The 4th Princess Just Wants to Rot!

If there's at least some solace for Sophia Elise, it's that now everyone was on her schedule.

No more early morning classes where she'd have to get dragged out of bed and into the torture chair at the front of a chalk board and tutor—the Fourth Princess of the Ensolian Imperium was now the center of her world.

The late evening sun streams through these floor to ceiling stained glass windows, scattering a prism of colors across these black halls. Those three distant stars in the midst of setting against the pale blue orb of their parent world of Unudo, and in the streets of Landfall the bustle and roar of a dying heart comes to rest once more.

Even in the Palital Temple, that monstrous monument of brutal squares and temple spires, the mind of the Dominion begins to slow to a crawl; its neurons of paper, of scribes and courtiers returning from their stations in vast halls to homes and apartments both within and without those holy walls.

And unfortunately for just one single Princess, that part dreams of her.

"Twenty six requests, Ma'am. All from either flag officers in the Dominion Military or Magistrate or higher courtiers." That Elodie Chaessur had told her, this 'corrugated' hiring cycle giving the new administrator of this Princess' entire life a mere two hours to compile a somewhat tenable schedule for her. "Different requests for each, all formally stamped and written."

TWENTY SIX AUDIENCE REQUESTS?! Sophia slouches in that chair, within this antechamber to her room, and runs her hands through her forehead.

That's twenty six meetings. We cut it up into two a day and that's THIRTEEN DAYS of work! A week and a good third!

"How long will one audience take?" Sophia asks as coldly as possible, trying to suppress this insane knot currently trying to tie her stomach together.

"Depends on the topics that you'll be covering and how many per group, though based on some of these requests, and if we're going off of the Imperial methodology of scheduling, they will take three to five hours…" Elodie tries to soften the blow. "Each."

Three times twenty six is seventy eight. Sophia's brain does the math frighteningly fast. Taking on one a day that's more than half a month gone!

The Sixth was good at this.

That damned brown haired, squat standing, trousers wearing, loud mouthed, twice removed ancestor of Sophia Elise's once wrangled down the entire Etheryn Coast with nothing more than a silver tongue, sharp wit, and an average six meetings per day.

Weekends be damned. A part of this Fourth Princess whispers to her, telling her of that lauded ancestor. That is what you should be. The sixth of your namesake brought peace to the Coast: splayed a once great house from an armed insurgent force into nothing more than happy fish mongers in Saint Corrin. That is someone YOU need to live up to.

"She died at forty two working herself to death…" Sophia begins to murmur. "... I dun wanna die at fourty two…"

"I'm sorry?" Elodie blinks at that utterly out of context statement.

"N-nothing. It was nothing." This Princess tries to save. "Wh-what…"

There's a moment where she takes a deep breath, clears her throat, and plays her game with a glacial chill. "Please give me a brief on these individuals, make it quick."

Forty six.

Forty six people in the highest echelons of the Dominion wanted to speak, in private, to this Fourth Princess of the Imperium. To influence her, to bring their own political games of power to her: to spin this young woman into the web of their conspiracies.

The Generals of the Rifle Brigades and Admirals of the Grand Fleet—those whose armies wore those black uniforms and rifles, brought the weight of ocean-ships upon the waves, whose posts set them through the vast forests, mountain passes, and endless tides of the Stygiean Sea. Those who stemmed the tide of the Axial Powers with blood and steel, those who fought and died for this Dominion that now kneels beneath her country, her power.

They want the weapons from our Imperium. A conspiratorial thought whispers into Sophia's consciousness. Enough abatteuse machine guns to cut down an army in a hailstorm of fire, klarinette anti-material rifles to tear through heavy armor, cymbal field guns to punch through enemy lines, and the imperial military advisors to train them in our ways of war.

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And maybe even an aerostatic, your people's heresy against their gods.

The magistrates and sages seemed to make the bulk of the numbers, and sixteen of them in fact had gone through the trouble of compiling together these dozen pages each, hand written audience notices filled with this strange mixture of flowering flattery and incoherent insistences that seemed to combine together into a mass of…

You are power. That same part of Sophia tells her as she reads these words, these lines, these requests. You stood defiant against the Lord of the Dominion. You only survived because of the things that make you, the things that you control.

And if someone can control even a fragment of you, then they have leverage over power unthinkable.

"The rest are just lower court courtiers." Elodie hurriedly explains as this Fourth Princess completes the third letter in the list.

"Can we not ignore them?" Sophia dismisses, tossing these critical political assets into the proverbial trashcan.

"If we remove the courtiers then we have twenty two…"

"I meant all of them."

Silence in this chamber, silence as these two guards, this agent of the Imperium, processes this insane statement from their master.

"Y-you want to dismiss all of these audience requests?" Elodie tries to specify.

Wait, did you seriously just say that?! Some thought process raises an accusation towards the internal monologue. You seriously want to not even do our job here? Our political duty as a Princess-Consort?! What would happen if Zai, our HUSBAND of all people finds out that we've been eschewing our duties, what impression would that make of us?! Wasn't one of our goals to SOMEHOW MAKE HIM FALL IN LOVE WITH US?!

There were several clauses in Imperial law that could, in theory, let a male divorce his female spouse. Specifically that of a 'failure to provide' law suddenly pops up in her head, that landmark court case a hundred years ago probably one of the largest revolutions in rights within this specific era.

And if Zai knows who you really are, and how much you've not helped him out in the politics he'll divorce you on the spot!

"N-no… that's just a j-joke." Sophia desperately recovers, nervously chuckling. "H-how many do we have for the magistrates and other important members of the court?"

"Twenty two, ma'am."

Crap.

And for a long while this Head of Staff watches as the face of her master contorts. Trained eyes as that Princess of the Imperium scratches her arms, her hands, her shoulders and her scalp in a ritual of stimulus as she racks her brain, eyes darting across this antechamber like a madman.

Waiting, hoping, coping… before in an instant that girl comes up with an answer that strikes through her body like lightning in a summer rain storm.

"Twenty-two divided by two is eleven." Sophia explains, waiting for an answer from Elodie without any question.

A silence that holds even after seconds of awkwardness, forcing this woman to clear her throat. "Y-yes ma'am?"

"Two sessions are acceptable." And with this vast stroke of genius, the Fourth Princess of the Ensolian Imperium explains it to her. "I will host two sessions where they may speak with me. Please inform these individuals to assign themselves to whichever audience session they deem best fits their schedules."

"A-and this will be…"

"In a group setting, correct."

There's not enough room for an objection, Elodie caught up in this plan as she quickly jots down the requirements for this. "A-and what time shall we schedule these two sessions?"

Sophia pauses, feeling the emptiness within her gut and that primal instinct that burrows up towards her chest in a pang of guilt. Let's spare some time for us to feed ourselves? Perhaps a nice spicy Tiancin stir-fry would be wonderful as our first meal in this strange post dinner time period.

"Schedule them to begin in four hours."

"Four hours." Elodie tries to keep her jaw from falling off its hinge. "So you would like to host this audience on the nineteenth hour of today, an hour before midnight?"

Oops. Oh well, too late to correct ourselves. Time to full send it!

"Do I need to repeat myself?" The words come with the grace of a club bashing in the skull of a soldier. "Or should I inform them myself?"

"N-no Ma'am."

"Thank you Elodie." Sophia finishes, then pauses. "Oh, and I shall have my…" Sophia takes a moment to think of the right word. "… my post-dinner meal now. In this room. Please inform the rest of my staff that I don't…"

"The usual list of avoidant ingredients for your meal?" Elodie takes the chance to bite back at her master, a smile once again returning onto her face. "I'll make sure they get the memo."

Sophia nods, watching as her head of staff takes a short imperial bow, turns, and begins to walk towards those huge doors leading back to the rest of this temple, this monument to this Dominion.

"And Elodie." Sophia pauses, stopping, speaking the words that echo in this space like the first pang of soreness from a broken bone. "Th-thank you for accommodating me. I-I really…"

"Just doin' my new job Ma'am. Just doin' my job~"