As Lith entered the Elven Court, he couldn't help but feel the contrast of this court with his own back at home.
The Elven Court was definitely luxurious with the tall ceiling, white marble flooring, open air ambience, and so on, but the most striking feature that Lith noticed was how well it was blended in with the World Tree and nature.
Instead of seats made up of fine wood that Lith had expected, there were big lotus-like plants everywhere in the court.
Instead of being in a closed room like how it usually is, it was present on a small tree branch, multiple thousand feet above ground.
There was a tree branch in the middle of the court and in comparison to other humongous branches of the World Tree, this one was too small and thin.
But, there was a flower bed of various different flowers on top of the branch and also many coming out of the sides. It was similar to the red carpet the vampire court had in the middle that led to the throne.
The lotus-like seats were hovering above air and the throne was of a dark brown color, seemingly looking like it was made from the finest of wood in the world.
The sun shone brightly but it's rays were blinding or overpowering in the this open air court. There definitely was a spell somewhere that worked in shifting the intensity of the sun.
Lith was amazed to see it and only now he was starting to realize that he was indeed missing out on things in the world. There was so much to see and it wasn't good to stay cooped up in one place.
Agalea and Alea, watching visible amusement on his face, smiled.
Agalea commented, "Do you know how long it took to make this court?"
Lith looked at her and shook his head. He had no idea.
Agalea chuckled and said, "Nobody knows. This place was like this when we found it. So the amount of time that may have taken to have this place built would probably be proportional to the growth of the World Tree."
"Ah." Lith said in surprise. 'So it was a trick question, lol.' He thought to himself internally and smiled.
Hearing the conversation start, Alea finally said while looking around, "Mama, where is Miss Jasmine?"
She couldn't find Jasmine in the court and asked.
After Jasmine brought them to Lith, she seemed to have disappeared for some reason.
Agalea looked at Alea and said, "I told Jasmine to take a vacation and so she's gone for a while."
"What?" Alea was surprised.
"Indeed. Because now we have someone else for that job, don't we?" Agalea pointed her finger at Lith and showed Alea who this new person was.
"Oh. Little cousin will be taking Miss Jasmine's job?" Alea asked.
Agalea nodded. "That's right. He'll be the chief aide for a while."
"Okay, okay." Alea nodded her head. It made sense to her because Lith was here just for that sake.
Lith looked at Agalea and asked, "Won't there be problems if I am replacing such an important person, aunt?"
Lith knew the importance of the chief aide. Without them it would be really very difficult to manage everything.
Take Luna for instance. If she wasn't around, it would be a headache for all the three Evures to manage everything from small things such as accounting to big things like maintaining stability of the whole society.
Although Luna had changed from being his mother's personal maid to being his, the job she usually did wasn't changed and she was still incharge of all things.
It was for this reason that like traditional maids, Luna didn't roam around with Lith when he was in the castle or outside. She would only provide her services if he called for her.
If he was in the castle, calling her only needed a single clap of his hands and if he was outside, he just had to imbue some spiritual power into a small token present with him or create a spell in between his fingers and break it with a snap.
It was an interesting way of calling his maid and Lith was sure that he could call her right here as well if he snapped his fingers.
By asking Agalea the question, he wanted to be sure if his aunt's aide was away fully as in actually having a vacation or if she was working on other things in background.
Agalea smiled and said, "Oh, don't worry."
"Alr—"
"...There will be a lot of problems for you to solve, fufu." Agalea cut off Lith's response and said, surprising him.
Lith couldn't help but look at her giggling and wondered whether all ladies who had become mothers, automatically awakened the instincts to bully children or was it just his own mother and friends.
Agalea didn't know what was going in Lith's head, but watching her nephew show such a nice reaction made her continue to giggle.
As for Alea, she didn't say anything and just quietly stood at her side, looking at different things in the court. She had no interest in this conversation for some reason.
Lith conversed with Agalea for a bit as they walked on the flower bed of the court.
Soon they reached the throne and Agalea made Lith stand at a certain position at the side of the her throne.
"Nephew Lith, you'll be assisting me on many things. Since you asked so nicely in the banquet, aunt will let you have a free reign over things. But of course, the officials won't listen to you because you're new. So anything you have to say to them, you'll have to say it to me and I'll convey it."
"You now have the full control over things and if I don't see any stability within the coming one year, you'll have to step down, okay?" Agalea instructed Lith in the best possible way she could.
Lith nodded. It was a responsible thing and he felt nothing wrong it. But as he heard her last line, his inner demon couldn't help but smile and ask,
"So what aunt means to say is I can continue to be her aide as long as I am doing everything nicely?"
Agalea chuckled. "That's right. Jasmine will become jobless if you do everything right."
Lith smiled and didn't speak further. This was the max he was going to open up for now.
Agalea told Lith many things after the jokes were over and among them included the various responsibilities he had.
It took her ten minutes to explain everything and finally when she was done, she said, "I'll be calling a court meeting to discuss things that happened in the banquet a month ago. I hope you're ready."
Lith nodded. "I am. Please call them whenever you want."
Agalea nodded. She turned to look at Alea who was sitting on one of the lotus seats and asked, "my dear, do you wish to attend the court session that'll happen now?"
Alea looked at her mother and shook her head. "Mama you know that I dislike politics."
Agalea chuckled. "I asked just in case you had a change of mind."
Alea got up from her seat and smiling, turned to look at Lith and did a thumbs up in his direction.
"Little cousin, good luck and do well! I'll be cheering for you while away from the court. Come quickly to me when you're done, okay?"
"Baibai~" Alea waved her hand and left without waiting to hear Lith's response.
Lith didn't understand why she said that and turned to look at Agalea, expressing he didn't understand what had just happened and how to respond to it.
Agalea looked at him and smiled. She could tell what was on his mind.
"My Alea doesn't like politics for some reason. Even when I had asked her to stay with me and watch from the sidelines, she had refused and gone away."
"I see." Lith had no other response to that explanation.
Agalea then smiled and patted Lith's shoulder. "We can't have you wear that a suit when you're in an elven meeting. You need a change of clothes to blend in."
Tap! Tap!
She patted his shoulder twice and soon Lith's suit was gone and he changed into white formal robes of the Elven royalties.
Agalea tied his hair to better fit the elves and make his ears be visible.
Vampires had pointy ears as well, they weren't long like elves, but sure were pointy and longer than normal human ears. So it wouldn't be a problem for Lith to blend in.
Having Lith dressed up, Agalea then made Lith change his hairstyle.
He went from having a rough man bun to something very different.
There were two braids at one side of his head. Their ends weren't visible as it was hidden beneath his long hair that was set to fall freely.
Except for the two braids at the side, there wasn't anything fancy and just that his hair was combed properly in such a manner that it appeared extremely silky and smooth.
His now looked a lot more handsome and charismatic according to Elven standards and there was no way anyone would think he was a vampire.
After dressing Lith up, Agalea said, "Get ready, the officials should be here any moment now."