Chapter Four
Being Proud
Richard awoke the next morning feeling very refreshed and ready to take on the world, but his stomach growled and reminded him that he had other things to do before that. He quickly headed down to the dining room where the maid had said breakfast was going to be served, and hoped he wasn't too late and had already missed it. He had slept in by an hour after all. When he arrived at the dining hall he quickly found that people were still eating though, and that one of them was currently charging at him with a high pitched squeal right before she latched onto him by the neck and nearly knocked him backwards and onto his butt.
“Richard!” Lisbeth screamed into his ear and hugged him savagely. “Lythia said you were back!”
Richard quickly pulled the excited girl off of him and smiled at her while she beamed right back at him. “Lisbeth? What are you doing here?”
“She's staying with us over break because her parents hate her,” Lythia said from the table. Richard looked out over the room and found the whole family sitting down to a hot breakfast. Lythia was prodding at something on her plate, Coni nibbled at a piece of fruit while reading the same book from last night, and Aura was just finishing up her meal while watching what was going on around her with mild interest.
“Lythia invited me to stay over for a while,” Lisbeth whispered so the girl who was grumpy for the first few hours after waking up couldn't hear. “I'm so glad to see that you're safe! It must have been horrible for you being held captive by those criminals!”
“Wha-” he began to question, but was cut off by a fierce glare from Aura. “I'd uh… I'd rather just forget about it. The good news is that I am back and I am alright.”
“Well I'm glad to see you back. School wasn't the same without you. Right Lythia?” Lisbeth asked, but the only response she got from Lythia was a grunt and a growl that made her sound more like an animal than the youngest daughter of the Proud Family.
“You should hurry up and eat, Richard,” Aura said from the head of the table. “The Queen has asked to see you in an hour, and I don't think you will have much free time after that; so eat as much as you can now.”
Lisbeth hugged Richard once more and then let him sit down at the table next to Lythia so he could eat. A maid quickly showed up and placed a tray of food in front of him before disappearing again. One thing he noticed about this mansion that was different from the palace was that the staff were hard to find. He knew they were around, but he guessed Aura and the others preferred if they didn’t see them all the time.
“What does she want to see me for?” he asked after stuffing his mouth full of strange but delicious tasting sausage. “I just talked to her last night.”
“You're possibly next in line to the throne, engaged to the crown princess of the Dark Elf nation, and her second cousin; so I'm sure there's a lot she would want to discuss with you. But today is mostly about stepping out into the public eye and showing that you are okay after being freed from captivity. Now eat up and get changed, because we leave in twenty minutes.”
