Chapter Text
“So there’s a little change in plans, but it doesn't equal the end of the world right? Unless the world actually ends.” Julio laughed somewhat nervously. It’s not that he didn’t have faith in the people guarding the kingdom, but the last time there was an unexpected obstacle at a royal gathering he planned…well, he just wanted to try and avoid any more problems.
“Leave it to Esteban to ruin the highlight of my party planning career.” said Doña Paloma, then with the slightest smile she waved her hand “Or our careers, I guess you helped quite a bit.”
His laugh was more sincere this time. He'd actually had a lot of fun planning the Coronation Day festivities together, despite their…differences in opinion. For the past few days, it felt like they’d been really getting along with each other, most of the time, so at least he could trust her to help them get through this crisis “Okay, so the guards and staff will be setting up defenses in the palace, so if any of our royal guests see that, they’ll know there's a problem. So we just take them on a trip around the city, then as soon as the shades are defeated we can bring them back. They'll never know there was anything wrong in the first place.” he said, as he and his fellow party planner walked towards the royal guest quarters.
“I don't see why we have to take them anywhere other than my Emporium,” she huffed as she waved her fan indignantly. “Everyone knows it's the best business in the city, I'm sure they'd be absolutely thrilled to see it.”
“Look I just think that they would probably be interested in a variety of different activities and that might not include going-” But he was cut off by a sudden shout.
“Hey Julio! Doña Paloma!”
“Wait up!”
They both stopped and looked around confused. They recognized the voices, it sounded like Victor and Carla were calling out to them, but they couldn't see them anywhere.
“Carla? Victor? Where are you?” he shouted.
“Down here!”
When Julio looked down his heart filled with joy, there on the carpet were two adorable little bunnies! Or, not quite bunnies, they were pastel colours with big feathery tails, but that didn't make them any less cute.
“Hmm… you both seem a lot smaller and fluffier than usual.” Doña remarked.
Carla rolled her eyes “Oh really? I hadn’t noticed.”
“The shades turned us into peabunnies, and Mateo said that he won’t be able to change us back until after the “Four Shades of Awesome” are defeated. Then they ran off to the tactics meeting without us, and when we got there it was already over.” Said Victor, he tried to sound like he didn't care, but his foot automatically thumped on the ground in annoyance as he said it. “Princess Isabel told us it would be best if we did something that didn't involve fighting, since we can't use magic at the moment. So, we were hoping we could help you both with distracting the guests.”
“Of course you can!” said Julio, still smiling like everything would be okay now. “Just follow us!”
Most of the royalty were waiting in the common room next to the royal guest quarters (The only ones missing were some of the royal youth who were waiting for Elena in another room). They were talking with each other and relaxing while waiting for the festivities to begin.
Julio took a deep breath before he addressed the room. “Hello your majesties, may I have your attention please.” he announced. “I am Trade Minister Julio Guzman and this is Doña Paloma-”
“Master Party Planner and Grand Counsellor Doña Paloma!” She corrected him.
“Yes, well, we are here to tell you that there has been a slight delay in today's schedule, but in the meantime, it gives you a chance to enjoy our beautiful city. So I invite you all to come along with us on a guided tour of it as we wait for things to clear up.”
“A delay? Is something wrong? Is Elena feeling alright?” asked King Joaquín.
“Everything is fine, Elena just needs a bit more time to get ready, that’s all.”
It looked like he was about to ask more about the matter, when suddenly all the royals were speaking:
“Aww, what are those?”
“They look like magical little bunnies!”
“Do they have names?”
“Can I pet one?”
Victor hopped forward “Greetings your majesties, my name is Victor Delgado and this is my daughter Carla.”
“Hello, it's an honour to meet you all!” She added doing a little bow as best she could, ears flopping against the ground.
“Victor and Carla Delgado? Your names sound familiar....” said King Juan Ramón.
“Oh I know! You’re the ex-criminals turned wizards who work for Elena now! There was a whole page about you two in the invitations.” said King Lars, as he took out his invitation and opened it up to a page with their pictures plus an explanation about them.
Julio felt pretty proud about putting that in the invites. Paloma had complained that it was superfluous but he knew it could come in handy.
King Hector looked confused “Wait, but if you're people, then why are you colourful little bunny things?”
“Peabunnies? Oh it was just a small magical accident, nothing out of the ordinary. Wizards have magical mishaps all the time!” Carla explained. It wasn't the whole truth but technically it wasn't a lie either.
Queen Abigail laughed, “Tell me about it, one time a wizard botched a spell at one of my daughter's birthdays and everyone got turned into cupcakes! Heh, you two are lucky you didn't turn into something that can't walk or talk and people will try to eat.”
“Uhh...haha...yah, I guess we’re just lucky.” she said.
An awkward silence followed. Julio stepped in to break it. “So, the tour of town. We hope that you will all enjoy the tour. Before we leave, are there any specific places any of you would like to go?”
“Actually, I think I’ll take a rain check on that tour, I was hoping to finish some paperwork I brought before the ceremony,” said King Juan Ramón. “There are few new trade deals I am hoping Elena will be able to sign after she is crowned.”
“Thank you for the offer, Minister Guzman, but since there is going to be a feast and a dance tonight I think I would rather just stay here for now and read this book I brought along.” said Ambassador Shoji.
“I feel a bit tired after the voyage here, so I think I'll just stay here and take a nap instead.” added Queen Teresa.
Lady Miriam spoke up “I would like to stay here as well, it looks like there’s a storm coming, and I do not want to get caught outside in it. The same goes for you Ari, you could catch a cold if you get caught in the rain!”
“Aww...okay, I’ll stay too.” sighed Prince Ari.
Julio’s smile faltered, “Oh...so none of you are interested, huh?”
“I'm interested!” exclaimed Queen Abigail “I saw there’s a big park downtown and I was hoping we could go visit it.”
“Castillo Park? Oh yes it’s absolutely lovely this time of year, sure we can go there.”
“Great! And when we get there I we can play a few rounds of croquet!”
“Croquet?”
“It's my favourite game and I always bring my set when I travel, so we can just use that!”
The remaining kings agreed that it sounded like fun.
Julio nodded “All right then, excuse me for a moment so I may discuss this with my associate.”
“Actually in this case I’m his boss!” corrected Paloma as Julio took her hand and they went into the hallway outside the room, closing the door behind them.
He was unnerved by the sudden change of events but was trying to hold it together. “Okay so they do not want to go on the tour. That's fine, they're royalty and they are our guests, we can't force them to do anything they don't want to do. We have to be accommodating. Going to the park and playing croquet should be harmless enough. And I guess as long as the ones who want to stay keep to this room and their quarters, they won't see any of the defences being set up, right?”
“Sure, I doubt they'll be putting sandbags and pointy sticks on the inside of the palace.” she said.
“So I’ll go with the royals who want to go to the park. We'll take the Hydro Gondola, since the carriages have already been put away, and it would be best not to bother the staff to take them out again when they have more important things to deal with right now. You can stay here with the rest of them and keep them entertained. Then Victor and Carla can decide who they want to go with.”
“All right, if they don't want to come to my Emporium I might as well give them the second best thing.” She pulled out a catalogue flyer from a pocket in her dress. “They won't even have to come to the store to find out about all the wonderful things they can buy!”
“Okay, just don't oversell it.”
Paloma rolled her eyes. He grinned as he opened the door to tell the plan to the room. Before he did though he stopped and listened. Everyone was quiet as a conversation was happening in the middle of the room between the Carizian Royal family and the former criminals.
“- What I'm trying to say is, I'm deeply sorry for everything that happened, we should never have done those things to you.” said Victor, looking ashamed but still keeping eye contact.
“Yeah I'm sorry too. We were awful and what we did wasn't right.” added Carla.
King Joaquín smiled softly, “Thank you for apologizing, and we forgive you.”
“Really?” asked Carla.
“It happened over a year ago, we're all safe and sound now. What truly matters is that you're not going to do something like that again, and we’re glad for that.” Said Queen Teresa, with one of her hands on the shoulder of her husband and the other on the shoulder of her daughter.
“So no hard feelings?”
“Any friends of Elena are friends of mine,” said Joaquín. The Delgados looked relieved.
That’s when Julio saw his opening to come back in. “May I please have your attention again, everyone. Anyone who wants to come to Castillo Park may follow me out to the Hydro Gondola, we will be leaving shortly.
“Great, let me go grab my set and I'll be right out there!” said Queen Abigail.
“Anyone else may stay here, but we ask that you please stay in your quarters and the common room, because the rest of the palace is still being set up for the ceremony.”
“Plus if you stay you'll get to hear about all the wonderful stock that I have in my Emporium!” Doña Paloma added. Some of the guests looked like they might later regret their decision to stay.
Abigail had gone off to her room to grab the croquet set and it looked like many of the Kings here were getting ready to leave as well. His plan was working out, then Julio looked down and saw the two peabunnies at his feet. “You two can come along with me if you want.”
“Yes thank you, anything would be better than staying here for her big sales pitch!” said Carla. Soon everyone was ready.
“All right, let's head out,” said Julio.
“Wait, I want to come too!” exclaimed Princess Caterina, jumping up from her spot on a couch beside her mom and running over to her dad.
“This is surprising, I’ve never seen you so excited for a sport before.” said Joaquín.
“Well, today I want to try something new.” she replied, although she didn’t make eye contact with him.
As they went outside there was a slight hiccup as they went down the stairs, when Victor lost his balance due to his large tail and almost fell down them. Luckily, King Raja caught him before he did. When he offered to carry him the rest of the way, Victor enthusiastically agreed.
At the gondola, Julio realised another problem. King Hector was with them and once a group entered a gondola coche, they wouldn’t be able to get off until the ride was over, even if they wanted to. “Don't worry your Majesties, we can take as many coches as you want!” he called out.
A few of them thanked him for the information, but to his surprise, it looked like Raja, Lars, and Abigail were still going to go in the same one as Hector was. Although now that he thought about it, hadn’t they come in the same carriage together from port earlier today? Maybe he and Paloma had been too cautious with their seating plan for the feast after all.
“Can I have a turn holding the bunny wizard now?” Hector asked as he got in the coche.
“On the other hand, some would say caution is a virtue.” Thought Julio.
So in the end, Victor, Abigail, Hector, Lars and Raja were in one coche, and Julio, Carla, Joaquín, Catarina and Toshi were in the other.
It happens fairly often in this job but Julio still got excited sometimes about how he was literally rubbing shoulders with royalty. If you told him four years ago that he'd be in the same gondola coche as two esteemed Kings in a princess he would have laughed and said you had one strange imagination, and yet here he was. For a moment he wondered if Carla felt the same way, she was curled up on the extendable table near one of the windows, far back enough to not fall out.
He looked over at King Toshi, who seemed to be enjoying the ride, and felt grateful that he and the other royals didn’t hold any resentment towards him after ‘the Feast of Friendship Fiasco’ as his sister called it. He definitely would have lost the position of Minister of Trade if they hadn't. Although if anyone had gotten seriously injured he would have resigned himself. He decided to stop thinking about what could have happened and just sit back and enjoy the ride.
“It’s been a while since I visited your kingdom, isn’t there a gondola lift like this in Cariza?” asked King Toshi to King Joaquín.
Joaquín nodded, “Yes, actually the last time Elena and Isabel came to Cariza, they were so inspired by our gondola lift system that they wanted to make one for Avalor. So they asked us for help with designing and building one and Caterina got to be one of the main engineers on the project!
“That's quite impressive.” he looked at the princess “May I ask you a few questions about its construction?”
She straightened up “Oh sure, what do you want to know?”
King Toshi asked her an engineering question which Julio didn’t follow, but Caterina understood it and excitedly answered. Then they went back and forth for a while about engineering things. Eventually they seemed to remember Julio was there too and asked him what he thought of the hydro gondola.
“I think it's fantastic! Whenever I need to go to the palace I just ride the gondola, since it just seems so much smoother and faster than the carriages are.”
The princess nodded “This gondola runs 30% more smoothly then the ones in Cariza because of the reinforced cables and better balanced coches. Next time we update our systems back home, everything we learned here will be added into them.”
“That's good to hear." added Carla "I was kind of nervous about using this for the first time but the view of town it's just so amazing. Sometimes I ride it just for fun!”
Instead of answering, Caterina looked out the window again and said “Oh hey there's the terminal station, did I mention that we also upgraded the terminal platforms? When we get out you’ll see them!”
The coche arrived at the terminal and they exited. The slight rumble as it stopped reminded Julio of thunder, and he worried whether a storm was coming. “If the plans fail, rain will be the least of my problems,” he thought. Then he looked at the excited royalty and shook off the thought “No, everything will go fine this time, this is a good plan and it won’t go wrong this time. It can’t go wrong.”