When Lilliana saw Sophia approach, her eyes brightened to intense blue hues.  She gentley waved the girl over and stood a short distance apart from her brother. "O' Sophia!" She called, "a wonderful thing has happened to me just this past evening.  But I want to discuss it on the trails, if you don't mind riding alongside me again?  I thought perhaps we could-" Her manners returned to her and she touched her slightly pink cheek with her fingertips.  "Oh, how rude of me.  I don't believe you've met my brother, Prince Eurich, have you?  Eurich, this is my dear friend Sophia.  She knows a great deal of the world and of it's animals."  The Princess beamed and folded her hands in front of her, waiting for the two to "converse".<br/><br/>Eurich made a deep and graceful bow, taking the opertunity to glance over his sister's friend's countanance.  She was a charming-looking girl, Italian, he thought.  Perhaps she could keep Lilliana out of trouble, though he would certainly have to keep an eye on her as well.  Friends can become foes in an instant when power is on the line.<br/><br/>___________________________________________<br/><br/>Thothcapel sat again in her private chamber, watching her eunichs and maids move behind her.  They assembled in a line on their knees.  Only their heads were visable behind her own supernaturally-blurred reflection.  She was able to see herself in the mirror, but to the humans, there was nothing.  It unnerved them to only be able to see the back of her head, never to know her instant reaction to their tidings.<br/><br/>"What have you discovered?" She asked, in a kind of lulled mood as a result of her daughter's joy, whether or not it was truly deserved, she didn't know.  But because her daughter was in such a state of glee, it brightened the wildcat's green eyes as well.<br/><br/>"Your Majesty!" The eunichs chanted in one voice before the chief eunich spoke what the others had learned.  "We have discovered a plot by the Lord Rathbone of Brittany to slay your Highness while she feeds."<br/><br/>"Resolve the conflict." Which was code for, "I don't want to see him alive again."<br/><br/>"We have also learned..." the eunich began again, touching the back of his thin head of hair.  "of part of a scheme to do something with the piping of the castle."<br/><br/>Another man, this one much younger than his superior, spoke up. "We are unsure of whom or what is involved, but we are searching the lower levels of the stronghold."<br/><br/>"We foreswear, we shall find the conspiritors."<br/><br/>"You had better be doubtless." The Queen warned, wondering what on earth someone could be doing in the pipes.  It was perplexing, mostly because this technology was still very new to her.