyna did as she was told, stripping her traveling cloak off and carefully removing the red tunic dress she was wearing along with her pants, boots and her under clothes. By the time she was done, the maids had the tub filled with steaming water and were pouring something into it.

"Whats that?" Reyna asks skeptically.

"Scented oils, just to make the bath water smell nice." One maid states. "Its harmless I promise."

Skeptically, she dipped a foot into the water, hissing when it burned a bit before quickly putting the rest of herself in. Reyna bit back a yelp when one maid dumped some of the water on her head before another poured something cold and began to scrub into her hair.

"Ow! Ow stop I can wash my hair myself!" Reyna yells as she batted the hands away and pushes her hair out of her eyes to see the maids looking at her in surprise. "I can wash myself, please. It feels weird having someone else do this."

"Alright, here's what you put in your hair." The maid from earlier who spoke first says as she hands Reyna a clay flask. She carefully uncorked it, a soft flowery smell overwhelming her senses that made her cough. "Too strong?"

"Yeah, we don't even have something like this at home." Reyna admits with another cough before carefully pouring the stuff into her hair and hands the flask off to someone before starting to roughly scrub her own hair. "So you all are supposed to tend to me until who knows when, is that right?"

"Yes, or unless one of us does something that could get us fired."

"Like Farah last month when lady Noya was having one of her fits of rage." A maid says and another one smacked her arm. "Ow! What, it's true! She was mad because Ahling turned down her father's proposal to marry her to the crown prince, everyone who worked for her either got sacked or placed to work somewhere else in the palace."

"Great, someone I have to now deal with." Reyna mutters as a maid carefully pour some water on her head to let her rinse her hair out. "Anyone else I should keep my guard up around? Like someone from the council, or within the royal family?"

"Perhaps the king's mother, she has quite a sharp tongue." The first maid from before states. "My aunt still works for her, so she gets to witness the dowager queen go off on "incompitent council members" and scolding her eldest grandson for being a brat."

"Guess someone I can get along with if I tried." Reyna says as a maid hands her a sponge. "What are the king and his children even like? They seem friendly and well behaved, but how long is that going to last?"

"Ahling is the kindest human you'll ever meet, not a single mean bone in him." One maid says happily before her smile fell. "As for his eldest..."

"Yeah I can tell."

"Perhaps we shouldn't speak ill of the crown prince, sure he can be a bit of a...difficult case, but he can be nice when he wants to be."

"He's a good man, he just needs to keep that temper of his under control and for someone to tell him off when it's necessary." The first maid from before states with a huff. "Some servants already heard the council members complaining of lady Reyna's "snarky quips" so maybe that should put the prince in his place."

"Nour!"

"What, it's the truth Aisha! You think lady Noya would be able to handle his little tantrums and hissy fits when he doesn't want to eat vegetables? That little noble just grovels and tries buttering him up every time she gets close, at least this girl here would stand up to him."

"Nice to see someone has faith in me." Reyna comments as she stands up and is immediately wrapped up in towels. "Uh, what do I wear to these sorts of things? I don't need to change every hour for every little thing I have to do, right?"

"It's a private family dinner, no need to dress you up so fancy." The maid Nour assures her. "Though we may have to take you to a tailor or seamstress soon, you're a bit...smaller than we expected."

"You can thank my biological father's genetics for that, my mother's family was supposed to be quite tall so I can blame the father I never met for passing me the small height." Reyna mutters as she is pushed onto a chair and having her hair dried roughly. "Do be careful with my horns, these don't grow back. Also I think I do have something simple in my luggage I could wear for this dinner. My fathers insisted I pack at least some simple dresses if I didn't have any clothes tailored here."

Once toweled off, Reyna slipped back to the bed where her things were and pulls out a simple dark blue colored dress, one of the many dresses Mags had made for her before it was time for her to leave. The maids waited patiently as she quickly dressed before one took her back to the dresser and gave her hair a quick brushing before declaring her ready for dinner. She was soon led through the palace until reaching a room that had a large table where the whole royal family was seated around on pillows chatting.

"Reyna! You've made it." Ahling greets when he caught sight of her. "Come, sit down so we could eat."

A lot of the children kept scooting around the table, arguing and jostling each other until a spot between Kasef and little Nijah was opened. Oh dear. Reyna gave them a smile before walking over and sitting down between them.

"Why do you have one horn?" Nijah asks once Reyna had seated herself comfortably. "And face feathers?"

"Nijah that's rude." Kasef scolds.

"No no it's okay, I get asked this a lot by elves who never met me before. I used to have two whole horns as a kid until I fell out of a tree while helping my sibling learn to fly." Reyna explains and tapped the broken horn before pointing at her feathers. "These came earlier when I drew one of the runes I have on my arm for that wing spell on my face. The second I said the incantation, poof! The whole side of my face and part of my chest were covered in feathers. We had to pluck out so many even after several had fallen out or receded when the spell wore off and I still had these. Stubborn little shits."

"Oh don't cuss, father might have a stroke." Sharifa comments and points at Ahling, who was looking a bit uncomfortable.

"Oh, I can't cuss around him?"

"Yeah, last time someone did he nearly had a heart attack and that was a whole sentence filled with swears."

"Ah, I'll keep that in mind, sorry."

"It's fine, I'm just a bit sensitive to things." Ahling assures her. "Oh good, dinner is here! I hope you don't mind a bit of spice in your meals from now on, we tend to add a lot of it in our dishes for flavor."

"I don't mind some seasoning in my vegetables, gives them flavor." Reyba says as several servants bring out various dishes and set them around the table.

"Ugh why do we need to have so many vegetables in our dinner again?" Kasef asks in disgust as he frowns at the plate of steaming greens in front of him. "Disgusting."

"Hey nothing wrong with a few greens in your meal, they're good for you!" Reyna scolds as she picks up a fork and picks up a few vegetables and some meat pieces with it. "How else are you going to keep those muscles of yours big? Also set an example for your younger siblings, they need to eat these."

"I like them more than meat." Salim says before popping a piece of vegetable into his mouth.

The second Reyna popped a piece of her food into her mouth, her whole mouth felt like it was set aflame and immediately spat the food out onto her plate before coughing violently.

"DADDY SHE'S DYING!!" One of the princesses screams in panic as Ahling jumps up and rushes over.

"Good grief, drink this!" Kasef groans as he grabs a chalice and puts it to Reyna's lips before she hastily gulps it down. "You just got warned we put a lot of spice in our food, what's the matter with you?"

"Fire *cough* in my *cough* throat!" Reyna gasps as she coughs. "Ugh my throat..."

"Idiot." Kasef mutters before Sharifa smacks his shoulder.

"Uh, perhaps we should get you something else to eat." Ahling suggests as he helps her sit up. "Get her some water or milk, and perhaps some bread."

"You handle spice like a Del Barian." Kasef says as Reyna takes another drink from the chalice.

"Shut...up..." Reyna mutters before finishing the drink. "Oh that smarts...reminds me of the time I tried making soup and adding a lot of grounded hot pepper into the broth, it was so spicy that one of my fathers who's normally intolerant to spice actually thought it was bad - and he's a Sunfire elf!"

"Wait I thought you were a full Skywing?" Salim asks as a servant brings a plate of bread and places it on the table.

"I am a full Skywing - sort of. My mother had some Sunfire elf blood in her because her father was a half Sunfire elf according to my grandparents, and my father was definitely a pure Skywing. Sadly she died so I was adopted twice in my life and as of right now I have three fathers and one sibling."

"I don't have a mama either." Nijah comments. "Just daddy."

"Ah, guess something new we get to learn about you tonight." Ahling says as he goes to sit back in his original spot. "So, what else should we know about you? Any hobbies so we can find something similar to entertain you with?"

"Well this isn't really a hobby, more of a profession actually, but I was studying to be a healer and an herbalist." Reyna says as she grabs a piece of bread off her plate. "Some days if I wasn't busy, I'd go out to the forests surrounding my village and collect herbs that were growing to take them back and dry them. Once dried to a certain degree I turn them into various medicines with the help of someone more experienced and we used them in the infirmary I also worked at. Also what wasn't used I'd just take home and see if we could use it as a spice for dinner or for our baths."

"That actually sounds cool!" Salim exclaims. "We do have an infirmary here in the palace and some outside of it, maybe you can help there by gathering plants grown in the oasis' in the kingdom!"

"She's gonna have to study the plant life of our kingdom and of the human kingdoms, we have quite different flora and fauna to Xadia." Ahling points out. "But that does sound like it would be handy and Meerna could use a hand since her last few assistants quit, I'll talk to her about it after the wedding. So children, anything you want to ask Reyna?"

"Do you drink blood?" Nijah asks and the brother seated next to her quickly covers her mouth.

"Sweetie that's rude! You don't ask an elf that, especially your own sister-in-law!" The king scolds.

"It's alright, she's just curious. You've all grown up hearing so many myths and wrong facts on elves, it's only natural to ask about them when you see an actual elf." Reyna says with a shrug. "For starters, no I don't drink blood. But I have heard myths of Moonshadow elves that would drink blood of living beings to expand their lifespan, but were killed off by the other elves of their race. I suppose that's where the whole thing started."

"Drinking blood is unhealthy anyways, what made those elves think that would make them live longer?" Salim asks and gags.

"I'd say the same for dark magic, why do it if it will effect and deteriorate your whole body?"

"Fair point."

"Can we not talk about that at the table?" Kasef grumbles, pushing the vegetables around on his plate. "Also may I be excused? I want to go spar a bit before bed."

"No!" His siblings respond in unison.

"I can spar with you, if you'd like to. I can hold my own in a fight." Reyna suggests. "I've been trained by my Sunfire father, and he's an excellent teacher too! He even trained the most talented and strongest knights of his kingdom in his youth before he got married and became a blacksmith."

"No thanks, I don't spar with obviously inexperienced fighters." Kasef scoffed and Reyna felt her anger flare a bit. "How do I know you won't cry if I knock you to the floor like Salim?"

"Hey!" The teen protests.

"I'd like to see you try, brat." Reyna challenges with a smirk. "I've fought with elves around your height or build and always came out of fights with less bruises than what they got from me."

"Oh good, someone who can knock him on his butt who isn't his guard." One of the other sisters laughs.

They then heard a loud mewing sound before something small and black came running right to then and leapt right onto the table. It was a small hairless looking animal with bright blue eyes, a long thin tail and weirdly colored skin with large ears on its head.

"Eww what is that?!" Reyna exclaims as she jerks away when the hairless creature starts walking on the table and weaving between the plates and cups.

"It's Kala!" Nijah exclaims as the creature comes to her, gave a mew and butts its head against her hand. "She's a kitty cat!"

"A cat? Are you sure it's not a hairless rat?"

"A sphynx to be exact, they're a breed of hairless cats." Salim corrects her as the cat wanders over to Kasef and mews at him. "She's as old as Nijah, one of the cooks had a cat who had kittens at the time she was born and gave us one so we could have a pet."

"She's very well behaved." Kasef comments as he plucked a piece of meat from his plate to offer it to the cat, who happily accepts it. "In fact I happen to be her favorite in this family."

"Lies!" Nijah gasps as Ahling laughed. "Daddy tell him!"

"Sweetie, Kasef has been caring for Kala since she was a kitten, and got very attached to him. Of course he's going to be her favorite." The king says as the cat jumps from the table and onto Kasef's shoulder, before shifting so she was now draped around his neck like a little black scarf, her large bright blue eyes locked on Reyna as her thin tail twitched.

"I've never seen cats like that, unless you count Hot Cats." Reyna said with an awkward laugh. "Also we don't have cats like that in Xadia, so forgive me for thinking she was something else."

"It's fine, everyone who hasn't met her thinks she's not a cat." Ahling assures her. "Though I have to warn you, she likes slipping into Kasef's room to sleep so you'll be woken up by her a lot. And will try to lay on your face"

"Oh come on, I have to share my room with her?!" Kasef exclaims. "It's bad enough I have to be married!"

"You think I want to be married to a brat like you who won't eat his veggies?" Reyna scoffs. "I don't want to, but I have to suck it up and do it anyways. This is only so we could establish peace between our people and hope the other kingdoms would want to have peace - hopefully without an arranged marriage."

"You know what? I think I would rather shi-"

"Is this how we treat a guest Kasef?" A sharp voice interrupts. "By tomorrow she will be your wife, at least have some respect for her."

"Ah, hello mother." Ahling says as an elderly woman with long pale hair with some streaks of brown in it enters the room, clad in a black sleeping robe with pale gold flowers embroidered on the sleeves over a simple white gown. "Oh Reyna, this is my mother and the dowager queen of Neolandia, Zaria."

"So this is the elf who's been causing a bit of a fuss among the nobles?" The older woman asks, her dark eyes examining Reyna cautiously. "Hmm, what happened to your other horn? I was under the impression elves had at least two."

"O-oh, I lost it as a child, flying accident." Reyna says, now feeling a bit self conscious about it.

"Nothing wrong with that, I just thought someone broke it on the way here. I'm at least glad my grandson isn't marrying one of the daughters of those sniveling nobles who are always groveling when I disagree with them on something."

"To be fair mother, you were quite terrifying as a queen." Ahling says as a servant brought a chair for the older woman to sit. "Even though you aren't anymore you still hold power and influence."

"Which is why I allowed you to marry your bodyguard instead of one of those girls who splash themselves with enough flowery perfume to give me a headache, Noelani was a noble but she and her family were military and she wasn't anything like those girls."

"So you are happy Kasef is marrying someone like our mother?" Salim asks. "I bet she could kick butt like her."

"Well I did say I could spar with your brother and give him a...butt kicking." Reyna points out. "So yeah, I guess to your grandmother that should be fine."

"Good, last thing we need is someone who tries flattering him if he even sneezes." Zaria scoffs as she sat down. "Now, why don't we eat? I feel well enough to eat with my family and not be cooped up in my room."

The rest of the dinner went quite well, at least to Reyna. Kasef kept looking grumpy every time he glanced over at her, but the rest of the time he looked relaxed even with the cat still draped around his neck. Ancients if he was going to be like this even after they married, she was screwed.

After some time, Ahling announced it was time for everyone to head to bed, which earned him some protests from most of his children before promising them to read a few stories to them. Reyna excused herself to go back to her room, which the maid Nour escorted her to, before helping her get ready for bed.

"Excited for th wedding tomorrow?" Nour asks as she helped Reyna brush her hair out. "You have a gown for the ceremony? If not, we can go to the tailors and have them alter you something."

"I have some dresses, I'll just wear one of them." Reyna assures her and yawns. "I think I should head to sleep, you should too if you're gonna be helping me get ready in the morning."

"Alright, good night." Nour says with a nod before setting the brush down and heading out of the room.

Once Nour was gone, Reyna made her way back to the bed and goes through her things before grabbing the feather pen, the empty leather book and the ink bottle her grandfather gifted her. Once she had opened the bottle and dipped the pen into it, she began to write in it, humming to herself and glancing at the small lamp next to her bedside.

Day 1

I finally made it to Neolandia, very hot and half the people I met made me want to fling my shoes at their stupid and smug faces, while others I think I will get along with just fine. As for my husband, or soon-to-be husband, I don't think I will get along with him anytime soon. Stubborn, a brat to the core, and cold that's what he's like. Always scowling and it makes me want to punch him in the face. I miss my family, and it sucks that I can't write to them to tell them about everything. At least with this I can write everything I want to tell them about, though I should just hide it in case.

Tomorrow is my wedding, not looking forward to it and I wish my family could attend it. I hope things at least get better soon, or that this marriage helps ease tensions between my homeland and these humans so I can see my family again. I hope they're doing okay without me.

With a tired sigh, Reyna blew on the pages to dry the ink before carefully shutting the book and tucked it under the numerous pillows of her bed before setting the pen and the pot of ink down on a table next to her bed, and then slipping under the covers. The sooner she fell asleep, the sooner the next day would come and she could get this over with.

"Please let this be over soon. She whispers softly. "Please..."