Jaquelyn de Vere, Queen of the Shadow Court, hardly listened as the chamberlain announced the arrival of the latest Italian ambassador—a tall woman who did a much better job than the rest of her retinue at hiding the intimidation most humans felt at seeing the Shadow Court in all its dark glory. Jaquelyn, of course, already knew everything she could about this ambassador, from her political views to who she slept with on the way up: all knowledge was worth having, and the Court had ears everywhere.
She always found it interesting to see the reactions of newcomers to the Shadow Court. With a large part of it being composed of vampires, most of whom couldn’t withstand the daylight as long as Jaquelyn, most of its business occurred at night; for the sake of the humans, though, visitors were typically received just after sunset. The sky hadn’t quite gone black, but it was dark enough that no light came through the narrow slits of windows high up on the walls. Instead, most of the light in the room came as a dim glow cast upon the walls from hidden lights around the edges of the room, with similar lighting above, just barely bright enough to emphasize the architecture of the vaulted ceiling. Candlelight flickered off the polished surfaces of obsidian statues lining much of the back wall. Centuries ago, just after this palace had been built—it was only one of several belonging to the Shadow Court—Jaquelyn had enlisted the help of Barbazul and several mages to cover the dais and the center aisle leading up to it in a permanent, unnatural darkness. It gave her gilded ebony throne the appearance of floating over an abyss, and the fear on the faces of everyone about to take their first step onto the “rug” that appeared ready to swallow them never ceased to amuse.
Even more impressive than the room, though, was the Court itself: many ancient vampires stood in an arc to her right, with her human officers among them, while to her left, elves and mages practically dripping power completed the semicircle. Those who didn’t bear weapons seemed to be even more of a threat than those who did. On the bottom step of the dais, to her left, stood a mage representing the missing Aletta; she had been gone on business for several weeks. In the opposite position, to her right, was Jalen, the commander of her military forces, which were much more extensive than the human political powers knew. In the center of it all, the Queen sat in her throne, radiating confidence and authority. No mere figurehead like so many monarchs remaining today, her authority was real and absolute. She had built this from nothing, and everyone in the room knew it.
As the foreign diplomat began the walk along the path of darkness to the dais, Jaquelyn rose from her throne, descended to the bottom step of the dais, and gave the same traditional words of welcome for foreign ambassadors that she had a hundred times. Humans had such short lifespans.
She always found it interesting to see the reactions of newcomers to the Shadow Court. With a large part of it being composed of vampires, most of whom couldn’t withstand the daylight as long as Jaquelyn, most of its business occurred at night; for the sake of the humans, though, visitors were typically received just after sunset. The sky hadn’t quite gone black, but it was dark enough that no light came through the narrow slits of windows high up on the walls. Instead, most of the light in the room came as a dim glow cast upon the walls from hidden lights around the edges of the room, with similar lighting above, just barely bright enough to emphasize the architecture of the vaulted ceiling. Candlelight flickered off the polished surfaces of obsidian statues lining much of the back wall. Centuries ago, just after this palace had been built—it was only one of several belonging to the Shadow Court—Jaquelyn had enlisted the help of Barbazul and several mages to cover the dais and the center aisle leading up to it in a permanent, unnatural darkness. It gave her gilded ebony throne the appearance of floating over an abyss, and the fear on the faces of everyone about to take their first step onto the “rug” that appeared ready to swallow them never ceased to amuse.
Even more impressive than the room, though, was the Court itself: many ancient vampires stood in an arc to her right, with her human officers among them, while to her left, elves and mages practically dripping power completed the semicircle. Those who didn’t bear weapons seemed to be even more of a threat than those who did. On the bottom step of the dais, to her left, stood a mage representing the missing Aletta; she had been gone on business for several weeks. In the opposite position, to her right, was Jalen, the commander of her military forces, which were much more extensive than the human political powers knew. In the center of it all, the Queen sat in her throne, radiating confidence and authority. No mere figurehead like so many monarchs remaining today, her authority was real and absolute. She had built this from nothing, and everyone in the room knew it.
As the foreign diplomat began the walk along the path of darkness to the dais, Jaquelyn rose from her throne, descended to the bottom step of the dais, and gave the same traditional words of welcome for foreign ambassadors that she had a hundred times. Humans had such short lifespans.
Last edited by Jaquelyn de Vere on Sun Jul 14, 2013 6:33 pm; edited 2 times in total