Negotiation

Finley Cai Aies Hall March 28th, 20XX

The book that I could now identify as a diary closed gently. It was a sharp contrast to the harsh ceremony of ruffling pages it had performed earlier, but it did nothing to soothe the raging ocean of emotions I currently battled. The two dangling ropes pulled themselves off the floor and entwined themselves into a beautifully intricate lock that was more complex than it had been before.

I shifted my attention to the other items in the box; needing to find something to get my mind off of the video.

The baton sparkled enticingly as I rolled it around in my palm and occasionally let out a few sparks as a warning that it was still active. I tossed it between each hand a few times but it would only let out a few half-hearted sparks. There wasn't anything, in particular, that I wanted the baton to do. But as a representation of a whole alternative world and theorem of reality, I felt it should have been more impressive.

As if to respond to my unfair expectations, the golden sparks that had slowly filled the room flooded into the wand and the half-hearted display it had given off until now suddenly brightened. The sparks combined into a single line and gained opacity. The wand grew hot in my hand and my heart raced in anticipation.

I quickly put the wand back into the box and stifled the natural elation my heart pumped through the rest of my body. If magic was real, then it probably wasn't something I should joke around with.

The book suddenly unwound itself once again and revealed a single line of black text across its white surface.

/Ask a question./

The woman in the video had mentioned that the book was her diary and that it would answer questions I'd had. I'd assumed she'd recorded all of her knowledge into it like a book. I hadn't expected it to be so interactive.

No, I should stop calling her 'that woman'. That was my mother.

Just saying the word gave me a strange feeling. It was a weird mixture of nostalgia and disappointment.

For most of my life, the only thing I'd known about the woman that gave birth to me was that she'd died young and had put me up for adoption. Then Will had popped up a month ago and had told me she'd left me enough resources to fund a hundred of me for a lifetime. And as if that wasn't impossible enough, now I'd found out that she'd also been a ruler of an entirely non-human population in another world.

Even the picture I'd gotten of her in the human world looked nothing like the figure I'd seen in the video. She had changed her hair and eyes to resemble how normally I looked, the black hair and blue eyes, and she'd looked much older than she did in the video.

I pushed my unnecessary thoughts aside and focused on finding a question to ask the diary. There wasn't much of a point in missing a woman that was already dead. I instead focused on my newfound willingness to accept the impossible and followed the instructions from the magical book.

"Why is a male fairy such a controversial topic?"

Words appeared as if being written by an invisible hand, and the sprawling script gave me a response.

/Male fairies are rare, to begin with, but your existence was controversial. A fairy's heritage is inherited through the female line, while a Goblin's heritage is inherited through the male line. When the two races merge, their offspring will usually inherit those powers depending on their gender. It's incredibly rare and nearly impossible to have a male fairy through a goblin and fairy union. Your birth was especially controversial because you not only inherited your mother's magic but also your father's. /

The influx of information filled up two pages worth of text and made my head spin, but I tried my best to ask questions and understand properly.

"Why is that a problem?"

/A true Goblin- Fairy hybrid had not been created for multiple generations. As a male child, your goblin side should have overpowered the Fairy powers from your mother, however, you were born with a near-perfect split of 55-45 percent of each side and exhibited racial specific traits of both sides. This was likely because your parents were both so powerful. If the goblins claimed you, they would have had a warrior that could use both a fairy royal's magic as well as their capabilities. With the fairies, they would have had a male that could fight like a goblin….or have someone to create an almost purebred fairy. They also did not want to take the risk of giving the goblins such a powerful weapon. Your birth marked the beginning of the second Fae-goblin because both sides fought over who would claim you./

I wanted to continue with my learning but a knock, sharp and crisp, rang out from the door and in came Cambridge and Esmeralda. Cambridge looked as calm and warm as usual, but Esmeralda looked at me with a cautious expression. It was as if she feared I had learned of her deepest secrets from the book.

Cambridge spoke in the same tone that had at some point stopped being uncomfortably familiar. After seeing her in the video, I couldn't stop staring at her. To think that the woman in front of me, who didn't look any older than 14, was much older than me. Old enough to have been my primary caretaker when I was born.

"Have you finished?"

Esmeralda cut in, rudely and harshly. It wasn't like I was unused to people talking to me like I was an idiot or like I was trash, but I didn't see why I had to take it from her. Aside from her having no reason to talk to me like that, I was also higher in rank than her.

I didn't know what her problem with me was, but I didn't care either. And as long as she backed down, then I wouldn't ever have to care.

"Or rather, are you ready to cooperate?"

I was already in such emotional turmoil that every hostile word that she said to me hit like a thorn to my side.

"I'm ready enough for you to stop talking to me like that."

She looked taken aback like she hadn't expected me to pick up on her animosity. As soon as I pointed it out, the hostility slipped off her like an old piece of clothing and she softened into a soft, graceful smile.

There was no way that my single warning was enough to disarm whatever grudge that she had towards me, but as long as she could keep her attitude hidden and out of my face, I didn't see why I had to care. It wasn't like her liking or disliking me would change anything.

She floated into the room and chose a seat to settle down into. She slowly lowered herself into and arranged her ridiculous cloud of a dress into whatever order she thought it should be in. However, before she could settle into her seat, Cambridge pulled her to her feet so quickly that she stumbled forwards and nearly fell onto her face. Her green and copper wings fluttered out with a snap as she caught her balance and pulled herself back up.

"You would sit before royalty?"

They subjected me to two different gazes of identical intensities and quickly gave into the invisible command. It was difficult to get the wings into the holes of the chair and took a bit of time, but once I'd figured it out, I motioned for them to take a seat.

Esmeralda sat with her eyes narrowed and a chagrined expression on her face as she began her speech. Her tone has still stiff and bossy, but I could put up with that much.

"We'll have some private lessons here in the palace before we enroll you into a proper boarding school. You'll be a tad younger than the others, but that much is common for royalty. And since you no longer have any parents, I'm sure they won't complain overmuch. There is a lot you need to know as the only active member of the royal family, so I hope you can learn at least half as quickly as your mother did."

I cut off her run-on sentence there and tried to process all the ridiculous things she had just listed off.

"A boarding school?"

She nodded and gave me another look like I was an idiot, or a young child that she was trying to trick.

"As your mother's primary Aide, I will take over teaching you everything you need to know regarding etiquette and maintaining a country, but you need to go to that school and make connections to ease your ascent to the throne. You will also have to find a partner at that school, preferably one from one of the four families. You will also need to learn the different hobbies that your peers know, to take part in high society. Belpheobe was powerful enough to dismiss these trivialities, but as a son, you will depend on their goodwill much more than any other ruler has."

She spoke rather quickly and rushed over some rather important things. Such as that one.

"Sorry, but I have to find what?"

She looked at me like I was an absolute idiot that couldn't pick out a blue circle from a group of red squares even if someone pointed it out to me.

"You must find a partner! You can't possibly expect to have a human bride? As well, as a male, you cannot become our ruler. Your primary duty as a prince is to find someone suitable to marry into the royal line"

Esmeralda sneered the word 'human' in the same way one might use the word 'dog' in the sentence.

"This-"

She motioned around the room that was looking tackier and tackier by the minute. Although it was an expensive and beautiful room, it wasn't nearly nice enough to serve as an incentive to go along with a single thing she had just said.

I was sure that I had a wretched expression on my face as I struggled to find the words to tell her how insane she currently sounded, but she ignored it and continued to talk in that insanely patronizing way.

"Shall be your living quarters and if there is anything you need, Cambridge, I, and the Staff here will be sure to provide you with it. A knight and a maid will take you to each meal and your classes, but you may not leave the land until we complete your training and you have an official Aide. If we stay on track, it should only take a few years… maybe a decade, depending on your learning capabilities. As well-"

I finally calmed down enough to not scream at her and call her things I was sure wouldn't go over well, but my voice still came out in an angry tone and through gritted teeth.

"Correct me if I'm wrong, and I pray I am. But you can't be expecting me to live here full time, are you?"

It was her turn to send me a look of confusion. Even Cambridge, who had slowly been getting angrier at how Esmeralda spoke to me, looked lost. Like she couldn't comprehend why I wouldn't want to stay here full time.

"Of course you must live here! I already said that The fairies need a Queen and a royal in place! How do you plan to accomplish that while being in the human world?!"

I snorted in response and sat as arrogantly as I could. I wasn't a big fan of acting like this, but I recognized that this was the only way they would take me seriously.

"I don't have any intentions of doing any of that. I mean, you've been talking about 'my duty' this and things I 'have' to do, but what does any of that have to do with me? The kid you left abandoned in another world for almost two decades? If I was that important, shouldn't you just have left me there?"

The pure expression of guilt on Cambridge's face and the fury on Esmeralda's were the exact reactions I'd wanted to elicit from them. There was no way I could go back to the human world and pretend that none of this had happened, or well, I could, but I didn't want to. I'd just found out that I could use magic, and more so, I'd just found more solid leads about my parents than I had in the past seventeen years. Even if it was just until I learned everything about my parents, I would play along with them.

But not at the cost of my life.

The conversation ground to a standstill and Esmeralda glared me down. She looked like she would have forcibly reached into my mind and tried to change it, but since she couldn't; she tried to threaten me.

"And what if we forcibly keep you here?"

Ah… that was an option, wasn't it?

Well then, I just had to make it not an option. I switched my target from Esmeralda to Cambridge as I made my next threat I had no intentions of making good on. But that didn't matter, they just had to believe that I did.

"Then I'll take my life. And if you try to stop me from doing that, then I'll make sure I go against every single thing you want me to do."

Esmeralda scoffed at the childish threat and looked like she was about to say she'd like to see me try, but Cambridge suddenly stepped forward.

"We'll allow you to return to your human life Cai, I understand they are the ones that raised you so we won't take that from you."

Esmeralda looked discontent and tried to go against Cambridge's words, but stopped at a glare from the younger-looking fairy. There was an odd power dynamic there, but I wasn't that interested in figuring it out, at least not right now.

She gathered herself and looked at me like I was the single most annoying creature she'd ever met.

"Fine. You wish to continue living in the human world, correct?"

It was more like I didn't want to spend the rest of my life here in this unfamiliar world, becoming someone that I wasn't. While the 'human' world was tiresome, it was at least familiar. Staying in this world would lead me to a mental breakdown in months.

As well, I knew the type of person Esmeralda was, and I knew that the second she thought she could boss me around, she would do so until I no longer had a personality of my own.

"That's my requirement. I could come here after school…. and on vacations. But I do not want my regular life disturbed. That's one thing I refuse to negotiate on."

She disagreed, I could tell from the odd angle of her head and the even odder tilt of her eyebrows as she thought of how to convince me of otherwise. It was obvious, but I refused to budge.

On one hand, I really did not want to stay here and on the other, it wasn't as if she had been nice enough to me to make me want to help her out by doing so.

Finally, she seemed to realize that I would not budge and extended a gloved hand towards me to acknowledge our deal.

"Fine, then your highness. We'll fashion this as a...What's the word... cram school, which you're probably familiar with. You'll report here at 6 pm 'human time' every day and on weekends."

I looked at her extended hand but didn't take it. I was fine with her suggestion, but taking part in something like a handshake with her was repulsive to me.

"Fine. We have a deal"