44 Explosion of Anger
"TADAH!" (Petra)
"Wow." (Alicia)
After showing Kaal and his fellow Lizard people to some temporary housing near a waterway that runs through the city, Alicia and the rest made their way back to the castle.
When they got home to the castle, Petra told Alicia all about the few new clothes that she had gotten her while she had been on the trip. And so, reluctantly she followed her mother to a large room.
What she saw when she entered the room though, this completely surpassed the "few" items of clothes that she originally said she got.
"Mother… just how much time did you spend collecting all these?" Alicia asks, the corner of her mouth twitching as she strains a smile. The room was very large… and yet it was entirely filled with clothes folded up neatly on top of tables.
"Hmmm… Well I was missing my little Alicia all the time. Sooo when I wasn't training with the royal guards, I went to the tailors with your maids to ask if they could make some new clothes for you. Hehe your maids have very good tastes by the way…" Petra says in a tone that unnerved Alicia.
Not only that, the content of her words made her slightly worried…
[Uuuuu… if the maids helped then there might be all sorts of embarrassing clothes mixed in here.] Alicia thought to herself, a feeling of dread starting to take hold of her.
"I-I see. Well maybe we should start tomorrow, after all I am quite tired with all the walking and all…" Alicia says, slowly backing up towards the door.
SLAM!
"Huh?" (Alicia)
Alicia turns back to see her mother had slammed the door shut and is now staring at her with a strange smile…
"Now, now Alicia… You seemed full of so much energy earlier…" Petra begins to slowly walk forward, her eyes having glazed over and chuckling slightly.
"W-W-Wait!" Alicia says while walking backwards, hoping for some sort of secret get away in the back of the room. Unfortunately, there is not.
"Ah!" Alicia eventually backs up into the wall and Petra slams one hand into the wall, leaning over and smiling down at her.
"Ha-Have mercy…" Alicia says in a very dramatically desperate tone, a complete contrast to her attitude when talking to anyone else.
She knew there was no way she could stand up against her Mother, not when Petra wanted to do something with her.
"Hehe come now, it's only trying on hundreds of sets of clothes. Now lets dispel this…" As Petra says this, she flicks her daughters head softly… Causing her spirit armour, which she still had activated, to burst with a popping sound.
"Waaaaah!" Alicia, surprised at her sudden nudeness, shouts out in horror.
She also wanted to know how her mother actually managed to easily cast away her spirit armour, but at the moment she just had to be prepared to be used as a dress up doll until early hours of the morning.
That was what she thought but…
"No need to shout fufufu. Now let's start… What is that Alicia?" Just as Petra was about to go grab the first set of clothes, something caught her eye.
Alicia followed her mothers eyes down to her leg…
"Ah… That." Alicia says, realising that Petra was referring to the scar that was on her leg.
"It's a scar… I didn't say anything because I thought I would mention it when we were giving a summary of our trip…" Although Alicia kept talking, her mother stayed silent.
She just continued to stare at Alicia's scar.
"Tch…" Petra clicks her tongue and puts her head down as she begins to shake slightly.
"M-Mother, its okay. I'm fine!" Alicia shouts, noticing something building inside of her mother.
She then suddenly stops shaking and turns her to look at Alicia, her eyes were not the usual gentle kind. They were sharp and rather frightening, making Alicia shiver slightly.
"Who did this?" Petra says finally.
"W-Well, these humans were attacking the Lizard people. So I fought them off, but one of them managed to get me before they ran away…" Alicia says reluctantly, though she was slightly wary of her mother's current mood and so told the truth.
"..." (Petra)
She looked at the floor as she spoke. But when she finished speaking, she noticed her mother did not speak back.
She looks up…
Too see complete rage in Petra's eyes…
"GrrrrrrrrAAAHHHHH! BASTARD HUMANS! DOING THIS TO MY PRECIOUS ALICIA!" Petra roared out in a voice that seemed to shake the entire castle.
She begins to notice flame mana leaking out of her mothers' body, increasing the temperature of the room immensely. It would be unbearably hot for anyone else apart from Alicia, it even felt rather comfortable for her body though her mother rage made sure she did not actually feel comfortable.
Alicia also notices that her mother seems to be taking some sort of partial dragon form, with her skin starting to turn into a red colour like that of her Dragon form.
"THAT'S IT! I'LL BURN THEIR ENTIRE KINGDOM TO THE GROUND!" With that, Petra begins to storm her way to the door.
"Mother wait!" Alicia charges at her mother and tackles her with all the strength she can muster, that's what it takes to knock Petra down after all, and Petra lands on her back with Alicia on top of her.
Alicia sits on her mother's stomach and looks at her with determined eyes…
"That's bad mother!" Alicia shouts in a scolding tone…
Petra stared back at her daughter, her eyes trying to figure out why Alicia looked so worked up. Thinking maybe she has some profound reason for not wanting Petra to go and destroy the closest kingdom on humans…
"YOU'RE TRYING TO STEAL MY FIGHTS TOO! JUST LIKE IGNIS!" (Alicia)
"…" (Petra)
Turns out the reason is less profound, and more of Alicia feeling like people are trying to steal good battles away from her. Which would seem like a very strange motivation to stop Petra to most people, but to Petra…
"UWAAAAAH! My daughter is so grown up! You're right Alicia, it was totally rude of me to just steal the rematch with the person who gave you your first scar!" Petra cried out.
Tears of pride and tears of panic, believing that her daughter is angry with her, rain down from her eyes.
"I-It's okay mother! I forgive you!" Alicia shouts to try and calm down her mother…
---
A little while later…
"So you went crazy because you saw a scar that someone had given Alicia during a fight?" (Terre)
"Yesssss…" (Petra)
After Petra's massive outburst, Terre came running from her room to find out what was going on. When she arrived at the room Alicia and Petra were in, she found Petra crying on Alicia's lap while Alicia desperately looked around, not knowing how to stop her mother's crying.
Eventually, Petra calmed down and right now Petra and Alicia are on their knees in front of a less than impressed Terre.
Alicia popped on one of the outfits that Petra had gotten for her, a Kitsune onesie. Complete with a hood, fluffy ears and a single big bushy tail.
"Haaah… you know you sent the entire castle into a panic with your outburst. I had to send a message to all my people in the castle to calm everyone down…" Terre says, holding her in her palm.
"Hehe sooorry Terre. But you totally get what I mean right? Someone dared to put a scratch on my beautiful Alicia's skin!" Petra protested, though controlling her emotions enough to avoid a full angry outburst this time.
"… I get it… But we must act responsible here. After all, Alicia herself is fine…" Terre says, though she hid her hands behind her back to stop them seeing them shaking in rage.
"And she fought off some rather strong opponents. I think a congratulations are in order, right Lady Petra?" Terre asks, regaining control of her emotions again enough to allow her to think straight.
"Yeah! They were super strong! I would love to fight them again! Hmmm but if they try and hurt my friends again… Then I am definitely not going to let them escape." Alicia excitedly proclaims, lifting her head for the first time since Terre began her lecture.
Petra looks over at Alicia and smiles…
"Hehe you're right Terre, we should definitely celebrate… I guess I overreacted a bit. Flame Dragons take pride in their battle scars after all…" Petra begins to say, acknowledging that her daughter may get hurt from time to time due to what she is and the position she holds.
"Thanks Mother! I know that-" (Alicia)
"BUT. Even though I said that I would not steal your fights and that I accept you may get hurt sometimes… I'm afraid that I may not be able to hold myself back if I ever see that BASTARD who hurt my dear Alicia." Petra interrupts and says with a sweet smile.
"But that completely contradicts what you just said!" Alicia once again protests…
"Okay, okay that's enough of that or we will end up juts going in circles… For now, how about we just get some rest for tonight and sort everything out tomorrow." Terre says and begins to head for the door.
"… You could do that Terre... Or you could join me and Alicia in picking out the perfect clothes for Alicia?" Petra's words stop Terre in her tracks as she thinks back to the time they did this before, back when it was just the three of them.
Hearing this Alicia's eyes widen in terror…
"No waaaay-Urgh!" Alicia begins to run past Terre and for the doorway until she feels the collar of her onesie get tugged upwards as she is lifted off of the ground.
"Terre what are doing! Let gooooo!" Alicia squirms in mid air and tries to break free from Terre's grasp.
Terre though continues to stare ahead, debating in her head what to do. Though not long after, a slight grin appears on her face… And Alicia had a feeling that she was now doomed.
"Fufufu… I think I will take you up on that offer, Lady Petra. Now then Lady Alicia, shall we get started?" Terre turns her face to meet Alicia's and hold her chin up with her finger.
"Nooooooo! Terre you traitor!" Alicia screamed in sorrow, as a nostalgic night of being a dress up doll began.
---
The next morning.
"*Yaawwn* Okay everybody, lets start our meeting to discuss what happened on our mission to recruit the Lizard people…" Alicia announces, rubbing her eyes as she does.
"Lady Alicia? Did you not sleep very well?" Vera says with a concerned look on her face.
"… Don't worry Vera. It's not a problem." Alicia remembers back to the night before.
She tried on what must have been hundreds of different outfits. Ranging from some rather elegant and pretty clothes, to some rather erotic and skimpy clothes. Though Petra did not seem to have a massive problem with showing skin so it did not bother her that her daughter would wear something that does.
In the end she passed out due to a mixture of exhaustion of the journey home, and constantly trying to escape from Terre and Petra all night.
Alicia's mother and Terre on the other hand looked fresh as a daisy, fresher than usual even.
At the moment, all the important individuals from the kingdom were in the room. The room they were in was the massive dining hall with the large table. Alicia sat at the head on the table, with Ignis and Vera stood either side behind her.
In attendance, in addition to those three, are Petra, Terre, Noa, Aura, Kaal, Haila and Osha, who is currently stood behind Alicia with her two knights.
...
As Alicia and the two others explained what happened, no one interrupted them and just took the information in.
"Okay. So at the moment we should assume that the undead may still be in our territory. If we try to convince ourselves that such a threat has just past us by and they do in fact come back, we leave ourselves open to take casualties." Terre says after they finished explaining.
"Indeed… Did your patrols not pick anything up Terre?" (Aura)
"They did not. Which means they must have walked through very deep in the forest and perhaps towards the former territories of our races before we came here." Terre says, discomfort clearly on her face at the fact that she did not catch this large army passing by the kingdom.
"I shall increase the patrols perimeters just to keep us ready in case they come back. Though numbers might be spread a bit thin due to our small population…" (Terre)
Terre was right. Although there had been a number of births in the kingdom in the months since they settled down and children of these races grow up a lot quicker then human children do, it was still not enough time for them to be ready to fight creatures like the ones Alicia an co. fought.
"I-I can help with that! We could put up some requests at the guild to help with patrols, perhaps with some rewards from the shops?" Noa suggests excitedly as he comes up with an idea he can use to help.
"Great idea Noa! Hehe I see you are settling right into your job." Alicia says with a joyful look on her face as she praises the little werewolf.
"Th-Thank you, your highness Alicia…" Noa looks down and fidgets his hands, happy and embarrassed that he got praised by Alicia.
"Indeed. Very well done Noa, it makes me happy to see my first apprentice making use of his quick thinking and problem solving skills. With that said we should begin to put those plans in motion. Me, Aura, Petra and Noa can work out the finer details…" Terre says, prompting Alicia to end the meeting if there was nothing else to talk about. Only to see her slightly nodding off…
*Poke, Poke*
"Big sis Alicia…" (Osha)
"Huh? AH! Yes, one more thing! Osha will be joining my knights with Ignis and Vera, so let everyone know that pleaseee." Alicia says after being startled awake by Osha and sees that everyone was lightly chuckling at her.
Alicia did offer this position to Kaal as well, but he asked if he could be with his people for now until they settle and politely declined. Alicia understood and was not offended.
"Okay then, that's everything. Meeting dismissed!" Alicia ends the meeting and everyone begins to move to fulfil their orders and go about their days. Only Kaal stayed behind and approached Alicia with something clearly on his mind.
"My Queen, may I ask for a little bit of your time?" Kaal asks politely while slightly bowing, a habit he still had not gotten out of yet.
"Hmm? Sure, what's it about?" Alicia asks curiously, getting used to his polite way of greeting her.
"It's about my people children…They... It will probably be easier to show you…" Kaal says as he leads Alicia and her, now three, knights out of the castle and to where the Lizard people were currently staying.
The Lizard people had carried their eggs with them in giant stone cauldron type containers that they had made themselves, some strong Lizard people then carried these cauldrons to escape the humans.
They settled next to the waterway in the city and put their eggs in it.
As they approached the area Kaal began to explain...
"Our eggs are generally quite small and once our children hatch, they grow rather rapidly… But since we agreed to join your kingdom, we noticed our eggs had started to grow… And this is now the result…" (Kaal)
"They can't of grown that big right… Woah…" Alicia along with her knights all make astonished faces as they look into the waterway.
As inside the waterway were many fairly large eggs. But none of them looked like they contained Lizard children, but young children with Lizard features all sleeping inside the eggs… Hundreds of the them…
