When the two returned to the castle, Estella barely had time to reach her door when one of the maids informed her that Aesterix was waiting for her inside.
Turning straight around, "If he asks where I am, inform him that I am still out." She said as she tried to hurry out to the garden, unfortunately Aesterix burst open the door.
"There you are!" He excitedly said as he caught up to her down the hallway, pushing Fenrir away quite roughly with a smile on his face.
She knew this would happen, there's no such thing as a peaceful day in this world. While Fenrir was hissing at Aesterix, he ignored it and focused on Estella. "Where were you?" He asked, pouting slightly.
Choosing to ignore his question due to how annoying he'd get if he knew, she decided to get her work out of the way. "I was doing research, and I'd like to discuss something with you." She said, telling one of the maids to fetch her paper and pens first.
Afterwards, she turned and made her way out of the hallway without saying anything, and let the boys follow her to the garden. Aesterix had a much more serious expression on his face, willing to listen and help with whatever his sister wanted.
"Why are we in the garden?" Fenrir asked, wouldn't she prefer to be in her room to talk about it?
Pointing to the flowers, Estella took a seat in the gazebo. "I wanted to talk about my family crest, as well. What better for inspiration?" She replied.
If she didn't include Aesterix with some of her plans to build the duchy, she knew she'd never hear the end of it, goodbye her peacefully reading time, you will be missed.
Handing some paper and one of the pens to him, she talked about her ideas so far. "I would like the lotus to symbolise my crest, but I'm unsure what else to add in the design. I was thinking about shapes of some sort in the back, or some way to show off magic, instead of a sword."
Nodding, he began to sketch out the shield and lotus in the centre, as the two went back and forth about what to add onto it, even Fenrir gave occasional input. "It would look better if you had some sort of beast with the crest."
Although she wanted to suggest a wolf for simplicity's sake, she saw it as a good chance to flip through her books she recently bought. Nodding in agreement, she eagerly flipped through the pages, looking at the various kinds of beasts.
"Birds… large cats… large dogs… hogs… dragons… snakes…horses…" she muttered as she flipped through the different sections, trying to decide which exactly she'd wanted to look into.
Pondering, Aesterix chimed in. "How about snakes?" He said. Clearly, he was not interested in dispelling the evil rumours surrounding their family, Estella thought, but gave in without any ideas herself.
Flipping through the pages, there were many different beasts but one in particular caught her eye, Lotan. "What's this?" She muttered slightly interested in the seven headed serpent.
Looking over, Fenrir explained what he knew. "It's a demonic serpent beast of the sea. They all use a form of water magic, and are probably the size of a large ship."
The book had illustrated the beast, and it was quite eye-catching to Estella. She found it quite interesting, so much so that she wanted to actually pet one. She wondered if she herself could find a Lotan near the northern ocean.
Leaning over, Aesterix took a peep as well. "If you like that one, then I think it's a fine choice, a seven headed serpent around a crest would look fierce." He commented as he went back to sketching a design for the crest.
Looking at it, they had a lotus flower in the middle encased it what seemed to be a heart with thorns, while the Lotan heads surrounded the crest with various faces, some with a glare, others as if they were going to bite.
"Let's focus on the motto first before the other aspects." She said. At the bottom of the crest was still an unwritten motto they had yet to come up with any ideas for.
"The family's motto is 'Kill for Honour, Stand above Everyone' so we should probably include the word honour." Aesterix suggested. It was a pretty bad motto in her opinion.
However, they spent forever trying to think one up. Just as they were about to call it hopeless and move on, Ivonne had spotted them in the garden while on a walk with Leila, and made her way over, curious if Estella was doing anything about her duchy so far.
"Greetings, Lady Estella, Sir Aesterix." She gave a small bow as did Leila. Getting up, the two of them gave a small bow as well, answering with a greetings to the first princess.
Looking the piece of paper by his hand, she noticed it look an awful lot like a crest, causing her to take a seat next to him, joining without asking. "Is this what you have so far for your crest?"
Nodding, Estella explained what part they were focusing on, and how they were just about to move onto another aspect of design.
"How about 'Defend your Honour, Always show Pride', then?" she suggested and explained that all the mottos for Aezirian ducal crests have the word pride in it.
Estella was really thankful Ivonne had come at the right time, as it sounded perfect to her, compared to their other ideas at first. Writing it down onto the bottom of the crest, they all sighed in relief and began to move onto the next part, trying to design a crown and add magic.
"You can make the crown out of dark colours and colour the spikeys like it!" Leila suggested, making Estella smile and laugh lightly. Although she didn't pronounce the thorns correctly, it was a pretty good suggestion.
Liking the idea, Estella had him shade in the thorns to look like umbrage magic was being used to manipulate them, while drawing a pretty elaborate crown, with quite a few jewels embedded.
By the time they finished, all of them were a bit worn out as a half hour passed from just thinking up concepts to create it and colour it. Finally, they decided on a mainly black and reddish-pink colour scheme with dark royal blue.
"We still have a bit before dinner, so let's move onto the next part. You're free to give advice too." Estella said, looking at Ivonne who had a smile on her face, probably having fun and enjoying this, since she never dreamed of doing anything like this before.
Putting a new piece of paper in front of her, she took one of the extra pens she asked the maids to give her and wrote down a to-do list, with the talk about architecture being next.
"I have partially decided on the building style and materials for my duchy, and for that I'll need to purchase asphalt mines." She said to Aesterix while jotting it down.
Tilting his head, he asked her why, and how many. "I'd like to make the roofs of my buildings out of asphalt. A darker roof would absorb heat. Buy about twenty mines for now" She gave the same explanation as she did with Fenrir.
Ivonne's jaw nearly dropped as Estella asked for twenty, something that would cost a whole lot of money. Without batting an eye, he agreed to the large amount. Truly, this family's wallet was scary.
"What other materials do you need, and what style would you like?" She asked, while Leila doodled on her paper letting the grown ups talk.
Smiling, Estella continued. "Wood, and bricks, plenty of bricks. My entire estate and duchy buildings will be made from mainly these materials. I plan to also get a lot of paint, to add colour." She added those to the list as well.
Sketching, very poorly, a basic design she held it up. "I call this style medieval France." She told. The sketch looked messy, but you could understand the concept.
Inspired by a French chateau she once saw, it was a main castle at the front with walls surrounding each side, with small towers between. There were plenty of arches with an open centre, which looks like a garden if not for a circle all around it.
"What's that circle for?" Ivonne asked, while Estella wrote down her next building material, glass.
"It's a greenhouse, the entire roof in the middle of my estate will be glass, so I can have a garden of exotic plants in the north." She sounded crazy for such a suggestion, that would cost so much money, Ivonne thought.
Although it wasn't a problem for them money wise, she still thought it'd be crazy and hard to get all the glass. "How big will your estate be, by the way?" She questioned.
Thinking for a bit, she decided. "At least three times the size of the royal castle. If I want a harem, it'd be best to give them their own areas to live." She decided, making even Fenrir's eye twitch a bit.
Three times the size of the royal castle, which was already the second biggest castle in Aeziran? Was she out of her mind?
"Ah, don't worry about the space, the northern territory is large so I trust I can make it that way." Estella said before continuing back to her paper, Aesterix not paying attention as he was calculating the prices for her.
Surprised yet curious, Ivonne couldn't help but ask. "Do you really intend to take in concubines?" She asked.
Letting out a laugh, Estella looked Ivonne dead in the eye with a confident and noble aura around her as she put her chin on her hand.
"Of course, that's the one thing I refuse to budge on, and you'll see who the first members are soon enough." She said, with Fenrir and Hyre feeling a chill up their spines respectively.