oppositum [a (maybe) Nikolai Lantsov story] (currently being reviewed)

XIII

palace dining room

Once everyone was seated around the table. The Queen raised an eyebrow when she saw Lýkos hesitating to take the cutlery, not knowing which one to take. Nix gave him a discreet sign to indicate which one to take. But it did not go unnoticed by the Queen.

"Who are your parents young man? I don't seem to have seen you before during the balls held at the palace."

Nix turned to her mother and glared at her.

"Mother! You don't have to ask that question!"
"I don't see why your friend would be ashamed of his origins. And as far as I know, no one has spoken to you, Nix."
"You are right, my Queen, to ask who is around your daughter. It is only natural that you have never seen me at court. I am not a noble. My parents own only a modest farm north of Fjerda."

The Queen looked at him with unconcealed disgust.

"A peasant then. It is true I had forgotten that there is no social distinction among the drüskelles. But still, it would have been better if the princess had been with someone more... clean."

As soon as she said this, Nix stood up and walked towards his mother with a knife in her hand. Lýkos and Rasmus also stood up. One to stop Nix from doing something stupid and the other to protect their mother from Nix. The latter remained particularly calm despite the situation she was in. She looked disinterestedly at her daughter and sipped her glass of wine, as if Nix was not trying to cut her throat with a knife.

"You're turning fifteen in three days. Have you had your first bleed?"

This sentence stunned everyone. Nix dropped her pseudo-weapon, which fell to the ground and frowned.

"My what?"
"Bleeding. Every month, women bleed. This indicates that they are fit to have children. If you still haven't had any, it would be best to visit a healer to make sure you're not... sterile."

There was silence around the table. Nix was the first to come to her senses.

"Sterile? But don't they do tests at birth to check on things like that?"

The queen took another sip of her drink, deliberately making her audience wait.

"Oh, you know very well that your birth did not take place under the best possible conditions. Your father knocked up your mother during a war campaign. He stayed there until you were born, in the middle of a military camp. So it's not surprising that some of the procedures expected for the birth of a child of royal blood did not take place. And since the sterility test is a test that is often unnecessary because not all children are sterile, your father must have forgotten to give it to you when he came back here."

Nix pinched the bridge of her nose as she thought about what to do next.

'Mother has a lot of leverage, if I don't disprove her theory, she'll have the power to blackmail me all she wants and I'll be dead.'

"Well, I will submit to your test this afternoon. For now, let's finish our lunch and let me get comfortable with Lýkos in our apartments."
"Do what you like, girl. But don't forget our nice, little chat. On that note, please let me retire to my room, I still feel a little weak from your attempted assassination Nix."
"Fine Mother."

As soon as she and Lýkos had finished eating, Nix jumped out of her chair and took him by the arm, forcing him out of the room. She gritted her teeth as soon as the door closed behind them and took both of her friend's hands in hers.

"I am truly sorry for my mother's comments. She's a real asshole."
"You know you shouldn't say that about her, even though you're the princess... but otherwise it's okay. I'll just have to get used to it if we're going to stay friends."
"We shouldn't have to get used to taking derogatory comments just because we're not noble!"
"If you think so, then you can put it on your list of things you can't do..."

Nix ruffled Lýkos' hair, Lýkos gave his friend's hand a pat and tried to put his hair back in place.

"Come on, enough of the depressing stuff. Come check out the awesome rooms in the palace!"

When they arrived at Nix's room, she showed it to Lýkos, who marveled at the richness of the decorations, the furniture, the walls...

"Your room is the size of my house. And your house, the size of my village."
"I admit that I am hyper privileged... When I'm queen, I promise to fight against these inequalities!"

They lay next to each other in Nix's bed. This one was so big that they could have fit another person in it and had room to sleep.

"I really don't know how I used to sleep alone in a bed that big..."
"Yeah... You're going to have to invite me to sleep over every night, otherwise who's going to rock the lady like a baby when she has nightmares?"
"Certainly not you! Have you ever heard yourself at night? Your snoring is worse than a hibernating polar bear!"

Lýkos attacked Nix with tickling blows and they fought like this for several dozen minutes until they were out of breath.

"Later, will you be able to accompany me to the test? I don't feel like being alone with my mother..."
"No problem, and then what else do I have to do!"

They stayed like that for a few more minutes before Nix got up and decided that the sooner the test was done, the sooner their afternoon would be free and they could go visit the palace.
Once in front of the door to the queen's antechamber. Nix took a deep breath and knocked on the door.

"Come in, Nix! Only you!"

Nix winced at the thought of being alone with her mother in a closed room and offered Lýkos a sorry smile.

"It looks like you can't come in... And the way my mother is, she won't want me to take the test if you are in the room..."
"Don't worry, I'll wait here for you. If you need me to come in, just yell!Don't worry about the door closing, your screams are similar to volcras... My poor ears were bleeding whenever you saw a spider..."

Thanks to Lýkos, the atmosphere relaxed and Nix let a smile appear on his lips.

"Don't be silly..."

Shaking her head and laughing slightly, she opened the door, gave Lýkos a wink and closed the door behind her.

'Here we go...'

"I see you left your dog outside."
"Mother..."
"Don't give me a look like that Nix. You know as well as I do that you could never stay with that boy. But that's not what your visit is about. Sit there, a caretaker is coming."

Nix sat down in a chair across from her mother, without a word.

"Here she is."
"Hello Miss, relax, you will only feel a tingling sensation but our technological marvels allow an examination of your body without much trouble!"

The woman placed a small rectangular black box on Nix's thighs. The box began to vibrate for a few seconds and then a shrill noise was heard.

"What's going on!"
"The result My Queen... it's positive."
"What does that mean?"
"The Princess is sterile."