------------- Tales of the Raptors – Formal Affair

Graduation approached. It would be the last. The three alumni would have all graduated, and the four new members weren’t interested in higher education. Miri, one of the last to apply for acceptance to the prestigious Kar’Dhaer Academy, would be receiving her Letters in Alternative Magics and Letters in the Arts. Her fame had spread across the continent already, prompting over five hundred marriage proposals and one kidnapping. Her crystal vids were all the rage from Hobmarz to Kandevari. Her list of suitors and affairs was not easily recounted and included ambassadors, famous performers, and one very sorry Viridian lanista. So it was no surprise when Atheaen Saint’s Day rolled around, and a certain single King was supposed to be the guest of honor at a special formal affair at Castle Syvasgaard, Miri Vyron was on the guest list. Of course, the leaders of Syvasgaard wouldn’t dream of asking Miri to attend without bringing the rest of her company with her.

Thus the Night Raptors set about planning for something they hadn’t done yet, a formal state function, hobnobbing with Dukes and Barons, Kings and Presidents. Kami knew this routine, at least some of it. As the Chief Medical Examiner of Syvasgaard for almost a year now, she’d met with many of these people at assorted official functions. Wendy had as much experience with this as any of them. Her status now as a Kar’Thane Master and her recent missions to distant star systems had her name being spoken in these halls from time to time.

But the rest were new. Gwenvael and Chianna were barbarians compared to the rest. They’d spent most of their lives living in the wilds of the northlands, from Paleurevalla to Shabrund. Neither knew much about royal ceremony or social events. Rose was a common smith, a worker and a builder, a tinker and a maker. She was more likely to go naked than wear a dress and high heels. Erelae was something of an anachronism. She knew many of the Drovik here and had spent much of her life serving the Drovik as a Special Agent spying on the Splinter Kingdom. If any of the new girls could slip into an evening dress and hobnob with the royalty, she could.

But Miri, having spent everything she could enhancing her abilities, her charm and her appearance, with her long list of hits on the stage at the Midnight Sun and the Solarium, and the legends that were growing around her insatiable appetites and her growing harem of boy toys, from assorted students at Kar’Dhaer, to the Mord Elven Ambassador, to her permanently Charmed Minotaur and Hobgoblin guardians, would surely be the center of attention. If any of them screwed up and used their olive fork on their desert, nobody would be likely to notice.

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