New life, new world

Chapter 12: Holidays (part 1)

After I said my goodbyes to all my friends while waiting for my family carriage and Sophie. Magi came up to me.

"Hi, Angela! Are you waiting for someone?"

"No, just for my ride home."

"Oh, Okay. As for me, I am waiting for Levia."

"Your fiance?"

"The one and only! He is just perfect. Oh! I was wondering, do you have a fiance?"

"No, I don't."

"What a shame."

Silence followed those words until Magi made an unsettling comment.

"What do you think about Jessica and Priscilla? What I mean is what do think about their bickering? It is annoying, isn't it?"

"What?"

"You know what I mean right? You are in the middle of it all after all. They both are quite bothersome, no?"

"How can you talk about your friend in such a manner?" I was pissed at how she dared speak about Priscilla and I think I showed it on my face.

"I th-think you misunderstood. I am talking about how Jessica is treating Priscilla. It is vulgar is it not?"

She tried to fix her mistake as best as she could, however, I could see right through her at that moment. At that time I was thinking *Yeah right, and I am the queen of England!* or something similar.

"Alright," I answered

my carriage arrived soon after our conversation that has been followed by a heavy silence. Once I saw my ride, I was thankful. While I was getting on the carriage I turned my head and said.

"I hope you have some pleasant holidays, Miss Brown."

The ride was a few hours long, some of the longest in my life. After we arrived, I stepped out of the car and was immediately surrounded by the servants. My father rushed towards me and we hugged for a few seconds, it was quite difficult to breathe since his embrace was so tight. Lucie was running as fast as she could down the stairs to join us. Once she arrived near us, she climbed father's clothes and went on my head while whimpering. Surprisingly the Duke and Lucie had matching outfits, I giggled at that. We all went back inside after that big welcome. I was exhausted by this long trip and all that thinking, so I headed to bed early that day.

The next day during breakfast, father and I spoke about the past year. We spoke about what we had done, the difficulty we encountered, and such. Father had to face a lot of troubles, especially with other nobles. Those problems were mostly caused since nobles didn't want to recognize me as Duke Castrix's daughter. To be honest it was mostly the nobles that were on the queen's side that was against me. However, when the king entered and said I shall gain the title of Duke when the time comes, no one dared to defy my position. Especially since that meant that the king recognized me as a noble, but also because the church was on my father's and king's side.

The other problems were about the drought that passed by and that would come again, and the peace treaty with the nation of Bram. First, the drought damaged our country greatly, a lot of people died of starvation and we had a lot of financial loss since the country had to import a lot of goods, especially food. As for the empire of Bram, it was essential to have a peace treaty made. Bram was indeed a small country, but it has realized great advancements in science, magic, medicines, and others. It also has a lot of exotic plants and fruits that can help in the development of the medical and alchemist field.

Since father is one of the strongest men in the kingdom, he had to deal with such things that impact the nation greatly.

"Father, there are two ways to deal with the drought," I started