"That would be much appreciated, thank you."

"All right, I'll do my best. I've been sort of cagey about my-daughter-the-queen as a subject anyway, so probably none of my friends will ask."

Iobel pats her mother's hand.

"I hope you haven't gotten too much trouble for your daughter being the queen?"

"Trouble, no, not really - curiosity some, though. And I had that awful letter in the back of my head -"

"I'm sorry I scared you, Mom."

"Oh sweetheart, it's all right, you were scared too - anyway I didn't think I had better talk about it so I sort of - made a face and said I hadn't been invited to the wedding, and that shut down most everyone."

Wince. "... I'm so sorry that happened."

Raney shrugs a little.

"Dad's not planning to visit," Iobel says, "at least not soon - he lives farther away - but I've explained everything to him, too."

Edarial nods, still looking sad.

"I'm just glad you listened to me when I told you not to tell a hundred people and start a riot. I mean, I guess that would have been one way to find out what was going on sooner, I suppose, but then there would have also likely as not been a riot."

"Well, I thought about it, but - it seemed like you wanted control of the situation."

... Fidget, fidget, look he's guilty again is anyone really surprised?

"Oh, I'm sorry," Raney says to Edarial. "This can't be helping."

"It's entirely fine," he says quietly.

"It turns out if you're the queen you don't have to handle your own wardrobe. Zephrys does a lot of good work for me and she's picked up my tastes really well."

"She is very good at her job," agrees Edarial. He's reminded of when he first saw her at their wedding, and... Yeah, Zephrys is very, very good at her job.

"I don't usually let her work on me for long because it's sort of hard to read while having makeup applied, but I wear whatever she puts out for me."

"Usually? Do you sometimes sit for her?"

"...I got very elaborately decorated for the wedding. And once about a month ago I asked her how much she could get done if I gave her fifteen minutes, and it was nice but not really worth my fifteen minutes."

Edarial thinks that if there is an appropriate time to compliment Iobel on her good looks, now is not it. It will possibly never be it, considering the circumstances of their wedding. He expects that she doesn't feel anything in particular towards him except a business transaction for a smart reason. So, he'll just hold off on making it anything more than it is.

"It's not like I go around hoping to stun people with the exact color of my eyelids, anyway."

Raney giggles. "Oh, I know, dear."