A not so quiet museum
After enjoying a street food called ‘Hotdog’ and being reassured multiple times that it's not made of actual dogs, the party visits an art museum. There are multiple sections from state history to modern art. A lot of the state history section seems to be about a civil war in which the humans have allied together with the Wolf-Beastkin tribe against the east of the kingdom in a fight against slavery. Another big theme of the history section seems to be about Kyla the grand unifier. A beautiful Human queen of one of the kingdoms that went on a quest to unite the human kingdoms east of the mountains and create a voting system where every ten years, the people can decide via a vote which noble family they want to be in power.
Sher Aka’s favorite section is the landscape section, John’s favorite is the modern art section and Rayla’s is the Religious art section. Thoma Ahad is still asleep so he doesn’t have a favorite section and Scarlet seems quite uninterested in the art until they get to an area labeled ‘Royal Portraits’, “Let’s go there next!”
But Rayla quickly stops her, “Wait. Thoma probably shouldn’t go in there.”
“Why not?”
“So…We haven’t told you this yet but there is an above zero percent chance that a portrait of his family could be in there and I don’t want to risk Thoma seeing that.”
“Why?”
“Because I have no idea how he will react, for all we know it could kill him or reset his memories completely.”
Confused, she asks, “Why would that happen?”
“Because everytime he is confronted with something from before he lost his memories, he has a violent reaction to it.”
“Oh! That’s what you were talking about...Wait, which royal family do you suspect?”
“The one of the Flower Kingdom.”
She waves her hand dismissively, “Pfft. No way. Rose would never be from there, it’s impossible.”
“Not necessarily…We do know that he has an older brother that works for the government and two older sisters just like Princess Eithlynn. We do think he was rich in his past life and his curse triggered in a weird way when we mentioned wanting to see the royal family of the flower kingdom one day.”
She seems less confident now, “Still…She would never be from that dreaded family…”
“We don’t know that. So if we’re going in there at least put something over his eyes just in case he wakes up.”
“Fine…”
Scarlet then takes a bandage from the first aid kit and wraps it around Thoma Ahad’s eyes.
“I’ll go get John and Sher Aka. Maybe we can find a clue if we look at the portraits.”
A few seconds later, they all gather together and walk into the royal portrait section where, after a bit of looking around, Sher Aka waves at the rest of the party, “Over here.” Causing them all to gather in front of the painting where Sher Aka tells them, “That’s the royal family of Tera Flora. If the theory we had is correct then that little girl is Thoma Ahad.”
The painting she’s talking about depicts two adults and a child. The male Spiritelf has long black hair with a stern yet kind looking face, four rainbow colored butterfly wings on his back and is wearing a dark purple kimono. The woman next to him has long white hair and looks extremely beautiful and elegant. She is wearing a peach colored kimono with a long red foxtail as a scarf, her wings are of a beautiful pink color. The little girl looks like a three year old toddler. She has long black hair and is wearing a wide and colorful kimono, her wings are a beautiful rainbow color like her father’s.
Rayla stutters, “T-Tail…The-The tail…That’s the tail right?”
Sher Aka mumbles, “There is no way…Right?”
While John just says, “Let’s…Let’s not jump to any conclusions. It’s a…Peculiar coincidence but we can’t know yet. For starters this kid is way too young.”
Sher Aka answers, “Well…It was painted forty four years ago. She would have grown up more in that time…”
Scarlet sighs, “Are we done here? I don’t want to keep looking at those people.”
Rayla answers, “Aren’t you interested? This could very well be who Thoma really is. That might be his family.”
“That’s not her family! Her family is over here! Follow me.”
Scarlet then walks over to a painting of Blaze’s royal family and points at it, “This is her family not those damn Elves!”
Rayla lets out a huge sigh, “Even if you think of him as a dragon it’s more important that we take a better look at his real family than some royal Dragons.”
“That is her real family! Look!”
She points at a painting of three, a woman, a man and their child. The woman is absolutely beautiful and has dark, blood red hair. She’s wearing a crown, tasteful jewelry and a dress the same color as her hair that almost looks like a dancer's dress decorated with red roses. The strange thing about it is that it doesn’t cover her fully like you’d expect, her arms and shoulders are exposed and she’s showing a lot of leg. It also looks like her back is completely exposed but since it’s a front facing painting it’s hard to tell. She has a smug yet regal look on her face. Her husband next to her is wearing an open white linen shirt showing off his muscular body, some jewelry and long and wide black pants but notably he does not wear a crown. He has pink hair and a well trimmed short beard, his face shows a similar look of superiority as his wife’s. The child between them, looks almost exactly like a slightly younger Scarlet, she’s the only one showing her wings, tail and draconic eyes in the painting. Overall, they give off the vibe of a family of villains from a cheap romance novel.
Rayla looks at Scarlet and back at the painting, “Wow, you almost look the same as that princess, it’s a bit uncanny.”
“What do you mean almost? That is me.”
“Yeah no. No way.”
“Are you blind or something?”
“No but there is no way that’s you, why would the princess of a country be on some random mountain without any guards after being shot at by a ballista?”
“Why would I need guards when I’m just visiting my uncle? I’m old enough to do trips like that by myself.”
“There is no way! John, Sher Aka come over here!”
John groans, “Why? Are you guys fighting over Thoma Ahad again?”
“No, just come over. There is no way that's Scarlet right?”
John takes a good luck at the painting, then at Scarlet, then back at the painting again, “They look eerily similar but there is no way…”
“Right? It’s not possible.”
“Are you two trying to mock me?”
John scoffs, “Of course not, but do you actually want us to believe that’s you? If you really are the princess go get us some of your guards to escort us South.”
“I can’t just mobilize the royal guard to escort some random commoners from a different country. If I did that it’d be a major international incident. Also, this is my first time alone outside of Blaze. I need to prove to my parents I can be trusted alone.”
Sher Aka then walks in front of Scarlet, “Is that really you?”
“Of course!”
SLAP
“Then this is for all the people your genocidal family murdered during the war.”
There is an awkward silence following the slap until Scarlet begins to laugh, “Really? Did that give you some closure, barbarian?”
“You have no right to call me a barbarian. Your family burned an entire nation to the ground! The Mountainelves are almost extinct because of you!!!”
Gritting her teeth, Scarlet answers, “Yeah and if it were me I would have done the same.”
“What!? I see that the royal Dragon lineage is just a bunch of monsters!”
The second Sher Aka finishes that sentence Scarlet transforms her arm into her draconic form and completely envelopes Sher Aka in her claws, “Don’t you dare call us monsters, we only retaliated.”
“Puh! Retaliate what? Some bad trade deals? You attacked without warning or reason!”
“Is the death of hundreds of children no reason for your kind!?”
“What are you talking about!?”
“Your kind sent in assassins and destroyed almost an entire generation's worth of eggs in one day! My grandmother killed herself over it in penance! Is that reason enough for you to annihilate the country that ordered them to do it!?”
“What? There is no way that happened! How would they even destroy that many eggs in one day!?”
“It’s because they were all in the hatchery! My grandmother invented and promoted it so mothers no longer had to spend a decade nesting. The mountain king heard of this and with the help of Naturia and Tera Flora destroyed an entire generation! My grandmother was so shocked and guilt ridden by it, she killed herself… So, my grandfather decided to burn that blasted nation to the ground! And right he was!!!”
“...”
“I have never heard of any of this before.” Sher Aka says, causing Scarlet to let her go after a bit of silence.
“Then educate yourself before you go around throwing accusations at people.”
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