How much paperwork can even pile up in a single day? There were the admissions to the army I was setting up, several requests from nobles about useless shit, requests for funding by some blacksmiths, documents I needed to fill out of the so called heroes, reports about the collection of supplies and so, so much more.
I only finished everything on my list around the time the king woke up and directly wondered how he managed to be so free of any work.
“Morning.” I commented dryly and put everything together I needed for the upcoming meeting.
“So you are already working again? You really never rest, do you?” Well, except the day before I really didn’t have much free time. And if I took time off, I had to work harder to get everything done.
“No. Can we?” I asked, throwing a bunch of clothes at him which didn’t stink too much.
Turning my head back to the documents, I made a few finishing touches and then turned around after he had dressed.
“This is a nothing but a legal requirement you need to sign. It’s that …” I explained, but stopped as he took everything he needed and signed the piece of paper without reading anything on it … which was a way to save time, I guess?
“Right and this is for the other queens. I noticed I had some allowance for gardening and … well, I don’t have a garden here, so they can do whatever with it.” I said, stood up from the chair and smiled brightly. “Till the day after tomorrow my dear.” Turning away from him, I walked out of the door to wave at Luna already waiting outside a bit tired.
“Hi Luna!” I said exited and wanted to hug her right away, but the pile of documents in my hands didn’t exactly allow that to happen.
“Lu! Can I take that from you?” She said, pointing towards the pile with a genuine smile on her face.
“Here you go.” I answered and she took around half of the pile off me. “How have you been?”
“I’m doing fine! Oh, the blacksmith agreed to come with us and a few nuns proposed using the churches on the way as a sleeping place.”
“Hmm. Can you make a route which takes that proposal into consideration? But you need to make sure these churches are either neutral ground or that we don’t visit any place solely for a single god more than once. We don’t want to favour any of them.”
“I’ll do that! I’m rather lucky I don’t have to go to school for the time being.” She said happily, walking right at a crossing and then opened the next door with her elbow.
“Hi!” I said, waking into the room with the four heroes behind Luna. After they replied kindly, I sat down on the head of the table right next to Luna and sorted out the paperwork.
“How are you doing?” I asked happily, finally finding the four pieces of paper I was searching for.
“We are … mostly fine.” Sofie said while Ellie looked away from everyone.
“Mostly? Please sign this …” I said and slid them the documents for the admission into the army over.
“We went back into the dungeon yesterday… as a group of three.” Sofie admitted while basically glaring at Ellie and Gregory. Even Schwarz was surprised as she did so … probably because it was he first time that gaze wasn’t directed at him.
“Oh?” I asked, already putting this problem in the middle of my list.
“I can’t leave Louis alone like this!” Ellie said and crossed her arm in front of her chest.
“Does he need a babysitter?” Gregory said which made me apologise to Schwarz in my mind. I always though he was the worst of the bunch in terms of behaviour … but I couldn’t be further from the truth.
“Ellie, I can understand you don’t want him to be alone. Is it okay when I watch over him while you work on the team?” I proposed, hoping to get Louis to work on all this bureaucracy for me.
“… fine.” She said reluctantly while I slid each and everyone the next documents.
“That’s for military law …” I mumbled, fiddled myself through my pile and quickly found the next document they had to sign. “… here is a form for a testimony you need to fill out till tomorrow.”
“Testimony? Why are we supposed to fill out that?” Gregory asked completely surprised by my words while the others accepted them as a given.
“… in case of your death?” I asked a bit stunned by him.
“But … we are the heroes? Nobody told me I could die!” What the actual fuck was wrong with him? In what world was he invincible? Did he never actually leave the castle until he was dragged into the dungeon or what?
“You may leave it empty, but you still need to sign it.” I stated looking at him with a bit of pity.
“I’m not doing that.” He said and demonstratively slid the document back to me.
“Gregory, this is just a formality.” I answered, pushing the piece of paper back to him.
“No.” He said while pouting unhappily like the spoiled brat he was.
“Just sign it for heavens sake.” I couldn’t approve of Schwarz’s choice of words, but he expressed what I was too saintly for.
“You won’t be able to join the army if you don’t fill it out.” Luna chimed in, threatening Gregory indirectly with expulsion before he even started his heroic journey.
“I’m a hero. I can do whatever is right.” Okay … it was a massive mistake to let Gregory participate in the selection of heroes. Shaking my head in disappointment, I searched for the next batch of documents and handed them over right away.
“That’s a copy of military law you need to follow at all times, which includes stuff like the chain of command and so on. I am sure you have no problem whatsoever with this?”
“I’m sorry, Lucy. But I’m only following just orders.” Sofie said straight away which didn’t actually change anything for me as I already expected that.
“That’s fine by me.” I admitted nonchalantly.
“Me too.” Gregory said, which made me raise my left eyebrow a little.
“You only want to use that excuse to do whatever you want.” Schwarz complained, knowing Gregory’s intentions too well.
“At least I haven’t knocked up some girl yet.” Gregory snickered back, clearly on the best way to ruin the teamwork of this group even more.
“Take that back.” Schwarz said angrily, barely staying put on his chair.
“No?” Gregory asked laughingly.
“Gregory, you are part of this group. If you continue to behave like this, I have no choice but to switch you out with Louis.” I commented, already going through Luna’s pile to find the last document.
“I bested him in front a large audience. Do you really think the nobles would accept your decision?” Gregory asked a smugly grin on his lips.
“Are you challenging me?” I asked while tilting my head to the side in interest.
“You are just the saint. Someone who oversees the divine selection of heroes and that’s it. You have an administrative role and that’s it.” Yup … he was an idiot. Well, the others would probably think the same if they didn’t knew me better which was why I merely smiled and let the matter rest for the time being.
“And this is a document which gives the rights the state reserves regarding you four to me. This includes sentencing you for criminal acts you did, forcefully drafting you into the army … finalising your marriages and collecting your taxes for the duration of your life.” I said calmly and gave each of them a rather long list of what that all entailed.
“Why do we need that?” Ellie asked, finally getting rid of her broody mood.
“So that I can shield you. If you mess up somewhere and anger a local noble, he may be tempted to drag you to court otherwise.” I admitted straight away. I really didn’t have any usage for this other than stopping others from interfering with them.
“And the rest?” Sofie asked looking worried at the list.
“I don’t want the king to interfere. That’s all.” I said and looked into each and everyone’s eyes.
“Hmm. Okay.” Sofie said and signed directly in front of me.
“That’s all there is today. Please give the documents to Luna tomorrow. If you decide against doing so, I may choose to replace you … I’m sorry.” I commented dryly, already kind of fed up by his shit. “Have fun at the dungeon.” Standing up from the chair swiftly, I waved at them and followed Luna out of the room straight away.
“Do you know where Louis is?” I asked, realising I had never been in his room at all.
“Probably at home … let’s ask someone.” She said and promptly walked to the next person who looked remotely like a servant. And then the next. And the next one. We had to ask around sixteen servants until anyone could give us an answer at all.
He lived in the servants quarters … apparently. At least Luna knew where that was, so we didn’t have any troubles getting there which involves going out of the western gate as the royals didn’t want to deal with their pesky servants for some I couldn’t possibly fathom.
Well, the servants quarters weren’t as bad as I made them out to be either. It was a nice large building with a multitude of glass windows, probably all for the sake of keeping the reputation of the royal family high.
“Hi! I’m here to visit Louis Worchester. Is he around?” I asked, looking at the lady at the entrance who was deeply engrossed into the newspaper. But even then, she did manage to recognise me by my voice and kneeled down immediately.
“Your holiness! It’s such a pleasure to see you!” She said, gently forced to stand upright by me again.
“The pleasure is all mine.” I said and smiled happily. “Can you guide me to the princes room? We were told he lives here.”
“I would advise against doing so. His room is rather … untidy.” The maid said completely ashamed for whatever reason.
“It is important.” I said and felt a bit happy as she guided us around the massive complex as I didn’t want to interact with every single servant there. At last though, I finally understood why she didn’t want us to visit him.
His home was a shed, as far off from the other buildings as it could get. Made out of sometimes rotting wood, it certainly didn’t paint a great picture about the person living inside if I didn’t know he was forced to live there by the second queen.
“Thank you, that’s all.” I explained and waited for the maid to leave hesitantly.
“Well … at least now I know why he doesn’t have any money to spare.” Luna mumbled saddened and knocked onto the door three times. Without doing anything else, the door swung open a little which made Luna look at me in surprise. Even though she had seen the shed from the outside, she still didn’t expect it to be in such a desolate condition that the door couldn’t be closed anymore.
“Louis?” She asked straight away and got an answer immediately as the door opened wide and Louis presented himself in his school uniform.
“Hi … I didn’t expect you today?” He asked, standing wide to block us from glancing inside.
“I need your help …” looking behind him, I saw that the shed didn’t even have a wooden floor which meant this place was worse than any other housing in the whole capital city. “can we come in?”
“It’s not a good time right now…” He said meekly and closed the door a little further.
“It’s never going to be, is it?” I asked while frowning a little and placed my foot in front of the slowly closing door. Stepping inside while ignoring Louis’ protests, I looked around the shabby place and noticed the few attires we gave him directly. They were cleanly put into a wardrobe with missing doors while the rest of his ragged clothing was merely folded and put onto a table, which was coincidentally the only other furniture in the single room he had. “How long have you lived in these ruins already?” I asked looking at the bunch of hay in the corner which he apparently used as a sleeping place.
“Five years … but it’s not that bad.” He said completely embarrassed.
“I have a bedroom in the palace. You can have it.” I concluded and nodded towards Luna who then retrieved a golden key from her backpack.
“I … I can’t accept that.” He said, stepping back a little from Luna who wanted to hand the key over.
“And I cannot accept you living in these conditions just because Gregory asked his mum to shove you here. Louis, I’m not going to use that bedroom anyway … so see it as a payment for helping me out in the next two weeks.” I said, already strolling back towards the door while nearly stepping on a mouse scooting through the room.
“I … what can I do?” He asked, glancing at the key longingly, but still afraid to take it.
“We need to fill out a lot of paperwork. And by a lot, I mean a lot.” Luna stated finally pushing the key into his palm. “And we don’t have much time right now. In twenty minutes we have an appointment with a general. So …” She said, looking at his completely unfitting attire in worry.
“I’m ready.” He said while Luna looked at me hesitantly.
“No you are not … Luna, can I ask you to take him to a seamstress?” I asked her. I had nothing against his attire, but he needed to be dressed appropriately if he was interacting with other nobles. I wanted to avoid anyone bad mouthing me at all costs.
“Sure thing. I’ll book an appointment for tomorrow.” Luna said, quickly pulling out a list of her backpack and writing on it with a piece of black chalk.
“I can’t accept that.” He said, gripping the key tightly but still hesitant to rely on me a little more.
“You have to. Let’s go.” I said, already strolling out of the shed without bothering about his reply. It wasn’t necessary to listen to him after all. He would dress appropriately, if he wanted or not.
How much paperwork can even pile up in a single day? There were the admissions to the army I was setting up, several requests from nobles about useless shit, requests for funding by some blacksmiths, documents I needed to fill out of the so called heroes, reports about the collection of supplies and so, so much more.
I only finished everything on my list around the time the king woke up and directly wondered how he managed to be so free of any work.
“Morning.” I commented dryly and put everything together I needed for the upcoming meeting.
“So you are already working again? You really never rest, do you?” Well, except the day before I really didn’t have much free time. And if I took time off, I had to work harder to get everything done.
“No. Can we?” I asked, throwing a bunch of clothes at him which didn’t stink too much.
Turning my head back to the documents, I made a few finishing touches and then turned around after he had dressed.
“This is a nothing but a legal requirement you need to sign. It’s that …” I explained, but stopped as he took everything he needed and signed the piece of paper without reading anything on it … which was a way to save time, I guess?
“Right and this is for the other queens. I noticed I had some allowance for gardening and … well, I don’t have a garden here, so they can do whatever with it.” I said, stood up from the chair and smiled brightly. “Till the day after tomorrow my dear.” Turning away from him, I walked out of the door to wave at Luna already waiting outside a bit tired.
“Hi Luna!” I said exited and wanted to hug her right away, but the pile of documents in my hands didn’t exactly allow that to happen.
“Lu! Can I take that from you?” She said, pointing towards the pile with a genuine smile on her face.
“Here you go.” I answered and she took around half of the pile off me. “How have you been?”
“I’m doing fine! Oh, the blacksmith agreed to come with us and a few nuns proposed using the churches on the way as a sleeping place.”
“Hmm. Can you make a route which takes that proposal into consideration? But you need to make sure these churches are either neutral ground or that we don’t visit any place solely for a single god more than once. We don’t want to favour any of them.”
“I’ll do that! I’m rather lucky I don’t have to go to school for the time being.” She said happily, walking right at a crossing and then opened the next door with her elbow.
“Hi!” I said, waking into the room with the four heroes behind Luna. After they replied kindly, I sat down on the head of the table right next to Luna and sorted out the paperwork.
“How are you doing?” I asked happily, finally finding the four pieces of paper I was searching for.
“We are … mostly fine.” Sofie said while Ellie looked away from everyone.
“Mostly? Please sign this …” I said and slid them the documents for the admission into the army over.
“We went back into the dungeon yesterday… as a group of three.” Sofie admitted while basically glaring at Ellie and Gregory. Even Schwarz was surprised as she did so … probably because it was he first time that gaze wasn’t directed at him.
“Oh?” I asked, already putting this problem in the middle of my list.
“I can’t leave Louis alone like this!” Ellie said and crossed her arm in front of her chest.
“Does he need a babysitter?” Gregory said which made me apologise to Schwarz in my mind. I always though he was the worst of the bunch in terms of behaviour … but I couldn’t be further from the truth.
“Ellie, I can understand you don’t want him to be alone. Is it okay when I watch over him while you work on the team?” I proposed, hoping to get Louis to work on all this bureaucracy for me.
“… fine.” She said reluctantly while I slid each and everyone the next documents.
“That’s for military law …” I mumbled, fiddled myself through my pile and quickly found the next document they had to sign. “… here is a form for a testimony you need to fill out till tomorrow.”
“Testimony? Why are we supposed to fill out that?” Gregory asked completely surprised by my words while the others accepted them as a given.
“… in case of your death?” I asked a bit stunned by him.
“But … we are the heroes? Nobody told me I could die!” What the actual fuck was wrong with him? In what world was he invincible? Did he never actually leave the castle until he was dragged into the dungeon or what?
“You may leave it empty, but you still need to sign it.” I stated looking at him with a bit of pity.
“I’m not doing that.” He said and demonstratively slid the document back to me.
“Gregory, this is just a formality.” I answered, pushing the piece of paper back to him.
“No.” He said while pouting unhappily like the spoiled brat he was.
“Just sign it for heavens sake.” I couldn’t approve of Schwarz’s choice of words, but he expressed what I was too saintly for.
“You won’t be able to join the army if you don’t fill it out.” Luna chimed in, threatening Gregory indirectly with expulsion before he even started his heroic journey.
“I’m a hero. I can do whatever is right.” Okay … it was a massive mistake to let Gregory participate in the selection of heroes. Shaking my head in disappointment, I searched for the next batch of documents and handed them over right away.
“That’s a copy of military law you need to follow at all times, which includes stuff like the chain of command and so on. I am sure you have no problem whatsoever with this?”
“I’m sorry, Lucy. But I’m only following just orders.” Sofie said straight away which didn’t actually change anything for me as I already expected that.
“That’s fine by me.” I admitted nonchalantly.
“Me too.” Gregory said, which made me raise my left eyebrow a little.
“You only want to use that excuse to do whatever you want.” Schwarz complained, knowing Gregory’s intentions too well.
“At least I haven’t knocked up some girl yet.” Gregory snickered back, clearly on the best way to ruin the teamwork of this group even more.
“Take that back.” Schwarz said angrily, barely staying put on his chair.
“No?” Gregory asked laughingly.
“Gregory, you are part of this group. If you continue to behave like this, I have no choice but to switch you out with Louis.” I commented, already going through Luna’s pile to find the last document.
“I bested him in front a large audience. Do you really think the nobles would accept your decision?” Gregory asked a smugly grin on his lips.
“Are you challenging me?” I asked while tilting my head to the side in interest.
“You are just the saint. Someone who oversees the divine selection of heroes and that’s it. You have an administrative role and that’s it.” Yup … he was an idiot. Well, the others would probably think the same if they didn’t knew me better which was why I merely smiled and let the matter rest for the time being.
“And this is a document which gives the rights the state reserves regarding you four to me. This includes sentencing you for criminal acts you did, forcefully drafting you into the army … finalising your marriages and collecting your taxes for the duration of your life.” I said calmly and gave each of them a rather long list of what that all entailed.
“Why do we need that?” Ellie asked, finally getting rid of her broody mood.
“So that I can shield you. If you mess up somewhere and anger a local noble, he may be tempted to drag you to court otherwise.” I admitted straight away. I really didn’t have any usage for this other than stopping others from interfering with them.
“And the rest?” Sofie asked looking worried at the list.
“I don’t want the king to interfere. That’s all.” I said and looked into each and everyone’s eyes.
“Hmm. Okay.” Sofie said and signed directly in front of me.
“That’s all there is today. Please give the documents to Luna tomorrow. If you decide against doing so, I may choose to replace you … I’m sorry.” I commented dryly, already kind of fed up by his shit. “Have fun at the dungeon.” Standing up from the chair swiftly, I waved at them and followed Luna out of the room straight away.
“Do you know where Louis is?” I asked, realising I had never been in his room at all.
“Probably at home … let’s ask someone.” She said and promptly walked to the next person who looked remotely like a servant. And then the next. And the next one. We had to ask around sixteen servants until anyone could give us an answer at all.
He lived in the servants quarters … apparently. At least Luna knew where that was, so we didn’t have any troubles getting there which involves going out of the western gate as the royals didn’t want to deal with their pesky servants for some I couldn’t possibly fathom.
Well, the servants quarters weren’t as bad as I made them out to be either. It was a nice large building with a multitude of glass windows, probably all for the sake of keeping the reputation of the royal family high.
“Hi! I’m here to visit Louis Worchester. Is he around?” I asked, looking at the lady at the entrance who was deeply engrossed into the newspaper. But even then, she did manage to recognise me by my voice and kneeled down immediately.
“Your holiness! It’s such a pleasure to see you!” She said, gently forced to stand upright by me again.
“The pleasure is all mine.” I said and smiled happily. “Can you guide me to the princes room? We were told he lives here.”
“I would advise against doing so. His room is rather … untidy.” The maid said completely ashamed for whatever reason.
“It is important.” I said and felt a bit happy as she guided us around the massive complex as I didn’t want to interact with every single servant there. At last though, I finally understood why she didn’t want us to visit him.
His home was a shed, as far off from the other buildings as it could get. Made out of sometimes rotting wood, it certainly didn’t paint a great picture about the person living inside if I didn’t know he was forced to live there by the second queen.
“Thank you, that’s all.” I explained and waited for the maid to leave hesitantly.
“Well … at least now I know why he doesn’t have any money to spare.” Luna mumbled saddened and knocked onto the door three times. Without doing anything else, the door swung open a little which made Luna look at me in surprise. Even though she had seen the shed from the outside, she still didn’t expect it to be in such a desolate condition that the door couldn’t be closed anymore.
“Louis?” She asked straight away and got an answer immediately as the door opened wide and Louis presented himself in his school uniform.
“Hi … I didn’t expect you today?” He asked, standing wide to block us from glancing inside.
“I need your help …” looking behind him, I saw that the shed didn’t even have a wooden floor which meant this place was worse than any other housing in the whole capital city. “can we come in?”
“It’s not a good time right now…” He said meekly and closed the door a little further.
“It’s never going to be, is it?” I asked while frowning a little and placed my foot in front of the slowly closing door. Stepping inside while ignoring Louis’ protests, I looked around the shabby place and noticed the few attires we gave him directly. They were cleanly put into a wardrobe with missing doors while the rest of his ragged clothing was merely folded and put onto a table, which was coincidentally the only other furniture in the single room he had. “How long have you lived in these ruins already?” I asked looking at the bunch of hay in the corner which he apparently used as a sleeping place.
“Five years … but it’s not that bad.” He said completely embarrassed.
“I have a bedroom in the palace. You can have it.” I concluded and nodded towards Luna who then retrieved a golden key from her backpack.
“I … I can’t accept that.” He said, stepping back a little from Luna who wanted to hand the key over.
“And I cannot accept you living in these conditions just because Gregory asked his mum to shove you here. Louis, I’m not going to use that bedroom anyway … so see it as a payment for helping me out in the next two weeks.” I said, already strolling back towards the door while nearly stepping on a mouse scooting through the room.
“I … what can I do?” He asked, glancing at the key longingly, but still afraid to take it.
“We need to fill out a lot of paperwork. And by a lot, I mean a lot.” Luna stated finally pushing the key into his palm. “And we don’t have much time right now. In twenty minutes we have an appointment with a general. So …” She said, looking at his completely unfitting attire in worry.
“I’m ready.” He said while Luna looked at me hesitantly.
“No you are not … Luna, can I ask you to take him to a seamstress?” I asked her. I had nothing against his attire, but he needed to be dressed appropriately if he was interacting with other nobles. I wanted to avoid anyone bad mouthing me at all costs.
“Sure thing. I’ll book an appointment for tomorrow.” Luna said, quickly pulling out a list of her backpack and writing on it with a piece of black chalk.
“I can’t accept that.” He said, gripping the key tightly but still hesitant to rely on me a little more.
“You have to. Let’s go.” I said, already strolling out of the shed without bothering about his reply. It wasn’t necessary to listen to him after all. He would dress appropriately, if he wanted or not.
