Chapter 343 - Reece - Touring The Compound (VOLUME 3)
~~
Reece
~~
When my Little bunny disappeared with Queen Gloriana for hours on end I thought I was going to die. I didn't know what was about to happen to her. After that crazy mess the baquet turned into I thought that she was going to die or something. It was horrible.
She didn't find anything wrong with it though. Does she not know how precious she is to me? Does she not realize that she is carrying precious cargo with her? What the hell am I going to do with that woman?
She came back though. Thank the Goddess. And nothing bad happened at all. Apparently she just spent the night getting to know the queen. She was basically saying that Queen Gloriana was happy to have another Queen that she could be friends with. That was awkward, but OK.
The next day, our first full day in the Fae compound, we were going to be given a full tour. Queen Gloriana, understandably, didn't have the whole day free to devote to us. So we would eat breakfast with her, explore and get to know people, and finish the day by having a private dinner with her.
The guards would, once again, eat their meals in their rooms or in a separate room in shifts. I felt bad making them wait like this but they had done it before when on guard duty. And if we started making things more like a real royal kingdom then we would have to make this a part of their daily life.
Another thing we would need to make certain of was training proper guards for the estate and the city. During our time walking through the compound on our tour I noticed several guards in disguise. They were positioned in places that were supposed to be inconspicuous but they were noticeable to me.
They were supposed to just sit there and observe, I could tell that was their main job, and since we got to decide where to go on a whim I knew they weren't following us. No, they were just a covert set of guards.
Maybe I could implement that strategy with Colorado Springs. It will be a little harder of course, but not impossible. I already had guards patrolling in and around our compound but that wasn't enough. I needed to stop threats before they got to my front door.
There was also a lot more happening inside the Fae compound than what I had expected. I knew that they would be self sufficient, that was obvious because they didn't often go out into the human worlds. However, they had a lot of services and buildings that I hadn't expected to see.
Despite the clear Scottish and Celtic styles all around the compound, there was a lot of Greek history showing in the way this place was built as well. There was a wide open Plaza that was halfway through the entire area that looked to be a meeting place for the residents of their little 'city' they had here. There was a covered walkway that the Greek used to call a Stoa. The columns here didn't have that white marble feel to them, instead they were either made of elaborately carved wood or some ancient looking stone.
Aside from the Greek touches they had an array of buildings that weren't just the other residences, which there were a lot of. They had a theater that was in the style of one from Victorian England. There were bath houses like those found in Japan. They had farms, shops, tailors, all sorts of craft buildings.
The entire place looked like a hodgepodge of different periods in time from different places all over the world. I guess when your average citizen is almost a millennia old then you have a lot of world history under your belt.
Oddly enough though, there was nothing really wrong about it all. Everything just seemed to fit properly with the surroundings. The whole place was ancient and classic mixed with modern and sophisticated.
The whole place had running water, indoor plumbing, and electricity. Though there had been an explanation about the electricity being more magic than anything else so I wasn't sure what to explain it as.
There were also more people than I had expected. There were maybe two or three hundred people in total at the banquet, but looking around the compound I saw that there were a lot more people than that. Perhaps those that weren't at the banquet were too low ranked.
Then there were the people who didn't look human like. We werewolves are not human but we still look like them, most of the time. However, there were several different types of Fae and not all of them looked human all the time.
Apparently, the stronger their magic the longer they could look human outside of the compound. Eventually though, they would lose their touch with the earth and all of them would revert back to their nature form.
The Fae were born looking like humans, same as we shifters were. And they too had another form. They didn't call it an animal or beast like we did though. No, the Fae seemed to call it their nature form. This was what they looked like in the legends.
In their nature forms they would change a lot. A gnome would shrink down and look just like a real garden gnome, minus the funny clothes. Pixies were indeed tiny little creatures that had faerie dust sprinkle from their wings when they flew. Dryads were colored like trees and often had leaves and roots on their bodies. It was all quite interesting and made me think about Cedar and Acacia's future babies.
Things went well during the tour. We had met a lot of new people that treated Trinity well. I, for some reason, was treated as nothing more than an accessory on Trinity's arm. I might as well have been a piece of furniture she was lugging around.
I guess that is what happens when your world was run by an unmarried Queen that didn't have a proper King. I would definitely be happy to get home and back to our way of life.
Trinity was learning a lot though. And I noticed that she was acting so much more like a real Queen with each new person that she met. Pretty soon it would be hard to tell that she hadn't been born a royal.
Well, to be honest, I guess she was born a royal, it's just that no one knew about it. The difference in her attitude over this last day was astounding though. I couldn't wait to see her acting like a proper Queen to her people.
Not everything was sunshine and smiles though. There were a few people that gave me pause even before Vincent put a hand on my arm to get my attention. Every time that had happened I would lean in and he would tell me what it was he had sensed about the person we had just met.
Some of his warnings included things like:
"This man is extremely weary of the wolves. It is quite possible his fear could become violence."
"This woman is jealous of Queen Trinity's apparent closeness with the Fae Queen and she gives off a vindictive nature."
"This man seems off. I cannot pinpoint it but he does not seem at all friendly toward us in his heart."
That last one he had said was about a man who was enthusiastically shaking my hand. It was true that the Fae could be tricksters. Most however, couldn't lie. Or so the legends said. But they were also noted to have a really good ability to stretch and manipulate the truth so that you always believed in them, no matter what.
I hoped that wasn't true.
Still, it was nice to be heading home the next day. Queen Gloriana had invited us to come visit again as she hugged my Little Bunny gently. She sent along a gift for Trinity, a book that she had apparently prepared herself. In the book Trinity, the new queen, would find ways to act and behave more regally. That was actually really nice and useful.
I was once again in the back of the limo with my Queen as we headed home. I was exhausted and sighed the moment we were out of their territory.
"Hahhh." I pulled my tie loose and flopped my head back against the seat. "That was fucking exhausting."
"It was busy, but I don't think it was too bad." My pretty little mate just didn't get the difference in what we had gone through this weekend.
"Little Bunny, no offense, but your point of view is skewed on this." I got a grimace from her when she heard my words.
"Meaning?" She wasn't happy. I saw that Vinent and Cedar were laughing slightly when they heard how differently we saw the trip. Acacia was just smiling.
"You were all they cared about. To them I was nothing but a decoration that was to look good and not talk."
"Wasn't that my intended role when we mated?" She raised an eyebrow at me. "So you're no good with a simple role reversal? Hypocrite." She was giggling now.
"This was different from that of a Luna. You still had a job to do. In Fae culture I would be nothing but the sex toy for the Queen."
"Hmm, that sounds like a really good definition." That made Cedar laugh hard.
"Face it, Reece, this is how the Fae culture is. If Acacia was the Queen then I would be nothing but the Queen's personal sex machine. At least it's a good job to have. Enjoy it."
"Are you lusting after my wife?" I growled at Cedar even though I knew it wasn't true. I had to break the tension somehow. After I saw the fear on Cedar's face I laughed, showing them that I was joking.
Still, that had been an exhausting trip.