At first the group worked in silence. There seemed to be a tenseness between the Lenz's, though Penelope couldn't tell if it stemmed from personal matters or simply because they were in the presence of one of the royal family members. Besides that, the knight was just simply focused on her work, her mind wandering to the preparations that needed to be done. Once the invitations were delivered, she have to start focusing on what she would be saying to the party attendees. As a lieutenant, she had spoken in front of big groups before but usually it was just to give out instructions or orders that usually came from higher ranking nobles. Addressing a big crowd with the intention of persuading them to back her cause would be much different.

"Sooo, how's Olivia? What did her and Gavin say about the battlefront? Any changes?" Naida asked curiously, pulling Penelope out of her thoughts. 

The knight glanced over at her friend and gave a small shrug of her shoulders. "Not much. Just that there were two battles since I last heard from them. Gavin said they were pretty harsh ones too, even though we did win one." she explained. "Aside from that, he also mentioned that my brother has been causing him a bit of trouble."

"Really?" Naida asked with an amused look.

Penelope nodded her head. "Layth's been trying to get rid of one of the rules I convinced the barons to enforce out there to help protect the outer villagers." The knight paused for a moment, unsure if she wanted to add the part about him also questioning him about Crow. While normally she would avoid risking Naida finding out anymore about their history at the moment, the party was only a few days away and it wouldn't be much longer after that that they would be courting. At least, so long as her father gave his blessing, which she was hopeful that he would. Perhaps she could afford to tell her friend a little bit more about her working with him. She casted a glance at the Lenz's, making sure the two weren't listening. Luckily it seemed they had struck up a conversation of their own so Penelope relaxed and whispered, "Plus he was trying to find out about Collin. He's not exactly a fan of your brother and he thinks I have something to do with him getting the position."

Naida blinked in confusion. "I don't understand. Why would he think that?"

"Well, back when we were on the battlefront, I actually worked with Collin to bring down a group of thieves that had killed our night guards and taken nearly half of our supplies.. Word got out that I had done that and well, a lot of my battalion wasn't approving of what I had done. Especially my brother." Penelope explained with a shrug. "As for why he doesn't like Collin, well that's more due to their past run ins being less than friendly since he used to be a thief and all."

Naida's eyes grew big with excitement and Penelope could already tell her story had only given the princess further encouragement to push the two together. "Well your brother has always been quite the pain in the ass anyways!" she said waving her hand dismissively. "That aside, why didn't you tell me about that before!" The princess grinned and nudged her friend's side suggestively. "Sounds like you two work well together."

Penelope rolled her eyes. "That's the exact reason why I didn't tell you sooner. I knew you'd just see it as another reason to keep trying to get us to court." she said with a small smirk. "I only worked with him at the time because who better to hunt down thieves than a thief? Luckily he was just willing to help due to our trip to Younis and then it just happened to turn out that the king was looking for him. No more, no less."

"Okay suuuree." Naida drawled disbelievingly. She casted her friend a mischievous look. "I still think you two would be perfect together... And more so than that, I think you're already smitten."

The knight blinked, a bit caught off guard by Naida's words. Recovering, she scoffed and focused her gaze back on the invitation she was working on. "I am not. You're just hoping that I am." she said shaking her head. 

"Uh huh.. Is that why you were cuddling in my room the other night?" Naida teased. 

A blush crossed over her cheeks as Naida brought up their slip up. She had been exhausted from all the running around that night and taking a break after showing Crow a bit of how to dance had been a poor decision on her part. "That only happened because you're the troublemaker that didn't wake us up." she said poking her friend's side. In an attempt to recover from her mild embarrassment, she shot Naida a smirk. "Shouldn't you be focusing on making invitations? You're starting to remind me too much of Olivia."

"Alright, fine. Personally I don't think I quite match up to her but I'll stop for now." Naida snickered as she turned her focus back onto the paper in front of her. Pleased that Naida wasn't pestering her about Crow, Penelope relaxed once more and instead struck up a more casual conversation with her friend as they continued to work.