Ascending Pride

The chance

Calix lip's twitched as he saw a young, masked noble, with almost blindingly bright golden hair wearing a skirt in their family's shop... yes... he was very hard to miss.

Sebastian choked seeing Ashton explaining what jewels he wanted added to the buckle and matching scarab necklace. The older lady was blushing as Ashton stood barefoot and bare chested, looking for all the world only a towel was around his waist. "Lord Reece! The dressing room! Dressing room!" Sebastian roared as he started ordering the staff to bring a coat.

Ashton glanced over his shoulder with a mischievous smirk, "Your Grace, calm down. I was just making sure my next performance outfit would be ready to welcome the first delegations."

Sebastian was horrified, "Lord Reece... you are barely covered."

Ashton let out a chuckle, "Picking your shop was worth it, my dear, could you bring some tea and a seat for Duke Carlos. I will have a drawing of what I want the scarab to look like, the gems I will add myself after the shape is ready." Ashton explained handing over a paper. The girl was blushing as she baod then scurried off.

Sebastian had never seen Ashton so.. relaxed. "As long as you are pleased," Sebastian sighed, he then called the attendant over, "Send the bill to the duchy, any clothing for Lord Reece is to be charged to the Carlos account." He ordered as he sat down. His family had gathered around, eyes gleaming.

Ashton preformed a courtly bao, "My greetings to the Carlos duchy, Lords, Ladies, perhaps we might share a cup of tea while we check on our clothes." Ashton offered since Sebastian had basically evicted all the random passersby.

Sebastian eyed Ashton's figure, "Are you not chilled Lord Ashton?"

Ashton draped himself over a lounger, "Sebastian, we aren't in the palace, you can call me Ash. I also have meeting gifts," Ashton informed with two quick claps, Tou, Itsu, Futa, and Yot, all rose from the ground with trays.

Trina was started as the heads popped out of the ground but she rushed forward with Roxanne, "That's amazing, are you elementals?" She asked as she circled around one of the beings.

Tou gave a small bao, "My name is Tou, a greeting gift for Madam Trina, miss Roxanne, master Douglas, young master Jaden." While the voice was gravely, it was softly spoken.

One golem approached and introduced themselves as they presented the trays. A personalized gem for each person. Only the twins had identical bracelets but one was made of sapphire, the other from a ruby.

Roxanne returned the bao as she accepted the hair pin shaped like a tiger with half a dozen rubies and diamonds. "It's beautiful! Thank you, Tou!" She gushed pulling out the bag of mana cores as everyone else accepted their items.

As soon as the last item was taken, Tou shrank to the size of a palm, it was looking at the bag of mana cores and his face followed each small movement. Then it glanced back at Ashton, then looked down and kicked its feet. When the bag suddenly fell Tou froze, glanced up to see two of the older humans were blocking its line of sight to Ashton.

Roxanne almost squealed when the tiny thing scurried toward the bag, snatched it up then hid behind her. It sat down with its feet extended as it reached into the larger than itself then pulled out a mana core. It raised it up to catch the light, then lifted half of its mask to start chomping away. Roxanne diligently kept guard so the little thing to eat. She soon noticed similar scenes behind Cynthia, Adrian, and Lina. All their eyes met and they had to hide their giggles.

Ashton rolled his eyes as four more golems snuck out to join their brothers. He shook hands with Calix and exchanged simple greetings.

Calix had to force himself to look Ashton in the eyes when four more little hand sized people crawled out of the ground. He gave a short cough as he too, dropped a bag of mana cores that were quickly dragged away.