9) Reindeer

Iola’s mouth was agape as she gazed on the magnificent creature next to Thimble. She had thought to simply drop by the Archives when she had been told Thimble would be in for her usual seasonal activities - she’d wanted to meet the young archivist who she had heard so much about. In her opinion, the Archives could tend to be very dull and gloomy. Nepra was very devoted to her job, sure, but it was always so quiet and somber. She had long thought they needed some livening up, if only to keep the employees inside aware they were living beings and not there to be archived themselves…

And Thimble had most certainly been doing that! She’d seen smiles on archivists for the first time after last year, so she had to meet the person causing that now.

She hadn’t expected a creature made of golden lights to accompany the young archivist. It reminded her of an Earth reindeer, a creature she recalled from storybooks she had seen before the war. A beautiful creature.

“Does your summon have a name?” she asked Thimble, as she reached the head of the line. It had to be a summon, didn’t it?

Thimble seemed to go through several stages of surprise and confusion. “Q-Queen Iola?”

…right, that did seem to happen a lot with other dextroluma when they met her. She always forgot that the title surprised people, for some reason. What did they think Royals did all day, anyways? “You’re Thimble, right?” she said, opting to ignore the surprise at her presence. “I’ve heard so much about you from the archivists, I’m so happy to meet you, but I hadn’t heard of your summon before. Does it have a name?”

“Oh, um, Bliss is new,” Thimble managed, still wide-eyed. “Do you… do you come here a lot?” She covered her mouth. “No wait is that rude, I’ve never met a Queen before I don’t really know what to say…”

“It’s alright,” Iola soothed. “Bliss is a lovely name.” She noticed there was something of a line behind her, so she should get out of the way… “Well, I’ll take a hot chocolate for now to not hold the line up. When you’re done, I’d love if you could swing by Nepra’s desk so I can get to know more about you and Bliss.”

“Yes, Your Majesty,” Thimble said, still plenty wide-eyed. She managed to serve up a hot chocolate into a cup for Iola, seeming flushed when the Queen took it from her hands and their skin brushed.

Iola smiled at her. “Thank you very much, Thimble,” she said, before heading off to find Nepra’s desk to sit at. She couldn’t wait to learn more, especially about how Thimble had learned to summon a reindeer. Some summoners had their summons from birth, but since Thimble had said he(?) was new, she was very intrigued.