Frozen Stars Over Wonderland - Chapter 17 (Patreon)

Ren, Ran, and Silver had been gone for several days now. They’d left on the guild’s thousandth quest two days after Alfre’s birthday. They ended up missing Christmas, and the party June and Doremi had thrown for everyone. Alfre slipped out in the middle of the festivities. Too many people in too tight a space. The air was cold, but Alfre didn’t mind, in fact she relished in it. 

“You Fell seem to hold celebrations for everything.” She turned to see Canus slinking out of the shadows of the park’s barren trees. 

“It’s good to find things worth celebrating,” Alfre replied. “Makes life more fun.”

Canus grunted noncommittally. 

“We’ll probably have another party when Ren and the others get back,” she continued. “Since they’ll be ready to apply for kingdomhood.”

Canus gave her an odd look. “How does one apply to be a kingdom?”

Alfre gave a little laugh and shrugged. “I have no idea.” 

Canus’ ears twitched. “You will leave with them. To go to their new kingdom.”

She nodded. “Probably. I’m part of their guild after all.” 

“I will miss you.”

They shared a look, Alfre’s cheeks becoming rosy for reasons that had nothing to do with the cold. “It’s not like we’ll be leaving the continent. I can still go into the Wilds and find you.”

Canus grunted again. 

“Probably be better than you coming into the City all the time,” she said, feeling like maybe she was rambling a bit. “It must feel strange for you to leave the Wilds.”

“It is,” he agreed. “But I like coming to see you. You always seem so surprised. It’s cute.”

“Come see me too often and I’ll stop being surprised,” Alfre warned jokingly. “Then what will you do?”

Canus grinned, flashing his too sharp canines at her. “Find some other way to surprise you.”

Alfre smiled back. “I have no doubt you will.”

Ren and her party came back two days later, riding back into town triumphantly. The wild grin Alfre had come to know and love never left Ren’s face as she regaled the guild with a tale of their thousandth quest: slaying a dragon. Despite what Izo said, dragons were not very common in Wonderland. There were two on every continent, bosses of some of the biggest dungeons in the game. Some very important and rich someone wanted a bag full of dragon scales, and had paid handsomely to send Ren, Ran, and Silver through the dungeon to get some. 

Coin in pocket and guild quest log tucked under her arm, Ren and a sizable company of her guild members (Alfre and party included) marched right up to the guild registry. It was a fairly small building, the registry, tucked away in the corner of the city. A Wonderlander manned the desk, and looked understandably overwhelmed when half the guild attempted to cram into the room after Ren. Ren slapped the quest log down onto the desk along with a bulging bag of gold.

“Crystal Moon Kingdom has come register for royal land,” Ren announced, her voice louder than necessary so the people at the back of the crowd could here.

The Wonderlander manning the desk nodded and reached out with shaking hands to leaf through the quest log and all the achievement the guild had earned. Her eyes got wider and wider as she skimmed the pages. 

“E-everything seems in order there,” she said, her voice wavering. She quickly counted the money Ren had presented her with. “Yes, yes, everything is as it should be.” She nodded and presented Ren with a winning smile. “Your application for kingdomhood has been accepted. Please allow us to survey available land for you to choose, and then we will discuss civil design with you. It will take several days to iron everything out. Is that alright?”

Ren shrugged, her grin never leaving her face. “I’ve waited this long for a kingdom, what’s a few more days?”

Ren was gone often during those next ‘few more days’. There was far more to this becoming a kingdom than Alfre had first anticipated. Wonderlander land surveyors sent back photos and data about plots of land Ren could build her kingdom on. After that was settled she had to talk civil design: what sort of materials did she want her city to be built from, what sort of street layout did she want, what sort of palace did she want to live in? Those sorts of things. Even after that was done, they had to wait for the initial town to be built. The Wonderlanders worked supernaturally fast but they weren’t magic, they couldn’t just summon a city from nothing. 

Oh, but what a city it was. The streets were paved in a brilliant mishmash of colorful, reflective crystals. The buildings were built with a pale white stone, the door of each painted a different color. Streetlamps glowed with the same magic that Elias cast when he used his light spell. But the palace, the palace was the most impressive thing Alfre had ever seen. White stone walls and deep blue roofs rose up and towered over the town below. Tall, thin windows were covered in stained glass. It reminded Alfre most of the palaces she’d seen in the travel books of Japan she’d snuck glances at in the library. The castle itself was backed up against a great mountain at the end of the long range that separated the more temperate forests of the southern half of the continent from the tundra of the north. 

“There’s plenty of farmland for anyone with a farmer subclass,” Ren explained as they walked through the city towards the palace. “And smithies for blacksmiths and a big old library for scholars and…”  

She rambled on and on, sometimes talking too fast for Alfre to comprehend, but she understood the feeling. Ren was excited. No, more than that, she was elated! She’d achieved her dream, and not only was she able to see her kingdom, she got to stand in it, touch it, smell it. She didn’t just get to play a queen online; she got to be a queen.

“And of course you guys will be staying with us in the palace.”

That caught Alfre’s attention. “I’m sorry, what?”

Ren grinned at her over her shoulder. “Well, I’m going to be living there, of course, since I’m the queen. And Ran’s gonna be there cause he’s my freeloading brother.”

“Hey!”

“And Silver’s living there because every queen needs a prince consort.”

“Please don’t diminish my role to arm candy.”

“And of course every queen needs a lady in waiting.” She looked pointedly at Traveler. “And a Butler.” This time at Elias. “And a royal healer.” Izo this time. “And an assassin to do my dirty work.” Spica smirked when their eyes met. “And a personal guard.” Alfre flinched back in surprise when Ren’s golden eyes fell on her once more.

“Really?” she asked. “You sure you don’t want someone else you’ve known longer to do that? Like Silver? Or literally any of the knights that have been in your guild way longer than I have?”

“Silver’s my prince consort,” Ren insisted. “And probably my captain of the guard. Plus, I have a feeling you’ll disappear on me if I don’t give you something to do.”

Alfre couldn’t argue with that. She hated being idle. Especially now that she had this big huge world to live in and fight things and powers beyond what her former self could have dreamed of. Well, okay, they were mainly variations on the same small set of powers, but still. 

“Alright,” Alfre muttered. “But that doesn’t promise I won’t leave anyway.”

Ren shrugged. “I’ve been expecting that since day one.”