Interlude - The Beast Queen’s Wistfulness

My eyes languidly opened, glancing up at the familiar, yet unfamiliar ceiling of my bedroom. I rubbed my fists against my eyelids, trying to wipe away any leftover sleepiness. My body complied as I sat up and stretched my arms, letting out a deep yawn.

“Cough, cough.” As I took another breath, something caught in my throat, waking me up. “What was that?” I muttered aloud, noticing the hoarseness of my voice.

Taking a clearer view of the room, everything was covered in a thick layer of dust. Pieces of wood had fallen off the supports, littering the floor with fragments. That unfamiliar feeling I had was due to the little splotches of mold strewn about the walls and ceiling. It seemed as though nobody had entered the room in months, maybe even years.

My first thought was something had happened in the castle; however, I quickly discarded that theory. If it was a natural disaster, my room wouldn't have escaped some amount of damage. Not to mention, my bedroom still wouldn’t be dirty.

Have I really been asleep for longer than a day then? That made more sense. The maids of the castle tidied the rooms every day. They had never once reneged on their duties, so maybe there was some force stopping them from getting into the room.

On the other hand, if I had been in a coma, then it wouldn’t make sense for my body to move normally. It was well known that people who woke up after sleeping for a long time would be pretty much immobile. They would need to spend months rehabilitating themselves to recover even a portion of their strength. Of course, it was more likely that the person would die before then. But I didn’t feel any sort of weakness in my body. Actually, my body felt lighter than usual. More mana was circulating around inside as well, which was unusual, but not that uncommon after waking up.

Regardless, all this meant was I had no idea what’s going on. The only thing to do was ask someone. With that in mind, I changed into one of my outfits, brushing off whatever I could. Luckily, the dirt wasn’t sticking that well to the fabric, so most of it came off with a few pats.

Thump! As soon as I finished, I heard a knock on the door. Someone was coming to get me, like usual. Then, I guess nothing bad has happened. I let out a small sigh of relief. With a newfound pep in my step, I opened the door, only to be completely mistaken.

“Huh?” Wham! A person fell backwards into the room, causing a thin layer of dirt to puff off the ground. The person, a girl, let out a cute noise, a bit dazed over what just happened. Her cat-like ears twitched back and forth as she tried to get her bearings. I recognized who it was immediately. After all, she was one of my secretaries.

“What are you doing, Bec…ca?” I sighed initially, but after taking a closer look, she was completely different from what I remembered. The Becca I remembered was a bright and cheery twenty-year-old tasked with handling foreign affairs. That might seem young at first glance, but she had lived for about forty human years due to her skill in mana manipulation. With a good bit of experience in government, she was more than qualified, even though she rarely had any work – there weren’t many countries willing to have relations due to our people having beast traits.

The girl in front of me looked to be five to ten years older. She had a few wrinkles on her forehead, and some strands of hair were already turning gray. Her breasts, which were average size, spilled out of her clothes. Actually, the way she dressed also seemed a lot more mature. It was confusing, to say the least. Maybe I have been in a coma for a while.

Becca, or who I thought was Becca, blinked her eyes multiple times as she stared up at me. Then, she started rubbing her temples, probably thinking something rude, before opening her eyes once again. Next, she pinched her cheeks, letting out a cute ‘Ow!’ as she continued to stare, as if she couldn’t believe what she was seeing. No doubt about it, this is definitely Becca.

“Seriously, what are you doing…” I sighed, poking just above her cheek a bit harder than usual.

“Y…re…ke,” Becca mumbled so I couldn’t catch what she said.

“What did you say?”

“YOU’RE AWAKE!” she yelled, tightly gripping my dress. I flinched, but after seeing her relieved expression, I couldn’t step back. She started crying into my chest. “I can’t believe it… you’re finally awake… we’ve waited…so long…” It was awkward, but I didn’t know what was going on. All I could do was pat her forehead, trying to calm her down.

After a few minutes, Becca managed to recompose herself. “Sorry about that, President. It’s just, some of us were beginning to lose hope that you would ever wake up. I was on the verge of giving up too.”

“So then I have been asleep for a while. It only felt like a day to me, but judging by how you’re acting, it’s been at least a month or two.”

“Um…”

“Wait, don’t tell me it’s been several months. Or…a year?” I hesitantly asked.

Becca solemnly shook her head. “It’s been fifteen years.”

“Fifteen…” I couldn’t process what she said. Fifteen years would explain the state of my room, but it didn't explain why it ended up that way, much less why my body hadn’t deteriorated.

Becca, however, cleared up the former. “When the maids came to wake you up, they found themselves unable to enter the room, as if there was a barrier blocking them. They tried to call out to you, but you kept on sleeping, unresponsive to anything they yelled. Even after another day had passed, you still hadn’t woken up. There was nothing we could do but wait.”

I paused to think for a moment. There were too many unanswered questions. Plus, I still had no idea what had happened while I was asleep. I needed more information, so I told Becca to convene an emergency meeting immediately.

“Right!” Becca sped off while I returned to my room. My current clothes wouldn’t cut it for a meeting with my advisors. For that reason, I changed into something more formal, befitting my queenly status. However, the only outfit I had remaining was one for events. Its heavy ornamentation made me grimace, but that's what was left after fifteen years. I could only be glad that any dirt easily came off.

As soon as I exited the room, Becca came running up. “Everyone… in the castle… is heading to Meeting Room A,” she panted.

“I’ll head over there now.” I started walking, but then thought better of it once I realized Becca didn’t have time to catch her breath. Instead, I turned around and picked up Becca, holding her in a princess carry. She was completely flustered.

“Preside–”

“We don’t have much time for you to catch your breath, so I’ll just fly there with both of us.”

“But–”

“[Reduce Weight].” Since I hadn’t used the spell all that much, I had to say it aloud. Then, I silently cast the flight spell, taking off towards the meeting room from the outside.

Becca seemed absolutely flabbergasted for some reason.

~~~

I flew in through the open archway of Meeting Room A, a still blushing Becca within my arms. The room looked no different than it did fifteen years ago. It was empty aside from a single long table that could fit twenty in the center. Seeing how little the castle changed kept making me doubt that I had been in a coma, but after seeing my advisors, I was more than convinced.

Fourteen people were currently in the room, each staring at me with some sort of dumbfounded look. I recognized most of them, but there were a few new to me. Most of them had aged a decade, but there were a few over forty or fifty years older. Only one or two looked the same as I remembered them.

Once they overcame their initial shock, their expressions varied. The ones I knew started crying, muttering some form of ‘thank goodness’. The ones I didn’t stood and saluted. If I had to guess, they were the replacements for the previous people who filled those positions. I felt a bit of sorrow, knowing that I wouldn’t be able to see them again.

“At ease,” I declared, pushing those thoughts out of my head, as I sat down. “Let’s begin the emergency meeting. I see that only fourteen out of the twenty members are present.”

One of my advisors raised their hand; I gave him permission to speak. “There are only eighteen members at the moment. The other two… died. A year ago. We haven’t found anyone able to take up their posts yet.”

“I see…” I gave a silent prayer with a self-deprecating smile. “Thank you for letting me know. I will find replacements as soon as possible.”

“Ma’am!” He sat back down.

“Now, from what I’ve been told, I’ve been in a coma for the past fifteen years. The last thing I remember is…” I proceeded to tell everyone about my encounter in the wasteland with the Executioners. Everyone listened intently, but I could tell all of them were puzzled. I could relate – I didn’t understand what really happened either. Some of my advisors tossed out a few theories like mana deprivation or a side effect of the wasteland, but they were rather hand-wavy answers: none of them made sense when you thought about it.

“We could spend our time debating what happened, but I don’t think we’ll get any closer to the truth. So, let’s move on.

“Please explain what has happened while I was asleep.” Each of my advisors explained what they knew. To summarize:

The relations between the forest country and ours continued to sour, which was further exacerbated by our envoy. Apparently, to stop the discrimination of our people, he essentially staged a coup, planning to dethrone the king in the next half decade. He brainwashed their people using some kind of magic attached to fake ears. Others he kidnapped and turned into puppets to create loyal retainers. The king tried to dismiss the envoy, but since I was asleep, they were unable to replace him. At that point, there was public backlash in the streets due to the lack of representation, so the king had to reinstate them. It was absolutely terrifying, especially since he was still loyal to our country, making the best decisions he could in the most effective way possible, or at least according to a report.

Luckily, that scheme was foiled. There wasn’t much detail, but some say they witnessed a god at the scene, shattering the moon. Our envoy escaped, his whereabouts unknown. Still, this ended up having the king encode the rights of all people, regardless of how they looked, into law. There was still tension between our people, but it had been mitigated somewhat over the past five years.

The destruction of the moon reaped terrible consequences, making most magic tools useless and making it harder to activate spells. That’s why they were surprised when they saw me fly in. My advisors had figured out how to handle most of the country without my influence by then, so most of the fallout was minimal. But if this had happened during those first few years, our country might not have existed by the time I woke up. I was still having trouble believing that the moon was destroyed, but at the moment, I decided to appoint someone who could make decisions in my stead if I was ever incapacitated. We would have to think of a more robust process in the future.

From there, we talked about the changes needed for our foreign policy. It seemed the coup had scared other world leaders to also codify equal rights for all people. As such, many of them planned to engage in diplomatic relations with us; however, without my sign off, we couldn’t get started. Of course, I approved them all immediately. It felt like a pipedream that everything I wished for was coming true so soon. I expected it to take another hundred, no, a thousand years.

“We’ve received a lot of help and resources from the Executioners–” I could feel my blood go cold as soon as I heard those words. My emotions got the better of me.

“Wait a moment. What do you mean you received ‘help’? Why would the Executioners ever help–”

SLAM!!

The door slammed open, and in walked the leader of the Executioners as if she owned the place.