SpoilerIf you want more to read, sider joining my Patreon! Or chey other inal works, Love Crafted (An iive story about a cute eldritch abominatioag things) or Stray Cat Strut (A cyberpunk magical girl story!) amon Bun (a wholesome LitRPG!) Fluff (A superheroic LitRPG about cute girls doing cute things!) or Dead Tired (A edy about a Li a Wuxia world doing Sce!)

  [colpse]Chapter One Hundred and Fifty-One - Once is Happenstawice is Enemy A

  Amaryllis and I got some looks as we swept around the sed level baly on a route aiming to the opposite side. Or maybe it was mostly me who was getting the looks because I was carrying a pte covered in one of every kind of snack they had set aside.

  “What’s this one called?” I asked as I raised one of the... were they called hors-d'?uvres?

  Amaryllis gnced my way, then rolled her eyes. “That’s just a bit of biscuit with some cold cuts,” she said. “I don’t doubt the chefs have a name for it, but I don’t think anyone would bother learning it.”

  “Well it’s yummy,” I said, plopping the whole thing in my mouth.

  Her rea was to shake her head, but I caught that little bit of a smile she was trying to suppress. “You’re making a se,” she said with a gesture all around us.

  I really wasn’t. There were some people looking our way, but the way they looked wasn’t the sort you’d get from making a se, more like they were keeping an eye around them while trading gossip with their friends. There were circles around some loud people who were telling stories, often punctuated by tittering ughter, and some of the more fancy people had einues of slightly less fancy people all around them.

  Really, other than the venue, species, food, and culture in general, it was just like a barbeque bae.

  “Do you want one?” I asked as I wiggled the pte arouo her. It earned me a ft look from the harpy, but she did relent and took a little sausage stu the end of a wooden skewer.

  “Rose and Awen are over there,” Amaryllis said with a nod to the far end of the room.

  “Should we go see them?” I asked. “I felt like this was more ao, you know, mih new people that we haven’t met before. And not people like that Francisco guy. Nies.”

  “It may have flown past your head, being that you are incredibly dense, but I doly have an overwhelming number of friends here,” Amaryllis said.

  “Aww,” I said. “When isn’t this the best time to make new friends?” I moved to intercept her with a hug, but she was too ing and mean and she ducked under my arm, moving to my other side so that I couldn't side-hug her without shifting my snack pte around.

  “Don’t start,” she said. “I’m certain you’ll find someoo annoy into being your friend. You amaze them with your incredibly pedestrian skills.”

  “I’ll do my best,” I said.

  “Idiot,” she huffed. It py huff though, so it was okay. “Rose seems to have found an old fiancee of her own tue with.”

  I looked over to the far end of the room. Rosaline and Awen had found a quiet enough spht o the rails overlooking the dancefloor below. They were holding hands, which was very cute, but there was a young harpy man wiggling a talht in front of Rosaline’s fad talking in a low growl that I couldn’t uand from where I was, but I could tell it wasn’t happy.

  “Maybe they need help?” I asked.

  And then the harpy took a goblet of wine and spshed it across Awen’s front before spinning on a heel and walking off.

  I gasped in time with Awen. Amaryllis’ rea was a lot more visceral. “Go see Rose and Awen.”

  “What? What about you?”

  Amaryllis cracked her knuckles. “I’m going to see if the staff dispose of corpses.”

  I yoinked Amaryllis back before she had time to stomp off. “Wait, wait, no killing the mean nobles,” I said. “Let’s both make sure our friends are safe first.”

  We arrived to find Rosaline sponging the wine off of Awen’s front while Awen ‘awawad.’ “That jerk,” Rosaline was muttering. “ing over here and not taking ‘because you’re an idiot’ for an answer. Who does he think he is?”

  “Are you okay?” I asked as I stepped closer. The damage to Awen’s dress... retty bad. But I was sure I could it off in a jiffy. “Oh no,” I said as I tugged at some of the soggy red-stained cloth over Awen’s top. “I this off.”

  Amaryllis pced a hand on my shoulder. “Do it in the washroom,” she said before turning back to Rosaline. “Did that e out of nowhere or did you provoke the idiot?”

  “Well, I wasly friends with him, but that rea was a bit much,” Rosaline said.

  Amaryllis nodded. “Yeah. Francisco was also being a bigger jerk than usual. I’m beginning to suspee sort of spiracy here.” She pointed off to one side. “Broccoli, want t Aweo get ed? Rose and I will find Clem and pare notes. Food hasn’t even been served yet, World damn it.”

  “Uh, alright,” I said. Awen finally let go of Rosaline and stepped up o me. “We’ll be ba a bit.”

  “Take your time,” Amaryllis said.

  I was a bit worried, but Amaryllis probably had things in talon, so I walked up o Awen and we moved away from our friends. “Are you really okay?” I asked Awen.

  “Um. Things were really il that harpy showed up,” Awen said. She grew a faint little blush. “Really nice. We were just talking about ships and then he showed up and started being very rude. He called me an... uncouth word, and then Rosa started telling him off. It was very sudden.”

  “Huh,” I said. Maybe there really was a spiracy going on? Oargeting the Albatross girls? It could be a ce, of course, but Amaryllis didn’t think so. “Why do you think people would be mean to the Albatross?” I asked.

  “Awa... there could be lots of reasons, but, uh, it’s usually about either money or power,” Awen said. “Bay parents worked hard to stay at the top, and to make sure that they had a finger in every busihat was starting to grow big. Maybe the airship business is being that way?”

  “You’d think they would have acted before,” I said.

  “There wasn’t a possibility of a war before. That will mean lots of ships, and lots of money and power to the people making those ships,” Awen said. “If the Albatross decide who gets to captaihen that’s even more power for them.”

  “That’s a dumb reason to embarrass people at a ball,” I said. “How will that help anyone?”

  Awen squirmed a bit. “It’s about appearances. For the Albatross to be able to fun they probably need tracts and workers and all sorts of things to ght. If people think that they’re not trustworthy, or if they think that the family has a lot of, um, drama going on, then they’ll maybe resider w with them.”

  I scowled at the floor. “That’s silly,” I said.

  “It’s how it works,” Awen replied.

  We found a washroom at the back, an open room with a maid by the entrance who asked us if we needed assistah anything, but I waved her off and said that we were alright.

  The inside of the washroom had a fountain and some benches o banks of flowers in big pots. That was before reag the sinks at the back or the little corridors leading off to what I assumed were the actual toilets. It was bigger than my home ba Earth.

  “Fancy,” I said.

  Awen shrugged. “Some dies spend a lot of time here. It’s... quieter.”

  I didn’t ask if she was one of those dies that ran off to hide during balls ba Mattergrove. “Let’s see about ing off that wine,” I said. “I ’t believe someone would try to ruin someone else’s dress like that.”

  I heard steps from deeper in the washroom but politely ighem until someone cleared their throat. “Do you need any assistah that?”

  Awen and I turned and both looked down at the same time as we faced a sylph. She was rather short, a full head and a bit shorter than me, with long bck hair that had gone grey on the edges and big eyes that had the wrihat some people grew when they smiled a lot.

  “Hi!” I said. “And thanks for the offer, but I think I’ve got this one.” I pinched my toween my teeth and allowed a nice big glob of ing magic to form over my hand. A swipe down wiped the front of Awen’s dress of any wine. “See.”

  “Impressive,” the sylph dy said. “Most people don’t bother learning ing magic, despite its utility.”

  “I learn it fhting, really,” I said. “It’s handy in a lot of other ways too. You just o be creative.”

  The woman blihen smiled a little. “I see. If you don’t mind me asking, what is a bun and a human doing at a harpy ball about visiting Sylphfree?”

  “Oh, we’re going to Sylphfree too,” I said. “We have our own ship and everything.”

  “Do you?” she asked.

  Awen nodded. “Yes. Um. Broccoli is our captain.”

  I blinked. We hadn’t actually decided that, but I wouldn’t say no to the title. “Yeah, sure. Awen here’s our meic. She’s real good.”

  “Iing,” the dy said. “I’m being rather rude. My name is Evalyn Sunshrike, tess of Granite Springs.”

  “,” I said. “I’m Broccoli Bunch, and this is one of my very best friends, Awen Bristlee.”

  “Hello,” Awen said.

  “A pleasure,” Evalyn said. “Bristlee, that’s from Mattergrove? And Bunch... I’m afraid I’m not familiar with the name, but I do believe most buns are from derrun to the far west, so that’s little surprise.”

  “Oh, nah, I’m from Earth,” I said. “And I’m a human... was a human?” I gestured to my normal, non-bun ears. “See.”

  “Oh,” she said. “Even more iing. A person that had a racial ge and who’s the captain of her own ship at... you ’t be more thaeen.”

  “Around there,” I agreed. “What about you? Why’re you at the ball?”

  Evalyn gave me a shrewd look. “Why, to see all the bickering and in-fighting of course. There’s not nearly as much of that bae, so I take leasure from the drama that I .”

  “Really?” I asked. “Oh, you tell us about the sylphs? We’ll be going there soon and it’d be really if we didn’t stick out like people who didn’t know anything.”

  Evalyn made a the back of her throat that I suspected was ughter. “I’m afraid there’s little ce of that. But I certainly give you a few pointers. What do you know about the sylph and our culture?”

  “Nothing at all,” I said.

  “A yoing to fly over to us soon?”

  “Yeah. Don’t tell anyone, we’re being all subtle and political about it,” I said.

  “Awa, maybe we shouldn’t have said that,” Awen pointed out.

  “Oops?”

  The sylph made that ughing noise again. “You two are quite charming, I’ve no doubt that my trymen would absolutely hate dealing with you.”

  “Huh?”

  She nodded. “Oh yes. As much as I love my nation it’s rather... mired in bureaucracy. Anything that doesn’t fit into its ow little box tends to get on the nerves of some of my fellows. I think that if you do want to visit, you should try pying up the fact that you’re clueless fners.” Evalyn’s smile was almost predatory. “That way you catch them off guard.”

  “Oh, that’s a great idea. I’m really good at looking like I’m clueless,” I said.

  Evalyn actually ughed out loud at that. “If you girls are done here, would you like to meet some of my rades? Maybe they’ll be able to help you on your trip over to Sylphfree.”

  I nodded. “I think that would be really nice,” I said.

  ***