Chapter 485 – Visiting Home

*** Alzi, Main Body ***

"Is there anything I need to do?" I ask.

"Need to do, not really, My Empress," Kou says. "Besides the obvious. Care for your kids. Elora and Elo will have reports for you. Sextia is working on her plan with Irdru. But that will take a few days. The only thing besides the everyday items that you need to do is visit your village. But that is self-imposed, if you wish to hold off on doing that."

Do I want to do that? It could be interesting, I guess. I can see what that idiot guard thinks of me now. She'll probably just hide or something. It's not like the ones that actually betrayed the dragon's crown are still alive, so the only thing I could figure out is whether they knew I was a royal or not. But do I actually care about that? "Mommy, do you want to go back?" I ask.

"Avoiding making the decision yourself," Mommy says. "It would be nice to walk around the village. Some of the villagers would be interested in the twins. Victoria will have to get up to help be a guard for us."

"Do I make a show of it? Going there in the royal carriages with guards and all of that?" I ask. I'm sure Elora will be mad if I don't go with at least some guards and a carriage. Appearances or something.

"You would have to, My Empress," Kou says. "But the right way would be to talk to at least the Duchess who watches over the town and come together with her."

"What was her name?" I ask. Not that anyone here knows. Well, Kou probably knows, and maybe Mai got her name at some point at the brothel. But Mommy, Ilka, and Akhae probably don't know. I would be surprised if Eterna cared about it. I sure didn't realize that a Duchess was the overseer. I just thought it was the head family and the Queen. But it was probably just me who thought that. Well, the Duchess's wife said she didn't do much with the town, so maybe the others didn't know about her either.

"You've met her, My Empress?" Kou asks. "Duchess Azorith is the one who has the land claim for the village. All reports say she doesn't watch over the village that closely anymore, the past Queen having found that the dragons didn't have the strength to be dangerous any longer. Which was unfortunate timing, as Azorith apparently has some dragonkin blood in her line. Maybe she would've known about your nature."

"Maybe," I say. "It's not like the town cared. But I haven't met with her. Her new wife came to the tea party Elora set up to show off my breeding power to the nobles."

"That makes things simpler, My Empress," Kou chuckles. "She can hardly be mad about the father of her future child snooping around their childhood home. Unless you plan to make some policy decisions, we'll be fine to just drive up to the village and have a conversation. Unless you want to talk to Duchess Azorith."

"The less talking, the better," I say. "Victoria, no, we'll have Geta with Mommy and the babies, and put Victoria with me."

"I don't know if you have that the wrong way or right way around, My Empress," Kou says. "Save the babies from Victoria's speech, but bring her to official talks. And Geta is safer for your kids, but that leaves you less protected. You can't win. I think you should take Eterna with you."

"I'll let her hold my hand," I say.

"You'd better," Eterna says. "You need to settle down. For me, you, and Yzzorres, who is going to steal you away eventually."

"Don't remind me," I say. "I wish someone had told me about what she's going to be like before I got her pregnant. I thought she would just sleep through everything. Well, I didn't really think. But afterwards, that is what I thought would happen. And I have to raise the kids, which was always going to be a challenge. Were you an easy kid?"

"I don't know," Eterna says. "I think so, but I'm guessing my Mother has different thoughts on that."

"Probably," I say. "We'll find it all out later. This is the last thing I have to go out for. I can just approve Sextia's plan after I see it, since I'm not going to be able to help form an assassination plot. I'll relax then, and I'll bully Yzzorres into letting you come by. You'll have to live with her bed of gold for a bit. I'll get a real bed put in for visitors. But for today, I need a dress to go outside, which needs Shyla. Who has to be close to giving birth again? I really went too far with that experiment."

"She's glowing, baby," Mommy says. "She's ready to have the kids out, but she's happy to have the kids. Don't worry about that. But we do need to start preparing. I'll wake the warrior. I feel like she curses less with me around."

"I'm glad she has some sense," I say. "I need to roll out of the bed while you all get Shyla here. Hopefully, she has something simple for me."

...

Ok, when I thought of the full caravan, I thought one, maybe two carriages, and maybe six guards. Twelve, to have better coverage if they must. But somehow we managed to get six carriages and thirty-two guards. What are they all for?! I have Geta, Victoria, and Eterna with me! What do I need the extra guards for this close to the capital? The adventurers have been leaving the capital because of how little there is to do around here, so there's hardly anything dangerous around. Is Lensa hanging out around here, waiting for me to come by so she can capture me and force me to take the collar off her daughter?

The move was a great way to avoid Lensa. Kiyomi wants nothing to do with Lensa, so I can just put the blame on Kiyomi and wipe my hands clean of the terrible Mother, if I could only find a way to keep all the kids she's carrying and not deal with Lensa after taking them.

I could try to find some way to force her to marry me, but I don't want her around. Just the kids. It's a real headache, like this oversized caravan. Am I supposed to be intimidating the village? I guess I am trying to do that a bit, and I would like an honest answer about why they didn't realize I was their better.

Ok, the real reason may be to make me start feeling like an Empress. Kou has been huffing about me not being enough of an Empress when I'm not at home. She likes that I approved the assassinations, but she wants me to straighten my spine a bit more in front of the nobles.

I've told her it's hard to do that while pregnant, and I can give her first-hand experience if she doesn't believe me, but she says she has too much work to do to get pregnant right now. I should wait for Shyla to be done with her kids before I get her pregnant. My succubus servants are also a little too pregnant to do anything. I do have my shadows, but once again, one is too pregnant to do much, but I like having their help in the nursery. It's so easy for them to nurse the kids when all they have is a thin cloth holding back their tits.

"We didn't have to say a single word for the gate to open," Mommy chuckles. "I wonder if they finally found someone who knows how to guard the gate, or if she knows what the emblem on the carriages is."

"Someone probably rode ahead and forced the doors open," Ilka says. "I think she would smell us coming and keep the gate closed out of spite."

"Then she would be dead," Victoria says. "Even I could kill her for stopping me from entering the village if I'm here for an important mission, which is all I've had the last few years. Holding you up instead of an adventurer may save her life, actually. We would have her humiliated for a few years before killing her."

"That seems like a bit much," I say. "For holding me up on a random visit. But I can see the importance of not holding people up in emergencies."

"It makes things simple," Victoria says. "Do your job well, or don't worry about it."

That's a bit more than 'don't worry about it.' But it does seem to fit the nobles' thoughts about things. I may need to fix that rule. Spending some time in jail seems more fitting unless the guards know that an emergency is happening. Death would be more fitting then.

I start to see the houses pass by outside the windows and the dragonkin shuffling out to stare at the oversized caravan. I think we only ever got a single carriage at a time when traders came. They never had enough for what the village needed, and we probably didn't have enough coin to make it worth bringing more.

"Where do you want to walk, Mommy?" I ask.

"You should remain close together," Geta says. "It will make it easier for us all."

"I would prefer to meet some people I know," Mommy says. "Our old neighbors would be great to see. I want to check up on their kid, and I know they want to see mine."

"Take a few guards, and that should be more than enough," I say. "If something happens, Eterna can just burn down the village, and we'll call it a day."

"You would let me do that?" Eterna asks, with a bit more joy than I would like.

"Maybe," I say. "There are some good people in the village."

"Well, I can have some restraint," Eterna says. "Dragons are hard to burn."

"On to happier things," I say. "Thank the couple for watching over me, for me. I'm finding out now how much work they had to put in. And thank you for being a good Mommy. It's time to see if the Silvers will still hide from me." The carriages come to a stop, and the guards push out to create space for us to leave the carriage. Kou steps out first to help everyone down, and Victoria makes her way over in her shining armor. She looks so noble. She even has the air of nobility, at least until she speaks.

I rag on her too much. She's a great wife. But it's so easy to tease her about her language.

"The Silvers are smarter than that, My Empress," Kou says. "You can see them waiting, if you look through the guards. You may be able to see them over the guards, if you look past the shorter ones."

"I see them," I say. Two of them, at least. I don't know how many are actually here, so it's probably just the two. I never cared to keep track of them when they would avoid me themselves.

"Welcome, Empress Alzi," the older one says. "We have much to apologize for. Would you like to come inside to hear our apologies, or do you plan to take our heads right here?"

I didn't think about that. Should I just kill them? "We can get to killing later," I say. "It's better to talk for a bit before we get to that." I'll see what they have to say for themselves. Maybe Geta can tell me if they're lying.

"Thank you for showing us mercy," the elder says. "Our family seems to get too much mercy from the royals. We don't have much, but everything we have is yours. If you follow us, we have a room ready for the meeting."

"Very well," I say. It is funny that Sextia is planning on murdering a bunch of people, while they just got exiled and are possibly about to be spared yet again. Maybe I shouldn't show them any mercy. "Be safe."

"I will be, baby," Mommy says. "See you soon."