<~> Chapter 114

It had been several days since we last met with Celeste, despite trying to accept her offer to have dinner together. It seems that something's come up that's pulled her attention away from us. That was pretty interesting considering how eager she was to spend time with Luna initially. We weren't even sure if our current goal of being delvers was still on the table. Celeste talked like she was going to try and keep Luna out of the court intrigue, but if we were roped into it, would we even be able to delve dungeons anymore?

We were spending time in the training yard practicing Luna and Iris's magic when we finally got some news.

("That's five,") Luna said proudly. She wiped her brow as she stood before five sizzled training dummies in front of her. She had been working on developing her chain lightning magic and was now able to reliably hit multiple targets with it. It took a bit of charge time for every added target, but she was quickly getting the hang of it.

I clapped. "That looked powerful."

Luna turned to me and blushed. ("You don't need to clap... it's embarrassing.")

"Aww, but how else will I cheer you on? Would you rather me cheer?" I asked.

She puffed out her cheeks at me, but her swishing tail gave her away. She liked it even if it made her feel like I was teasing her. I wasn't teasing her though. The chain lightning was incredibly impressive looking.

"Excuse me, everyone. Her Majesty Celeste has summoned all of you to the dragon court immediately. You must come with us to be prepared for the audience," Seilfreid said. I turned to look at him. His face looked stern and the man next to him was an out of breath message runner. It looked like he had run the entire way here... this summons must be important.

Piper and Maxwell put down the wooden swords they were using to spar with and Iris ran over with her wind grimoire cradled in her arms. She had made a lot of progress with her wind magic in the last few days. She had become determined to be useful to us after we'd spent time and money training her. Even if this time locked in the castle had been worrying and stifling to us, Iris had used the time well by training nearly the entire time. Today, Aria and Iris had been working together to see if they could recreate the arrow tricks Milana had told us about.

"Be prepared? What do you mean?" I asked Seilfreid.

The soldier gestured to our clothes. "You're about to be before the dragon court and you're covered in sweat while wearing grubby clothes. We don't have a lot of time to have you bathed and clothed properly to be before royalty."

I looked down at my shirt. It was covered in sweat, but I wouldn't consider the shirt I was wearing grubby. Nothing was as good as the clothes I had worn in my old world, but this shirt was actually pretty good by my standards.

"Come on now, we don't have much time, and the sand is falling. This is a summons from royalty. You aren't allowed to refuse. Your time in the castle has been for this," he said as he gestured for us to follow.

("It was?") I asked Luna using the rings.

("I don't think so... but maybe this has something to do with Celeste? Either way, we aren't allowed to refuse, so we might as well go with it.")

The six of us were ushered along and taken directly to the baths on the fourth floor. Maxwell was whisked away to the male's bath while we were pushed through the familiar room we had bathed in nearly every day since we'd been here. This time, an entire crowd of women were waiting for us there and we were ordered to strip for them. Needless to say, I was incredibly uncomfortable, but I put up with it since the female soldiers standing nearby were a hint that this wasn't a choice. I was at least allowed to keep my blindfold on.

All of us were scrubbed down without much thought toward our comfort, but the way they behaved was so distinctly non-sexual that it actually made it easier for me to deal with. I could also tell that I wasn't the only one who bristled at the treatment, as all of my friends were put through the same whirlwind of forced scrubbing as I was. By the end of it, we were pulled through some doors that I hadn't seen open before and taken to different dressing rooms.

The human woman waiting there pulled me onto a stool and took a bunch of measurements of my body, even including things like the circumference of my new tail. She handed me some expensive silky underclothes that unfortunately were not nearly as supportive as the sports-bra equivalent thing I had picked up in town. It did feel nice against my skin though. After that, I was fitted for a dress made out of a stiff fabric.

"Do I have to wear a dress? I would rather be dressed in men's formal clothes if I have to wear fancy things," I said to the tailor.

"Not allowed. I know that many beastkin don't like wearing dresses, but this is the dress code of the court. Don't worry. I'll make sure there's plenty of room for your tail without the risk of things peeking out. All of your friends will be wearing dresses as well, except for the gentleman you came with."

"What about my braid?" I asked.

"Do you have it with you?" she asked in turn.

"I do, I kept it with me in my spatial ring when we started undressing," I told her.

She pursed her lips. "No one told me that you had a spatial ring. That complicates things. You'll have to surrender it as a weapon before you can enter the court. Do you have any other magical rings?"

I frowned. "A few, but one of them is a telepathy ring. We need it to talk with Luna."

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She rubbed her chin. "I can talk with someone to get the telepathy ring waived as long as you allow it to be inspected. The others will have to be locked outside the chamber with the rest of your things. But for now, you can pull out your braid and I'll attach it for you."

I wasn't super happy to hear that, but it made sense. Even if I didn't use the ring itself as a weapon, I did carry my axe inside of it. I had left my armor in our room, though. I wasn't planning on using it for training today, and it doesn't fit inside my ring with all of my other stuff. Once I retrieved my braid, I surrendered all of my rings except for the telepathy one to be held onto for me.

She efficiently fit the dress to my body and hung my braid from the ring beneath the collar. The dress felt stiff, but not too uncomfortable despite how restrictive it seemed. I didn't like wearing skirts, but at least the one attached to this dress hung all the way down to my ankles. It didn't mitigate the empty feeling I got on my legs, but I wouldn't need to worry about flashing others. She cinched a pretty looking underbust bodice around my stomach and above the dress, but it thankfully wasn't a full-on corset. It felt a bit tighter there, but I could still breathe without any trouble. When she was finally finished, she pulled me before a long slab of silver polished to be a mirror.

I couldn't see my reflection in the mirror because of my blindfold, so I had to look down at myself to see how I looked. The dress I wore was a dark forest green with silver accents that looked pretty against my dark hair. I was surprised just how good the dress looked on me despite the suddenness of it being fitted to my body. Either there had been some premeditation behind today, or the tailor was that good at picking out a design that would be attractive on me. The dress had a basic A-cut shape without any ruffles and showed just a bit of cleavage. It was a simple design but contrasted well with the rich color and tasteful silver accents. I assumed the blindfold would look a bit out of place with it, but I didn't have any complaints about that.

"That looks good enough. How do you like it?" she asked.

"Better than I would have thought, if I'm honest. I've never been much of a dress person... Isn't this a bit over the top?" I asked.

The human woman raised an eyebrow. "This is probably the most modest dress I've put on anyone in a long time. I think it's subdued, even compared to what they plan on putting on your friends. Someone obviously wanted you to look plain compared to your fiancé."

I swished the dress back and forth a little. "Well, modest is better for me anyway, I think."

She chuckled. "If you say so. If this is a mean prank, I'd say it backfired on them."

"Or they knew me well enough to keep me happy," I replied.

The woman smiled and rolled her eyes. "If you say so. Now, this way. We need to do your makeup and brush out that hair."

I had been a bit hesitant about the makeup session, but it turned out that their selection of makeup wasn't as diverse as I was used to in my world, especially since I refused to remove the blindfold. It still took a decent amount of time, but it was not nearly as bad as I feared. Unfortunately, I still couldn't see my reflection in the mirror, so I had to take her word that the makeup she applied looked good on me. I felt more feminine than I had in years even though I couldn't really see how it looked. Finally, my hair was brushed out and pinned in place so it wouldn't move around too much and then I was done.

"Alright, you're finished."

"I think it looks nice," I said while looking down at myself.

She laughed. "I'm glad you're so easy to please. I thought I was drawing the short end of the stick when I got the 'rugged skirmisher woman' from your group."

I tilted my head. "I wish I could argue with that assessment. Honestly, I've been called worse." Monster came to mind.

"I'm sure you have," she said with a snort. "Alright, no more dawdling. Let's see if any of the others beat our time."

She led me down a hall into a waiting room near the back of the castle. It turns out we were the first to arrive, which got a bit of a grin out of the tailor. "Looks like I won a bet," she said to herself.

"You were betting on who would finish first? Isn't that a bad idea?" I asked.

"No, we were betting on whether or not you would be last, actually. People have seen you in the halls, but no one knows your temperament. There was a pool going on about whether or not you would be a nightmare to work with, and multiple people assumed you would be so fussy to work with that you would be last when you finally received an audience."

"Are you sure you should be telling me this? It seems a little rude..." I said flatly.

She laughed. "I wouldn't have if I thought you wouldn't see the humor in it."

I couldn't help but smile. "Well, you do have a point."

After a while, each of the others filed into the room. Maxwell was the second to show up. He was wearing something that looked halfway between a suit and a military uniform. Piper was next, she looked a bit annoyed at the extravagant priestly looking robes that she had been forced to wear. She was dressed in a way that screamed healer to anyone who looked at her. Iris had the most subdued style, probably because she was still being recognized as a child. She had a white and green dress with a flowing design that spoke well to her wind magic. Aria wore a light yellow dress that was heavily embroidered with moons and stars, which seemed a bit out of place on her, especially since I knew her as a stealthy archer. Unexpectedly, she looked quite excited to show it off to Maxwell, who blushed a lot while looking at her. I had expected her to be as nonplussed as Piper or as shy about it as I felt, but she seemed excited instead.

Finally, the last one to arrive was Luna and my jaw dropped when she walked through the door. She wore an elegant sky-blue dress with dark blue accents that made her shining blue eyes pop. Her blond hair was done into a fancy braid that trailed down her back, and her ears and tail were treated with something that made them shine in the light. The braid of my hair was proudly hanging near her shoulder since the wide neck of the dress showed off a lot of her chest. Her eyes lit up when they met my gaze, and she rushed over to look at me.

("Helena! You look amazing!") she gushed as her eyes roamed my body.

"Me? Have you seen yourself? You look gorgeous in that!" I replied. A bright blush warmed her face, though it was a lot less visible with the pretty makeup she was wearing. It was so well done that it enhanced her beauty even further. I was about to sweep her into a hug before two of the tailors jumped in our way and tried to hold us apart. We were so much stronger than them it would have been easy to just ignore their pleas not to mess up our makeup, but the two of us relented and settled on holding each other's hands instead.

I smiled at Luna and bit my lip. I think this trip to the castle was worth it for this.

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