Take a Shot

Homecoming

The common area by Harmony HQ's massive double-doors was oddly busy today, though Matt didn't have to ask why to know. Geechis had left early in the morning by helicopter, something the old man rarely did anymore, for a very specific, very intriguing reason: to collect Harmony's long-lost heiress, Roma Trankil.

Over the course of the day, due in shockingly small part to Matt's notorious inability to keep a secret, the rumor had rippled through the castle. Grunts came out of the woodwork, hoping to be close enough to the front doors that they could catch a glimpse of the princess. Everyone tried to look busy, doing such menial tasks as wiping down baseboards and polishing statues. No one wanted to be scolded by the Sages and told to get back to their regular duties. This wouldn't normally be a concern, but, oddly, all of the Sages were out and about, wandering the halls. Matt suspected they, too, wanted first looks at the returning prodigal. It was simultaneously comforting and cloying to be surrounded by so many of his coworkers.

As Geechis's personal assistant, Matt didn't bother trying to look busy; he actually had reason to be here. The Sages all knew him, so it wasn't like anyone was going to tell him to get back to work. Should he technically be in Geechis's office, getting things ready for Roma's return, which would no doubt incur an ocean of paperwork? Yeah, probably. Odds were good he'd be assigned to watch over Princess Roma once she was back home, though, so in a certain sense, he was just preparing for his next assignment.

Matt loved Roma a lot, and he wasn't embarrassed to admit that hearing she was coming back had been the highlight of his very boring week. She grew up in the castle, the only daughter of the previous monarchs, Joy and Lea. Three coincidences coincided, and the end result was Matt taking on the role of babysitter for the young princess. Watching Roma grow from a babbling baby only as long as his forearm into a rambunctious kid had given him baby fever something horrible, almost bad enough to risk asking Emerald out.

Princess Roma was only nine when her family was struck by tragedy: the death of her father's favorite beast, an otter called Fe-Hai. Joy's version of Beast Tamer magic extended to all manner of animals instead of one specific species, but Fe-Hai had been Joy's constant companion since his childhood, so her death ruined the King. Poor Roma and Lea did what they could, but it was useless. The time came, as Lea suspected it would, that Joy ran away, unable to cope with his feelings and the demands of being King. Lea took over as the queen-regent, and Roma's training for the throne, which she was less than 5 years away from inheriting, intensified. Less than 4 months later, Lea was killed in a brutal political assassination. Everything Roma held dear was lost to her in one near-fell swoop.

Orphaned at a young age himself, Matt really felt for the poor kid. She moped around the castle as though a ghost herself, listless as she was shuttled lesson to lesson then taken back to the med wing to be cared for by Annae and Greta, her aunts. As much as he wanted to reach out to her, the whirlwind that was Harmonian politics pulled him in when Geechis reclaimed the throne. Over the almost two-week span between Lea's death and her funeral, Matt saw Roma only once: at her mother's funeral, dressed in a long, itchy, black dress, seafoam eyes vacant even as she scratched her elbows until they bled.

When the news broke a few days after the funeral that Roma was gone, it threw the organization into disarray. Rumors began flying around the castle, as they often did. Theories on her "abrupt" disappearance ranged from feasible - her running away - to unpopular - she was kidnapped - to preposterous - she'd been killed. Grunts spent hours debating their theories. Roma's disappearance infuriated Geechis, and sent Emerald on a manhunt, partly searching for the princess and partly searching for closure on the death of the person she'd considered more her family than anyone in the world. Matt was left alone in the castle, run ragged by the sudden and enormous workload thrust upon him.