Chapter 223: Tutelary Dinner - Part 2
After a few more rounds of small talk, during which everyone seemed to comment on his robe-wearing, Kir stepped out to "change" out of his robe, letting Mimzy reabsorb that layer as soon as he was out of sight.
His return trip took him back through the frontward hall, but as he was about to cross the entrance to the dining hall, two of the guards barred his path with their spears crossed.
"The Queen comes, you will wait," one guard, an armadillo beastkin, declared in a basso voice. All of the door guards were armadillo beastkin. Now that Kir noticed, they seemed identical. Quadruplets?
A moment later, Kir watched as a matronly seven-tailed fox woman stepped into the building at the head of her procession. But Kir’s eyes were drawn to two people behind her. One was Kordia, dressed in what he could only think of as a shrine-maiden-style robe of red and white, and the other was Lapins, wearing a rather boyish gold-trimmed blue coat and pants with her blonde hair up in a bun.
Kordia shot Kir a glance, blushing a little, and after noticing, Lapins also stared at him for a couple of steps. Behind Lapins, Mercy stared daggers at Kir for far longer than two steps before returning her attention to scanning the dining hall for trouble.
Music started playing, a light sound, just before everyone applauded the arrival of Queen Fruhe van Gra’Rhuel.
The rest of the Queen’s procession featured various wealthy-looking merchants - mostly beastkin - but Kir’s eyes were drawn to the four wearing uniform grey capes, clasped with the tri-chain symbol of the Syndicate.
Those men did not even spare a glance for Kir as they stepped confidently into the dining hall.
Only once everyone had passed, and what felt like five minutes later, did the guards lift their spears and allow him to pass.
Kir arrived at his seat to discover that he was seated near the Syndicate members and several merchants. Everyone to his right was a Professor.
The Queen was seated centered, facing the room, next to Chancellor Lumin, and the mayor of Norneau was on her other side.