Before them, a woman with silver hair and a soft pink and white embroidered dress with beautiful feminine features adorned with a pair of brilliant Phoenix eyes. The princess elegantly curtsied and smiled, "Greeting, your majesty! I hope you and mother enjoy this dance."
As the music began and the flowers in full bloom, the woman began to step forward calmly and began to twirl and dance on her barefeet. The flowers swayed as Peony continued to dance and the music picked up speed. The scent of flowers filled the air and the music was soft yet lively. The princess glides across the grass when they all froze in shock. As she passes by them, it was as though a field of flowers and butterflies sprung out from behind her as small seedling began to sprout out from the ground in the center. The tree grew in size as Peony danced about. Suddenly, there was a warm breeze as everyone looked around puzzled by how warm it has become. As they were about to pull out a handkerchief, they paused in shock as they realized the shade from the tree's full growth had sheltered them from the lights from the roof which they have now taken as being too harsh. The scent from the tree was not just cool but also fresh as the leaves rustled softly with the gentle breeze around them.
"Oh my. It's gotten warmer all of a sudden." The queen responded in bewilderment.
The king laughed, "Does this not remind you of the summer of our honeymoon?"
"It does!" The queen smiled brightly.
The king nodded, "It would seem the princess's powers have grown once again."
Hearing this, Lilia noted in surprise, "This feeling is certainly summer."
"What trick does she want to play this time?" Malleus looked on in confusion.
As he said this, the princess did a somersault as the wind grew colder and the leaves turned golden and drifted to the ground in desperation of following her. With it, the fairies were nearly ready to leave their seats to follow after her and dance with the leaves even though they had initially disliked dead leaves. However, they paused in surprise when they realized that it had started raining. Yet, due to the magic placed beforehand, the rain did not soak their guests providing. Seeing this, the queen paused in surprise as she muttered, "This is autumn... Peony dances so flawlessly and warmly... How can she be anything but a celestial Peony?"
Saying such, she was overjoyed to see the beautiful performance her daughter shown them as she reached out and could feel the drop of rain her palm. The water was cool to the touch and, recovering from the summer heat, it was a pleasant touch. However, as she thought so, a small snowflake drifted down onto her palm catching her off guard as she looked up and saw the trees had lost all of its leaves and was now covered with snow and beautiful icicles hanging from its care and strong branches!
The grass was now blanketed with snow so beautiful and soft that it looked like a large blanket of cotton had covered the ground and trees! One of the small fairies sitting up on a nearby branch was so mesmerized that he stuck out his tongue innocently trying to taste it thinking it looked like cotton candy! It was simply unfortunate that she was unable to catch a single one till he realized that he had lost his footing and fell off the branch!
Just as it braced itself for impact, it found itself floating in midair as he opened his eyes and saw the icicles had melted away rapidly and buds began to form from the tree sprouting into small leaves and new branches. many others, however, turned into beautiful pink flowers. Petals drifted down softly as Peony twirled with the climax of the music and caught the small fairy before he noticed the fairy dust and flew back into the air so he could play with the petals! Seeing this, the other fairies was left in awe as they joined in eagerly!
The atmosphere became joyous and fun as the butterflies and petals drifted about with the dancing of the fairies. Seeing the festivities, Malleus was growing more and more concerned as the fairies around him joined in with the dance under the beautiful tree. The sight had left him in awe as he was unsure if he should join in or not. It had felt like it would be a mediocre dance at first. However, the dance soon changed as he has nearly mistaken Peony to have been one of the fairies on stage!
"Do you two wish to dance as well?"
The two looked up and saw the Queen watching in with a warm smile. However, it was met with a confused gaze.
"I think those two would be delighted, don't you agree?"
Met with a familiar voice, Malleus turned his head and was met with an unfamiliar-looking fairy holding an orb. The voice came from the orb, "No one struggles to take a step here, even with our presence."
"Grandmother..." Malleus muttered with eyes wide in surprise.
Lilia quickly fell to his knees but he was immediately interrupted by the queen, "Lilia, do remember that this is a secret meeting. Remember not to give our presence away."
"H-How-?! I-If you say so..." Lilia muttered nervously albiet slightly irritated.
With that, Malleus and Lilia joined in after a couple more thoughts. As they continued, Lilia muttered in confusion, "I didn't think that she would appear in such a manner... Since when had she changed?"
"Grandmother had always been busy." Malleus responded in deep thoughts. Could it be during the time when she had met Peony?
Pushing his thoughts aside, he decided to pretend that nothing was wrong and joined the others in the dance. As they watched the group dance, the fairy with the orb opened her mouth, "I was right. My grandson is a lot more sharp than I expected."
The fairy queen smiled, "That's children, after all. Even our little girl could always tell whatever we do."
She sighed, "It's ten years now. Humans years pass by so fast... But ever since she became a teenager, she began to age slower."
The fae queen looked up from under the veil revealing the sharp green eyes. She opened her mouth, "Perhaps this is what it means to be this 'cultivator'. However, is this not the last day of the gala?"
"Oh dear! Your majesty is correct! Where are our manners?! Then, we shall enjoy the festivities to the fullest!" The fairy queen smiled, "Speaking of which, I heard from my daughter she dared to pester you and your retainers for giant clay pots a few weeks back! Seriously... I swear, this child! Thank you very much for taking care of her!"
The fae queen wore a small smirk as she chuckled, "It was actually quite entertaining! We were simply quite pleased with her gift to me. Why, we've never seen those children make such an amusing face in so long! It was quite satisfying! I only wished to see what she might be planning to create next. We certainly did not expect her to attain a license to make wine!"
Absentminded with a trouble look, the queen simply nodded and continued as her husband stared at the guest in shock, "Ah, yes... This girl would do something like that-... Wait. What?! This child-!"
The 'fairy' laughed, "I've not seen such a bold child in a very long time. To think she dared to announce her thoughts of producing alcohol right before us. I'm quite eager to see the results of her practice."
"I-I see..." The fairy king shook his head while barely maintaining the smile on his face.
The queen chuckled much to their surprise, "It would seem that the fairy kingdom has found a treasure of their own. This is proving to be a rather fun experience to both ourselves and the prince."
The king and queen were confused. It was well known that the queen was not a fan of humans. In fact, the war between humans and fae was only brought about with the death of her biological daughter, the princess, as the trigger to the fuse which was the tension between the faes and humans back then. Even her decision to form the treaty after many years and to aid the couple with the adoption process took a long while of consideration, or, at least, taking into account of the amount of time the queen spent mourning the loss of her child, tending to the war wounds of the kingdom and raising her only grandchild. Throughout the entire time, she would never laugh so calmly when it came to humans. Even the queen once heard that the princess also did not like humans. If she were still here, she would fear something had happened to her ailing mother!
Yet, the queen does not seem to have reach her senile state yet. The prince still has time, but with such a large difference of age, there's no telling if he would catch up in time before her age catches up. Regardless, they agreed with her and thanked her for her aid all these years.