Crown Prince Lukas brought Rue to sit next to him at the family dinner, ostensibly so that they could celebrate her good luck at advancing. But also so that he could taunt the Queen a little with her presence.
The Crown Prince wasn't any bigger fan of her than Princess Rue was, though for different reasons.
He wasn't her child, either. But that was due to an indiscretion on the King's part when he was still the Crown Prince. His mother didn't have the status to be Queen, so to make the King's firstborn a legitimate child, she was made a Consort, and given a lovely palace in the countryside.
The Queen had been a political match with the Royal Family of Unzatharb, the daughter of the Royal Seer.
She checked all the boxes for a good Queen. Strong, intelligent, well-educated, and she had rare class abilities to optimize her children, so they were all above average even for Royals.
But the Crown Prince suspected that her personality really was irredeemable. The woman was evil to the core.
The eldest Princess smiled at Rue, who was doing her best to rember every bit of Royal etiquette, now that soone was actually watching her actions. "So, little Rue, what did you plan to do now that you have a class? I hear that you've gotten a most wonderful tutor from Cyhosasa." She asked.
Rue smiled. "He really is wonderful, Eldest Sister. Emissary Karl knows all sorts of amazing skills as an Avatar of the World Dragon, and he is helping learn all the basics of spell control that I was behind on."
The Eldest Princess smiled, while the Crown Prince smirked at her.
"You know, we could likely bring your boy over for so training. Perhaps help him get his System up and running. Watching the Avatar work is a unique sort of joy," he suggested.
The Princess laughed. "My boy is three years old, certainly not old enough to be awakening his System Interface. Perhaps the fourth Prince and his wife would like to take you up on your offer, though?
As I recall, their daughter is five now, and it's nearly ti for her to awaken."
The fourth Prince was a portly young man in humanoid form, and most of the other Royals looked at him with disdain. He had also married a minor Noble's daughter from Kopji, and their lone daughter was born at Awakened Rank, practically a cripple by the standards of the Gathuzan Royal Family.
The two of them made a good couple, but they were not highly respected among their peers. Though, that had less to do with his family than his own lack of ambition.
The fourth Prince shrugged. "She will awaken in due ti. No need to rush these things."
In his mind, it was better that his child didn't awaken too early. Even one year later than her peers would be perfect, as with her innate disadvantage in Rank it would remove her from anyone's consideration of royal succession.
Among the Royal Heirs to the Gathuzan Crown, it was less important to be born first than to be the most powerful.
Right now, the firstborn was Crown Prince, and had worked hard to secure his title. But if a prodigy arose among his siblings, or even the next generation, there was a good possibility that the King would hold off and pass the throne to soone else.
Dragons lived for thousands of years, there was no urgent need to pass along the throne, as the King had barely ruled for two centuries.
"Young Rue really does have a promising future ahead of her. To think that she would get such an incredible class, and then an imdiate advancent. Just a little more growth and our late bloor will start to catch up.
It's just a sha that she's not a proper dragon. Perhaps she will grow into it. I hear that the dragonkin clerics often do." One of the King's Consorts suggested. The Queen scoffed. "That doesn't make them proper dragons, even if they can transform. As good as it to know that the Royal Lineage hasn't produced a total waste, it's still not the sa as being born a true Shadow Dragon."
The Crown Prince smiled at her. "That is true, but with her promise, she might be an excellent match for one of our allies. Do you rember my friend Neil from Zararag? He's got quite a fondness for delicate boned dragonkin ladies. Perhaps our lovely Rue would be a good match for the Crown Prince of Zararag?"
Rue tried not to laugh at the expression on the Queen's face at the thought of any mber of their family marrying a Dwarf. But Neil Stonecrusher was a genuinely great person, she had t him many tis before when he ca to visit her older brother.
He was also a Mythic Ranked Earth Shaman of the Zararag Hill Dwarves.
There weren't many nations that could compare to Gathuzan in political influence, but Zararag was one of them, and the two nations had always had uneasy relations.
However, instead of staying quiet and letting the comnt blow over, Prince Lukas decided to double down.
"You know, The Avatar of the World Dragon knows the [Brutality] skill, and that would increase the height of a Mythic Dwarf by ninety percent. That's enough to make him taller than I am.
With those thick Dwarven arms, I bet he would give the best hugs."
A few of the ladies in the room blushed, while the King quietly laughed.
"Enough teasing the Princess. If there is to be a marriage alliance with Zararag, you can discuss it in my office, and not at the dinner table."
The Queen frowned delicately at the comnt. How dare he even consider that. His half-breed daughter as Queen of Zararag? Unacceptable. But the Queen did not miss the looks from the younger generation of dragons at the table. The political benefits of that sort of alliance would be imnse, but the union of a dragon and a Dwarven family was not an easy one to obtain. There was too much history between dragons and hill Dwarves for either family to easily accept the blending of families.
On the other hand, Dwarves and Elves had been at odds for centuries. Not exactly as enemies, the way that the Dwarves were with Dragons or Giants.
More as rivals.
If the Dwarven King did marry a half Elven Dragonkin, he would be known forever as a man with an Elf fetish.
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