31.1. Royal Quarters - Part 1

Despite my vehement protests, Julia forced me to stay in the infirmary for observation. Normally, I'd hate every minute of it but because I'm sleeping 80% of the time anyway, it's passing quickly. My breathing got better as my lungs keep adjusting so after three days, I don't need the oxygen mask anymore. I'm still hurting a lot and feel weak, though.

Of course, my absence didn't go unnoticed. Firstly, I'm not seen in public. Secondly, Julia's infirmary is currently off-limits so another place had to be designated as a medical room. Thirdly, the Royal Guards are patrolling in front so it's obvious who's inside. We had to shoot a video in which I was explaining my medical condition, imploring all Draconians to be careful about their progressing transformation.

Erik stays by my side the whole time except for showering or going to stretch his legs briefly. I'm telling him that I'm fine with Julia and my guards around but he still refuses to leave me for too long. He argues that he can work on his computer from the infirmary. To be honest, I feel guilty to sleep all the time while everyone else is working so hard.

"You're not lazy, you're recuperating," Erik is assuring me but I still feel useless.

Obviously, I missed another super important meeting with the Prime Minister and the EU officials. Liana briefed me afterwards and tried to sound like it wasn't a big deal but I could sense from her that my absence was felt. Ingri told me later that Celestials were really nervous that their Emperor wasn't present.

I don't know what to make out of it. While I'm now fully accepting my Celestial nature, reasoning of other Celestials is sometimes eluding me. I feel completely Celestial now, slowly coming to terms with all those new emotions and perception, but I still don't see myself as the Emperor. I can tell that everyone's mana capacity and magic proficiency is much lower than mine but I see no objective reason why it should be me leading our race.

"I looked it up, it's actually in our lore as well," Liana says after I proposed again that she should become the ruler instead of me and she refused without even thinking about it for a second.

"What is?" I hiss in pain because Julia is stretching my wings again in order to scan them and make sure my bones are growing how they should.

"Why you might be so reluctant about it," she explains. "The position of the Celestial Emperor automatically goes to the strongest magic caster, who is therefore considered to be the incarnate of magic itself, but it doesn't have to necessarily mean that person has to be good at politics and running the country on the practical level."

"I don't think our ingame lore influenced my thinking that much," I oppose.

"Yet, you were always behaving like the true Celestial Emperor," Liana points out. "Leaving all mundane work to me and rather focusing all your energy on conquering dungeons and going on the craziest and longest quests. Always with your head in the clouds. Exactly like our lore says—it's the Viceroy who takes care of the practical stuff."

"I... guess," I have to second that whether I want to or not.

*****

I'm finally discharged after five long days. While my sped-up transformation is still weakening me considerably, Julia eventually confirmed that I'm in no danger and can be released into home care.

"You should look after Liana now," I say to Dr Stein while the guards are taking all my stuff Erik brought to the infirmary back to our apartment. "She's not feeling good today and just puts up a brave front as always."

"You feel that?" Julia asks openly because Erik made sure it's only Vermiel and Miruel inside helping us. "But she's so far away."

"I told you already that walls don't block my ability," I remind her and look at my new Celestial guards who eagerly gobble every bit of new information about me.

Since yesterday, they also started wearing Celestial robes. I'm surprised they got theirs so quickly, considering the crazy current demand for special custom clothes as all Draconians wish to wear something that would really suit them. Liana must be overpaying freelance manufacturers.

Ingri did an excellent job as always coming up with a design that is both in a distinctive Celestial style, yet practical—at least in terms of highly impractical Celestial fashion. While it looks like a typical Celestial long dress, the skirt is cut at the sides, it's a bit shorter and has pants underneath.

However, when I asked for similar garments, Liana told me that it simply won't do for the Emperor and that was the end of discussion. I think it'll never cease to amaze me how much our mentality has changed. The big changes are obvious, it's the little things that astonish me the most.

It's clear that others completely forgot how they were thinking before but somehow I can still relate to my previous human thinking even though I don't think like that anymore. I hope that it's only thanks to my connection with Erik but I suspect it's because I wasn't quite human from the beginning.

"Ready to go, Your Majesty," Muriel announces and interrupts my pondering. "We shouldn't meet anyone."

I frown a little. I didn't ask them to vacate all corridors for me, even though, admittedly, I'd feel embarrassed being seen carried by Erik in public. But Liana insisted it wouldn't do us any good if the Celestial Emperor was seen in a weakened state.

"Off we go then," Erik takes me into his arms.

I quickly fold my wings as I'd literally drag them over the floor at this point. It's strange how much they've grown in such a short period of time. And it's even weirder that it feels natural and I do enjoy their new size. To be completely honest, my Celestial nature is craving huge wings. The bigger, the better. Is it going to be a Celestial quirk?

I also like your wings big, Erik catches what I'm thinking about and sends me a passionate emotion together with a dreamy vision of two of us in bed.

I can't help blushing. Erik developing a fetish for my wings is a dream come true. At first, he thought of them as simply being cute but lately he's really beginning to see them in an erotic way. As a Celestial would. Just how lucky I am to get such a fine boyfriend?

The best boyfriend out there, he smirks in his thoughts and adjusts his hands because he can feel through me that he's squeezing my wings a bit.

There're more guards when we step outside the infirmary waiting for us. I spot two Celestials whose names I can't recall, both of them wearing the same robes as Vermiel and Miruel. And also a Clawfang and a Dragonkin. No humans. Wait a sec, six? Why do I need that many inside Liana's skyscraper?

Erik catches my thought again and gets anxious. He desperately tries to think about something else in order to distract me. I decide to push him when we step into the elevator.

"Did something happen to get me so many guards?" I ask openly and direct my question also to Vermiel and Miruel.

They both chew their lips, apparently nervous. I stretch my hand and touch Miruel who's standing just a few centimetres away from me since the elevator is quite full because of my wings. Only a second later I realise, to my stupidity, that I've never connected to her before as my sudden attempt scares her shitless. She flinches and looks horrified.

"Oh, sorry, Miruel," I apologise quickly. I also realise that I did something totally rude, imposing on her privacy like that. "Really really sorry," I say again. "I sometimes forget because it's so automatic with Erik. Please, do tell me what's wrong."

She takes a deep breath, calming herself down. I wonder... would people feel violated when I read their minds without permission? I have to be more careful. More considerate. I can't help catching their emotions but I can prevent reading their thoughts.

"It's getting worse and worse each day," she finally answers.

"What is?"

"Cyber attacks on the skyscraper's network... and attempts to get into the building without a clearance," she says. "Just this morning our security prevented another intrusion."

"Another? They were more? Why don't I know anything about it?" I'm super confused now.

"Liana didn't want to stress you," Erik explains. "Besides, it's Fefnir's job now. He became the head of our security."

"When did that happen?" I widen my eyes.

"Just two days ago," he says. "I mean... we're still cooperating with human guards, of course, but Draconians were too hard to handle by human staff. They seem to work side by side with them quite fine but they just weren't listening to orders if made by a human."

"Did a lot of things change while I was out?" I ask, a bit apprehensively now. Normally, it'd only be five days but a lot can happen when everything's so turbulent.

"Nothing dramatic I think," he says and we reach our apartment.

"You call that nothing dramatic?" I don't believe my eyes because our flat is full of boxes and several Draconians are unpacking them.

"Well, it's the stuff from our previous apartments, I had it moved here," Erik explains and puts me on the sofa in the living room. "It's not like we can ever come back, right?"

I want to oppose something but I'm distracted by the softness of the sofa. I give it a closer look to discover that the sofa is brand new. It's much larger so I can fit even with my wings. And it seems the back-rest can be put down. Neat.

"You like it? I ordered it, anticipating you won't fit onto the old one," Erik grins.

"I do," I admit and curiously look around.

Too many unknown people in our apartment! There's a Dragonkin bringing even more boxes and three Celestial unpacking. I see one taking out my favourite figure from Dragon Age and putting it on a shelf. Was that shelf even there before? Did they redo the apartment while I was lying in the infirmary?

"Erik, what the hell?" I can't wrap my head around it.

"Well," he smiles but it's cringy. He's afraid of my reaction. "It was supposed to be a surprise but we couldn't finish on time."

"Finish what?"

"Ryuu," Erik says slowly, "we have to stop treating it as a hotel suite. This is our home now."

I'm left speechless. Of course, I knew that there's no chance I'm coming back into my old cosy apartment but because of all those things happening, I had no actual time to think about how we're going to live from now on. I didn't realise that... I've moved together with Erik. For real.

"You hate it," Erik gets pale when noticing my confused expression.

"N-not hate," I shake my head violently. "It's just that I didn't give it a thought before. But we kind of are living together now, aren't we?"

"Forced by circumstances. Do you dislike it?" Erik gets saddened.

"It's not that," I shake my head again to dispel his doubts and take his hand. "But everything's happening so quickly."

"Your Majesty, where do you want to put this?" a Celestial woman suddenly asks, holding my VR headset.