"I swear Vim! He thinks he's so smooth! He had the gall to sneak into my room earlier, you should have seen his stupid smirk when I opened my bedroom door and found him naked on my bed!" Nasba continued to ramble about her love life.

She was leading me to Merit's chambers, and we were walking through the large stone hallway with walls of vines and flowers. The plants clinging to the stone walls and ceiling made it seem as if we were underground, under a thick rain forest, not in the center of a lake in the middle of a massive desert.

"He's not even a duck! Who does he think he is?" Nasba then said with a huff, her tail feathers flapping wildly in annoyance.

She sounded, and looked, utterly pissed off… but I could hear the truth hidden beneath it all. Or maybe I more so saw it. Was it the way her feathers were swaying? They were fluffed up, as if angry, but had that twitch of happiness that ducks got. The one where they wagged their tails, like a dog.

"He's not a duck?" I asked, unsure why that was such a big deal. To some it was, but I had not really thought Nasba to be one of them. She was one of Merit's closest friends, and had been involved in Merit's little Oasis from the beginning. There weren't many other ducks here, so I had always thought Nasba to be more open minded.

"Not at all! He's a fox! That stupid, handsome faced bastard even has a tail! It stinks, you know!" Nasba said angrily.

I smirked at that. Jeez she was barely hiding it at all, wasn't she?

"Some do say foxes stink," I agreed.

"They do! At least, he does. I swear, not even a long soak makes it any better," Nasba grumbled as her tail feathers flapped again.

Right. A long soak together, I bet.

How nice. If anything I was glad to hear it. It was just another point of proof that the Oasis was doing well, all things considered.

I had spent an hour or so walking around the city, namely the docks and outer layers where the common folk lived. Everything had looked relatively fine. The market stalls were full, but not so full that no one was buying anything. The people were smiling and healthy. A few had even offered to buy me dinner, inviting me to join their happy little lives for the small moment I had walked past them. Like always Merit's Oasis was friendly to outsiders.

And as far as I had seen, there were more non-humans than before too. I had seen almost a dozen while walking around, and I'd not recognized any of them. I had no names to any of their faces, though it had been obvious they had been members of the community. A few of them had been delegating work on a stairwell, one that led to the upper levels of the city. Community work, basically.

"When'd your little fox fiend arrive?" I asked, wondering if maybe I could get a little information out of her before she continued on her love struck tirade.

"Oh? A few years ago. He came with a group from a neighboring nation. He ended up staying here after realizing what we are, joining us. Though he claims it's only because of me, I know the truth! He just likes our water!" Nasba said as she pointed at me, as if I was the one she was upset with.

"I've always found your water a little stale," I admitted.

Nasba laughed at me. "Because it is!"

I shook my head at her as we neared a corner. One I knew led me to Merit's chambers.

I had helped build this place, after all. I didn't actually need a guide.

But I enjoyed hearing Nasba's latest news, even if I had to pick through her lovesick rambling to get any of it.

"Speaking of delegations… I've heard you plan to ban anyone from Wevling from entry," I said.

"Hm…? Oh. Yes. Maybe. They sent a delegation a little bit ago. Some of them are still here. They're being insufferable, they want us to subjugate them," Nasba said.

Subjugate…? "Them?" I asked.

"Something about a war, or famine. I don't know Vim… I'll be honest I've been very distracted lately," Nasba said with a sigh.

"By your fox? Understandable," I teased her.

She laughed at me as we rounded a corner, and approached the large door that looked too big even for Nasba to open. She opened it easily though, with one hand, as she turned to grin at me. "I know? Isn't it weird? A fox and a duck!" she told me.

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"Least you're not a hen?" I suggested as I stared past her shoulder to the dark room beyond her. It looked like a prison it was so dark.

Nasba's laugh and grin both disappeared as she went wide eyed at me. I paused half a moment, since she stood in the middle of the doorway and blocked my path, and then she barked out a happy laugh. "Vim!" she shouted a groan as she went on a laughing fit.

She stepped away, allowing me to enter Merit's bedroom. As Nasba continued laughing she stepped away from the door and went to a nearby wall. The dark room quickly became lit up as she opened windows and pulled back their curtains.

"Come on! Wake up!" Nasba yelled as she then walked over to the bed in the center of the room.

The bed was huge. Far too big for someone so tiny, to the point it was comical. There were dozens of massive pillows, each bigger than the one lying amongst them, all piled in a circle in the center of the bed. Nasba grabbed at the heavy blanket that lay upon it, pulling it off and away the bed with a little more force than really needed. The blanket hit the large pillars around the bed, which held up a mighty canopy of vines and plants, wrapping around one of them in the process.

A tiny groan of a complaint came from the bundle of pillows and other blankets as Nasba crawled onto the bed as to get to the center.

"Get up you! Come on! You have work to do!" Nasba shouted at her friend, and queen, as she rummaged around the pillows looking for the tiny monarch.

I smiled at the two as Nasba found Merit. I watched as Nasba crawled back off the bed, pulling Merit by an ankle. She went so far as to fully drag Merit off the bed, to the point she fell off the bed and onto the ground.

Although there were large rugs all around the bed, Merit still fell with a hard thunk as she landed face first on the ground. Merit let out a pained groan as Nasba brushed herself off as she stepped away from the bed and Merit.

"Really now. Get up already! You're a queen now, start acting like one!" Nasba shouted at her friend as she walked away from the collapsed Merit on the floor. She paid her no heed, even though Merit wasn't moving and wasn't even properly dressed. She had a thin nightgown on, which had fallen and rolled upward in her fall and was revealing her backside in full. Nasba didn't seem to care at all as she walked over to one of the corners of the bedroom, to one of the large dressers.

"She's been a queen for years Nasba. If she hasn't adapted yet, she won't ever," I said gently as I kindly looked away, to stare out one of the nearby windows Nasba had recently opened.

One should be modest in front of royalty, after all.

"Oh shush…!" Merit finally finished waking up, groaning as she pushed herself to her feet.

As she stood and Nasba rummaged in the dresser, I noted a nearby table. One that had a bunch of cups and other stuff on it, a mess really.

Her crown was amidst the mess. A napkin was even stuck on one of its many little arches. The sight of it so haphazardly sitting amongst the mess made me smile.

Stepping over to the table as Nasba helped Merit get dressed, I cleaned the crown of the things clinging to it and lifted it up. It was a closed crown, but the inside piece was a soft silk. I'd fashioned it to be a crown that would not get her looked down upon by neighboring royalty, but still retain a semblance of humility and her purpose. It was more akin to what a princess or duchess would wear in other nations, not the actual monarch, but it was adorned with special jewelry. The type that I knew made them seethe with jealousy when they saw it.

A part of the reason I had made it so was simply her size. Merit was a tiny thing, and making her a massive crown that was accustomed and expected to be worn by rulers would have been funny. She would have likely taken offense if I had made her one of those towering things. Some of the rulers in the northern nations had crowns nearly half her size for crying out loud.

"I don't need you to wipe my butt!" Merit growled.

"You do when you're dirty!" Nasba shouted back, which made me frown and glance at them. Nasba was in fact wiping Merit with a cloth, but not her ass. She was just wiping her shoulders.

"Why are you so filthy anyway? Does that mean your bed is all nasty?" I asked as I stepped over towards them and the bed. Her room didn't smell bad, really. Though the plants helped, they were mostly what I could smell at the moment.

"What…? No? She's just a picky bird," Merit complained as Nasba went to wiping Merit's face with the cloth. Merit made noises as Nasba did so, as if she were Merit's mother and preparing the girl for school or something.

The thought was a funny one, but I kept it to myself as Nasba finished and then went to give Merit her last layer of clothes. A blue dress of silk that was fashionable and proper. One she could wear even outside and not be found odd, or not properly dressed.

"Don't smirk at me like that. You think I want her to do this? She does it no matter how much I complain," Merit said stiffly as she glared at me.

I shrugged as I waited for Nasba to finish, and once she stepped away with a smile… seemingly content that Merit was now prim and proper and ready to face the day, I went ahead and placed her crown upon her head.

Unlike before, the crown settled easily. It didn't shift or fall off to her chin, thankfully.

Merit glared at me as I moved the crown a tad, a little to the left. Although Nasba had cleaned her up, her hair was still somewhat rough. She needed to comb it.

"Good morning Merit," I said in greeting.

"Good? You call this good?" Merit asked as she suddenly yawned. It was a mighty one, one that made her reach up to cover her mouth if a little slovenly. As she did her crown shifted, tumbling off her head and down her back. Before it landed on the rug, Nasba caught it. She sighed in a way that told me she had fully expected it.

"See? You don't put her crown on until after her morning drink," Nasba chastised me by waving her crown at me.

How was I supposed to have known that?

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