Welcome to Gaia! ::

"They said 'hey'," Amalirahc shrugged.

"And how much time did you give them to react?" the queen asked patiently, though she shifted her weight to one side and folded her arms, looking pointedly at the boy.

Amalirahc shrugged again. "I dunno. I saw the doors and I was bored so I went in."

Lothiriel sighed. "I would say I'm going to speak to your parents, but I'm afraid they have enough to worry about at the moment. Still." She eyed the boy thoughtfully for a moment. "That will do. Come to my study after dinner this evening. You do remember where that is, do you not?"

Amalirahc nodded, though rather than looking afraid of being punished, he seemed more ... curious ... and confused. "Um ... okay."

Lothiriel smiled at Miyuki. "By all means," she agreed. "I apologize for not being more ready to welcome you, but I do also need to rest. Feel free to explore ... just be careful which doors you go through. If you're unsure, ask. There are plenty of guards around."

She eyed Miyuki as she said this, and her look clearly said, Make sure Amalirahc listens to you.

Lothiriel's smile widened. "Wonderful. I hope you enjoy yourselves. I will see you again at dinner."

And with a wave and a nod of the head, she was off, heading down the corridor in the direction that Miyuki and Amalirahc had just come from.

"This way," Amalirahc told Miyuki again, leading her forward once more. "The library's this way."

Amalirahc blinked at Miyuki, genuinely surprised by her question.

"I told you," he repeated. "I was bored so I wandered around looking for people. And the only people I found was the king and queen but they were busy so I had to keep wandering and being bored."

A puzzled expression crossed his face. "I wonder why Queen Lothiriel wants to see me in her study after dinner."

He blinked at her again, even more surprised now.

"Why?" he asked her, sounding hurt now. "I just said hello! Mama and Papa say it's polite to say hello."

He paused. "Well ... that one guy with the chains on him, he didn't seem very happy with me, but the king and queen didn't seem to mind too much. They just said hello back and said they would be with us at dinner but I should go rest for a while because of our long trip."

Of course, he was used to people showing and saying what they meant, rather than people saying one thing to hide what they were really feeling. Then again, he was just a young boy, and he hadn't yet been in a situation where someone couldn't say what they meant. Until now.

Amalirahc felt a twinge of fear. "You mean they were angry with me but they were trying not to show it?" he asked. "Like Mama when I do something dangerous?"

Young he might be, and inexperienced, and clueless, but when something was explained to him, he was decent enough at drawing parallels and getting the point. How long it lasted was another question.

"Oh." Amalirahc felt terrible, and he was quiet for a while, right up until they reached the library doors. He was thinking about what Miyuki had told him, and starting to feel nervous about his appointment with the queen after dinner.

But at last, after passing down many corridors and going up two flights of stairs, they reached the library.

"Um ... should we knock?" he asked Miyuki, worried that he might get in trouble if he just wandered in again, as he had done with the throne room.