A Tale Of Queens

For a Feast

As the weeks went by, Alti and Sa-Alti began to pull ideas together for the feast.

Once again, they became mother and daughter. All was seemingly forgotten, including Vileytna. Not once was she mentioned. Bringing her up was a bomb waiting to explode, so for the sake of it, they avoided the topic entirely.

They instead talked about trivial things pertaining to the feast. They bonded with baby Mahlon and tried to have breakfast together on most days. Alti for the first time in years, put more effort in coming down early so that Sa-Alti would not wait too long. It was the small things that brought them together.

And they were both trying.      
 
Sa-Alti, on one hand, tried to savour these moments with her mother because she was well aware that a storm was coming. One that they may never be able to recover from as a family.

Alti, on the other hand, was very grateful that their relationship was getting better. So grateful that she chose to ignore the nagging feeling at the back of her mind that Sa-Alti was hiding something from her; so grateful that she could only keep her opinions to herself when she noticed how close Sa-Alti was getting to this Jyaret character. While she could only hope that it was not what she was thinking, what would she gain by rocking the boat? Especially now t h a t Sa-Alti was coming back to her senses?

When this was all over, Vileytna would be with Emperor Xhante, Qasahn would remain wherever he was for all she cared, they would raise her grandson together and this Jyaret, who was here for whatever reason, would become old news.

It was only a matter of time.

******

The day of the feast was fast approaching and the preparations were reaching a screeching crescendo.

Sa-Alti could not help but admire her mother's organisation skills. She was great at multitasking. The decorations for the hall down to the meticulously picked table cloths; the carefully planned seating arrangements; the entertainment which comprised of the best band in Khelet and a visiting dance group and the catering crew that included the top chefs from the royal kitchen to take care of the food.

All was in order, it seemed.

During this time, Sa-Alti did her part in helping out as much as she could and Alti was thankful for her assistance.

She did not realize in the midst of the chaos, that she had entirely forgotten a key aspect of this feast.

The wine.

Her thoughts were as expected, overwhelmed with the many other things that needed to be done.

If Alti had been paying attention, she would have known Sa-Alti was almost entirely the reason why such an important thing slipped from her mind. She would have noticed how her daughter always diverted the conversation to other matters any time she remembered the drinks. And how she was always pointing out the most mundane of mistakes at the most peculiar times, distracting her from her original thought process.

However, Alti was not paying attention.

Therefore, it was only a week before the feast, when it had already been announced throughout the kingdom that she realized her mistake. Naturally, she began to panic, wondering how on earth she could have been so careless.

Fortunately, Sa-Alti just happened to have the foresight to double check and assured her that all had already been taken care of. The winery was almost through with their order and the wine was strictly alcoholic. Alti was more than pleased with her daughter's vigilance and was able to relax knowing that everything was handled.

Her sense of relief was presumptuous to say the least because she was about to find out that not a drop of all that wine was alcoholic.

Only, a little too late.