Nemorosis

The Bell Tolls for Me 10: Life Raft

Isabella opened the room back to the main hall, where the rest of the diplomatic entourage awaited. The nobles all turned their head to her, notably quieter than they’d been when she’d last left. Duke Valerio leaned up against the doorframe just behind her, watching.

“The Ambrosian ambassadors will be coming by with revised terms,” Isabella declared loudly. “Receive and process them well.”

Isabella saw some spirited joy...

The Bell Tolls for Me 9: Grainboat Diplomacy

Isabella and Valerio sat down at the head of the table, opposite Giovanni and his two closest aides whose name Isabella didn’t know. The gazes cast their way were cold, expressionless—a far cry from the polite amiability that had been directed toward them not half an hour ago.

“Here is the situation as we understand it, Princess Isabella,” Giovanni began, foregoing the pleasantries of the lunch before them. “King Edgar II has p...

The Bell Tolls for Me 8: Pleasantry Amidst Pedantry

Isabella sat at a round table with the head ambassador Giovanni, Arthur, Count Faust, the Archduke Felix, and a few other ambassadors and minor nobility. Thus far, it had been a very tense dinner for her. Giovanni, however, didn’t seem to notice. She believed that he thought little was amiss.

Arthur was busy speaking to the lesser ambassadors who could best supply his need for magic supplies. He’d barely spoken with anyone else the e...

The Bell Tolls for Me 7: Volunteer Firefighter

Isabella knew that sabotage of some manner would come. It wasn’t in the nature of almost any in the royal court to let any slight go without some sort of response. Count Faust was a diplomat, but that didn’t mean he was somehow less ruthless. Her job, then, was to identify what was going wrong and fix it as soon as possible. She had to put out the fires before they spread, right alongside keeping up appearances for the Ambrosian envoys. 2025-02-12 00:31:12 +0000 UTC View Post

The Bell Tolls for Me 6: The Road Not Taken

“Do you think that the path of magic is something that you can simply decide to walk down on a whim?” Arthur questioned with some indignance after her request.

“Not at all,” Isabella said with a shake of her head.

“Then you should be aware that you’ll need at least a year of study to even contemplate forming a mana lock,” Arthur continued, crossing his arms. “And that each individual’s mana lock needs to be highly...

The Bell Tolls for Me 5: Finding a Ship in Troubled Waters

As Isabella got a grasp of the situation and her course of action, she also weighed her options for removing the unwanted problem of Duke Albert.

The first two of her routes were eliminated rather quickly: assassination. Specifically, assassination of either Duke Albert or King Edgar II. Isabella herself had never ordered an assassination, nor had she ever outright dismissed the idea.  She believed that the two might warrant such a ...

The Bell Tolls for Me 4: A Breath Drawn in Stormy Seas

Isabella collapsed on her bed, glad to have some reprieve. She was experiencing nostalgia, but she wouldn’t say that it was a positive feeling. Things were back to as they had been before she became queen. The royal court had been like a vast, stormy sea in which she desperately tried not to drown. At the end of every day, her room had once been like a solitary breath of air to keep her from drowning.

I’ve been thrown back in aga...