Bellona looked over her sele of ingredients while Xarlug settled into a chair nearby. "Well," she said as she turoward her spice rack, "Yesterday was one of the stra days I have experienced here."

  "Hah," he replied, "I only imagianding guard for the king and queens of a faerie court isn't an everyday sort of job. Not that those three are much for formality. I bet Moriko hated it, but I see Kazue enjoying the fancy atmosphere at least."

  "Not far off. There arty at the end, and Moriko rather ehat outside of a minor i. Let's start at the beginning though." Bellona added a small sele of elemental salts to her herb and spice sele for tonight's meal. She had to be very careful with them as Xarlug didn't have her tolerance, but some fvors were otherwise impossible to create. They were a ground form of the elemental crystals she had brought with her from her forays into the caverns duriraining.

  "So, we get pulled to the Other Side and nd in their faerie domain. Only it's not just a bit of faerie nd, it's still the dungeon's territory, I feel that e clearly. It was still a strange pce. The snow glittered like it was made of gss or crystal or something, but it wasn't fake or anything."

  As Bellona described the world she had experienced, she biiny dashes of her choseal salts into a shallow dish. "Everything was like that; somehow so intensely real that it felt unreal. You could smell everything clearly too; the smells of snow, trees, ah bleogether in harmony while remaining distinct. The real world doesn't work like that."

  , she added some normal salt to dilute the ground crystals. "Once we had a ce to get used to the weirdness, the trio led us to where they were going to py King and Queen and begaing things up."

  The memory brought a grin to her lips as she said, "Moriko got a tiny taste of being a duoo. She's a queen of her realm. On that side of reality, it means she could and the earth itself to rise and shape itself to her will. Not that it looked easy."

  Xarlug snorted with amusement. "I bet. It seems like it'd be more magic stuff, though I guess she knows a bit about that now. More tha least, but that ain't hard."

  "I've seen you use a bit of power yourself," Bellona replied, "so you 't downpy it that much."

  He frowned and looked pensive as he said, "You know what that es from. I'm not sure why you and Kansif ence me to use those tricks."

  Belloed the urge to smack him upside the head. "Your flesh and spirit ied that potential from whatever touched your aor, but the power itself is not evil or corrupt. Denying this part of you will do far more harm than learning how to trol it."

  She pced a hand on the shallow dish of salts and trated for a moment to sehe elemental energies within. When she was ready, Bellona tweaked and blehe energy to create the fvor/sensation bination she wanted. It helped take her mind off of her annoyah Xarlug's worry over his fiend-touched nephilim bloodlines.

  "Anyway," Bellona tinued after a moment of silence, "after Moriko set up the ptform, Mordecai and Kazue got to work making everything fancy for the dais before creating this glittery white path that split and spiraled off into the dista's the only road there, so it would be rather hard to miss the hint of which way to go."

  With her fvored salt prepared, Bellona turo the rest of the meal she had in mind. Her kit was the fa personal kit she'd ever had, thanks to Kazue's enthusiasm. Bellona had asked Kazue for a kit for her room, and the eian had expahe room out into a small suite instead. The kit was sed only to the main room in size while the bedroom and bathroom were about tied for third pce.

  It also had the fa cookiup she'd seen for a private kit. Bellona retty certain she could keep a manor house fed out of this setup.

  Not that Bellona minded really, and she was amused by how the bathroom clearly had bee up for two people to use together. But the kit was almost te. There were entire ets she hadn't figured out a use for yet, she didn't have that many things to put in a kit!

  "It sounds impressive," Xarlug said thoughtfully. "I'm sort of used to what they do here, but it sounds like they do even more over there."

  "Yes, sort of. Most of it I think they just chose to not do this side, but some things..." Bellona shook her head at the memory the out her pans for the fish fillets aables. She already had some heartier root vegetables in the oven, but the more delicate greens she was going to lightly pan fry.

  "I'll get to that in a bit. So, after they set up all the feasting tables and stuff, it was time to be ceremonial. Have I mentioned how much I hate that sort of thing? It's b as hell. But, well, someone o do it and I'm their bloody faerie knight." It made sense really, Bellona had the training and experience for the role, but that didn't make it any more fun.

  "It was just a routine where I introduced all the guests aioo the trio after they'd introduced themselves to me. Until that Silvander guy came bato line a petitiohis time, under orders from Queen Sylphio try to have Carmil e bae. Only, I don't think that was the actual i. It seemed like it was some sort of political stunt to prove a point or learn something? Maybe both. Normal politics are bad enough, faerie politics are worse."

  Bellona shook the cast iron pan with the vegetables before tossing it a couple of times aing it back down on the engraved symbols that served as the magical heat source for her stove. "In short, he and Carmil got into a duel over it. It was impressive. She won, if barely, and only thanks to pulling a few tricks iing up the fight and then surprising him with her new powers."

  She sighed and admitted, "I don't think I could have won that fight. Carmil was able to use all of her power there and still had a hard time despite her tricks. None of my talents y toward that sort of trickery. Though I suppose it depends on how hard his spells hit." Bellona flipped the fish once, both fillets ndily with their skin sides up.

  "He's fast, but not fast enough to find a way betweees of my armor and I think I have the power to match the entments on his bde so he wouldn't be able to cut through easily. So it all depends on how potent his magic is when using the spells that Carmil's set up denied him the use of."

  "You don't think you ward them off?" Xarlug asked. "I've seen you blod deflee potent magic."

  "I don't know," Bellona replied, "he was skilled and strong, and I am better with physical blows than spells, but maybe. It also depends on if he was using spells that my elemental skills mitigate."

  With dinner almost ready, Bellona broke out a pair of ptes ahem on the ter. "That still wasn't the scariest event though. For ohing, Fuyuko tried to start a war by insulting a that was thinking of alliance by marriage. That got settled without any bloodshed, but they didn't like that the girl carries cold iroher. But that still wasn't the highlight."

  "Satsuki?" Xarlug asked.

  "Satsuki," Bellona firmed as she took the pan out of the oven and started pting the root vegetables. "She sauntered right on up to me as if she expected me to just vely not be in her way by the time she arrived. Not that she was really trying, I didn't have to push back against her that hard, but I could feel the pressure of her will trying to sweep me out of the way. It was sort of like when we sparred with Gil but without the ons. Well, external ons at least. That woman's body is a on."

  That got Xarlug curious. "I haven't seen her yet, is she really that beautiful?"

  "Yes and no. I mean, it's not just how she looks, it's how she moves and carries herself. How in all the hells does a woman make it seem like she might drag someoo the bushes at any moment while still being a perfectly dignified dy who would make a man court her for years before he might be allowed to kiss her hand?"

  Bellona couldn't keep the disgust out of her voice, though really it was an outlet for frustratioe the various beauties inhabiting and visiting the dungeon at any given moment, Bellona had never felt that outcssed. Hell, Satsuki even outdid Orchid when it came to being casually seductive.

  After she fiing the food, her pan came down a little harder than it should have. Xarlug rose and walked over to her and hugged her from behind. "Are you okay love?"

  "Yeah," Bellona said with a sigh as she leaned into him, "just, most of the time I don't really care much about being that sort of pretty, but somehow she makes me feel a bit jealous."

  "You have nothing to be jealous about," he replied as he nuzzled into her neck. "You are beautiful and perfed have more important things in your life than learning how to mess with people that way."

  Bellona ehe attention for a moment, especially how he knew just the right pce to nibble on her neck, and then she gently shook him off. "Alright, enough fttery. Here, take the ptes to the table, I'll grab the wine."

  Ohey had settled down to eat, Bellona tinued with her story. "Anyway, it seems like it was some sort of test and I passed. After that, she had Norumi do the formal introdus and such. Which, well, it would probably have been awkward for her to announce herself as the mother of Mordecai's child. Makes it sound like he had an affair or something."

  Here she paused to watch Xarlug's rea. While no fvor, not even a magically created one, could quite carry all the essence of that strange enviro, Bellona had done her best to add the st and atmosphere of winter in faerie to their food.

  Xarlug closed his eyes briefly to savor the food and then looked at her with suspi. "You made it taste like winter air and cold light. I didn't know that ossible, and you did it without making it fight or overwhelm the taste of the food."

  She smiled happily at his respohat was what I was going for. It's not perfect, but it is a bit of what faerie nd smelled like. So, there were the introdus and the gifts. I still haven't been able to get an intelligible answer out of them as to what was so special about those gaudy neckces but it seems they were made out of rare things that have the cores w hard for some reason."

  Bellona had a few bites of her food before she tinued. "Then Norumi was going to try to impnt a dryad spirit in the crystal tree on that side. They put that pn on hold to see if they get that world tree leaf to turn into a sapling first. I 't imagine what craziness is going to result from this crystal world tree hybrid idea they have, let alone having dryad living in it."

  She took a sip of her wine and ehe bination of fvors for a moment. "After that was the return gifts. I still have trouble believing that they gave Satsuki that opal, but it did seem to score points against her in some way. Norumi and Haolong seemed to enjoy the diadem and armor that had been crafted for them as well. Then there was a little more busio deal with before everyone could just enjoy the party."

  "What arty the like?" Xarlug asked between bites.

  Bellona g his pte and leased with how much he seemed to be enjoying the food. "It went well, for the most part. I couldn't enjoy the drink much of course, but there lenty of good food and lots of people were dang. There was one moment that could have gotten ugly though."

  "Oh?"

  "Someoried to flirt too hard with Moriko. I mean, there's sort of courtly socializing flirting where no one really means it. Don't ask me how that works, that was never something I uood. But it seems like this guy meant it and made it too clear that he meant it. Moriko got annoyed and pinned him ih her bck lightning while she made sure everyone uood that the three of them were not ied in 'sport' with anyone else. Which, really, shouldn't have been hard to figure out."

  She shrugged and said, "But, it seems some nobles, faeries or not, seem to think other people's rules don't include them. Um, wait a moment. Sorry, topic ge. Kazue just let me know she's about to move the plex as part of g their zone. I've never been in it when it moved, this should be iing."

  The two of them paused and waited expetly. The results were somewhat anticlimactic. She could feel a faiion of motion, but that seemed to ore from her awareness of her position in the dungeon.

  "Huh," Bellona said, "I guess the magic they use to move this se grabs everything i the same time."

  "We moved?" Xarlug asked, looking disappointed. "I didn't feel a thing."

  "I'll make sure to rectify that ter," Bellona said with a smirk. "Anyway, that was it for the party. No one died or even got seriously injured, which is pretty good for a faerie party from what I uand. But you expect to see a lot more fey folk wandering around the dungeon now, I'm not sure if that's a good thing or not."

  "This pce gets weirder and weirder," Xarlug muttered before taking another bite of the fish. "At least the food is det." He gave her a wink with that.

  Det? Oh, she was going to make him pay for that. After dessert of course.

  Zagaroth