In the Doctor's Office

“Hesitantly, a young maid told the great General that one morning about five years ago, she had found the cold body of the Owl Princess lying on the unswept floor. Feathers the colour of mist half-heartedly blossomed through her skin, spattered with blackening blood. No one was quite certain when she had died, and she was buried before the twilight darkened the sky.”

On the death of the Owl Princess, Female General in the Nightingale Court

-

Naomi woke up with another splitting headache – it was beginning to feel like a recurring pattern – a few hours later in another unfamiliar room. She supposed that, having been parachuted into the narrative, she didn’t have a ‘protagonist halo’. That would have to be factored in next time she decided to piss someone off.

The guy in green from earlier was there, sitting on a Roman-style folding chair on her right, with the poor servant girl who’d been in trouble at his elbow. Melaenis stood by a person who Naomi assumed was the doctor – a short, round fellow with little spectacles and a silly moustache that made him look like those little black terriers that they put on biscuit tins

and other merchandise. The doctor seemed anxious, which she might otherwise see as a bad sign, but from his furrowed brow that seemed to be his default expression. The look was only completed by the cartoonishly defined sweat on his forehead. Poor guy.

Young master in the corner looked rather like the Peacock Consort (although, there was a possibility that she only vaguely resembled her sprites or illustrations). After all, a resemblance didn’t seem to be guaranteed; Lady Arsinoe looked quite unlike the generic sprite the game had used and was barely described in the novel. It had mentioned her sour expression – although not her solid right hook. Naomi guessed that she shouldn’t have provoked her so, but it worked so well in those harem politics mobile games she’d always seen advertisements for. Vicious mockery was supposed to be a great weapon! Maybe she should wait until her reputation stat was a little better before going back to verbal brawls…

“Ah, good. The Princess is awake.” Melaenis sounded both oddly worried and – still oddly – relieved. It could be that her mistress dying would land her in hot water, but Naomi was choosing to believe that she’d already begun to win her over. Compared to Lady Arsinoe, she wasn’t that bad of a boss. She said thank you! All the time!

Green guy cleared his throat.

“We haven’t formally met, although with my being twin to an Imperial Consort I suppose we are related in some way. Maybe a familiar title would be appropriate, rather than Lord and Princess?”

Naomi pondered for a little then, finding her voice, spoke.

“It would be strange to call someone so close to me in age ‘uncle’, although you are brother-in-law to my father. ‘Cousin’ might serve better?”

He smiled in a way that almost reached the eyes – a slight wrinkling, but not quite earnest. It didn’t seem necessarily untrustworthy, but certainly untrusting. With a small bow, he spoke.

“Since I cannot use your name, Princess, cousin will do.”

Seeing Naomi’s expression of confusion – thankfully made less suspicious by the Owl Princess’ recent illness – Melaenis stage-whispered on her left.

“The Empress Dowager forbade the use of your given name some years ago … one of her stricter edicts…”

Naomi would use much more pointed and censor-worthy language herself, but she supposed Melaenis probably wanted to as well. Insults that never left one’s head couldn’t get you killed – or worse, sent to servant detention to copy lines!

She put on her best polite smile, which tugged at the bruising on her face. God, she probably had a black eye – as if she hadn’t suffered enough!!

“I should at least learn your name, cousin.”

Mostly, she was fishing for information to complete those little profiles on her ‘Relationships’ tab. She could also run him through her mental directory of important characters. Any ally was a great help now, but a well-placed one would really improve her chance at a successful run.

“Argus. I prefer not to throw the weight of my family name around, but I suppose I’ve already told you who my sister is… it is rather obvious. My father rather puts people off me, sometimes.”

Argus didn’t seem resentful, although his usually light tone of speech became somewhat bitter on the words ‘family’ and ‘father’. Naomi’s ‘dad issues’ radar was pinging like a phone after a risky text. Argus’ sister would be around his age – which Naomi would put at late teens, same as the Owl Princess at the moment – which meant she was almost certainly the Peacock Consort, the two other living consorts being the Emperor’s age or older. Assuming the girl was his sister and, since they were twins, they had the same father – unless there was some trickery/ adoption afoot – that seemed pretty fair. Old Father Peacock had few redeeming traits even on the page, despite being a fairly minor character in every version of the narrative. Besides the suspicious vanishing of his first wife – very Wuthering Heights – he’d clearly had his fingers in some nasty conspiracies that the author had just never bothered to go into much detail about. Probably saving it for one last surprise volume. His habit of cozying up to the Empress Dowager, a grade-A pantomime villain, was a further black mark by his name.

Naomi decided to fish a little more. Bait, hook … however fishing works. She’d only ever fished in video games.

“Oh, is your sister the Peacock Consort?”

A look of conflicted fondness bled across Argus’ face. He began twisting his hands.

“Yes, she’s – my sister is Lady Auset.”

In-game, the Peacock Consort was petty and cruel, although not particularly malicious, but her brother might now another side to her character. He clearly disliked the rest of their family far more, but he was fond of her, despite her current behaviour. Naomi could understand that mixture of fondness and slight resentment. Her relationship with her family was civil, if not particularly warm, and she’d had friends who saw their parents far less amicably. Maybe it was easier to see the sister he’d grown up beside than what she’d become. It made Naomi feel a little sad, in a way the dynamic hadn’t when it was fictional.

Funny, though. The novel had mentioned that consort having had a brother but never referred to him in the present tense. Naomi supposed they could form a little ‘Doomed by the Narrative’ club, if the text had been implying what she thought it was.

Argus broke the silence, interrupting Naomi’s internal monologue.

“What is the Owl Palace planning for next month’s New Year banquet, by the way? I hope your illness won’t keep you away for another year.”

That there was the tone of a man fishing for information. An info-fisherman, if you will. Naomi could convince herself there was real concern there, too, and she’d always found transactional friendships easier than other sorts. It was reassuring to know what someone wanted.

Wait, festival next month? That must be the thing the System had brought up and she’d sort of ignored because there was food. Panicking, Naomi fell back on her tried and tested strategy for when an assignment threated to go up in flames: making pathetic puppy-dog eyes at her nearest competent peer”.

“I’m a little stumped for ideas, really. I don’t suppose you’d help me come up with something, considering your sister’s lady in waiting punched me? My palace is admittedly a little scruffy, but the food is great – you can thank Melaenis for that. By the way, how do I promote her? Can I? Or raise her pay or something?”

Argus, forced into the role of helpful NPC by Naomi’s absolute barrage of questions, seemed a little shocked. Thankfully, while his brain was calibrating, Naomi suddenly remembered the little servant girl they’d tried to rescue. She was still just standing there, looking a little starstruck.

“Hey, over there! What’s your name?”

The girl, who looked maybe 15, but short and underfed, seemed dazzled. Naomi hadn’t done anything particularly cool in front of her, so that didn’t quite make sense. Who gets so awestruck over someone hurling a few basic insults then promptly being folded like a deckchair by the first punch thrown? Maybe it was her first day and any royal – even the least favoured princess – would impress her just as much.

“Um, Alitta. My lady.”

Naomi’s head was exploding, and not just because she had yet another nasty headache. Her favourite character was here, in front of her, not yet scarred by war.

USER <NAOMI> HAS COMPLETED QUEST <MEET YOUR HERO>. USER HAS UNLOCKED ‘PSI-POINTS’. THAT STANDS FOR ‘Protagonist Satisfaction Index’, BY THE WAY.

Oh, hey System! You’ve been quiet for a bit.

SYSTEM DOES NOT LIKE TO INTERRUPT. USER HAS UNLOCKED RELATIONSHIP PROFILES WITH CHARACTERS <ARGUS>, <ALITTA>, <ARSINOE>, <AUSET> AND <PALACE DOCTOR 1>. SYSTEM IS COLLECTING USER’S LOUDER THOUGHTS AND USING THEM TO FLESH OUT THESE PROFILES. NEXT, USER WILL HAVE TO START UNLOCKING THE B-NAMES.

Naomi let out an involuntary snort, which she quickly masked with a cough. The System was developing a good – if deadpan – sense of humour. Everyone in the room looked at her funny. What! Totally not suspicious for a sickly girl to cough. She reached for Melaenis’ hand and gave what she hoped read as a reassuring squeeze. The poor girl looked constipated with emotion – she seemed very conflicted. Well, whatever this issue was, Naomi had been parachuted in to fix it or die trying – literally.

USER HAS GAINED 2 R-POINTS AND 2 L-POINTS FROM CHARACTER MELAENIS.

Wow, tsundere. Naomi actually wasn’t sure quite how one delineated the thousand and one types of dere, but she’d sat through enough weeaboo ‘comedy’ routines at the university Anime Society to get the rough gist of such things. Calling her a weeb would be like calling a pub-goer a beer expert. She liked some of the stuff, sure, but a lot of the modern ones weren’t that great. Anime showrunners in the 80s had at least had variety in their strange perversions and hot new ideas – and the pilot for the cancelled animated version of Female General had seemed promising – but overall, her interest in the genre was rather shallow. Although, she’d liked that weird one about Alexander the Great, with the magic polygons and 80% of the men wearing skimpy little thong bodysuits and codpieces. She’d found it by chance while trawling for Female General doujinshi.

Honestly, all dere nonsense aside, Melaenis reminded Naomi of a nervous stray cat, sniffing your hand and then shying away. She could only hope that, like cats, Alitta and Melaenis would warm up after a few weeks of kindness and treats. Truly, a wicked plan.

While Naomi was lost in thought, the doctor seemed to have remembered that he was in the room.

“Uh – aside from the moderate facial bruising from what Miss Melaenis tells me was a fall, the Princess seems to be recovering from her bout of illness. It looks to have been an allergic reaction to hair dye, which led to several bad falls and a mystery infection – I’ve read back over the notes, although they have … holes in their information. I – this isn’t in any official capacity, so I’m not saying – but you could never rule out the possibility of … not accidents. Um, your Ladyship appears to have recovered from the initial falls, and the recent one left relatively superficial damage so should clear up soon – and Miss Melaenis said that you’re eating solid food without difficulty, but that you’re still confused? Well, er, there will probably be some lasting effects from the infection – weakness of the extremities, issues with the senses, that sort of thing – but nothing too severe. Such infections are unfortunately quite mysterious; it really was unlucky for this to happen. I – I hope your Ladyship makes as full of a recovery as possible.”

The doctor constantly fiddled with his funny little spectacles while talking, taking them off to repeatedly clean the smeared lenses on his clothes in a sort of nervous tic.

Naomi quite liked him already, so she put on her best princess voice.

“Thank you, doctor, I am very grateful for you and your colleagues’ work, and the clinic is really rather cosy – although I hope to not be back too soon.”

She turned to the others, cracking her joints in a languid catlike stretch.

“Melaenis – and Cousin Argus and Alitta, should you wish – let us head back to the Owl Palace. I think I’ve done enough adventure for the morning.”

Alitta nodded with such force that it looked like her head might fall off. It felt strange to see her favourite character so young, since the novel took great pains to emphasise the General being at least twenty and therefore less marriageable. Naomi had at most two or three years until Alitta had to leave for the army, which should be enough time to shut down that mcguffin of a prophesy about the ‘union of wind and flame’ saving the nation. In the meantime, she needed to pull a teen movie special and set up the best festival performance this empire had ever seen. The only modern dance she could remember well was the Macarena, and she hadn’t done ballet since she was seven or so, but she’d done enough cultural dance nights at the town hall to have a solid basis. She just needed instruction – and a costume, of course.

Once the whole group – Argus included, although he maintained a façade of nonchalance – had settled down in the crumbling reception room of the Owl Palace, it was time for business. Naomi locked eyes with this new cousin over her steaming glass teacup.

“Cousin Argus?”

He shifted uncomfortably.

“Ask away…”

“Do you happen to know how one would go about finding someone knowledgeable in the dances of the East? I thought that – well, since my mother was …”

Naomi trailed off. Family was a touchy subject for both of them, and it felt especially awkward to express ownership of the real Princess’ mother. A few item descriptions had mentioned the owl fairies and their links to nomads in the East, but otherwise she was totally pulling this out of her ass.

Argus seemed more relaxed. Whatever he’d thought Naomi would ask about had been uncomfortable, but discussing this seemed easier. Naomi caught herself wondering about why – she’d always had this desire to understand what made other people tick. Maybe if she finally dug deep enough into what made others the way they were, they would begin to make sense.

“I couldn’t bring either associate into the palace, and I’ve heard that your trips out are restricted, so I suppose the filial thing to do would be to sneak you out. It’s a rough part of town, but you handled Arsinoe until she started punching. As long as someone is there to keep you out of a fight, you should be fine.”

Naomi would wholeheartedly agree. She wasn’t a fragile little flower emotionally, having seen a lot of things online that she wished she hadn’t, but physically? A strong breeze could probably take her out.

“We’ll need some sort of disguise – I’ll handle that. Would next week work? Honestly, I think I’m free every day, but I’m sure you’re busy.”

You could almost hear the cogs of Argus’ mind turning.

“How about in three days’ time? There are a few moving parts I’d like to straighten out.”

Naomi instinctively gave him a stinging high five.

“It’s on!”

“I’d heard that the Owl Princess was – pardon my words – anxious and frail. You seem a lot calmer than your reputation suggests.”

Melaenis was making that face again.

Naomi ruffled the back of her head, consciously trying to seem casual.

“I guess being so sick made me want to see things differently?”

They seemed to accept that. The personality changes seemed to be for the positive, so maybe that helped. Plus, the brain fog from being ill could certainly chill someone out – Naomi could testify for that. She’d had a lot of experience being ‘sick girl’, which was like a full time job.

With that, the meeting drew to a close. Melaenis found a spare bed for Alitta in the palace’s servant quarters, putting Naomi to bed early then heading off to do whatever it was she did.