Jazl leaned forward, his black eyes glinting with curiosity. The transformation from Jaslin to Jazl was seamless, like water shifting form - one moment a vibrant, giddy female maid, the next a sharp-featured man with an equally mischievous aura.
"Something?" he echoed, one eyebrow arched. "Are we talking about the same thing?"
Daphne looked at him, a flicker of confusion crossing her usually impassive face. "Did you not mean the debutante ball?"
Jazl's eyes slightly widened, his hand pausing mid-air where he'd been about to snag another piece of cake. "So you're attending?"
"How can I not attend my own debutante ball?" Daphne replied, her tone, incredulous.
Jazl opened his mouth, then closed it. Opened it again, then thought better of it. His lips twitched, remembering her notorious indifference to royal protocols. "Since it's you, I thought..." He trailed off, leaving the sentence hanging.
Daphne's eyes narrowed to a deadpan stare. It wasn't even worth answering - the look alone conveyed volumes of sardonic disbelief.
Jazl cleared his throat. "Nevermind. So you need some things?"
"Well..." Daphne began, her gaze drifting to the window, where servants continued their frantic preparations. A servant carrying an impossibly tall stack of silk tablecloths wobbled precariously, providing a momentary distraction.
Jazl waited, used to Daphne's particular brand of dramatic pause - which, for her, meant taking exactly three seconds longer than most people would to complete a thought.
"I need two things," she finally said, turning back to him with a look that suggested these "things" were of utmost importance.
Jazl leaned forward, his curiosity piqued. Given Daphne's singular focus on food and minimal interest in, well, everything else, these "two things" promised to be intriguing.
"And those would be?" He enquired, grabbing another piece of cake, because apparently stealing Daphne's desserts was a sibling privilege that transcended gender and species.
"I need information," Daphne said, her dark eyes focusing with an intensity that would make most people uncomfortable. Jazl, being half-fae and entirely used to her, merely continued chewing.
"About?" he prompted, spraying a few chocolate crumbs.
"The potential suitors."
Jazl choked. Spectacularly. Cake crumbs decorated his chin, and for a moment, he looked exactly like the giddy Jaslin, despite being in male form. "You? Interested in suitors? Has father's dramatic gene finally infected you?"
Daphne's look could have frozen lava. "Information. Not marriage."
"Right," Jazl drawled, wiping cake crumbs. "Because you're definitely not planning anything. Just... gathering intelligence."
"Precisely. I need your help to... manage expectations."
"Manage expectations?" Jazl's eyebrows narrowed knowingly. "You mean cause chaos?"
"I prefer the term 'strategic disruption'," Daphne said primly, reaching over to brush the chocolate crumbs from Jazl's chin with the practiced motion of someone used to cleaning up after a perpetually messy sibling.
Jazl, despite his initial bewilderment, couldn't help but feel a thrill of excitement. He had a feeling his sister was cooking up something crazy.
"So... What's the other thing you need?" He asked with a mischievous smile.
The corridor outside Daphne's chambers was a study in royal protocol and barely contained frustration. Blaize walked with the precise, measured steps of a perfectly trained royal attendant, her back ramrod straight and her face a mask of professional composure.
"Jazl..." she muttered, her lips curling in amusement. "It sounds like 'dazzle'." She laughed quietly to herself, then trailed off, her brow furrowing in contemplation. "But... it suits her somehow."
Lost in her musings, she almost didn't notice the approaching figures. Alastor and Rowan was coming from the opposite direction, deep in conversation.
The king's silvery-blue hair caught the light, his midnight-blue eyes focused on Rowan as he outlined his plans for a strategic alliance with the neighboring kingdom - a plan that involved, naturally, a lavish feast and a subtle threat of war. Rowan, his expression perpetually stuck somewhere between bored amusement and professional detachment, was nodding sagely.
"And then," Alastor was saying, "we'll have them sign the treaty while they're still recovering from the sheer opulence of my desserts. They'll be too giddy to think straight."
Rowan couldn't help but suppress a chuckle. He'd grown used to the king's outlandish schemes, and this one, despite the high stakes, felt remarkably... silly.
"Indeed, Your Majesty," he murmured, his voice flat, "a brilliant strategy."
Alastor noticed Blaize and stopped in his tracks, "Child," he called, his tone absent-minded, "Have you seen Jazl?"
Blaize froze mid-step. Her internal monologue erupted in a storm of confusion: 'Jazl? JAZL? Even His Majesty?! No, wait, since when does EVERYONE know this? Am I the LAST to know?!'
Outwardly, she maintained her professional smile, though it seemed slightly more brittle than usual. "Jazl, Your Majesty?" The words came out with a pitch slightly higher than her usual tone.
Alastor blinked, momentarily confused by her reaction. Then, as if remembering some unspoken protocol, he corrected himself. "Ah, right. I mean Jaslin." Whereas his expression remained as flat and unbothered as always.
Rowan, standing slightly behind, looked like he was desperately trying to swallow a laugh. His face remained the picture of stoic professionalism, but his lips twitched aggressively.
Blaize's confusion deepened. The father and daughter seemed to be operating on some bizarre, synchronized wavelength of detached communication that made absolutely no sense.
"She is talking with Her Highness, Your Majesty," Blaize reported, her tone surrealistically perfect.
Alastor nodded, already turning back to Rowan. "As I was saying..."
Blaize sighed internally. 'Like father, like daughter,' she thought. The entire royal family seemed to have a peculiar way of turning the most mundane conversations into something slightly absurd.
As they walked away, she could have sworn she heard Rowan chuckle softly.