An Act of Valor [lasciel // Momoiro]

[lasciel]

Fifth in line for the throne, princess Zoe never had aspirations to a royal lifestyle. Interested in the "boyish" pursuits of war, battle, and conquest, and lacking in any royal obligations, the princess spent her youth reading tomes on battlefield tactics and learning to fight with sword, spear, and bow. By thirteen Zoe could strike a bull's eye at two hundred paces half-standing on a moving horse, by sixteen she could strike the same with three arrows, in full armor, in heavy rain. Her position as Least General of the royal army of Talundor was not a matter of political favoritism - Zoe had simply found her calling, and stuck stubbornly to it until everyone around her was forced to admit that, yes, the upstart princess really was meant for military leadership.

And then the Crescent Empire came rolling like a sandstorm through the fractured desert kingdoms to the east. Not content with its newly acquired collection of city-states, the Empire set their sights on Talundor, confident that their greater numbers and superior technology would bring them swift victory. Only the great Indigo mountain range, curling around the kingdom's northern, eastern, and southern borders like a pair of dragon's wings, slowed the indomitable enemy, forcing their troops and supplies through narrow, twisting, and unfamiliar passes, where the armed forces of Talundor could set ample ambushes and fight - and retreat - on their own terms.

However, even with the gift of time offered by the Indigo range, the victory of the Crescent Empire seems inevitable. At least, until Princess Zoe encounters a stranger with the most peculiar eyes...

---

​

For a moment, if she closed her eyes, she could pretend it was the cool waters of lake Ebris that surrounded her, that she was still a girl at her family's summer estate eager to shoot bows and play knights with her cousins. The night was still enough, her bathing tent far enough from the massive, barrack-like tents housing her slumbering division, that the low drone of the cicadas drowned out the lower drone of distant snoring. She heard only the occasional footfall of her personal (and mostly token) night guard, doing his laps around the general area of the bathing tent to scare off any stray dogs or lost, drunken (and soon to be very sorry) soldiers who'd wandered into Zoe Silidras's "quarters", as the sectioned-off portion of the camp was referred to.

Zoe's quarters were generally a quiet place, the small collection of tents serving as her meeting room, map room, dining room, bathing room, and sleeping room rarely occupied by anyone but the princess past civil hours. She'd long since stopped taking her late-night strolls to the map room, moving about collections of carved figurines representing her forces and the forces of the Crescent Empire. No amount of shuffling could make the eventual outcome any less heart-breaking. More recently, she'd started to miss the dinners she'd once hosted for the common troops, a twice-weekly affair where young men and women who'd impressed their superiors were given the chance to dine with their general, and listen to her give an encouraging speech.

Zoe could no longer muster up the will to lie to them so blatantly.

At present, she could hardly muster up the will to reach for the soap on the stand besides the hammered brass basin. Such was how Zoe had come to be lounging in a pool of cool water, well past midnight, staring up at the vague impression of the full moon glowing along the seams of the tent's roof. Her brilliant red hair floated in a cloud around her head, framing her fine-boned and lightly freckled face. Not for the first time in the hour, her lids began to slide closed over her glass-green eyes.

It was so much easier to doze off, now that the cicadas had gone quiet.

Something about that wasn't right. Zoe couldn't grasp at the necessary thought, as the source of her sense of wrongness wiggled free of her mental grasp like an eel.

Movement caught the corner of her gaze. Just a slight shift in the shadows off the east side of her tent, likely little more than branches shifting in the breeze casting unexpected shadows. But her trained, warrior's instincts were already putting her body in flight, and the previously idle princess exploded from the water. She used her muscular legs to propel herself bodily from the basin and into a dive and a roll to clutch at her sheathed long-sword. Naked and dripping wet, she drew the well-oiled blade from it's sheath and dropped into a defensive stance, putting the basin behind her as a modicum of protection against flanking.

Half the bath water was now on the floor, streaming through the wide-set wooden floorboards of the temporary structure and pooling on the earth beneath. The rest was sloshing back and forth in her bath, but beyond those water sounds Zoe heard... nothing.

You are starting at ghosts, she tried to tell herself. But the silence was chilling, and far too complete to be natural. Where is Kyle?

The great commotion she'd caused should've drawn her night guardsman. The men and women who protected her life were required to have no qualms about the possibility of seeing their princess unclothed. But even as she strained, she heard nothing besides gentle sloshing and gentler dripping. The cicadas had not restarted their symphony, and even the wind seemed to be holding it's breath, waiting for something.

There! She saw the motion again, and this time, she was sure it was the outline of someone moving about outside her tent. The figure plunged a knife through the fabric of the wall, and she turned, sword in both hands, waiting for her attacker to enter.

Zoe was not sure what sense had noted the second attacker, nor did she have time to ponder her sudden impulse to duck. Instead she let her body flow, whipping her head around and utilizing even her damp locks as a weapon, spraying the intruder with water whipped from her waist-length hair. The man reflexively brought his arms up to his face, and Zoe kicked out with one bare foot, catching him in the side of the knee. He struck out randomly with the cruel-looking dagger in his left hand, but caught only air as he crumpled.

The first attacker completed his task of opening a second passage into the tent as the second man fell, abandoning the knife now tangled in the thick fibers of the tent to shove his way through the opening. Zoe was positioned too awkwardly to raise her sword but tried anyway; the man punched her in the side of the head and she half-collapsed. Only the sharp taste of blood in her mouth from where she'd bitten her tongue kept her focused enough to roll away, avoiding the second man's renewed attempts to stab her. She crawled along the ground, then fell flat on her stomach as the first man grabbed her ankle and yanked her backwards. Her chin hit the wooden floor hard, jarring her already-rattled head. Stars flashed across her vision, and the princess felt a growing sluggishness in her limbs.

This is a rather undignified way to die, a distant part of herself thought, as the second man grabbed her by the hair, yanking her head back to expose her throat.

 

[Momoiro]

"Wait!" The first attacker suddenly whispered in a demanding yet pressed tone, causing for the second attacker to freeze. The blade of his dagger hovered dangerously close over the princess's exposed neck, the tip of it angled toward her pulse point. All it took was one wrong move and she'd draw blood.

"Did you hear that?"

"What? What now?" The second attacker hissed in confusion, his bloodlust thickening by the second. He could barely contain his impatience. This is it, he thought, the moment he'd been waiting for ever since he was tasked with killing this irritating woman. He could finally see it, the glory and honor that her head would bring him. The riches. All the hardships that he'd been through, they would finally pay off. So why was this bastard stopping him now?

"The sweet call of betrayal, you cretin."

STING. The sound of pierced flesh soon followed thereafter, though it hadn't been the princess's.

The second attacker's mouth opened wide, yet no scream willed to come out of it. His face contorted in pain as his gaze dropped down to his chest, where he was greeted with the sight of the tip of another unknown dagger blade. The stab had been clean and precise, executed in a way which would purposefully prevent him from drawing more attention to them.

His death was painful and cruel; his grip on the princess's hair loosened and he dropped to his knees behind her, scratching and clutching at his bleeding chest, then at his throat, until eventually, he died within a few seconds.

Silence reigned inside the tent once more.

What an idiot, Rael scoffed to himself as he studied the now dead Crescent assassin, not even worth a small midnight snack, this one.

He'd followed him and his companion for three consecutive days, watched them, observed them, curious to know what their mission and purpose was. He didn't know when or how they'd managed to get this far into the kingdom, he'd merely noted their presence on the day of their arrival to this particular division. They'd waited and lurked about, clad in garments which made it surprisingly easy for them to blend in with the surrounding forest. He'd never actually intended to interfere with their business or to stop them, because essentially, the wars of men meant nothing to him. As soon as he realized however, what, or rather, who their target was, something inside him stirred and cut the ties between him and his usually wicked rationale.

Rael's eyes wandered from the unsightly corpse to the source of his intent interest for the past few days: Princess Zoe, or how they reverently called her around this place, General Silidras. He'd realized relatively quickly that the men and women gathered here respected Zoe more for her military prowess than they did her title. With reason, of course. The woman was a clever fighter. Strong, too.

He considered her beautifully naked form in front of him, watched further how she tried to regain her senses and balance.

But she could be stronger. So much more stronger, if she even hoped to face the enemy that was lurking behind the Indigo range.

Dressed in the dark robes of the assassin's companion, whom he'd disposed of shortly before they'd planned to carry out the attack, Rael moved around inside the tent, his features hidden by a wide hood and a heavy shawl which he'd woven around his mouth and nose, just like the Crescent soldier before him. The only thing that Zoe would be able to study about him were his eyes: Golden. Not like melted honey, or similar to how brown eyes could look when met with sunlight; his eyes were the color of literal gold, the rays of dusk made flesh. They were vivid, almost luminous, warm and expressive.

"Hmmm, as much as I could get used to this view, you should cover yourself, little girl." He tossed her a couple of furs which had lain neatly folded next to the brass basin.

"You have to admit that it was foolish of you to leave yourself so unguarded," he chided, his voice deep and masculine, perfectly human and perfectly hiding the presence of the dragon few knew of, none of which were human—those he'd made sure to smote, like he did to some villages. On occasion. "I'm surprised that you're still alive at this point. Your head is more wanted than you're aware of."

 

[lasciel]

"Wait!"

Zoe could've been forgiven for thinking her fog-filled mind had plucked the word from her own thoughts. Only the feeling of cold, raw steel against her throat felt clear, the rest of her senses drowned in so much wool. Had she been uninjured, the princess would've attempted a throw, hoping that the brief moment of distraction the second assailant had bought her would give her the opening she needed. The man behind her wore silks rather than armor, and was of a height and weight with the princess, though his mahogany-colored skin and deep brown, almond-shaped eyes cut short any further resemblance. It would not have been easy to grapple him, given how her neck was pulled into a pretty arc by his grip upon her hair (a choice of vanity that she knew she'd one day regret), but dying in a fight was better than having her throat slit like so much livestock.

Only, the princess was too slow to react. She had barely registered that the word had been uttered, not merely thought, when the dagger held at her throat first trembled, then clattered to the floor from numb hands. It delivered only a flesh wound, a cut too shallow to do more than form a thin crimson line along her neck. The pain was sharp, sudden, and exactly what she needed to cut through the clouds around her thoughts and let her act from instinct.

Instinct was to press up from the floor, ignoring the stinging at her throat as she snapped her head up to crush her attacker's nose with the back of her skull. It was not a wise move, leaving her head pounding twice as furiously as it had been moments ago, but the satisfying crunch of crushed cartridge and bone was some small recompense for her pain. She followed by grabbing the dropped dagger in her dominant hand, and ramming her elbow backwards into what should've been the man's stomach with her other arm. But he'd already slumped bonelessly to the ground, broken nose ignored as he clutched as his bleeding chest, and it was then that Zoe realized he'd been stabbed.

And the other man was merely staring at her.

No, he was pacing, and though the deep hood of his cloak and the wrappings around his face besides obscured his features, she was all too familiar with the set of his shoulders and the weight of his steps. He was not disappointed, per-se, but neither was he pleased, and something heavy was weighing on his mind. She knew because she'd assumed such a posture herself, taking long walks in the silent company of one of her personal guards, making circles around the camp until she would retire to her tent and pretend to sleep. But that knowledge did little to answer her mounting questions about the stranger, the first of which being, why isn't he continuing the attack? Of course, Zoe had missed the stranger's earlier proclamation. But even if she'd caught his words, she would've had no notion as to the intent behind them.

All the same, she was naked, injured, and more than a mite bit agitated. And he had the gall to leer at her?

She ignored the furs he tossed in her direction, grabbing instead for her sword. It was a beautiful weapon, the pommel shaped like a peacock's head with bright sapphires for eyes, outstretched wings forming the cross-guard, and the blade was so finely etched with a curling, flowing train of peacock's feathers that at first it appeared to be the scrawling patterns of repeatedly folded steel. Zoe had named it Manners for reasons that no one in the camp had ever gotten her to explain, and it was as deadly as it was pretty, with a balance point perfectly suited to the princess's style and a grip practically molded to her hands. She took exquisite care of the sword, and it gleamed even in the pale moonlight that slipped in between tent seams and through the flapping hole rent in the side of the structure.

Zoe had barely found her feet when the ground seemed to lurch beneath her. The world righted itself a heartbeat later, but her sudden flinch was obvious to Rael, even without his preternatural senses. Still, she met his warm golden gaze with her own, moss-green eyes hard as she struggled to maintain her focus. Even if her stomach felt ready to crawl up her throat.

"Who are you...?," she finally managed. Her voice was a rich mezzo-soprano, one that would've pleasant for singing if the princess hadn't been as tone-deaf as a dog. But the words didn't come out quite right, muzzy in the way one would speak after awakening from a deep slumber. Zoe knew something was awry, but didn't have the focus or the will to think about it. Whatever weakness she was suffering would remain present, no matter if she identified it's source or not.

The cruelty of Rael's accusation finally registered. "I had a guard!" Yelling was easier than talking, and with any luck, someone would overhear and come see what had happened. Never mind that her armsman had been slaughtered, her steward had long since gone to bed, and anyone else in the vicinity would be trying their hardest not to be caught at it. Rescue was unlikely to come from the outside, which meant Zoe was on her own. In the middle of her own camp! And a mere two day's ride from the capital, deep in Talundor's territory, where the prospect of a foreign assassination attempt should've been as likely as summer snow.

Anger was the only emotion that seemed to cut through her mental fog, and she seized it as tightly as she held her sword. "You've trespassed in my camp, and attacked me in my chambers." Despite being naked and dripping wet she managed to look righteously incensed. "You're the fool here. Throw down your weapon or I will cut you down where you stand." It was a lie, bold as any Zoe had ever told, but it was all she had. And the fine scars decorating her lean, muscular body suggested that even if she didn't win, she would make Rael pay for his victory in blood and pain.

 

[Momoiro]

"Who are you, what do you want–the questions are always the same," he drawled in an almost bored manner, and his eyes narrowed, imbued with fleeting amusement. Unbeknownst to Zoe, he was specifically referring to the first Crescent assassin that he'd disposed of. And it was also in that moment, that Rael The Dangerous, first in line to the throne and first-born to Queen Nehelenia, realized that he'd made a fatal mistake.

Why, just why had he felt so compelled to make his presence known to this female? A human female, at that. Unlike some of his kin, he didn't hate humans, yet he didn't adore them either, not like his abomination of a younger brother Talan who actually enjoyed it to walk among them. No, he was a creature of solitude, a dragon as any other in that regard, whose favorite disport was to watch over his hoard and to bask in the peace and quiet that his den provided him, far, far away from his troublesome kin and everything in between. He didn't like complications. He didn't like anyone around him. But therein lay the problem, didn't it?

His beautiful home was deeply seated inside the Indigo mountains. A place, which the people of Talundor and their neighbors beyond the range thus far did well in avoiding, much like how people avoided walking through shady alleyways at night, even if they didn't know why, just that it wouldn't be wise. On the contrary, the people of the Crescent Empire had had no qualms about crossing over his, his territory. He'd heard of the infamous warmonger from the East long before he'd lusted after Talundor's riches. He was said to be a powerful man, ruthless and greedy, his ways and tactics about as elegant and eloquent as those of a butcher.

It was safe to say that Rael didn't appreciate the sudden change of climate that the foreigner's presence and his ridiculous thirst for map domination had brought with him. He didn't like it, change.

So he'd decided to keep an eye on Talundor for a while and travelled through its cities in order to gather intel. He'd made it his new pastime to oberve their every move, all the while silently hoping that its people would be able to amass a force which could withstand the eastern lord's troops. Clearly, he'd refused to become a part of the war himself. Involving himself would mean risking his identity and ultimately his existence. While he was confident in his abilities to best any human, once their kind banded together, they could become a real pain in the ass. Dragons possessed powers that far outweighed most creatures. But these powers, like their ability to use flame or to shift to human, kept them alive. Humans were a treacherous and dangerous lot and made killing one of his kind as some sort of rite of passage. No. His brethren relied on secrecy. And yet, abandoning the Indigo mountains had been out of the question for him, too. Not only would it be impossibe for him to move the vast amount of riches that he'd claimed over many, many years, but he also happened to like his current home. It was perfect, more than perfect, and it was his.

"You make it way too easy to get under your skin," he commented as she began to lose her temper. Granted, she had every right to, but he had no idea how overwhelming it could be. Her angry bellow was damn near as powerful as a dragon's roar, and he found it surprisingly attractive. Rael truly admired her for holding her ground despite her current disposition. He could hear her racing pulse, see how weakness threatened to wound around her body and to drag her down toward the ground like some enchanted, vicious tendrils.

His golden gaze coasted over her toned legs, her shapely hips, then over her ample breasts and the curve of her slender neck. When his eyes stopped their journey to bore into hers, he inaudibly gasped, and he finally looked at her. Really looked at her. Although he'd spent a good amount of his time watching her, he'd never actually managed it to see her up close. Not like this.

By the gods. Is this what I think it is?

Suddenly, everything made sense. The reason why he'd lingered over her division more than over the others, why he'd felt compelled to stay close to her, and to save her.

For the sake of making his life easier, he could have just rescued her in time to when the two assassins had planned to kill her. Play at being hero. But no. He'd longed to see for himself how strong Princess Zoe Silidras really was, to see something else take hold of her aside from the helplessness and disappointment which so evidently had weighed down upon her shoulders, though she'd been able to hide them well from her people. He wasn't about to admit that a part deeply within him had pondered whether she would be worth it too–to risk an end to the peaceful life he'd finally managed to built for himself. For why should he care? When did he ever care about humans?

Seeing her like this though, so brave and unabashedly defiant and fearless in the face of a potential enemy... yes, he decided, she was worth it every second.

Hold on. Was he going insane?

One more look into Zoe's mesmerizing green eyes told him, no, he wasn't. There was a reason for his worrying change in behavior. For this awfully odd instinct to protect her. For all of this.

"I‘m not here to kill you, Princess of Talundor. I‘m not a soldier from the Empire, nor am I an enemy," Rael stared down at his dagger, well, not his, but he held it up, as if to punctuate his next words. "However... I wouldn't exactly call myself an ally either," he paused, carefully, then: "But I could be one." If the princess wasn't only clever on the training grounds, she'd realize that he was offering her the prospect of a possible alliance. Him, one of the Dragon Queen's best fighters. He was someone who could train her more properly in the art of war, for he'd fought countless wars of his own, and they all justified his given name. That, and he was a dragon easily the size of a mountain. But he wasn't about to reveal that fact about himself just yet.

"You want to know who I am? Very well. I'll tell you. I'm someone who could help you change the tides of this war, Zoe Silidras," he probed her name on his own tongue, careful to examine each syllable in all its glory. "Talundor can win against the Empire–with my help, that is. I'm worth more than half of your armies." To an outsider, he likely sounded like a lunatic. A haughty and narcissistic lunatic. "If you don’t believe me...," his voice dipped a tone lower and he threw the dagger away, not in accordance to her orders but because he was trying to prove a point here. He left himself completely unarmed and without a weapon. He bowed a little forward even, challenging her.

"You're welcome to see for yourself," he finished, beckoning her to attack him with a crook of his finger.

 

[lasciel]

Zoe couldn't puzzle out why the stranger was repeating her words back at her, and so casually, at that. Did he not realize she held a sword? Or was the nature of her injury so obvious? The latter thought drove a spike of fear deep into her gut, where it made friends with the slow churn of nausea that undulated in time with the pounding in her head. Though the pain didn't come accompanied with any sort of noise, she still found it hard to focus on his words, as if hearing them through many feet of water. Something was definitely wrong with her, and it took no brilliant stroke of genius to link the repeated battering her head had taken to her present condition. Medical science in Talundor was a far cry from what the Crescent army seemed equipped with, but "concussion" was a known word with known symptoms, treatment, and dangers. And the princess knew enough to recognize just how much danger she was in, even when ignoring the stranger in her tent.

He was talking again, taunting her, leering at her, raking those almost-glowing golden eyes along her body like a butcher assessing a cut of meat. And then he stared at her as if thunder-struck, for no apparent reason she could discern.

Belatedly she spun, fearing the presence of a third attacker, but her sword met only the side of the basin with a discordant CLANG! The sound was twice as piercing as it should've been, and Zoe squeezed her moss-green eyes shut, keeping hold of her sword in one hand only by the virtue of decades of training. Turning again to face Rael, he could see how she stumbled in the movement, her warrior's elegance betrayed by a sudden sense of vertigo that fled as quickly as it had come. But still, he only stared. Had he gone mad? Or madder than he already was, Zoe supposed, given that he'd first broken into her camp, killed one of her guards, and now stood here dumb and mute in her tent as if she was the first woman he'd ever seen.

And maybe she was. Talundor and the Crescent invaders shared no common tongue, and the information her country had on theirs was terrifyingly scant. If they were anything like the sand kingdoms that neighbored their kingdom in the east, he probably had never seen another woman of reproductive age besides his own wife, if he had one. And certainly not naked! Though why her mind had wandered to the subject of whether the stranger in her tent was married or not was beyond her. Like the vertigo, it had been apropos of nothing, and fled the moment she tried to inspect it further. And if he was from the empire anyway, he would've been the first enemy combatant anyone had ever met who could speak the common tongue.

No, even her thoughts were betraying her. Vexation, like anger, was a torch that let her burn through the mist clouding her mind. She held on to it tightly, biting down on the inside of her cheek and flexing her thighs to keep the dizzy feeling at the back of her skull from spreading. Collapsing was not an option, not if she wished to live. Zoe had never been so certain of something in her life, as she was of the need to stay upright. But if the dizziness didn't end her, the nausea would, and surely even the stranger would soon notice just how green she had gone 'round the gills.

"I‘m not here to kill you, ..."

Is he monologuing? It seemed like something out of the stories of heroes and monsters she'd read as a child. This was the moment, then, when she should've lunged forward and pushed her sword through his unarmored stomach, killing him before his dagger had any chance of entering range. But in her books, the hero never felt as if their thoughts had been wrapped in cotton at the critical moment, nor had either the pain or the suffering that brought them to the tale's climax made a whit of difference in their fighting prowess when push came to shove. But Zoe knew she would suffer no such miraculous recovery. No, in fact, if she was injured in the way she suspected, she would only be getting worse.

So she held her sword and let the stranger speak. Not that his words made much sense - if he'd wanted to come to her to propose some sort of alliance, killing her armsman and giving her a concussion was not the way to go about it. She ground her teeth, both in frustration, and in an attempt to keep the contents of her stomach from declaring secession via her esophagus. And his follow-up managed somehow to be even more bizarre, as if the stranger had entered in a competition with himself to string together the most useless possible series of words. She didn't want to stab him, she wanted to slap him with the flat of her blade, and then stab him for good measure. Didn't he realize how much effort it was costing her to listen to him? And to say nothing at all for it!

Again, her reactions were delayed in realizing he'd discarded his weapon. But that smug, self-sure expression he wore, coupled with his gesture of invitation, was what ended up goading her in the end. Even had he still been armed she would've rushed him, as it seemed the only way to make him stop talking, and perhaps with a sword between his ribs he'd feel a little more inclined to say something of substance, rather than speak in riddles. And so, Zoe pushed forward, off her back foot into a long lunge while sweeping her blade up and forward, driving the sharp point into the spot just below the stranger's sternum.

Or so Zoe tried to, anyway. She got halfway through the motion before the ground seemed to lurch again, and her sword went point-down between the slatted floor to sink several inches into the earth. Her grip on the hilt was all that kept her from cartwheeling forward and smashing her face into the stranger's calves, and she hung there, doubled-over her front knee, propped up by one arm, stuck in a too-wide lunge that left her with only the option of driving her sword deeper into the soaked earth to push herself upright. Her hair hung in her face, a wet curtain that blocked her sight of anything but the stranger's boots.

Boots that Zoe promptly vomited all over, as her incipient nausea finally got the best of her. She amended her earlier thought as the sparse meal of lamb stew, black bread, and cheese worked it's way up her gullet with agonizing slowness. This. This is the most undignified way to die.

 

[Momoiro]

Despite the smug expression that was reflected in both his eyes and in his gestures, Rael wasn't foolish enough to underestimate her. He'd learned early on in his life that it was a surefire way to die a foolish death. It was how his grandfather had died, choking on his last laugh and on his own throne by the claws of Nehelenia herself. Consequently, his posture betrayed his intentions and he was ready to react in time to whatever Zoe would have in store for him.

Except...

"Oh, now that's just vile."

This.

Rael's nostrils flared and he blinked several times in bewilderment as the sound of incessant gagging cut through the previously tense atmosphere. The air inside the tent shifted from being bitingly electric to— Uh, uhm, gross.

He crossed his arms in front of his broad chest and tried to focus on anything but on the fact that his apparent fated mate – aye, mate! – was releasing her last night's dinner all over his precious leather boots. His only pair, for that matter. It was beyond difficult to find boots his size, for his human form, albeit nowhere near as magnificent as his dragon one, was easily larger than the majority of the people he'd met thus far.

"First your wimp of a guard, now you. If I didn't know better, I'd start to think of it as some kind of custom around here," he nagged. Unlike now however, he'd been able to avoid Kyle's dinner current in time. Contrary to what the princess was probably thinking, the lad was alive and well, except for the fact that he was very much unconscious at this point in time. Rael had deemed a proper knockout punch preferable to a stab at his throat, much to the dislike of his now dead Crescent companion. They were nasty, their lot.

Instead of starting to feel nauseous himself at the smell that began to assault his awfully sensitive nose, the dragon felt a spark of guilt instead. Guilt and worry. Sentiments that he hadn’t felt in a very, very long time. He was to blame for the mess that continued to spill over his feet. He'd thoroughly misjudged his own strength in comparison to Zoe's, and she made him pay for it in more than one way.

Am I supposed to apologize right now...? He tipped his head quizzically as he gave it a thought. Then he shrugged a shoulder. Nah.

With a will of iron, he forced himself to remain calm and for his voice to sound even when he said, "This is definitely not how I had imagined for this to unfold." Disgust was the last thing that he’d wanted her to hear from him. He‘d forced her into a humiliating situation enough as it was.

After what felt like an eternity, he finally dared to look down upon the fiery crown of her head, scrunching up his nose in the process, cringing. Boy, he'd fucked up.

Slowly, with a lightness akin to a feather, he shuffled backwards, taking small steps in order to put a bit of distance between him and her, and completely ignored the wet sounds that his boots made while he did so. Rael walked around the princess and reached out for one of the furs that he'd tossed at her earlier. Before he draped it around her shoulders however, he made sure to place a hand atop hers, the one that still rested on the hilt of her beautiful sword. Within one fluid and swift motion, he shoved the blade even deeper into the ground–a precaution he took, should Zoe miraculously find her strength once more, though he doubted it.

He grabbed her shoulders shortly afterwards and hoisted her up into his arms, but decided against carrying her comfortably should she feel the need to vomit again. So she ended up being thrown over one of his shoulders. He made sure to hold down her legs firmly, enough to prevent her from possibly kicking the lights out of him. Her skin upon his reaffirmed his earlier suspicions; he could feel how his blood began to stir for this oddly fascinating human. He was shocked at how right it felt to hold her, and to feel her weight against his, regardless of how much effort it took him to keep her from struggling out of his grasp. He concluded: It was useless to talk with her under their current circumstances. He'd made her decidedly angry, and literally unable to speak. He'd try again tomorrow, without an annoying assassin or two in tow. He had to, now more than ever.

"By the gods! Kyle! Are you okay, lad?!"

Rael froze at the sudden outcry. They'd caused quite the commotion, and it was bound to happen that someone would take note of it sooner or later. Another guard perhaps, or her head steward. He took a deep breath, his mind racing with ideas of how to evade more trouble. He'd planned to drop her off in front of one of her people's tents in the first place, so that they would see to it that she was taken care of immediately.

When he finally stepped out into the night, he saw how Zoe's head steward stood next to Kyle's body, holding a sword in one hand while the other shook the lad at his shoulder. Then, as if on cue, their eyes met.

"General Silidras!," he exclaimed, holding his sword with both hands now, his face flushing red with anger. Rael sighed.

Without allowing the other any time to think or to react properly, he closed the distance between them at an incredible speed, and he did the only thing that would prevent the steward from swinging his sword at him–he tossed Zoe right at him. "Ooof," the head steward grunted, barely discarding his sword in time to catch his princess.

"What is the meaning of th–"

"Your princess was almost assassinated tonight. And none of your lot were there to prevent it. If it weren't for me, she'd be dead now."

A deadly silence indeed settled over the head steward's body and his mouth opened and closed like a fish out of water.

Rael used his state of confusion to turn his back at the pair. He began to break into a run as more and more voices joined together.

This was a mistake, he cursed inside his head, just as he had upon the first few seconds inside that tent.

A damned mistake.

 

[lasciel]

Well, Zoe thought, taking Rael's words as a suggestion that the stranger had not only killed, but tortured her guard, if I die, I suppose the Crescent Empire becomes someone else's problem, then. It was a cowardly thought, but true all the same.

Least General was a lofty title, but "general of the rear guard" as she knew the role to be hardly put an emphasis on her importance. If Zoe died, one of her five colonels would be raised to act in her role until the First General could formally assign a replacement. Likely Adrison, as he was both the most senior of her five, and the highest born. His tactics were conservative with an upper-case C, but he had the respect of her men, and if his lack of creativity made his choices a bit predictable, he could always be relied upon to handle tough choices with all due consideration.

As for her family, ten warm bodies stood between Zoe and the throne, and if all of them were to perish the kingdom likely would be facing bigger problems. If the Crescent Empire showed any signs of breaking through the First or Second generals' blockade at either Darland or Sallow's passes, a venerable flock of swift-winged birds would be sent to warn the royal family to evacuate. Erik and Sabrina would take their two families in separate directions, Casey would do... whatever Casey did, and Jon would likely refuse to be budged from his studies. But with the crown prince and princess both fled with their heirs, only a desperate assassination attempt made deep in Talundor territory would have a chance--

Ah. Right.

And suddenly, Zoe needed to live. She had to warn her family that the Crescent Empire was sending assassins!

Despite having puked up her last month's worth of meals (or at least it felt that way to the princess), her nausea had only barely diminished. Damn her body! And her limbs felt shaky and weak besides, eyes bloodshot and streaming with tears, nose streaming mucous, from the wretched stretch of retching she'd engaged in. Zoe knew she was a mess, and her attempts to push herself upright only sunk her sword deeper into the earth. And beyond that, the stranger had backed away (no doubt in terror that she'd assault him with more bodily fluids), leaving her very limited circle of vision to go off and do something. At least in the little bathing chamber she had no sensitive documents, nor valuables beyond her sword.

Though if he hadn't come for her life (and it was clear, by now, that he didn't intend to kill her), then what did he want?

To kidnap me, and torture me until I tell him what he wants to know, of course.

But did that mean he'd sent friends to do the same to her family in Vernes? She had to assume as such. Better to be wrong, than to leave her family for dead. But that meant she had to escape, let alone stand up, which felt to be such a monumental task as to be impossible.

The sudden touch of another's hand over her own made her tense, but fighting against the hand that forced her sword further into the earth would've been impossible. Whipping her head back to slam into his nose and chin was equally unlikely, not with the way her head still pounded, or with how her vision swam. Even the weight of her damp hair, now streaked with both a dead man's blood and bits of upchuck, seemed too much. More than once Zoe had been chided on her one concession to vanity, keeping her brilliant coppery locks in a tight braid that was coiled either at the nape of her neck or secured against her back in combat, rather than opting for ear- or chin-length styles the other fighting women preferred. On horseback and in armor, she'd always assumed that the day was already lost if someone was getting close enough to grab her hair. She had never considered the impediment it would pose both to her mobility and agility if she was caught unarmored, and worse, damp.

Strong, warm hands wrapped around her, and then the world flipped up-side-down as she was manhandled into a field medic's carry. Only the emptiness of Zoe's stomach saved Rael's back from a similar painting as his boots received, but that didn't stop the princess from miserably dry-heaving as the pounding pain in her skull made her stomach cramp and contort. But even as her stomach staged it's revolt, she pounded her fists against the strangers back and did her best to kick and wiggle from his grasp, desperate to be free. He was carrying her off, and she suspected if he managed his escape, her men wouldn't even find her remains. She would simply have disappeared, and it would likely be a day before anyone thought to send word to Vernes. Far too late to stop whatever second force moved on her family, if they existed, and hadn't already finished the job.

"By the gods! Kyle! Are you okay, lad?!"

Zoe wasn't sure whether to celebrate or despair. Samuel, her chief steward, had no doubt been roused by the commotion in her bathing chambers, and from the sounds of it had just discovered her armsman. But while her steward knew the basics of sword work, he was no soldier, and she quietly prayed for him to run off and fetch help rather than stay behind and investigate. Indeed, she'd even gone silent and still, hoping that a lack of distractions would lead him to make the rational choice and go seek backup. Unfortunately, she knew that her most dedicated ally would do no such thing. Samuel had been in her service for years, and anguish choked her as she heard her steward's incensed cry upon sighting her.

Cheek pressed against Rael's back, Zoe couldn't maneuver in any way to actually see what was going on. All she knew was that her kidnapper had paused, and then he began to run, and she kicked as violently as she could in the hopes of stopping the inevitable.

Suddenly, and with no particular notion of how it had happened, the princess found herself in a tangle of limbs that involved Samuel, herself, and even Kyle. Her head rang like a bell, and she squeezed her eyes shut as she rolled away from the pile to all fours, and began again to dry-retch into the grass.

I need to... I have to say something!

But her body refused to obey, and she choked on her words as another reflexive convulsion of her diaphragm forced the air from her chest.

---

Samuel had been in the service of both his general and his princess for more than half a decade. He had helped her catch frogs to slip into her sister's tent, when princess Sabrina had decided to pay an unannounced visit to the then-colonel's outposting to try to convince her sister to accept a marriage proposal from a man twice her age who happened to head a politically-important house. He had seen the general chase a naked man from her quarters while brandishing a treatise on siege weaponry (Zoe, in contrast, had been fully clothed). He maintained not only her schedule but her social contacts, carefully reminding the princess when her parents or siblings or cousins had birthdays, and weddings, and feasts and festivals. He had held her hair while she vomited after a night of too much wine, fed her soothing ginger tea the next morning. He ensured she was fed, and slept at least six hours a night, and tended to her wounds when she received them, and, on the few occasions required, discretely acquired and administered the necessary herbs to ensure that the general's rare indiscretions resulted in no inconvenient quickenings of her womb. His was her governess, butler, handmaiden, and, at times, her confidant.

Samuel thought he had seen everything.

Samuel had not expected to have his charge literally thrown at him by a stranger, naked, body streaked with blood and hair streaked with vomit. And though Rael was dressed in silken garments, black-on-black with the traditional bird-rising motif sewn on the shoulder, his golden eyes seemed free of malice. At the time, he'd had only a moment to consider the peculiarity of the situation, his hours since delivering Zoe to the camp's best medic had been spent ruminating over what he'd seen. Though his sleep had been interrupted painfully early, he was far too agitated to have any hope of returning to his slumber any time soon.

When General Silidras had regained her powers of speech, her first words had been to plead for Samuel to send word to her family. "If the Crescent Empire sends killers after me, they will send them to my family as well." She had demanded that the stranger who'd assaulted her be apprehended as well, and though she wanted him alive, "I would not mind if Kyle's brothers in arms took their vengeance." Which was when Samuel had explained, with the almost preternatural calm he always seemed to possess in times of crisis, that Kyle was in fact alive, if knocked out cold.

Zoe had merely stared at him, and such was when Samuel first noticed the princess's pupils were two different sizes.

Only after he'd rushed her to the camp's senior doctor, one Madeleine of the house of Cornwall, roused the woman from her bed and shoved the princess into her care, had he gone to act on Zoe's less pressing requests. Bergent, her second most junior colonel, had been roused and set to the task of tracking down the stranger. A man in his early thirties, painfully handsome with short brown hair and piercing blue eyes, Bergent was both a tactical wunderkind and an absolute fop, modest about the former and utterly unabashed about the latter. Better with a dueling rapier than with a sword, he normally would've been the last man Samuel, or anyone, would've dragged into action. But he was also the most familiar of her five colonels with the art of hunting with dogs, and his speed and grace on a horse was unmatched by any other in the camp. Zoe's steward had known it would take some time for his counterpart to rouse his own charge from his bed and get the man dressed and ready, but unless Zoe's assailant-slash-rescuer could sprout wings and fly, he was unlikely to be able to get far enough for Bergent to lose the trail.

After, a pair of birds was dispatched to the palace in Vernes, and another pair to the academy nearby. They warned of an assassination attempt made against Zoe by Crescent Empire men, and of the potential for a similar strike upon the rest of the royal family. King Jacob, crown prince Erik, princess Sabrina, and all of their heirs at least would be at the palace and, hopefully, still alive to receive the warning, while prince Jon would be at the academy. Prince Casey was an unknown, but if he could not be found and warned by the king's men, then it was unlikely any enemies could find him either. Regardless, Samuel also sent a messenger on horseback towards Vernes, though it would take the woman the better part of two days while the birds would arrive in mere hours. But redundancy had never gotten anyone killed, and if nothing else, the rider could take the birds back with her when she returned.

Finally, Samuel had returned to Madeleine's office. He found Zoe asleep, stretched out on one of the doctor's cots, her hair brushed free of debris and in a loose braid, and her naked body covered by a light blanket. A deep bowl, more of a bucket, had been set besides her, as well as a mug of cool and lightly sweetened tea.

"She's badly concussed," Madeleine explained to him, with a heavy sigh. "I've drugged her so she'll sleep, but besides palliative care and observation, there's not much I can do for her short of trepanation. I'd rather not crack open the general's skull unless we have no other choice." If Zoe started having fits, she would have to, but it was a cure that was often worse than the disease. "I'll keep an eye on her tonight, and get one of my apprentices to take over tomorrow. When she wakes up, we can try to move her back to her tent." That her "when" was really an "if" was an uncertainty the doctor tried not to dwell too long on. It was bad enough that someone had tried to kill their general in the "security" of her own camp, it would be worse if she died, not in combat, but in a coma after.

"Alright." Samuel had managed to keep the quaver out of his voice, but he knew all too well the fate of men and women who took head wounds of Zoe's kind. Roughly a quarter walked away from the injury, after a few weeks of rest and recuperation. Half would never fully recover, with some loss of either mental or physical function from the damage, sometimes of the career-ending variety. And the other quarter simply never woke up at all.

The steward was not a particularly religious man, but it was no coincidence that he spent the rest of his evening ruminating on the strangeness of the evening's events with his own, sparsely-read copy of The Light.

---

"Now, let us find this scoundrel and bring him back to our General! I have a bottle of 487 Blackvine for whoever catches him!" Colonel Bergent's voice was a surprisingly crisp tenor, and he cut a princely figure from atop his black stallion, despite his only middling social status. He flashed a savage grin at his men and women, a handful of members of general Silidras's cavalry with some experience working with dogs, and the cheered in reply. It was rare for Adam Bergent to lead a charge anywhere but across the practice field, but when Samuel had finished explaining exactly what had happened to the princess, he'd nearly gone charging from his tent without first donning his pants. Only the exasperated efforts of his own steward, a man in his late fifties who'd served the often scatterbrained soldier since his uncle had retired, ensured that Bergent finished dressing himself before he embarked.

They traveled now two groups, six men and women on horses plus four prick-eared dogs who'd been trained to track down enemy spies and escaped criminals. Rael's scent, as well as that of the dead man they'd found in Zoe's bathing tent, had brought three horses and two dogs backwards along the trail of the Crescent assassins and into the brush. But Bergent had followed the other, slightly newer trail, leading his own trio along the path the stranger had fled down. He was still unsure whether his dogs had picked up the man's scent, or merely that of Zoe's vomit, but in either case they followed as fast as the dogs and horses could move in unison through low brush and the occasional copse of trees.

Someone had attacked his general, his princess! While Bergent would never admit to it, he had once been fascinated by Zoe for more than her military prowess. His inappropriate urges had, thankfully, faded away after six moons of working for the woman, but his affection had transmuted into a fierce loyalty that demanded he find this man and see that he was dealt with. Adam knew the hot stab of protectiveness, even possessiveness, was not wholly appropriate, but he seized upon the emotions anyway to fuel his body which ached from too little sleep and the chafing rub of hastily-donned armor.

 

[Momoiro]

So you fought her? Laughter echoed inside his head. If it had been me, I would have chosen that assassin's poisoned dagger over you any time. Annoying. How annoying!

How long has it been since you've bothered to shift into a human, exactly?

Rael flinched at that question. He didn't appreciate how uncomfortable it made him. "Four... five... maybe ten years? Who keeps track of that, really," he mumbled, shrugging his shoulders in the process. Considering how long dragons lived on average, which was around 500 years, a decade seemed like a hiccup in time to one.

In human terms, that's a lot, but that's besides my point. The girl can count herself lucky that she still has her head. Although we're significantly weaker as humans, we're still strong, brother. Too unnaturally strong, in human terms. She must be tough, that one.

Aye, he agreed inside his head. He could still remember how fiercely and determinedly she'd looked at him, with her sword raised high and her feet planted firmly on the ground. Brave, for a human. It genuinely made him wonder whether she'd look at him the same upon laying her eyes on his dragon form. Would she... run? Or shiver, due to the dragonfear? Probably. Even worse, would she be able to stand her ground against his mother? Rael rubbed his hands all over his face, a wave of exhaustion hitting him out of nowhere.

He hadn't slept the night at all. After he'd left Zoe's division, he'd been running north and through the forest for a good while, towards a spot which ended in a steep cliff range. Not only had he sought to gain some clarity out of it, but he had also dreaded the possibility of Zoe's minions following his tracks eventually; which they would, if they cared about her at all. It mattered not either way, because they would never be able to find him anytime soon, if at all, since he'd shifted in time to fly as soon as he felt it was safe enough to do so.

I'll ask you again, his brother Talan insisted inside his mind, are you really certain that she is the one? Dragons could, if they had hatched from the same batch of eggs, communicate with each other over miles away, even if they were whole lands apart from each other. Theirs was a strong bond, and one of the many reasons why dragons were perfectly content with living on their lonesome. It was as much of a gift as it was a blessing. This time, which had been the first and definitely the last, Rael had reached out to his younger brother Talan, as he was known far and wide for being very familiar with the ways of humans. Talan, in return, had answered to his call almost immediately, as Rael wasn't known for being awfully communicative among his kin. Rather, he was the mean one, the one who seemed to detest everything and everyone, someone who was as inscrutable as a book with most of its pages torn out.

Yes, he replied, yes I am. I felt it clearly. That, and my eyes had shifted. I only realized it until much later.

As a dragon, he was a creature of pearly white scales and golden eyes. But as a human?

He stepped into the sunlight. Where once was an unlawful servant of the Empire the night prior, stood now a man of no allegiance to any kind of human faction whatsoever. He was tall and handsome, with hair the color of moonlight and eyes the color of blazing embers–red, almost, if one looked closely. Thick brows lined his features, as well as a pair of highly cut cheekbones and an unerringly strong chin. He wore the clothes and the armor of a warrior long dead, evident by the banner on his chestplate, one that belonged to a people which surely no longer existed. He'd worn them before he'd changed into the silky black garments, and was now standing at the mouth of a small cave. It was mediocre at best, nothing like his own den at all, but it had offered him some shelter nonetheless.

Human, he reminded himself, she's a human. Most dragons believed and hoped that they would be able to find a mate which was only meant for them one day. Their couplings weren't so much for the sake of reproduction as it was genuine companionship–to have and be with someone to make their long, long lives less drab. As Zoe was a human however, they wouldn't have much time to spend together at all. Cruel, wasn't it? Rael kept himself from laughing bitterly at this. Maybe this was retribution. His very own punishment for what he'd done to his sister all those years ago, an eye for an eye.

Stay where you are, Talan's melodic voice caused him to snap out of his self-deprecating musings, I'll join you shortly.

I can't wait, Rael retorted as he was already on the move, I'm worried about her. Something tells me that she's still very much in an awful condition. I could heal her easily. Your healing Magick is the strongest, I know, but I can't stand the thought of her suffering. Because of me. Granted, Rael hadn't punched Zoe merely out of curiosity then. One of the assassins had been equipped with a deadly poison from the East and they had planned to make use of it, should Zoe turn out to be more troublesome than easy to deal with. Rael had attempted to stop them from getting to her tent in the first place; only that he'd killed the wrong one. By attacking the princess himself, he'd wanted to distract the enemy from feeling tempted to use their poison. While his plan had worked out in the end, it had also backfired at him quite a bit.

Would her subordinates try to kill him as soon as he set foot on their camp once more? He doubted that, though he also doubted that they'd allow him to get close to their general easily.

———

After a few hours had passed and Colonel Bergent's charge returned to their brothers and sisters in arms without the mysterious stranger, to everyone's disbelief, a few soldiers had banded together over the matter, chattering about it while eating a simple meal.

"I refuse to believe that someone can disappear just like that. It's like the guy vanished into thin air!"

"Tell me about it. Sir Bergent's dogs have never failed to track something. Never!"

One of the soldiers stared into his bowl of stew and remained quiet throughout the whole conversation, until he addressed the most bizarre event among all.

"It's not that the dogs have failed to find something," he began conspiratorially, "they've found his clothes on the other side of this forest, at the cliffs. But they were shredded and torn, as if an animal had attacked him. And yet?" The soldier finally looked up from his bowl. "No blood. Not a single drop of it. No more footprints, as if he'd jumped off the cliffs. But for what reason? Just what was the meaning of that?"

They all fell into silence, until one of them suddenly jumped up and pointed at something in the distance.

"Who is that?"

All of their heads whipped into the same direction to see an unfamiliar man approach. He was tall, extremely tall, and although most of his body was hidden underneath an odd set of armor, they could tell that this one was used to the ways of battle. None of them had ever seen his face around before, too. It was unlikely that he was just a mere traveler, as the camp had been set up nowhere near a main road.

So they all followed suit and jumped up from their seats, ready to attack, should the stranger give them any reason to. There was just something... off, about the aura that surrounded him.

"Who are you—and what brings you to this place?" One of them called out to the stranger.

The stranger stopped to walk not too far from the group. He looked at them with the strangest eye color anyone had ever seen.

The corners of his lips curled up, and the smile that crept on his features could only be described as somehow hungry, dangerous, like a predator that was about to pounce down on its prey. The group shifted uncomfortably.

Then, finally:

"I heard your princess was looking for me."

 

[lasciel]

"Dammit!"

Adam Bergent was not a man who made a habit of swearing, and even two years in the company of the blithely profane colonel Dukaas hadn't changed that. Even the lesser swear he'd chosen was a serious transgression by the high-brow standards he kept, and his two companions exchanged looks of concern as their commander stormed along the cliff's edge in an obvious huff. But his anger wasn't without cause. Three soldiers, three horses, and two dogs, all moving as fast as the last group's nose could follow, had spent the better part of two hours making their way steadily up hill towards a region known as Vernes gorge. The city with which the landmark shared it's name was still several days' ride away, but the term referred technically to the entire region, bounded by rivers on two sides, a road on a third, and a different gorge which was named Nifdrop for reasons no historian had ever been able to puzzle out. While Vernes gorge was only roughly a third as wide as Nifdrop, it was far steeper, and the far side more than a hundred feet lower than the near one.

A horse at a gallop could've perhaps crossed the gap, but the fall would make the journey fatal. Nor had the stranger they'd pursued been on horseback, given the telling lack of hoof-prints, and the thick branches they'd had to bend aside or go around on their mounts even as the dogs had followed the scent straight through. Supposedly, the man had escaped the camp on foot, and never mind that two hours of mounted pursuit hadn't turned him up. They hadn't been able to take the horses at a proper gallop through the brush, but even then, they'd been less than half an hour late in making their pursuit and were moving at least half again as fast as even a sprinter would've gone. And no man could sprint through the woods for two hours without stopping, besides!

But the impossibility of the situation hadn't actually changed it. All it did was give colonel Bergent more fuel for his anger and frustration, which was less than helpful given the distinct lack of enemies at which he could vent his spleen. He was reduced instead to grumbling angrily beneath his breath as he stomped back and forth across the small, and uniquely bizarre scene they'd discovered.

"Aye, colonel?" One of his companions finally ventured, straightening up from the squatting position she'd assumed to better inspect the cloth scraps their quarry had left behind. That they'd managed to rip his tunic at all would've been surprising, but the fine scraps it had been reduced to, with no sign of blood of struggle, was beyond comprehension. Silk was a rare luxury as far west and south as Talundor, but it was apparently plentiful in the Crescent, as reports from the front claimed that many of the enemy's soldiers wore silk shirts and pants beneath their armor. And while the thin, filmy version of the fabric favored by the local elite was fragile stuff, the version the enemy's troops favored had been treated and quilted in such a fashion as to be nearly as effective as maille in stopping a blade.

Whatever Zoe's assailant had been wearing was not quite as thick, but it still would've required serious effort to rend it. A wolf could've managed... given a half hour of dedicated chewing, perhaps, but it had taken them two hours to get here. The timing didn't work out, and the scraps the young soldier slowly collected were free of both blood and drool. She held them up, hoping to attract Bergent's attention. "Colonel?," she repeated, a little louder.

"Yes?!" The man snapped, rounding to glare at his subordinate. But his expression softened a moment later. "Sorry, Mina." The colonel shook his head apologetically, then made his way back over. But he'd already seen what the woman pointed out to him, and it was what had driven him into a mood to begin with. As far as the three of them could determine, Zoe's would-be assassin had simply... exploded?

"Gather up anything you can find. If the other group lost the trail or followed the wrong assailant, perhaps we can use this," he gestured at the scraps that decorated the sparse treeline, "to get them started again." It was the best he could do, and Adam hated it. Someone had attacked their general, their princess, in her own damned camp, and he couldn't do anything about it!

---

The other half of Bergent's hunting crew had managed no better. Worse, in fact, as they had followed the trail that Zoe's two assailants had taken into the camp for a mere two miles before encountering one of the wandering fingers of the river Elna, and there the trail had gone cold. The two assassins had followed the stream for some time, for even splitting their party further to follow the far bank a mile in each direction revealed no new trails. Unlike with Bergent's group, their quarries hadn't simply disappeared into thin air, but knowing how they'd managed the trick didn't leave them any better equipped to undo it. Though the moon was full, the low rolling hills concealed their fair share of rabbit-holes, and none of their trio had been eager to lose a horse in a pursuit that they'd already put in twice again their best effort at. The dogs, too, were reaching their limit, attuned to the bow-strung tension that gripped their human handlers but having no notion of why the two-legs were upset. It left them anxious, and an anxious dog was about as useful as an anxious soldier.

All six men and women ultimately reunited at the kennels, and discussed their mutual failures amidst the sharp barking of overexcited dogs and the low crack and hiss of hastily-lit torches. And while none of the six of them gossiped on what they had, or hadn't, found, the kennel master's assistant who'd been roused from his bed to ensure the dogs were cared for when they were returned had no such compunctions about who he spoke to.

Word of the attack on General Silidras had already spread among those awake (or awakened not long after) like wildfire. When new information came to light, which only made the general's would-be assassins seem more mysterious and even magical, the rumor had taken flight with almost preternatural speed. The soldiers especially were satisfied, grateful even that Silidras's assailant was suggested to be something more-than-human. That the Crescent deemed it necessary to send some sort of magical beast to slay their brave and valiant leader added to her reputation, even if a few more cynical souls suggested that colonel Bergent had made the whole story up to cover-up his incompetence.

The fourth colonel had a... reputation for being uniquely talented in the art of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. And though the Bergent name was only a minor house in the grand diagram of Talundor's nobility, all titles looked lofty from the mud, and too many men and women took the colonel's eccentricities as a sign that he'd only achieved his position through graft. The opinion was, thankfully, a minority one, even if nearly everyone knew of the colonel's worst misstep, which involved a horse, a bottle of sweet wine, half the afternoon's wash, and an extremely irate blacksmith. More importantly, Bergent's superiors knew where his strengths lay, and that "dishonesty" was not among his vices.

Moping, however, was. While rumors of his failed mission slithered into every waking ear, Adam Bergent dragged his remarkably sorry ass back to his tent, and hoped that if he tried hard enough to sleep he would awaken and find it all had been some bizarre dream. Not even the good kind of weird, he'd thought dourly to himself once his manservant had bundled him back into bed, with strange-colored wine and women with too many teats.

---

The sole defining feature Samuel had been able to glean of Zoe's attacker had been his eyes. Only an idiot would've called them "brown", and "yellow" too crass a description that did them no justice. Chief steward to a princess-turned-general, he'd seen his fair share of gold, real gold so soft you could dent it with a fingernail, and it had been the only color he could liken that cool, arrogant stare to. Even in the dim light of the moon they'd seemed to glow, but he'd spared the night guard his poetic flourish. "A man, about this tall," he had said, gesturing, "lean to medium build, and with golden eyes. Dressed all in black Crescent silks, usual motif on the shoulder."

Colonel Adrison had been roused not long after Bergent, as someone had thought it prudent to have at least one commanding officer awake and on-site while the camp figured out if they were at a risk of further attack. Adrison had done what The Book suggested, and called for a doubling of the night patrols. He had also wanted every person involved in the duty to have Samuel's personal account of the man they still sought, though he hadn't expected the details to be so sparse. Not that he would've accused Samuel of doing anything wrong. He and the man had their differences (hells, he and General Silidras had their differences), but he knew the steward was a stickler to detail. If he hadn't seen any more than he said, then that was all the information the gods had seen fit to grant them with.

Which didn't mean Daniel Adrison had liked the state of things.

But it did mean that when he'd been summoned to deal with yet another mysterious stranger who'd appeared in their camp, this one with white hair and nearly red eyes, he had made the very reasonable assumption that this newcomer represented a unique threat, rather than a repetition of the ones they had faced earlier in the evening. Because for reasons lost to him, the fates had seen fit to send them an entire moon's worth of weirdness in one evening!

Adrison wore his formal uniform rather than gleaming plate, but the blue-on-black of Talundor's military uniform was no less intimidating. He was a heavily-built man with a broad chest and thick arms and the beginnings of a paunch, and the weathered hand he rested idly on the pommel of the sword belted at his hip looked no slower on the draw for his age. Of Zoe's five generals he was both the oldest and the most senior, though his lack of creativity had left his career topped-out as a First Colonel for the past decade-and-a-half. Which suited him just fine, as troop movements on scales broader than a few hundred men left him uncomfortable for the multitudes of uncertainties that could fold out from larger engagements. That he had technically now assumed command of a camp filled with thousands of soldiers, and would remain in charge until (if) his general awakened, was a minor detail he was trying at present not to consider too thoroughly.

His current engagement at present spanned only ten men, plus the stranger they'd gathered around. Ten was an auspicious number, another fact he tried not to consider, as he instead studied the strangely-colored man who'd been hauled before him. Or should've been, but as things were, the one soldier who'd come to find anyone in charge had asserted that trying to subdue the man who'd interrupted their pre-shift supper would've been equal parts difficult and pointless. The soldier had seemed reticent to even admit that the newcomer was human, though Adrison was uncertain what else he could have been. As much as their own kin liked to demonize the Crescent soldiers, their ranks were merely human. Gods, he hoped that was still true.

So Adrison had come to him, but not alone. He'd roused five of his best men, and where he wore waistcoat and trousers and boots, his companions were dressed in studded leathers and wielded dangerous-looking pole-arms. The soldier who'd lost (or won, depending on how one looked at things) the bet to be the one to find "help" had returned with strict instructions for the newcomer to "stay where he was", which he relayed before retreating to the far side of his fire to contemplate how cold his stew would be by the time this was all sorted. The First Colonel arrived roughly a quarter of an hour later, and the scowl that creased his weathered features was so caustic it could've stripped paint.

He really does look like a demon with those eyes, he thought, and it was only decades of experience that kept both his surprise and his fear from reaching his face. Even his voice was steady, emotionless except for a mild hint of annoyance, as he addressed the stranger. "Who are you, and why are you trespassing in General Silidras's camp?" He asked, and as he did, his five men fanned out into a semi-circle, setting their pole-arms at the ready. Adrison wanted there to be no ambiguity about the balance of power between himself and this stranger, and he had instructed his men accordingly as they'd crossed the camp.

 

[Momoiro]

If one hadn't known about Rael's predicament, they likely would have called him a madman. No dragon would have ever bothered to involve themselves in human affairs like this; not anymore, at least, as it was considered quite a bother after years of trial and error—unless, of course, their intent was to smother them for a quick, tasty snack. Now that was acceptable.

"A little bird told me that Princess Silidras was assaulted last night. The news spread fast."

Any lesser man, or dragon for that matter, should have had every reason to feel anxious, surrounded by so many burly and battle-hardened soldiers at once. After all, dragons were more vulnerable when in human form. Although severed limbs and serious injuries could be reversed or healed by shifting back into dragon form in time, a severed head couldn't. But not him. Not Rael. He was as calm as one could be. To him, these men were something more akin to bugs; some were interesting to look at, some weren't, and he was completely content with studying them from a distance away. His oldest sister, Rhi, for example, never failed to assert just how much humans grossed her out.

Consequently, Adrison's frown and less than pleased countenance didn't faze him in the least. He could practically smell it; his fear. It swirled around him in broad strokes and crept all over his brawny body. It was evident in the way he breathed and carried himself too.

Look at them, closing in on me like that. They're trying to intimidate me.

Rael was impressed, and nearly felt the urge to laugh, though he restrained his laughter in time. Instead, an amused smile tugged at the corners of his mouth and curved its lines into an upward crescent. All of these men seemed to genuinely adore and respect Zoe, which was interesting to him. Their loyalty wasn't a forced one or bought with gold or other riches, but it was genuine and true. He couldn't wait to find out what kind of person Zoe really was. Would she turn out to be a bore? A whiny nuisance? Greedy or bad of temper?

Rael tousled his silvery looks. Everything about his body language spoke of ease and lacked the tension of someone who was neck-deep in trouble.

One of the soldiers next to Colonel Adrison gulped visibly when their eyes locked. They all seemed to be on high alert and nervous, the intensity of their unrest growing more potent with each second that passed.

"I happen to know my way around the healing arts," Rael began to explain, and some of the soldiers exhaled audibly, while others looked at one another in shared confusion, "where I come from, I'm one of the best." A drastic lie, obviously. Rael's forte were violent Magicks, lethal Magicks, but not this. "I don't mean to offend, but I've been traveling through your lovely kingdom for a while now, and it seems that my skills and knowledge could definitely be of help to you."

He spread his arms to each of his sides, as if granting them permission to check for themselves whether he was carrying any weapons or similar objects on his person. Which he did—he allowed those puny little ants to get close to him. Him, the creature they called The Dangerous.

"You can check for yourself. I come in peace, and I’m not carrying any weapons on me. In fact, I'm not carrying anything else on me besides this bag, an empty water bottle, and a simple knife to cut through menial things. All I ask for is a night in one of your tents and some food."

His story was rather believable, as there weren't any cities or villages nearby this camp. A foreigner who miscalculated his rations because he wasn't exactly familiar with Talundor's mapping wasn't entirely strange either. Although his eyes were, that, and how he'd managed to learn of Zoe's condition in the first place.

"I wouldn't trust this guy, Colonel," one of the men said.

"But what if he's telling the truth? Judging by Samuel's face the moment he stepped out of Madeleine's office, our General seems to be in a critical condition," another chimed in. "Hmm," he continued thoughtfully, "Robin, go and check whether he's telling the truth."

Robin, a stubby man with dirty blond hair and a thick beard stepped forward, puffing his chest in the process and offering Rael his meanest glower. I dare you to try something, it said. He'd seen and experienced quite a lot in all of his 32 years, but by the gods, he'd never felt such an unsettling feeling like he did at that moment before.

He positioned himself in front of Rael, and let loose of an annoyed tsk when he realized that he barely even reached up to the stranger's chin. Robin wasn't shy in checking every nook and cranny on the other's body, though something within him told him to not go too overboard with his inspection; his survival instinct, maybe.

"It—it's true! He's telling the truth. His garments underneath that hood have seen better days, and he's not armed."

Robin returned to Adrison's side and confirmed his words with a curt nod of his head. "What should we do with him, Colonel?"

 

[lasciel]

A "bird" had told him? Or the Crescent had sent him to finish the woman off if their first assault failed. But as much as colonel Adrison wanted to order this man bound and then beheaded, he recognized that his knee-jerk reaction sprung from fear, not logic. Silidras's assault, leaving the general laid up in Madeleine's tent like an invalid, had everyone on-edge. Adrison was simply old and experienced enough to know that said edge often led men to making unfortunate mistakes.

Not that he would've been bowing and scraping to let this stranger at the general's side, even under better circumstances. His sudden appearance, and his weak and vague explanation as to his origins, sat poorly with the colonel. While Adrison's men frisked Rael, their leader studied him with pale blue eyes that had hardened to flecks of ice.

"And why does a healer wear the standard of a house which has been extinct for centuries?" Adrison asked, his cool conversational tone belying his deep suspicion. After Zoe, he was the highest-born individual in the camp, and his childhood interests in history and heraldry had been indulged right alongside his desire to learn the sword. He knew every crest any family had ever raised in the Indigo valley, and the one before him had been taken up by a minor house which had splintered from their liege lord in the Northeast three hundred years prior. Said house ran out of heirs a few generations later. That the standard was even older, having been inspired by a relic said rebel-house's matriarch had once seen, was beyond even Adrison's knowledge. But he knew for certain the stranger had no business wearing it.

Still, it was a little too sloppy even for the Crescent Empire. That Rael spoke Talundic wasn't a disqualifier on its own; no footsoldier thus captured spoke any of the common tongue but that didn't mean the Crescent Empire possessed no such men. But why robe their spy (or whatever the stranger was) in the colors of a dead house? Surely they had enough examples, captured sets of armor and the like, to forge the livery of a house still in existence. Or no sigil at all, beyond the peacock rampant that all men and women in the royal army bore somewhere on their person. And why wander into the middle of their camp so obviously? If his mission was to masquerade as a healer, why dress himself like a soldier?

Nor did he look like any of the Crescent soldiers he had ever seen. It was possible that whatever condition gave rise to his eyes and hair also was responsible for his unique looks, but he was taller than most men even in Talundor, and the features of his face suggested his origin to be much further west than the Crescent Empire. The way he spoke was telling, too, the soft consonants of his speech marking his accent as somewhere from the Northeast. It was pronounced enough to suggest that he came from somewhere cozied up against the base of the Indigos.

Adrison pinched the bridge of his crooked nose in obvious consternation. He had spend enough time around doctor Cornwall's tent, and knew what a proper healer looked like. This stranger reminded him of nothing of the sort. Indeed, the lazy grace with which he moved suggested a well-trained fighter... Or an assassin. Even as Robin pronounced the man unarmed, his mind was working to consider the likelihood that this man could finish off Zoe with five guards surrounding him. He didn't like the stranger's confidence, and he didn't believe his claim of being "one of the best" healers among his people. If he was from the Indigo foothills, as his accent suggested... that was dangerous and wild place, and from what Adrison knew, their "medicine" was little more than herbcraft.

So why was he here? Letting him go wasn't an option, but he couldn't hang the man without cause. Which left the colonel in an awkward position.

"Come with me, boy." Adrison finally replied. He gestured to his soldiers. "At ease."

They lowered their pole-arms to a resting position, but did not disperse. When Adrison turned to depart, they formed up in a loose shell around Rael, leaving him little choice but to follow.

The hour was late (or early) enough that Rael received few glances. Most of the men and women awake were those on guard duty, and their attention was mostly turned outward from the camp. Chief steward Samuel and fourth colonel Bergent (and his steward) all still were awake, but each ensconced in the smothering solitude of their respective tents. It was unlikely either of them would sleep for several hours yet, but Adrison had no intention of disturbing them. As far as the first colonel was concerned, the present disturbance was independent of the incident earlier in the night.

The small entourage made their way inward, though Adrison's men knew they were not headed to the medical tents. They were all wise enough not to point out the discrepancy. Whatever the colonel was up to, it wasn't their place to cause trouble. Not that any of them relished the thought of having to restrain the stranger when he realized where they were headed.

Silidras's camp was as well-run as any, but the proximity to Vernes and the distance from the front meant that she was in charge not only of managing the reserve, but of training and integrating new recruits. Discipline, thus, was a greater issue than at any of the other camps, and the stockade was both oversized and centrally located. It was rare for a serious punishment to be delivered, as the majority of the offenses related to fighting, drunkenness, and contraband. But the structure was one of the few of wooden, rather than canvas, construction, and despite the well-kept conditions, Rael's sensitive nose could pick out lingering odors of dried blood, sweat, urine, and fear. They had soaked into the floors and walls, and no amount of cleaning would ever make the stockade smell pleasant.

The squat building possessed a small front office, presently staffed by a sleepy-looking young man with bushy red locks that stuck out at odd angles. His hair, and the glazed-over look of his hazel eyes, suggested he had been dozing at his post until the heavy footsteps of Adrison and his men had awoken him. The small puddle of drool on the otherwise-clean desk supported such a conclusion.

"C-colonel Adrison?" He asked, blinking in surprise. "Sir!" He added belatedly. It was exceptionally rare for any of the top brass to escort a prisoner to the stockade in-person. Doubly so, at such an obscure hour.

"I assume nobody is in room one?" Adrison barely paid the young man's nod any notice; he had known the answer before asking. "Go fetch doctor Cornwall." He felt bad rousing the chief medical officer from her bed for the second time that night, but her expertise in medicine was unrivaled in the camp. Moreover, Adrison trusted her judgement. She would be able to suss out, he hoped, whether this trespasser was an enemy spy, or merely a fool. Or, perhaps, if he really could be of assistance.

He gestured at the door, and the sleepy youth went running.

"Come with me." Again, Adrison's men formed up to keep Rael moving in the correct direction. Though they kept their pole-arms at their shoulders, none of the men looked relaxed. "I'm not locking you up, boy." The colonel added, if Rael offered protest. "Not yet, anyway."

The room Rael was brought to suffered the same problem as the whole stockade, but far more pungent. The room wasn't dirty, but no amount of scrubbing would scour it of the unpleasant emotions that so often suffused it. Within was a simple wooden table, a single chair on one side and a handful of chairs on the other. Rael was escorted to the former, and the open space around him let Adrison's men fill in.

Except that the colonel waved them away.

"Michael, go find this boy some food." Adrison added, when his guards looked reluctant to budge. "The rest of you can wait outside. I think I can handle one unarmed vagabond." It was a front. He was as disquieted by the notion of being alone with Rael as his companions were. But he continued to remind himself that the boy was unarmed, and no matter how much his strange appearance unsettled him, that didn't make him dangerous.

"Now." Adrison took the central chair across from Rael, folding his hands together and placing them on the tabletop. Though he was a handspan shorter than the stranger, he still managed to loom as he leaned forwards. Despite his fear, his maintained a commanding presence, and only a hint of his curiosity seeped into his otherwise hard expression.

"When doctor Cornwall gets here she's going to ask you a few questions. Do you have anything you'd like to share before that happens?"

---

Madeleine Cornwall was an older woman, with steaks of silver in her thick brown hair and fine lines surrounding her eyes and the corners of her mouth. She had never been a petite woman, and had she been younger, her figure would've been described as "fertile". As things were, "plump" was a better description, though there was no sluggishness or lassitude to her movements. Her slippers and long linen robe, embroidered with foxes running 'round the bottom hem, stood in stark contrast to Adrison's formal jacket and slacks. But despite her relaxed state of dress (the woman clearly having hurried over to the stockade with only minimal preparation), her brown eyes were bright and skeptical.

Rael had been brought a portion of the stew that the men he'd first encountered had been enjoying, as well as a mug of sweetened tea and a crust of black, grain-rich bread. Adrison had let him consume (or neglect) the food without interruption, but when Madeleine entered he rapped his knuckles on the table.

"This boy claims he's a healer of some renown, and that he can... help." The first colonel managed to pack an impressive amount of skepticism into that one word.

"That does not explain why am I being roused at half past first bell." Madeleine replied, quirking one bushy brow at the colonel. The man was not in her chain of command, not was Zoe, technically. Her ultimate superior was the First Surgeon, and all doctors in the royal army were technically seconded to the general, colonel, major, or captain they served. Officially, she could've ignored Adrison's request to come to the stockade, and owed him no deference. But a man like the first colonel didn't go summoning doctors at strange hours for kicks.

Adrison shook his head in acknowledgement. "You're being roused because I haven't yet decided if this boy is our guest, or our prisoner. He appeared on the outskirts of our camp, about a candlemark ago." Wearing the armor of a dead house, and thoroughly creeping out the men he had first encountered. Among other problems.

Doctor Cornwall gave a small and exasperated sigh. "I see." She took a seat adjacent to Adrison, leaning back and folding her arms beneath her well-sized bust. Her expression, while not as caustic as the colonel's had been, was still far from friendly. If Rael's unusual coloring or unsettling aura affected her, she gave no sign.

"I have a woman, late twenties, concussed and presenting with uneven dilation of the pupils, nausea with vomiting, vertigo, and irritability. What would you suggest I do that I haven't already done?" In Madeleine's opinion, Adrison should've locked the trespasser up and handled him in the morning. There was no herbcraft or medicine she knew of that couldn't wait at least that long, and the general wouldn't be awake to eat or drink anything until then anyway. Assuming the boy was even competent in the first place. But she was here, and awake, so she would try to complete the colonel's inane request as quickly and directly as possible.

 

[Momoiro]

"Oh? Doctor Cornwall? Your business with Colonel Adrison is already over?," a soldier guarding the front of the medical tents asked. His two companions next to him nodded in agreement.

"I saw you running out of your quarters not even half an hour ago, towards where Colonel Adrison was headed as well. Must have been urgent. Say, who was the person they were escorting?"

Someone who looked identical to the capable, and seemingly always stressed senior doctor, nodded their head in a reassuring manner. Their voice, too, sounded just like Madeleine Cornwall's, as if it had been the woman herself who was now standing in front of the tent which sheltered one sleeping princess.

"It's fine. He wanted my counsel on a matter which required my knowledge. We're all a bit on-edge right now, and you'll learn about everything in time." Faux Cornwall patted the first soldier's shoulder briefly, before gesturing towards the entrance behind his back. "I'll have a quick look on the General before I return to my quarters. If you could step aside, that'd be great."

"Oh! Of course," the men did as suggested, "please, you're the only one who is allowed to enter and leave this place at this point. Take care of her for us."

After a quick exchange of curt nods, 'she' went inside.

Except for a few lighted candles, everything else was engulfed by darkness. Sure enough, no one else besides Zoe was in sight, lying on one of the bunks and covered by a clean blanket. Granted, the tent was guarded by at least five men, all surrounding it. As weak as humans were in comparison to most other species, they certainly adapted fast and learned from their mistakes more quickly. A terrifying characteristic.

"Hmm," Cornwall mused as she approached Zoe's sleeping form and bent at her hips in order to study her features, "Rael will lose quite a bit of his coin to me for this."

Within the next few seconds, Cornwall's plump body disappeared from sight, and in its stead, a man stood in her place. Anyone else who wasn't familiar with his Magick would think that they'd swapped places in the blink of an eye, but it had been him all along; Talan The Deceptive. Third in line to the throne and one of Rael's younger brothers, he was known far and wide for both his intricate Illusion Magick, as well as being a gifted healer. Unlike Rael, he was less of a fighter who was specialized in destructive combat, and more of someone who preferred it to slither in the shadows. While those around him enjoyed their crowns and seated themselves upon thrones, Talan took pleasure in the art that was secrecy. Secrets and shadows offered solace no vainglorious renown or adoration could. He was a Machiavellian disguised in the hide of a frolicking, human-loving skirt chaser.

A smile similar to his older brother's tugged at his full lips. It took him a bit and then some even, to hold himself back from performing a little, victorious dance. The oh so mighty and awfully moody Rael had asked him for his help at last. Not many dragons were lucky enough to meet their fated mates in their lifetimes. In Rael's case however, he couldn't have been more unlucky, really. None of them had known that it was possible to be fated to a human in the first place.

Talan went on his knees besides Zoe and placed his right hand on her forehead. It wasn't really necessary for him to touch her for what he was about to do, though he also figured that it'd be his only chance to get this close to his brother's mate from here on out. He began to chant something in their ancient dragon language, which caused for his hand to glow a faint hue of blue, much like the tips of his midnight black hair. After a moment, the glow disappeared and the temperature inside the tent dropped by a bit, a result of the small amount of energy that had been used.

"There we go, all healed. Honestly, it was almost a waste of my Magick." In fact, not only had he healed her back to complete health, but Zoe would also awaken feeling more spirited and stronger than ever before.

Talan yawned and stood up, tired from his flight to these grounds. He'd been in Vernes not too long ago, and set off to this place as soon as he'd received Rael's messages.

It's done, brother, he let him know.

Almost immediately, Rael replied inside his mind.

Finally! Took you long enough. You have no idea, just how much I'd like to kill them all right about now. Humans are so damned irritating.

After a long pause, wherein Talan had assumed that all was said, he heard something else which almost caused for him to double over in shock.

... Thank you.

----

At the same time, on the other side of the camp inside the prison, the real Doctor Cornwall stood up from her seat with such force, that she flinched a bit. Her back-pains these days were getting worse and worse, which she blamed on stress. She then proceeded to point a strong finger, dangerously close, at Rael's face.

"Enough! I admit, he knows a lot, but this conversation is getting us nowhere. I refuse to believe in a cure which relies on physical contact. What utter nonesense."

But it was true, actually. Dragons like him, who weren't as talented as his brother Talan in that regard, required physical proximity in order to perform healing arts on others. Now that he knew however, that Zoe's life was no longer in danger, he visibly calmed down and eased back into his seat. The smells inside the prison had driven him crazy the moment they'd entered it. It took him all of his well-honed patience that he'd worked on over the years, to not transform and take off from this place.

"I'm sorry, Adrison, but my patience's run out. It's way too early in the day for me to have this much of a headache already. I'll take my leave."

Due to the fact that she was still pointing at him with her mean stubby fingers, Rael used the heat of the moment to lean forward and to grab her hand in one of his, which only brought a wash of angry threats over him.

"What by all reason do you think you're doing?!"

The dragon prince merely crossed his arms in front of his chest in response, and stared at Cornwall with the most calm expression that he could muster.

"How about now?," he asked nonchalantly, "how's your headache now?"

Before one of the guards could hurl themselves at him for his impudence, Doctor Cornwall's eyes widened. Realization spread on her elderly face.

"Wait!," she exclaimed, "wait."

She touched her forehead, then brushed down the back of her right hand along her back.

Gone.

Her terrible back-pains were gone.

She looked at Rael with new-found interest and bewilderment all the same.

"How...?"

 

[lasciel]

Colonel Adrison a few things about field medicine, having both administered and received such at numerous points in the past. He wasn't a trained doctor, but he had just enough knowledge to appreciate the need for boiled bandages, or setting a broken bone, or the dangers of a fever. He'd been able to follow along at the start of the conversation... and then Doctor Cornwall had quickly lost him when she'd began to pull out words like "hematoma" and "encephalitis". Still, as far as he could tell, the stranger was keeping up, even if he contributed precious little to the conversation himself. That suggested only that the man was a good actor, however. It would not take any great medical skill to pretend he knew what he was hearing, unless the doctor was being devious and making blatantly false statements to test the vagabond's mettle. But as much as he would've liked the doctor to do such, Adrison knew she hadn't a devious bone in her body. Madeleine Cornwall was a painfully blunt, straightforward woman, and the same qualities which made her an excellent surgeon left her ill-equipped to really interrogate a prisoner, he was quickly realizing.

Not that the stranger didn't insist on screwing up anyway.

He knew, knew, that the boy was lying when he started making claims of touch-based "healing". He hadn't even called it medicine, or surgery, or herbcraft. Simply "healing", which had garnered so much ire from the doctor that Adrison was afraid she would throttle the man. And if pure, unadulterated frustration could fuel muscles, he rightly suspected she could've managed it. Still, even if he knew that such claims of "healing" were mythical falsehoods (or, he supposed, warlock-make, which honestly was worse), it was Doctor Cornwall's place to express her incredulity. As she did, with a startling amount of vigor given the early hour of the morning.

Unfortunately, the two appeared to have reached an impasse. Unfortunately for the stranger, anyway, as it meant he'd fallen off the saddle he'd mounted to firmly fall under the heading of "prisoner" rather than guest. The colonel would readily admit it had been the most likely outcome from the start, but... well, he had begun to nurse the barest twinkle of hope when the stranger had declared his intentions. It was a foolish thing, and his frustration at himself for the feeling would no doubt add an edge to his treatment of the trespasser. He'd risen right along with Madeleine, ready to order the young man imprisoned, when he reached out and grabbed the doctor's hand!

There was a quiet hiss of metal sliding along well-oiled leather as Adrison drew his sword. The long weapon was hideously impractical for such a confined space, but he figured he could smack the man away, and in that time the guards outside would come inside and put their far more practical saps to good use.

But the commotion had ended as quickly as it had begun, and the colonel found himself standing with his sword half-drawn and no real notion as to whether he should pull it out or put it away. It was the sort of quandary, he thought wryly to himself, that was more common in men half his age. And knowing what his idiot younger self had done in similar situations (and knowing the outcome such actions yielded), there came a quiet click as the cross-guard of his weapon made contact once more with the metal lip of it's scabbard. The trespasser had apparently scored some sort of point against Doctor Cornwall, and if she wanted him to wait, he could damn well display the patience her station both deserved and demanded!

But whatever revelation she'd come to, she seemed reticent to share with the colonel, at least not until older (he assumed) of the two males gently cleared his throat.

"Either this young man has both cured my headache and fixed my bulging lumbar disc," she began, in a voice as bland as porridge, "or, he's made it impossible for me to feel pain from those two maladies. I can't ascertain which without a more thorough self-examination, and regardless..." her brown eyes narrowed in suspicion, "it shouldn't be possible."

Madeleine knew a little of thaumaturgy, as the medical college in Vernes made a point of dispelling it's students of some of the more fantastic beliefs in what could and couldn't be achieved with it. All magic (as far as anyone in the kingdom was aware) followed the principle of "equal or greater exchange", which had particularly nasty consequences in the biomantic arts. "Healing", as the stranger had described, was in fact possible... but only if he'd been willing to take the doctor's own injuries upon himself, plus a little more, to pay the cost of the transaction. He didn't look to be in pain, and in fact appeared quite pleased with himself. And, like Adrison, Madeleine did suspect the boy capable of being a very accomplished liar and actor, but lying in this case would do him little good. No amount of guile could change the laws of thaumaturgy, which meant one of three possibilities.

The first was that he considered taking her injuries as part of the cost of business, a front to get him in close proximity to the princess so he could then finish what the earlier assassins had started. The doctor assigned a low probability to the outcome, in part because such action seemed utterly alien to her, and also, because it was needlessly convoluted. The second was that he had no real notion of the extent of Zoe's injuries, and while the boy probably did intend to heal the princess, he'd likely back off once he learned that he'd be taking a serious multiple-concussion upon himself. Given that such an injury could easily end a thaumaturgist's career (or hell, their life), that seemed to her the most likely answer. It was possible that the lad would be so earnest as to offer to take Zoe's injuries anyway, which would put Madeleine in an awkward spot. Her oaths were to treat all men and women according to the severity of their injury, not the importance of their station, and allowing one individual to injure themselves in order to heal another would be running the ragged edge of her morality. Still, there were strategic considerations to be made when it came to treating someone as elevated as a Least General, and furthermore, significant implications for troop morale if the princess did perish.

Of course, there was the third option... which was that whatever this man practiced was not thaumaturgy at all. There was one other kind of magic available to those who sought it, but warlocks were as feared as they were rare. Their magic sprang not from the wellspring of the soul, but from a pact made with some supernatural entity, and the kinds of creatures that deigned to make such bargains were rumored to be even more awful company than their proteges. Not everyone believed that warlocks, or their patrons, existed, and Madeline was in among that camp. But now, seeing something so impossible, made her wonder, and made her fear. Though their existence was debatable at best, warlocks did feature frequently in myths and fairy-tales, and they were never the protagonist.

Adrison caught the clear distrust in Madeleine's tone, and his gray eyes narrowed as well.

"But the plausibility of something matters little in the face of direct proof, I suppose." The doctor finally went on, and exhaled a weary sigh. "Though I do wish you'd picked a more civilized hour to pay us a visit." She added, more than a little dryly.

As much as she disliked admitting it, even if the man was a warlock, he couldn't do Zoe much worse than the state she was already in. General SIlidras had value to the royal army of Talundor not merely as another swordhand, but for her tactical abilities and leadership talents. It was possible for her to beat the odds on her own, and Madeline had read accounts of victims of similar injuries waking up three days later as healthy as a palace cat. But such outcomes were considered miraculous for good reason, and of those who made full recoveries, the vast majority took years to do so. She hadn't told anyone (because there was nothing anyone could do about it), but part of the reason she'd drugged Zoe into submission was because the woman had suffered a fit. Had she merely been dazed, nauseated, and aching, Madeline would've not been half as worried as she was. But a seizure was a sure sign of serious trouble, of the kind that all her medical training was useless against.

The colonel blinked in brief surprise, then remembered himself, and gave a sharp nod and a grunt. The very late (or very early) hour was doing none of them any favors, and he wondered grimly whether they were walking into some sort of trap they were all too sleep-deprived to recognize. He debated asking for a reprieve, putting the stranger somewhere as a valued but well-observed "guest", and giving them all a chance to revisit their decisions in the morning's light. But that would undermine Doctor Cornwall's authority, and he technically didn't have any domain over what went on in the camp's hospital. He could put his foot down, on the basis that the man was still trespassing, and right after an assassination attempt had been made on the general besides! But if he'd intended to disregard the doctor's advice, he very well shouldn't have summoned her in the first place. Despite her oaths, Madeline still had many ways of letting her ire be known to those who'd earned it, and he had no desire to end up on the doctor's shit list.

"Michael," Adrison called, opening the door to the interrogation room to call at one of the men stationed in the hall. "Lend this young man your cloak." He turned back to Rael, still clearly uncomfortable with what was going on, but willing to go along with it out of a sense of duty all the same. "You're very--" he paused, considering his word choice, "--conspicuous, as you are." Even without his armor, his moon-white hair would stand out among the browns, golds, and occasional fiery red tresses that were common to the Talundor people. He couldn't do anything about the man's eyes, but hopefully having his hood up would make the effect a little less eerie.

"And you're going to need to tell us your name, boy." The colonel went on, taking the cloak offered by Michael and handing it to Rael. It smelled faintly of wood-smoke and old grass stains, a touch musty but not enough to be unpleasant. "Now, let's go, before one of us smartens up and changes our mind."

Madeleine, who'd never gotten around to sitting back down, merely gave a little shrug and made her own way to the door. Her steps were smoother than they'd been before, none of the shuffling she'd taken to in deference to her aching back. But more than that, her posture had assumed an additional level of confidence and assertion. After all, they were headed towards her part of the camp.

That they were about to find out that "she" had already returned nearly half an hour ago, of course, was a twist none of them (save possibly Rael) could've possibly predicted.

---

"D-doctor Cornwall?" The young soldier's voice was filled with enough shock to stiffen both Madeleine and Daniel's spines, and the rest of the small company, mostly formed in a loose shell around Rael, reached for their weapons out of reflex. But the senior colonel held up a hand, wanting to at least hear why the boy was so shocked before live steel was drawn. Unfortunately, while the lad's mouth seemed to work, no sound came out, giving the distinct impression of a fish out of water.

"C'mon, boy, out with it." Adrison encouraged, none too gently. If there was another problem in the camp (especially here at the hospital), he needed to know now. Preferably, he needed to know an hour ago, before he'd gone cavorting off with a random vagabond who'd trespassed into his camp with claims of healing prowess, but only the gods grant him that bit of prescience.

Another of the guards manning Zoe's temporary tent stepped in, shaking his head, brown eyes wide with surprise. Even in the thin, wan light he looked unusually pale, and his voice had the slight tremble of a man being forced to admit he'd made a major misstep to a superior. But, by the gods, nobody had warned him the Crescent had doppelgangers running around!

"Well, it's that we just saw Doctor Cornwall come by, a candlemark ago. She stopped in to check on--" He hadn't finished his sentence when the real doctor shoved past him. Despite her relative age and plumpness, she managed to produce a surprising amount of force and vigor to her suddenly hurried movements.

"Move," the sharp command came as an afterthought, and Madeleine was already ducking inside the tent with her throat closing tight from fear. She couldn't have been here one candlemark prior, as she'd been ensconced in the interrogation room with Rael and colonel Adrison. Which meant that someone had been running around pretending to be her... and she couldn't think of a single, godly reason to do such. Even her usually straightforward mind was curving in anxious spirals, trying to doublethink her way into any possible innocent motive. She could come up with none.

The doctor feared for the worst when she reached Zoe's side, and found the young woman exactly as she'd left her. But two fingers pressed to the side of her throat confirmed the woman's surprisingly strong pulse, and if her breathing was a little shallow it wasn't unhealthy. With all the lack-of-concern that only a long-time field surgeon could accumulate, Madeleine removed the princess's blanket and ran her hands along her body, checking for signs of injury. There were none. None, not merely a lack of new ones, she realized, as she tilted her patient's jaw upward to check what should've been the ragged abrasion along her jaw where her chin had hit the rough boards of the bathing tent's floor.

"Doctor Cornwall?" It was now Adrison's turn to utter the phrase, peeking his head into the gloom of the tent, which was illuminated by a single three-quarters shaded oil lantern. It was the first time he'd actually seen Zoe that evening, and he noted distantly how peaceful she looked. It had been many months since he'd seen General Silidras look so serene, not scowling at something or trying to hide a grimace. One of us, he thought, referring to the five colonels who directly served the Least general, should see to it that the general is drugged to sleep more often. Maybe we'll take turns... she can't hang us all, now, can she?

Madeleine jerked, as if awoken from a dream, and turned to stare at the colonel. "S-she's fine. Better, I think, then when I left her." Her voice dropped to a whisper too low for all but a dragon's preternatural hearing. "I have no idea how," she added, in that small voice.

The heavy canvas of the tent flapped gently after the colonel's sudden withdraw. He turned on a boot-heel, stalking with gravel-crunching steps right up to Rael, eyes narrowed and hardened to dangerous shards of gray ice. There was a soft rasp of steel-on-leather as his men drew their weapons in reflexive response to their leader's anger, and the guards assigned to Zoe's tent drew theirs, too, after a moment. But Adrison ignored them all, coming right up into Rael's space and grabbing a fistful of the man's collar, jerking him so hard a mortal man would've ended up on the ground.

"You listen here, boy." Before he'd drawled the word with all the disdain of a nobleman for a street urchin. Now he wielded it like a weapon, brandishing it in the hopes of convincing himself that the white-haired, red-eyed demon in front of him was still under his control. "There's been too much weird business around Camp Vernes for a whole damn moon! And I find it damn unlikely that this is all coincidence. I know you know more than you're telling us. Now would be a great time to rectify that issue." The threat of what would happen if he didn't was left unsaid. The colonel had already expressed far more raw aggression than he was comfortable with, and threatening a man with beatings or torture was simply outside of his mental programming. But he could see him thrown in the stockade for a very long time... or simply hung, as an enemy spy.