Carfaxx’s Bi-Weekly Report on the State of Our Princess

To All Bonded and Allied Lunatics,

Filed under: Courtship Delays, Strategic Overextension, and Weaponised Hospitality

Esteemed lovers, partners, co-conspirators, and those currently pretending not to be one of the above,

As the newly installed Stallion of House Roseheart, I have now observed our Princess for long enough to offer a professional assessment.

We are all in terrible danger.

Not from assassins. From her schedule.

First: Courtship Negotiations.

After spending an impressive amount of time avoiding me because she had decided she already possessed too many people to care for properly, Franzi finally agreed to a date. Before doing so, she questioned whether my training at the Institute had left me with an actual choice in my career, offered me alternative employment if I ever wished to leave her hareem, and then insisted that we proceed slowly.

I would like the record to show that I had to reassure the Succubus Princess that sex with her was unlikely to constitute an onerous professional duty.

Lord Zareth then kissed me in front of her to demonstrate my flexibility. Franzi inhaled soup incorrectly, later wine, and I have learned that flirting with her at meals requires the presence of both a healer and a tablecloth with excellent stain resistance.

Second: Team-Building, Roseheart Style.

The Princess decided the Angels needed to learn cooperation with the Gargoyles, Drow, Fairies and household staff. She described this as a training exercise. Several other participants described it as an elaborate plan to take the Angels down a peg.

Both descriptions were accurate.

Please remember this when she says, "I have an idea for morale."

Third: The Title Situation Has Become Unmanageable.

During this reporting period she rescued Erica, accumulated more Commanders, entered the Demon Council, swore the Council’s ancient oaths and was formally recognised as Damian’s heir.

She accepted all of this with roughly the same expression another woman might use when told she had accidentally subscribed to a second newspaper.

I have started a title ledger. Serena has informed me that parchment is cheaper if purchased in bulk.

Fourth: Property Hunting Is Not Supposed to Involve Conspiracies.

Franzi has now demonstrated an alarming inability to inspect an estate, town or political district without uncovering corruption, hidden danger, social injustice or someone who urgently needs rescuing. What began as searching for suitable property repeatedly turned into investigations, political conversations and new obligations.

I am beginning to suspect she regards the phrase quiet afternoon as a personal challenge.

Fifth: Emotional Labour Remains Her Favourite Form of Self-Harm.

She continues to take responsibility for the safety, happiness, rehabilitation and future prospects of almost everyone who comes within Portal range. This includes staff, refugees, prisoners, villages, allies, lovers and occasionally sentient geography.

I have explained that caring for people does not require personally carrying every one of them uphill.

She listened very attentively.

Then she went and helped someone uphill.

Ongoing Concern: She still believes other people’s needs are evidence that she should work harder rather than evidence that she should delegate.

Future Trouble, Pending: She has begun looking at the Commanders with the expression of a woman who has realised competence is attractive. I decline to predict where this leads. I am not paid enough, despite being paid very well.

Final Status:

Household morale rising. Princess dangerously functional. Romantic denial weakening. Administrative workload breeding when unsupervised.

Yours in increasingly professional exasperation,

Carfaxx Nightfall, Stallion of House Roseheart

Emotional Architect, Hareem Mediator,

Apparently Keeper of the Expanding Title Ledger

← Before: Start of current memo archiveNext →: Weeks 5–6 · Days 29–42

Carfaxx’s Bi-Weekly Report on the State of Our Princess

To All Bonded and Allied Lunatics,

Filed under: Plausible Deniability, Livestock Acquisition, and Unauthorised Kingdoms

Esteemed lovers, partners, co-conspirators, and anyone who has recently had to explain our household to a government official,

The Princess has survived another reporting period. Several institutions have not.

First: The Incognito Night Out.

Franzi, Serena, Erica, several Commanders, Grey, Thallos and assorted allegedly responsible adults went bar-hopping through Hellrath under a carefully constructed cover story designed to make them appear inconspicuous.

Results included a drinking contest, poisoned darts, new throwing knives, relationship counselling for pirates, a singing competition lost to a pantsless Satyr, at least two goats, and a bar fight after three nobles insulted Thallos.

Nobody died.

This fact has been repeated to me several times as though it constitutes proof of restraint.

For the record, the Princess took off her earrings before the fight. I consider this one of the clearest threat assessments she has ever produced.

Second: Hangovers Are Apparently Optional.

The following morning, Franzi used Healing to sober herself, drank coffee, and immediately began a Roseheart Council investigation. When asked to identify people taking substantial bribes, she opened dozens of spy portals. When someone wished aloud that the portals showed names, they did. When another person wished they showed what the bribes were for, they did that too.

I am adding "do not give her Powers ideas before breakfast" to the household safety manual.

Third: The North.

What began with Northern visitors and political complications became the Trial of the North. Ordinary magic was restricted. The terrain tried to kill her. The Brunnmigi tried to keep her. The mountain tried to freeze her. She still stopped to help other competitors and refused to leave Harald when he collapsed near the end.

There is no joke in this section.

She came back to us exhausted beyond reason and had burned through everything she had. I would prefer not to repeat the experience of waiting while people I care about decide whether she has merely overextended herself or finally found the limit that kills her.

Fourth: Naturally, She Won a Country.

After sleeping for two days, Franzi woke to discover that the Viking Elders intended to crown her Konungr. She attempted to hand the job to Harald. They declined.

She then asked whether all her consorts became kings of the North and whether we would receive matching crowns.

Michael informed her that Konungr is the ruling title regardless of gender. Ebon then informed her that the North is roughly twice the size of the Demon Empire.

She pulled the blanket over her head.

A sound strategic response, in my professional opinion.

Fifth: Rest Compliance Statistics.

Voluntary naps: inconsistent.

Meals: improving when supervised.

Feeding: improving.

Unconsciousness caused by catastrophic overexertion: one incident too many.

Please do not point out that the final category technically produced forty-eight hours of bed rest. I have already heard this argument and rejected it.

Ongoing Concern: Franzi continues to believe that if she can physically endure something, she should.

Future Trouble, Pending: A Northern coronation, another title, and Cassandra with access to event planning resources.

May the gods have mercy on the seating chart.

Final Status:

Morale shaken but recovering. Goat population unexpectedly increased. Princess now owns more sovereignty than common sense.

Yours while updating three separate emergency protocols,

Carfaxx Nightfall, Stallion of House Roseheart

Emotional Architect, Hareem Mediator,

Keeper of the Emergency Nap Schedule and Goat-Related Incident Log

← Before: Weeks 3–4 · Days 15–28Next →: Weeks 7–8 · Days 43–56

Carfaxx’s Bi-Weekly Report on the State of Our Princess

To All Bonded and Allied Lunatics,

Filed under: Diplomatic Ambushes, Medical Glitter, and the Fiction of a Quiet Tour

Esteemed lovers, partners, co-conspirators, and anyone who has ever scheduled a single event around Franzi and expected it to remain a single event,

We need to discuss the meaning of the word itinerary.

Franzi appears to believe it means "a list of places from which emergencies may conveniently find me."

First: The Peace Treaty That Refused to Stay a Peace Treaty.

The formal diplomatic gathering was meant to involve rulers, negotiations and a treaty. It did, eventually. It also involved Franzi healing people, opening emergency Portals, rescuing abducted Pegasi mares and foals, helping free extinct Unicorns, locating further captives and discovering additional trafficked women in a brothel.

At one point the lawn contained enough sovereigns, rescued prisoners, Portals and armed relatives to qualify as a small international crisis all by itself.

The treaty survived.

So did most of the furniture.

I am calling this a win.

Second: The Stallion Has Finally Been Explained to the Mistress.

Damian discovered that no one had properly explained to Franzi what a Stallion actually does beyond possessing a large reserve of sexual energy and being very decorative in formalwear.

He informed her that I am also supposed to monitor the health of the hareem, mediate emotional disputes, make sure nobody is neglected, coordinate time and help her recognise when she is running low.

Her response was essentially: Oh. That would have been useful information.

Yes.

Yes, it would.

I would like it formally recorded that she has now agreed to regular check-ins with me. Everyone is encouraged to remind her of this whenever she attempts to solve relationship management through panic and spreadsheets.

Third: The Grand Tour Begins.

Cassandra calls it a diplomatic tour. Simon calls it politically necessary. Franzi calls it exhausting. I call it a moving collection of banquets, inspections, unexpected rescues and people falling in love with her competence.

Within days she had visited estates, endured formal hospitality, taken flying lessons, attended another ball and continued investigating the conditions of the Empire she may one day inherit.

I have instructed the travel staff to treat "free afternoon" as an emergency code rather than a genuine expectation.

Fourth: The Plague Village.

Franzi diverted from the tour when she learned that a village was dying from a magically altered plague. Healing a single patient took her an hour. There were hundreds more.

For once, she did exactly what I wish she would do more often: she asked for help.

The help arrived in the form of Pixies.

They came through her Portal, were put in protective suits, organised themselves into a tiny glittering medical corps and proceeded to combine healing, vulgar jokes, communal magic and an unreasonable quantity of sparkle into an effective public-health response.

The village survived. The dead received proper rites. Franzi collapsed from exhaustion only after the immediate danger had passed, which I am counting as progress with several reservations.

She woke with glitter on her eyelashes.

This is now medically documented.

Fifth: Return to Schedule, Apparently.

After sleeping nearly a day, she rejoined the tour at Dreadport looking, in Cassandra’s words, "like death." Franzi requested a bath, a dress and a bucket of coffee.

All three were reasonable requests.

The tour then continued through Korvale, family complications, Marquess Bowmont and Greenmere Hall because apparently recovering from a plague response is best achieved through consecutive noble visits.

Ongoing Concern: She is improving at asking for help, but still waits until the situation is large enough to require an entire species.

Future Trouble, Pending: The Grand Tour continues. I have asked Serena to stop using the phrase "nothing major scheduled" because the universe appears to hear her.

Final Status:

Diplomacy technically successful. Glitter contamination persistent. Princess alive, fed, and once again pretending exhaustion is merely an aesthetic choice.

Yours with a travel bag full of emergency snacks,

Carfaxx Nightfall, Stallion of House Roseheart

Emotional Architect, Hareem Mediator,

Now also apparently Logistics Officer for Glitter-Based Medicine

← Before: Weeks 5–6 · Days 29–42Next →: Weeks 9–10 · Days 57–70

Carfaxx’s Bi-Weekly Report on the State of Our Princess

To All Bonded and Allied Lunatics,

Filed under: Assassination Etiquette, Jinn In-Laws, and Institutional Worship

Esteemed lovers, partners, co-conspirators, and those currently waiting for the next diplomatic event to become violent,

The Grand Tour continues to provide Franzi with exactly what she needs most: rest, predictability and low emotional stakes.

That was sarcasm.

First: Tharnesk Forge Has Opinions About Hospitality.

The city welcomed the Princess with industry, politics, old family history and, eventually, an attack involving Jinn.

Franzi responded by producing a ring of roughly forty Portals, using specialised manacles against the attackers and personally helping bring the situation under control. One Jinn escaped the first round of restraints long enough to discover that the Princess is also perfectly willing to hit someone when diplomacy fails.

Afterwards, she was upset that lethal force had been used elsewhere before a trial could occur.

This is important. She can be terrifyingly effective and still immediately ask whether the process was fair.

It is one of the reasons people keep following her.

Second: The Jinn In-Laws.

Kaelir and Illira’s parents took an interest in Franzi.

For ordinary families, this might mean dinner.

For Jinn royalty, it involved elemental observation, questions about her nature, discussions of Portals, relationship customs and the rather alarming discovery that a parental blessing combined with the absence of a threat apparently constitutes "practically adoption."

Franzi also asked how Jinn propose.

I have logged this information and am refusing all follow-up questions until Kaelir stops looking smug.

Third: Sable Spire Has Made the Situation Worse.

The mages of Sable Spire staged an elaborate public presentation celebrating Franzi’s Portal network. They also expressed intense professional interest in her artificing and her staff amulets.

Then someone suggested building her a temple.

Her response was immediate.

"No temples!"

Not perhaps later. Not let us discuss theology. Not even thank you, but no.

Just a firm rejection delivered with the reflexes of a woman dodging an assassin.

I have noted the beginning of what may become a recurring religious-management problem.

Fourth: Infernal Crossing and the Rhylas Problem.

A formal visit turned into a political challenge, a hunt, an investigation and an increasingly unpleasant trail of diverted funds, ledgers and powerful people who had assumed nobody would compare the records.

They had not accounted for Simon, Cassandra or a Princess whose Portals can turn geography into a minor inconvenience.

I have stopped asking whether a city visit will uncover corruption. The useful question is now how many folders we need.

Fifth: The Jinn Tribunal.

The captured Jinn were eventually brought before their own people. The proceedings exposed motives, old grievances and the consequences of choices that had helped enable atrocities far beyond one realm.

Franzi did what she always does when everyone else wants a simple villain: she demanded the truth, all of it, including the parts that made judgement harder.

She left carrying more knowledge than she arrived with.

She also left carrying more emotional weight.

Please remember that the latter is not weight she needs to carry alone.

Sixth: Court Season Has Begun.

Raven’s Nest, Mirehaven, D’Asteroth, Nightfall Bastion, the verdict, then the Fae courts. By the end of this period she had reached the Ice Court and the Court of Dawnlight, having crossed enough cultures, customs and political minefields to make a professional diplomat request stronger alcohol.

Franzi continues to smile, ask direct questions and accidentally terrify people by treating ancient conventions as suggestions.

It remains remarkably effective.

Ongoing Concern: The Princess is now carrying political responsibility, trauma from repeated rescues, relationship complexity and growing religious attention simultaneously.

She has begun telling me she is "fine" with increasing fluency.

I remain unconvinced.

Future Trouble, Pending: More Fae courts, more ceremonies, and apparently more people wishing to interpret her existence as a theological event.

I am researching whether one can legally issue a restraining order against spontaneous sainthood.

Final Status:

Assassins discouraged. Mages fascinated. Jinn family relations complicated. Divine attention not yet under control.

Yours with a clipboard and deep suspicion of ceremonial invitations,

Carfaxx Nightfall, Stallion of House Roseheart

Emotional Architect, Hareem Mediator,

Reluctant Liaison to People Who Want to Build Her Temples

← Before: Weeks 7–8 · Days 43–56Next →: Weeks 11–12 · Days 71–84

Carfaxx’s Bi-Weekly Report on the State of Our Princess

To All Bonded and Allied Lunatics,

Filed under: Sentimental Hoarding, Divine Disrespect, and Avian Intrusion

Esteemed lovers, partners, co-conspirators, and emotional support predators,

This week’s update comes to you with more glitter, feathers, and emotional derailment than I was reasonably prepared to handle. Buckle in.

First: The Stray.

During Damian’s birthday procession, yes, the one with the banner snafu and the two nobles who fainted when Franzi blew a kiss, our Princess acquired a Zrixivak. A baby one.

I repeat. A. Baby. Zrixivak.

It landed on her shoulder in the middle of the parade. It was like a dark omen made cute. Its wings shimmered like cursed stars. Its eyes glowed with the hunger of a thousand dragons. Naturally, Franzi cooed.

Everyone assumed she’d swat it away. Instead, she fed it a sugared candied rose petal and named it “Misery.” It now refuses to leave her shoulder. It tried to steal her necklace. She let it. It perched on her head during dinner. Serena laughed so hard she spilled wine on a noble from the Moonlit Court, who now claims to be “blessed by shadows.” Misery has chosen. We’re all doomed.

Second: Temple Avoidance Update.

Despite my best attempts at reason, Franzi continues to insist she might spontaneously combust upon entry into the temple of the Sun. I explained that the gods in question are not fire-aligned. She then asked me if a fear of metaphorical fire still counted. I am in consultation with three theologians, a bard, and another Stallion colleague for an official answer.

I have therefore added “theological counselling” to my list of duties. Someone please distract her before she asks me if divine fire can be seduced.

Third: No Speeches Today.

Our Princess successfully avoided holding a public speech in Thragund by weaponising Mauven and young Thori. She smiled sweetly, handed them the metaphorical torch, and let them praise Damian until the crowd was in tears. Efficient delegation or masterful mischief, I leave to your interpretation.

She also spent fifteen minutes complimenting a statue of herself, which she swears she is both proud of and mortified by. I suspect both are true.

Fourth: Ongoing Concerns.

She still refuses to delegate certain emotionally draining tasks, despite multiple competent Commanders offering. She will burn herself out and look fabulous doing it. Please continue to send supportive messages and suggest naps, disguised as strategic planning sessions.

Fifth: Future Trouble, Pending.

The Zrixivak, Misery, hallowed be its hoard, has begun building a nest in her jewellery drawer. It hisses at anyone who opens it. Except Franzi. I suspect this will not end peacefully.

Final Status:

Morale unreasonably high. Glitter levels hazardous. Emotional stability under constant siege, but beautifully so.

Yours with a sigh and a small anti-glamour ward tucked in my hair,

Carfaxx, Imperial Stallion of House Roseheart

Emotional Architect, Keeper of Calendar Catastrophes,

Now apparently a Zrixivak handler too

← Before: Weeks 9–10 · Days 57–70Next →: End of current memo archive