The Tulip Patio does look like a patio fit for a king or princess, between its ornate brass railings and busts of different animals around the edges and an ornate flower garden spilling off from almost every side and ornate wooden table and chairs with twining vines carved in.

The table is set comparatively simply, though - with eggs and several types of fruit and breads, along with juice and tea and water.

Alicia's father and mother are both there (dressed similarly-not-so-formally as her, without any crowns), as well as a couple attendants standing back by the railings.

"Alicia," her mother says with a smile, as well as what might be a trace of pleasant surprise.  "How good to see you.  I trust things are well with you?"

"...To give an honest answer to that question would be complicated beyond belief," she murmurs, with a look of faint concentration upon her face as if she is picking her way through a trapped hall, "but - certainly I am not worse than I was, in any real sense."

The Princess had a nightmare, or so she said, and positively terrified young miss Kergrove with an outbreak of courtesy in its wake.

Were this not the Kingdom's daughter, she would be interrogating her if she had her way.  Something's off.  No mere nightmare would cause this, not the nightmare of a spoiled Princess.

Then again, the Princess clearly isn't hiding whatever it is as well as she could have.  She admitted something changed, if in a rather deniable way, when she said what she said how she said it.

...Perhaps she'll learn more than she thought she would about this.

(None of this line of thought shows on her face, which is perhaps itself evidence that she is thinking something - the other attendant twitched, despite their discretion.)

Something is up that's visibly worrying poor Alicia more than any of her previous schemes or projects.  Jethelia has seen Alicia in the middle of dangerous magic experiments that might corrupt her; she's seen Alicia in the middle of schemes to slander and socially ruin other people (even though other people said it wasn't that bad); she's never seen Alicia looking like this.  Just based on that, she'd think Alicia had been stymied in whatever she'd been up to - which would probably be a good thing; as much as Jethelia hates to admit it, most of what Alicia's up to is bad for both the Kingdom and for herself - but then Alicia's saying it's good!

"I'm glad to hear that," she says aloud.  "And we can definitely make time for some complications this morning?  But here, have some breakfast."  She gestures over the table.

...That is certainly an expression upon her mother's face.

She is going to eat breakfast before she goes poking at that, though.

"Not complications.  Complicated.  There's a difference."

Annnnd how does breakfasting work around here, Princess --

...It's breakfast.  You do it like this.  Duh.

Jethelia isn't going to avoid this opportunity to talk with Alicia.

She takes a few bites of breakfast, wipes her mouth with her napkin even though there isn't any food visible on it, and says, "Things are rarely as complicated as one immediately thinks them.  They're often simpler if you tell someone else."

"Or else you find they're a lot more complicated than you think," King Ambrose remarks.  "Like that project trying to build that new railcar engine."

(He's also concerned about whatever's up with his daughter, but he's happy to keep a level head and let his wife try to get it out of her.  At least until she fails, or emotions threaten to get too heated.)

"Unfortunately, both of you are right about this one," she says - after making sure she's eaten a reasonable enough amount of food that fleeing the table is tactico-strategically viable.  "It's a very simple thing - but with implications...

"Implications that are at least as complicated as the rail, as spooky as Great-Aunt Ophelia when she's angry, and -" she is holding on to her composure by the skin of her teeth - "probably as dangerous as -" pause, consult Demon Lord Pronunciation Guide, "K'xabriguthak cultists."

Oh horrors, did Alicia get involved with demon cultists - "Alicia, demon cultists are evil!  They're happy to destroy everything, even you!"

(Surely Aunt Ophelia wouldn't get involved with them.  Jethelia doesn't care for her, but she knows there're some places even Ophelia wouldn't go.)

"Or if there is something else with implications that dangerous..."

Ambrose lets the sentence hang in the air, guessing that "we should know" wouldn't encourage Alicia to actually tell them.

"Dear gods, mother, do you think I do not know that?"

(She thought Alicia probably did, but whether she'd remember it or be carried away by emotions is another question.  She'd thought it wouldn't come up for another several years at least.)

Ambrose answers first.  "Of course you do.  So what is this complicated issue that I take it isn't literally demon cults and isn't literally Aunt Ophelia or railcar engines either?"

...This does not bode well.  She knows that name.  Everyone knows that name.  K'xabriguthak is supposed to be very dead, after a reign of terror that was put to a very decisive stop by a party of (mostly-Villarosan!) adventurers - most of whom married into nobility, whether here or elsewhere, and one who won the Ruling Seat.

Its cultists have never gotten the memo - but the theory she expects the Queen jumped to is rather contraindicated by Alicia being more kind after the inflection point.

(Morals are the most important things demon cults want to strip you of.  You can't burn unwilling souls for fell power in the name of your demonic overlord of choice while having any significant compassion for your victims, after all.  Not that she'd know.)

"I had...

"Let's call it a nightmare.  It was too real to be a nightmare - but a nightmare it was, is.  And in that nightmare...

"...Well.  There were K'xabriguthak cultists, plotting to - entrap me, and release him.  Several years from now, when I'm Royal Academy age.  They've learned subtlety, apparently.  And things went very wrong, very fast, from the point I encountered them, onwards - until all I could do was give everything I had to actually kill the Demon Lord.  At the cost of my own life, and likely the lives of - too many others.

"And then, I woke up."

...That is...certainly the sort of nightmare that could make one think.  For once in her life.  But - there's much more she hasn't mentioned.  Why have the cultists learned subtlety apparently?  Why is she so confident in this dream as to fear it?  What is going on?

That was the nightmare the Princess had?  Rill stares, despite all the talkings-to she's gotten before about staying in form.

... Yeah, if anything would disrupt her and maybe start changing how she's acting, that probably would.  Maybe it's genuine; maybe she just wants to recruit a better class of minions into her plotting.

Suddenly, Rill gasps.  Maybe the gods sent a prophecy to scare her onto the right track!

Her daughter's had a nightmare.  Of her death.

The question "is this informal enough for it not to be improper" flashes through her mind in a moment before being answered "yes", and Jethelia stands up and steps over and hugs Alicia.

(Is it a prophecy?  How can she encourage Alicia in good resolutions from this?  She'll be talking about all that soon, but not now.)

"Concerning indeed," Ambrose adds, reaching his hand across the table to squeeze Alicia's.

(The other side of his mind is musing:  Demon cults usually don't have much subtlety, but then the ones who don't would be the ones he'd hear about more.  Still, it makes sense they'd move fast... if that wasn't just an artifact of the dream...)

...The hug is not unpleasant, but her father's hand-squeeze worked better at calming her.  It comes from a place of - better understanding.

"There's things we can do about this.  I already changed that future, by telling you it existed.  The vision-me - well, didn't.  Possibly couldn't; I doubt she had this vision herself.  And if my guess is right -

"The Palace should receive a letter, soon, from the girl whose story this actually was.  Because - it wasn't my story, is the thing.  The vision was - about - her.  I was just...Also there.  Importantly entangled in the plot.  And...I think that's why I had this vision at all.  Aside from my fondness for Great-Aunt Ophelia meaning I'd know that it was one."

"Wise of you," he says at the comment about telling them the vision.

He's surprised (and lets himself show it) at the comment about its not being her story.  That, more than anything else, makes him think it's a real prophecy.  If Alicia's making up a story with a positive protagonist, she'd make it herself.  Unless maybe she's getting a huge favor; not that he's seen that before but he wouldn't be surprised...

"Who is this girl?  What did she do in the vision?"

"Lila Roisen, daughter of Ser Kosvin Roisen; she, well, investigated the K'xabrighk -- kfah, I'm just going to omit that one's name for now," she coughs, and continues "-- the demon cultists, working off of Ser Kosvin's recorded suspicions.  ...I think they've already gotten him killed over it."

Let's see...

If she just...this there this there and this there, branch timelines by character like so...

"Not entirely to scale, but -"

- add a touch of Light to the Arcane, and, "...yeah.  He's dead."

Jethelia glances over at her husband - he's taking the dream seriously as a prophecy?  All right then.  If Alicia's getting prophetic visions, it'll be all the more important to keep her on a more moral course.  Fortunately, it sounds like seeing her death has frightened her in the right direction...

"You know of Ser Kosvin?" she asks her husband.