Find It

After agreeing to certain sleeping arrangements, where Heikka stayed in her sitting room, him being a gentleman, and Asterid gave him a blanket and a pillow, for his human sensibilities. "Even though as you are a frog right now, this will all feel fairly uncomfortable."

They were both rudely awakened in the morning as Sky neatened the sitting room, found Heikka sleeping there, and screeched. Sky threw the blanket over him again, and Asterid rushed in from her bedroom, "Sky, you alright?"

Hand over heart and slowly calming down, "Your Highness, why is your frog on the couch under a blanket with a pillow?"

"Uhm." Asterid tried to get her brain working, "Because he thinks he's human?"

Sky gave her a skeptical look. "Is that so." She stared at the blanket Heikka remained under. "Well, since you are up, let's get you ready." Sky ushered Asterid back into her room. "I imagine you will be bringing that frog with you again today, so we shall wear something that will complement his colors."

When Asterid came out from her room, Sky fussing behind her, she was wearing a yellow ocher dress with green accents. Heikka, who had managed to extricate himself from his blankets, was waiting for her on his branch. She walked up to him and he jumped to her shoulder. Sky, slightly surprised by how tame and well trained the frog was, examined the way they looked. "It's not all too bad." She nodded and commenced with cleaning up the rest of Asterid's rooms.

"There's still some time before when I host breakfast, so let's get as much of my non-guest related done with." Asterid strode from her rooms with Heikka.

With Atkis mainly entertaining Primi, much of her duties were picked up by Asterid, Magnaphyta, and Adamas. In charge of planning and managing food stuffs and servants as people gradually left, Asterid spent the early hours busily. Quite hungry and ready to take a rest from going from one end of the castle to the other, Asterid made her way into the smaller dining room.

Heikka, equally as hungry as Asterid, quietly encouraged her to grab more sausage as she filled her plate at the buffet. Smiling and neatly greeting an old madam and her son, recently awake and planning on leaving them at noon, she added one more sausage than she would've prefered. Heikka whispered, fidgeting, "Oh, come one, more than that!"

The son, Fyllo Koutsouro, as he was heaping meat onto his plate, did a double take, the serving tongs held still in the air as he stared in confusion at Asterid's shoulder. The madam interrupted herself as she looked in askance to her son. "What ever is the matter with you? Are you still half asleep?"

Asterid jumped onto this line of thinking, she glanced at Heikka, and gave Fyllo a smile. "Did you perhaps think my ornament here moved? I only just recently got him. By accident I had left him on my couch last night and this morning had quite the rude awakening as my maid found him!"

The baroness gave Heikka a closer look, and then gave an approving sound, "He is quite magnificent! So very lifelike!" She turned to her son, "No wonder you thought you saw it move!" Fyllo, now convinced that it was his imagination, nodded and continued heaping various breakfast meats onto his plate. "And if you would please bring my plate to the table dear? It's a bit too heavy for me." She gave her son a dead eyed glare.

With a sigh, Fyllo stopped adding to the mountain on his plate and took his mothers, he heavily walked to the nearest table to sit down. The baroness closed her eyes in pain before turning to Asterid with a small curtsy. "I'm sorry for my son's behaviour. His father has kept him quite sheltered and has learned little courtesies."

"Oh, no, it's nothing for you to apologize about, Baroness Koutsouro." Asterid smiled and waved it off. "Let us do as your son, enjoy our breakfast."

As they started their breakfast, Atkis entered the room and headed to the buffet table. As Atkis was adding foods to her plate, Primi entered with Adamas. Soon Asterid saw all three of them talking with each other as they got their breakfasts. She also felt Heikka shift on her shoulder. As discreetly as she could, Asterid murmured to him, "Don't move around so much, you'll give yourself away." Heikka blinked one eye slowly at her, and continued to stare at his cousin.

Primi was conversing with Atkis now, both of them not smiling, but not frowning. It looked like a heated discussion. Adamas had left them to eat his breakfast as they stood at the buffet, forgetting about their food cooling on their plates.

Watching the strange tableau, having satisfied her hunger, Asterid excused herself, and secretly grabbed an uneaten sausage. Once in the hallway, checking no one was near, she gave Heikka the sausage.

He held the morsel that was almost as big as him with glee. "I could eat this and then a horse, I'm so hungry!"

Asterid started walking, "Are you sure you wouldn't prefer a fly or something?"

"Don't be rude." Heikka garbled out while gnawing the meat. "Where we going?" Somehow he managed to eat half of it already.

"The library to look up curses." She kept an eye out to make sure she remained unseen. "And their cures. There are enough studies that there has to be some mention of something similar to your case."

Heikka attempted to clean the grease from the sausage off, to little avail. "Could we also get me another sausage? That wasn't enough."

Asterid sighed, "I thought you'd rather get to finding the solution than finding food. Once we're done we can stop by the kitchens."

"I find it difficult to think on an empty stomach. But I suppose you're right." He glanced up at her. "The sooner we find a cure the faster we can return to our normal lives." Heikka looked away in abrupt silence.

Asterid didn't notice his odd behaviour. "You're right. Though I hope we could at least stay friends." She entered the library and went to the catalog of their books. "Though if you're marrying my sister we wouldn't need to worry about that."

Heikka turned his eyes to her again, "After the revelations of yesterday do you really think I would?"

Looking through the titles of various magic studies Asterid's voice was apathetic. "With an idea of how she would treat you, and the gains, there's nothing different to before." She decided on one and looked at where it'd be. "I guess right now the only thing changed is that you're pride is injured? You had to know there'd be no love in the marriage."

Heikka puffed up, "Well, but… I just." and slowly let out his breath, deflated. "You're right in a way. I guess I'm just not hard enough to go into a marriage where there's no prospect of a close relationship or respect."

"Really?" Asterid climbed to the second level of the library and seemly chose a case at random.

"My parents, while their marriage was arranged by my grandfather, have a loving relationship. Not only that my grandparents, while maybe not in love, have a respectful partnership." Heikka sighed and watched her grab a large leather bound book from the shelf. "Part of the reason I wanted to find a marriage partner for myself was so I could, I don't know, see if I could find someone who would be like my grandmother or mother."

"And you thought that someone was my sister?"

"She's as strong and as charismatic as them. Thought another factor I had to have, due to my grandfather's stipulations for my choosing my own wife, was the assets she could bring to the Empire." Heikka paused. "I guess I was a little distracted by her beauty. A marriage to your sister would give her more than it would me."

Asterid just sighed, brought the book to a desk nearby and dropped it down with a thump. "Well who's to say that by staying in your own country that you'd be able to start your own business?"

"My father did." Heikka hopped down onto the desk. "Though it was after I was old enough to start my schooling. And he stopped working for the Palace altogether once I graduated."

She opened the book and carefully flipped through the pages. Descriptions of various spells, nothing on how to cast them though, were written and drawn. Arcane barriers built of runes written in the air, ghostly hands being summoned to freeze people, changing the earth's basic terrain. "Hm, so he left the politics behind? And you wish to do the same?"

A spell on creating a fog to cloud people eyes was shown as she turned the pages. "Oh! That's one of the spells the witch used! And yes, I feel extremely uncomfortable there. Just working in the Bureau of the Treasury makes me think someone is targeting me."

They came to a section about transforming others. Heikka crawled up onto the book looking down on it. Asterid moved him to another part of the page he was on, "It says nothing about this being permanent."

Heikka read the next part, "But if it wasn't, I would've already turned back by now." He slapped at the start of a paragraph, "Here it says the subject should revert to its original form at the end of an hour."

Asterid nodded. "Definitely has been more than an hour." She pushed Heikka off the book and opened it to the back. "Let's see if the end of the book has any gems to offer us." The last page of the book had the words unknown non lethal curses written at the top. "Huh, how convenient."

Heikka got back onto the book. "Most of these say that the best way is to go to the caster to get them reverted. I highly doubt that's going to work for me." He gave a sad croak, "I'll be a frog for the rest of my days!"

Asterid exasperatedly gave him a light tap on his head, "Stop being so dramatic." She pointed at the last part of the text, "It says here that a kiss of true love can also work as a cure."

Heikka tilted his head in confusion, "True love? Seriously? How do you know where that is?"

Asterid shrugged, "Family?" then smiled. "Perhaps we should go see if your cousin will give you a kiss."

"Ha ha." Heikka jumped to her shoulder. "But I feel like you're right on the family front. Who's the best bet to go to when you need some love?"

"A prostitute?" Asterid started to put the book away.

"What? No!" Heikka gave her an outraged look and ribbeted in shock. "Where on earth did you learn about that anyway?"

"Books are sometimes full of interesting bits of knowledge."

"And your father let you read these books?"

"Of course not. I just didn't tell him I was."

Heikka croaked, "I do not even want to think about what you found out from these books." He shook his head. "I mean parents are usually very loving to their children. Mine, luckily, find me fairly tolerable."

Asterid nodded and started to head to the kitchens. "So we have a plan of action then?"

"Yes, I just need to get to my parents."