Love, Tea & Scones

Cold Cherry Tea

Terra barely slept that night, she was far too worried about what was going to happen in a few hours time. Terra lived in a small elvish town about an hour's carriage ride away from the capital of Denirir, the name of the forest the wood elves lived in. Terra had been to the capital twice in her life and both times she was accompanied by one of her grandparents. This would be her first time being away from home without any family member near by. She was terrified by this, what would happen if something went horribly wrong? Where would she go?

The royal guard who had came into the café just a few weeks before to get women to sign up for the competition was one of two guards who come to take Terra to the capital. Sir Darryl was wearing his armour made from magically strengthened and reinforced leaves and had a long spear in one of his hands. "Good Morning Miss Riverglade!" He greeted Terra enthusiastically. "Good Morning to you Sir Darryl!" Terra replied back with a weak smile. The guard with Sir Darryl didn't introduce himself and he looked like he didn't want to be there at all. "Forgive this young man's rudeness" Sir Darryl siad as he gave the other guard a disapproving look "It's his first time going a mission like this so he doesn't know how to behave!". Terra laughed lightly "It is alright, I take no offence to it!".

Terra and Helga shared a tearful goodbye on the doorstep of the café. The shop owners on the street the café was on came out of their shops to see what was happening. "Promise me you'll write as often as you can!" Helga told her granddaughter as she wiped a tear away from her eyes. "I will!" Terra stated firmly. Helga knodded and siad one more thing before Terra was guided to the carriage outside of the café "Terra just remember to try to have some fun, I'm sure this competition wouldn't be anything too horrendous!". Terra knodded at her grandmother before stepping into the carriage. The nameless guard sat in the seat infront of her while Sir Darryl went to the front of the carriage to control the horses.

It was a very uncomfortable journey to the capital, the guard who got in the carriage with Terra didn't speak to her at all and instead just stared out the window the whole time. Terra fiddled with the cuff of her dress sleeve as she worried over what was expected of her when she actually got to the castle. Terra didn't know much about court etiquette, she knew she would have to curtesy to the King every time they would meet and that she could only speak when spoken to and to not use informal language around members of the King's Court but apart from that common knowledge things, she was never taught about what fork out of many were used for a particular dish. She also wasn't sure what she was expected to do when she had a bit of free time. Terra hadn't meet a lot of noble woman so she wasn't quite sure what they did all day. Terra knew what people in her economic and social status did all day, work. She presume that noble women who didn't have to work would do some kind of hobby they would enjoy.

Terra had arrived in the capital, the city was blooming with colour from all the flowers and trees and other plants within it. Wood elves thrived in nature so a wood elf city would look quite different from a human city. Nature was incorporated everywhere they could in the city and the architecture had a lot of sharp features to them but with intricate details to the structures like swirls or other designs to give the buildings more of a personality and to make them more personalised.  The royal castle was a sight to behold, a large castle made from stone and wood with beautifully crafted coloured windows with images of nature on them. The entire castle also had plants scaling the sides of the walls and the plants were planted in a specific way to make a grand design of a fox chasing a rabbit in one of the palace gardens, or so Terra had heard as she had never seen the castle gardens herself. She guessed that she would soon so she could verify that rumor for herself.

The creaking carriage shudder to a halt and Sir Darryl jumped off his seat at the front of the carriage to open the door for Terra and the nameless guard. The nameless guard got out of the carriage as quickly as he could without even saying goodbye to Terra. Sir Darryl helped Terra out of the carriage like the gentleman he was and Terra thanked him and smiled. Sir Darryl blushed and told Terra that it was no problem and it wasn't an everyday occurrence that he could help beautiful ladies out of carriages. Terra blushed and laughed off his complement. She wasn't used to receiving complements about her looks, she had recieved a lot of complements for her cooking and good customer service skills but for someone who wasn't her grandmother to tell her she was beautiful was a new experience and she didn't quite know how to handle it.