It seemed, for the moment, no-one was making any unusual moves towards the princess at this very moment. For now, at the very least... no, much of the crowd seemed quite distracted by the sudden disappearance of the cake.

"Ah, Sir Gerard, was it?" Eliabelle said with a smile as the knight approached, "Aside from the sudden disappearance of the cake, we're doing quite well."

She frowned again, as her eyes returned to the empty space the enormous ode to all that was baked goods had once sat.

"Really, who takes an entire cake? It must have been a mage..."

Fanilly glanced towards Sir Gerard. Was something the matter? It wasn't as if she had any particular reason to suspect as such aside from the vanished cake, but when one of her knights suddenly approached her, asking if all was well... it arose suspicions. She didn't want to ask in front of the Princess, disrupting the mood would have hardly aided anything and she didn't want to frighten Eliabelle either, especially if it turned out that nothing was wrong at all. Ah... she couldn't really count on her questioning look towards her knight coming across at all, either... 

What was she to do?

Before she could say much else, however, there was suddenly more commotion towards the gardens, drawing much of the crowds' attention. Perhaps now would be the time to look for an intruder? Though nothing seemed out of the ordinary at the moment...

[hr]

"Manti... core...?"

Violette tilted her head. She had only ever heard of such a creature, and to know it existed and was actually something that a living person could encounter... that did serve to catch her interest, certainly. Even if she quickly tried to bury it under a much less intrigued expression, looking away once more.

It was only obvious she wasn't the type who was often honest with her interests.

"... I suppose something like that is different, at least..."

In the gardens, the black knight stared at the sudden approach of the seemingly-drunk Elwen. They said not a single word, expression completely hidden behind their face-concealing armet, but at this distance one thing was perfectly clear:

The knight was incredibly tall. Over two meters, perhaps even more. This cut quite the striking figure, especially combined with the completely black armor. Additionally, the knight was equipped with a short sword on one hip, but also an incredibly long zweihander, larger than all but perhaps the blade wielded by the Iron Rose Knights' eldest member, matching the huge knight's height at [i]least[/i].

The knight continued to say nothing, but the small girl with dark gray pigtails swiftly interposed herself between the two of them. She was young, thirteen perhaps at the oldest, wearing a navy blue dress in contrast to her fair skin and light brown eyes.

"Haelstadt isn't this Sir Gareth, drunkard," she protested immediately, "And neither of us have a single interest in entertaining your boorish behavior." 

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