Return to the dining room.

"We should get back." Kara decides, stepping out into the corridor once more. "I'm supposed to be keeping an eye on my brother, and here I am, runnin' off to rut like some bitch in heat."

"If Maddy offers me some more of that damned mixture... remind me I need to keep a straight head, aye?"

Limping down the steps, you wrap your arm around Kara, pulling her body to yours once more, kissing the side of her face.

"I don't know." You slur. "I rather enjoyed the... side-effects."

Kara elbows you playfully, before the pair of you return the way you came, heads a little clearer, but hearts, spirits and loins still a little excited.

-

"Ah, what have we here?" Madeleine simpers, as the pair of you awkwardly re-enter the dining hall. "King Edward, Princess Kara... needed a stiff walk to clear your heads, I take it? Our kingdom's little delicacy can be rather overexciting... for the uninitiated."

As you and Kara sit down once again, you notice a few flecks of the Jitterleaf powder under Madeleine's nose.

"Where's my brother?" Kara asks, surveying the now less-populated dining room.

"Your darling big brother and his companion left." Madeleine explains. "It must've been quite the crisis, they ended up taking the Tournesol sisters with them as they went!"

"I can only imagine what help those two could provide, Excellency." Madeleine's bard interjects.

"Benjamin, I'm sure you're intimately familiar." the princess responds, drawing closer to her favourite. "You're so... so... worldly and clever."

"Her Excellency honours me with such kind words." the former inhabitant of the isles responds. "Any brilliance of mine is merely a reflection of your own luminosity, of course."

"You're so right, Ben." Madeleine smiles, before a flash of inspiration takes root in her shiny blue eyes. "Speaking of which, Edward, Kara, would either of you care to see my workshop?"

"I'm sure there's plenty of things you both would find... interesting."

Despite yourself, you find yourself agreeing. If Madeleine could produce something as enervating as her variation on the Jitterleaf powder, you were curious what other... oddities she had in store. Kara, for her part, decides to come along begrudgingly.

"Narrowband, darling, you're looking tired." Madeleine tells the diminutive goblin still at the table. "Perhaps you should return to your room, and get some rest?"

Knowing better than to assume he has a choice, the goblin agrees with the princess and takes his leave. Not long after, your group leaves the dining room, Madeleine, yourself, Kara, Benjamin and Elodie, Madeleine's lady in waiting.

-

"It's rather nice to be rid of him." Madeleine admits frankly, as the five of you traverse the palace. "He's strategically useful, but goblins truly are the fucking worst the world has to offer. Just ugly creatures."

"Princess Kara!" A familiar, accented voice sounds in the hall, followed by footsteps. It's Solla, Jana's second in command. Unlike her warmistress, she's clad in traditional battledress.

"Solla? What is it?" Kara asks.

"There's unrest in the camp below." the southerner explains. "Some of your men, some of Donald's, the Sinnabarrovians!"

"And you can't handle this yourself?" Kara asks.

"The situation is growing out of control rapidly. Plenty of 'Barrovians have lost teeth already. If we leave it any longer, most likely it'll come to cracked skulls, slashed throats."

"Very well, take me to them." Kara decides. "With a bit a' fuckin' luck, they'll listen to their princess."

Just before Kara turns to leave, she pulls close to you.

"Find me after." She says, with a smile. "We've much to discuss."

"Perhaps I should go with them, Excellency?" Benjamin suggests. "Who better to calm frayed nerves than a master of the bardic arts?"

Madeleine chuckles.

"Ben, do you think you have me fooled? The only thing you're interested in is that exotic strumpet, aren't you?" the princess chides him playfully. Swain offers his protestations, but his ogling of the southern warrior had hardly been subtle.

"Go, then." Madeleine concedes. "And tell me everything that happens."

As Swain rushes off after Kara and Solla, Madeleine moves closer to you.

"So, just the two of us, hmm?" she says, with a mischievous grin.

"Three." You point out, nodding your head at the timid handmaid behind her.

"What, Ellie?" Madeleine chuckles. "She hardly counts. In any case, I've had her around me so long I hardly notice her. The hallmark of a good servant, I suppose."

Taking your right arm, the Sinnabarrovian heiress leads you on, to a rather spacious workshop near her quarters.

The place is crammed with specimens and projects. In one corner there's a station for alchemy, various reagents and completed potions and mixtures in chests and crates, with all the attendant apparatus for brewing more. In another, there are various mechanical devices, as well as stacks of diagrams. Bookshelves and scrollstands litter the place, a collection most libraries would be proud of.

Off to the side of the workspace is an examination table, various dissected specimens, of animals both mundane and magical, floating preserved in jars.

"An impressive setup." You concede, taking it all in.

"Just a venue for indulging my interests, hobbies, you know." Madeleine says, attempting to affect a more humble tone. "Mind you, when I'm Queen, I doubt I'll have much time for all this."

Your own interests being more towards leching and debauchery than study, it was something you couldn't quite relate to. If anything, your behaviours had only been encouraged as you'd been prepared to take your throne.

"Now... what to show you first?" Madeleine wonders.