The uping dinner had Kazue giddy with excitement, but it was also going to make for a long day and be a little stressful, and she really did not want to make a bad impression. While they were in the carriage robably the best opportunity she would have to be discreet, so she nudged Moriko with her knee as she fetched the roll with her medication.

  Kazue's wife took the hint and engaged Paltira in versation while btantly ign Kazue, and that was more than enough to let Paltira know to do the same. Kazue fetched a pill out of the pocket designated for supplemental doses and made a quiote of the date and time before closing the roll back up and stowing it in their gear again.

  She rather hated having to do this, and she kind of wished she had been able to alter her avatar. Kazue was fairly certain that Mordecai could have guided her into making the appropriate alteration, but she also knew her husband well enough to figure out why he hadn't offered. As a person, she should know herself well before she did anything to make a drastic ge to who she was. And as a core, she o learn how to do it herself wheime came, not have it spooo her. Mordecai had been very careful to step back more and more with how much he guided, and even before Kazue's avatar had left the dungeon he rarely did anything other than hint or point the way a her figure out the rest.

  Kazue shook those thoughts away and joined ba the versation, trusting that Paltira would mention this to no o Orchid and that Orchid would not mention it to anyone else without need. She had no desire to talk about her medical situation with anyone she didn't o, aher of them o know why she was taking medie.

  Everything tinued smoothly from there, and Kazue quickly learhat their schedule for the evening was going to be different than what Moriko experieo begin with, Orchid had already settled oly what jewelry Kazue was going to be gifted with. The starring piece was going to be a gold circlet with a rge aubergine pearl in the ter and decorated with several small amethysts and diamonds.

  A close sed was the amethyst studded bib neckce that covered up some of her, ah, promily dispyed assets even as it helped draw the eye there. Kazue had to do her best to avoid thinking about that, and Moriko's smirking leer did not help. She did not want to be blushing through the entire dinner!

  Smaller rings, earrings, and earcuffs with aubergine pearls or amethyst pleted the look, making her quite presentable for court. Kazue had been uain about getting the piergs, but Moriko had enced her with the promise that it would look really cute, and in the end, Kazue had to agree as she examined herself in the mirror. Her long fox ears did dispy the jewels nicely.

  "Remio find some pieces appropriate for traveling," she told Moriko with a smile, "I think I like them and I want to try out a few options." Oh, what would her mother say!

  Though e to think of it, there were a few spots along her mother's ears where the fur had grown a bit more thinly. Hmm. Kazue was now suspicious and had some more questions she wao ask her mom.

  "Gdly," Moriko said with a mischievous glint in her eyes, "I think something with tiny bells would be fun, my pet."

  Kazue mao growl and blush at the same time, but their flirtation was quickly interrupted by the woman attending them. "I think her Highness will be very pleased with how you've turned out, but it may be best to not keep her or the others waiting, my dies."

  They took the hint and double-checked their dresses before allowing themselves to be escorted to the main hall. The introdu to the court went much as it had for Moriko, though as the newer Kazue received the most attention. Furthermore, as their retionship with the kingdom was well established, they were enced to spend time meeting with some of the other nobility present rather thaing to immediately retreat to the private dining room.

  The meet and greet with nobles was a lot easier than it would have been without Moriko at her side, but as her initial nervousness wore off she found the situatioing. She was being treated like a princess!

  Okay, so teically she was a sn and as such was more equivalent to a queen of a very small nation, but the three of them had agreed they didn't really want to deal with such titles and were satisfied with 'lord' and 'dy' as appropriate.

  Still, she was happy when the court day ended and they were escorted to the private dining hall. With no official busio be dealt with, the royal children were all in attendah their parents, though Priiriana was visiting her elven fiance, and Princess Kitiara and her wife Catherine were at their home in the northerories, attending to their duties there.

  The dinner was a lot of fun, even if Moriko and Orchid worked together to monitor how much she had to drink. That was ahing she was going to fix in her avatar, she wao not be such a lightweight! But she didn't want to pass out or make a fool of herself either, so she didn't mind having her drinks bei light and interspersed with juiuch.

  Of course, before they started double-teaming Kazue, Orchid had made sure to 'er' Moriko, and listening in on that had been fun. Well, until Moriko mao work in how Paltira's gaze had dipped briefly at the clothier's. Kazue hadn't even noticed, but it worked as Moriko intended, getting the tiny woman to direct her faux ire elsewhere.

  It retty obvious to anyone who knew her that Orchid wasn't truly upset at Moriko or Paltira, it art of the game she pyed with her sisters. Kazue hadn't seen this game before, but seeing it now made her feel included and trusted to see this part of their private lives. She wondered if it had something to do with rge families; Moriko seemed to be adapting to the game perfectly like she already khe rules.

  The dinner wasn't quite chaotic, but with the children involved it has a certain level of energy that Kazue didn't think Moriko's previous dinner with the royal family had. And Kazue loved it, there was always someoo talk to and a stant whirl of getting to know new people.

  Ohe younger children were sent to bed, the dinner became much more sedate. Not that it was really about just eating a meal by now, this was a social event to get to know the royal family. Which they would have plenty of time to do, along with meeting other nobility; they were being give quarters during their stay in Ekuince. Moriko and Kazue had both tried to protest that they could find their own way, but even the argument that Kazue was supposed to be experieng the world failed to budge the royal family.

  "It would not look good to let you stay in a standard hostel or the like, and you don't have the right sort of fio rent a manor or something, so you get to be uests," Orchid said, "and being royal guests is certainly a new experience. As for experieng the rest of the city," Orchid fshed a grin, "trust me, I know how to slip you out of the castle discreetly if you want to run about inito. Moriko and I could pete in telling tales of the sort of trouble we got into."

  Eventually, they retired and were shown the way to their guest suite, where Moriko proceeded to 'help' Kazue with her dress. Kazue slept ihe m, only waking up groggily when her wife started toying with the rings in her ear. "It's a good thing the piergs came with a fast heal potion," Kazue muttered. An instant curative might have sealed up the holes around the metal or rejected the metal, but a simple fast healing potion only accelerated the natural process.

  "Mm," Moriko replied absentmindedly as she teased another earring, "Mordecai says he has a bit of easy training for you that you might want to try ht now. Start by simply shifting to your tailless form."

  Kazue frow the sudden request, but she knew her husband well enough to guess that whatever he had in mind was going to work best if she didn't know what was going on. Otherwise, he would have told her first. So she did as requested, "Now what?"

  "Now a question: where are your earrings?"

  "Huh, wha-?" Kazue reached up to touch her human ears, to find them bare and unpierced. She knew her clothes went away wheurned into a fox, but she hadn't really thought about it. It happened for everyone, so it had never been a mystery, but now she found herself curious.

  "Mordecai says that they t as different 'parts', you actually ma both at the same time now that you fiune your form. He's willing to answer questions whenever you want, though you might want to experiment more first." Moriko grinned, "However, I am not willing to spend the rest of the day talking, we do that ter. I want to show you the city first! So you'll have to hold your questions until ter."

  While the two of them got bathed and dressed for the day, Kazue spent a little of her time experimenting with her shape-ging. Previously she hadn't really been aware of the presence of items that had been shifted away during her shape ge, but now she was very scious of them. They were sort of there, only there was no 'there' for them to be, and she could only access them by retaking a patible form. The piergs would be in her fox ears, whether those ears were attached to her fox form or her bipedal forms, but would not appear in not-fox ears unless she was very careful and slow in her shape-ging and made the fox ears migrate while they ged shape. It was awkward and unfortable to do it that way too.

  They went out in the clothes Mordecai had issioned for them; they were pretty and fortable, allowing them to look good without being overdressed for the role they wao py. her one of them was terribly fortable with being dies yet, and as much as Kazue loved the new dresses, she didn't want to wear them out iy or anything like that.

  Their shopping was limited today as they only had so much cash on them, and they didn't want to exge their special opal if they didn't have to. But it did allow them to take some notes and begiing a list for ter.

  While they were out and about, Moriko alsed Kazue to meet a lot of her friends, with a promise to take her out to the moomorrow to meet Moriko's master. More than a few of said friends looked some bination retful or specutive, but most of them got over their loss quickly enough. Only one had to get a verbal smag f to press the idea of a hookup despite their married status, and she looked emotionally singed as well as chagrined. At least she apologized after that and behaved herself from there.

  Their day out also let Kazue start meetiirely ypes of spirits. A city had its own life and its own needs, even if that life was far different from the biomes of a forest or field. It also had a strange vibrancy that resonated differently from more primal areas, and Kazue had a feeling that a 'dead' city would be very different from a 'dead' forest. Dead wild nds were passing affairs, part of the natural cycle, and would soon be filled in with new life as it recovered from whatever disaster had passed.

  A dead city was something that would stick. Oh, there would be life, and nature would make its way in, but a city would resist the ge. And depending on how the city died, well, she had her first insight into how uhings could e iehout willful a. That was not an insight she particurly enjoyed, and she fervently hoped she'd never meet that sort of spirit.

  When they were feeling doh socializing aiypes of spirits, they simply made their way into the same neighborhood that they had walked out of earlier, though not to the same house. They'd been shadowed the entire day and when they got into the right area one of their escorts made a brief showing, gesturing down a side street when no one else was around.

  The path that they followed from there allowed the escorts to double-check that the pair were not being followed. Once Moriko and Kazue had been cleared, they were led to peared to be a side door to a servant's quarters but led into an underground tunnel instead.

  When Orchid had told them to not expect the exits or entrao this system to work twice, Kazue had to bite her lip to keep silent and just silently hat earned her another suspicious look from the princess, but Kazue couldn't help from reag. She had a feeling she kly how these tunnels worked, they felt an awful lot like her shortcuts, if more fleeting.

  Soon they were ensced once more at the castle, and it was time to ge and begin a different type of socializing. They were to attend a more publihis time. Not that they actually had to, it was teically only a request, but Kazue and Moriko were advised that if they wao maintain good retions with the rest of the hey o learn to py their part.

  Zagaroth