<div class="floatright">(http://i.imgur.com/9wf9MTP.jpg)</div><br/>A week prior.....<br/><br/>At seven feet tall, with muscles stacked on muscles, battle prowess the likes of which few in the land could match, a host of skilled and fanatically loyal knights at his beck and call, and the primal power of the Griffon totem as his own, there was very little that gave Eiygil Vallen cause for worry, or even posed a credible threat to him. He was, by all estimations, the mightiest warrior that the Emerald Empire had seen in many decades. He feared nothing, and was threatened by nothing.<br/><br/>Well, almost nothing.<br/><br/>"Eiygil, you really need to find a suitable wife. I'd like to have grandchildren sometime before I die." His mother said for the thousandth time as she hammered away at a piece of hot metal, the steady 'clank, clank' and the rush of the bellows as she pumped them with her foot filling the air, sounds as familiar to him as the speech he knew was coming.<br/><br/>"All of your cousins have whole broods of children. Rhys gave birth to her fourth just last week, and here I am a withered old crone with no grandchildren to dote on because my big, important son can't be bothered to so much as say hello to a young lady. Hand me the tongs, dear."<br/><br/>Eiygil groaned and handed his mother the iron tongs, which she used to flip over the red-hot metal that would soon be a fine longsword of quality rivaled only by the greatest dwarven smiths, and even some of them couldn't do work as fine as old Eiydas. Her weapons were highly sought-after by the best warriors in the land because of their superior craftsmanship - she cast each weapon from a single piece of metal, shaping it in its entirety without any of the melding of separate pieces that most smiths did.<br/><br/>"Ma, really....I'm busy keeping the royal family protected and dealing with threats all over the empire. I don't have time for courtship and trying to impress some woman. Besides, none of them would even give me the time of day if it wasn't for my title."<br/><br/>The old smith huffed, an action that caused her hair, once golden-blonde but now turned snow-white with age, to shake loose from the leather thong that she'd tied it back with and cascade around her muscular shoulders.<br/><br/>"Well then, make time. You spend your days in the company of countless lovely young women of good breeding. Some of them have to be single, and goodness knows you're a strong, virile young man. Women should be climbing over eachother to get into bed with you. Why can't you at least be like other rich men and get a lover? Illegitimate grandchildren are still grandchildren."<br/><br/>That caused Eiygil to groan again.<br/><br/>"Ma...that is not appropriate..."<br/><br/>And it went on like that for several hours, as it always did whenever he visited his mother. She'd drop the subject for a while, and they'd talk about more pleasant subjects..then the conversation somehow always ended up back at Eiyda bemoaning her lack of grandchildren.<br/>---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------<br/><br/>Eiygil remembered that long, painful last visit and decided that maybe it<strong>was</strong>time to give this whole courtship thing a try, if for no better reason than to quiet his mother down. All he had to do was make some vague overtures to any noblewoman at all, and his mother (and the rest of the kingdom) would hear about it at the speed of rumor, which was much faster than the speed of light. So, with his official duties discharged for the moment and the prince and princess properly attended to by lady Von Haj's servants, Eiygil gathered his courage and looked around, giving the two recently-arrived women, both well-dressed, a lookover and settling on the one the herald had announced as the Duchess of Aspia before he strode over, standing a respectful distance away and giving the duchess a low bow. At worst, he'd get a few moments to talk to the duchess about the troubles in her lands, which he'd thus far been ill-informed about.<br/><br/>"Your grace. While we await our hostess, might I have a few moments of your time?"