'A palace, great, every question I keep dodging finally gets a fancy chair.'
Hajin sank into the carriage cushion while the captain with the handprint rode beside their window.
Water roared beneath the aqueduct bridge as their wheels rolled above the market, leaving the carts and crowded stalls behind. The captain's cheek still glowed red whenever uneven stone tipped the poor bastard toward the window for everyone to admire.
'She slapped him, then hired him as our escort, I should try that on creditors.'
Juna kept one hand jammed against the latched door, her tail squashed somewhere beneath the seat.
"The box isn't planning an ambush, you know," Hajin drawled, wedging the pack so the wrapped tusk stopped knocking her leg.
"Then it can stop holding the door shut," she snapped, ears pinned flat, "outside was nice back when outside wasn't cracking my ribs."
He shifted his knee to free up room for her tail, "Noted, I'll warn the next exploding pig that scenery matters."
"Tell it to stop exploding first."
[ CringeSlayer91: palace arrival, put the captain's face somewhere the next guard can see it ]
[ ShadowMage44: former noble family outside, royal gratitude inside, that is going to make somebody uncomfortable ]
[ ashley(mod): no betting on this meeting, we have people asking for medical help ]
[ Viewers: 163 | Soul Energy: 89 | Stream: Active ]
Didi leaned forward until the moving light caught his face above the torn collar.
"You look malnourished," she said bluntly, "and before you whine, that's concern, not a new insult."
"Lean, Your Highness, it's called lean, damn it."
"The capital sells more than venison, so what's stopping you?"
Hajin spread his fingers above the pack instead of pointing at the private wallet by his wrist, "Ordinary money, the kind that buys bread without killing anything first."
Juna cracked one eye open, nudging the pack off her foot, "He also shoves the bigger portion at me, then complains about what's left."
"You eat more, the portion just knows where it's headed."
"I work for it." She lifted her chin, one hand hovering near the bandage beneath her clothes.
"There, you heard her!" He flung a palm toward Didi like a man begging a judge for a witness.
Juna swatted the hand back onto his knee, "All deserved, now quit offering evidence that needs another meal."
Didi's mouth twitched, a brief smile slipping loose before the carriage jolted again.
'Good, she can still laugh at something, even if that something happens to be me.'
"Walking anywhere on those meals sounds ambitious," she said, "so getting me out of that forest deserves a better explanation."
"The explanation stayed in the cave, your guard kept its hands busy, I grabbed you, and we ran before it changed its mind."
"Kept its hands busy," she repeated, voice cracking, "you keep picking plain words for something nobody else survived, and I'm allowed to notice."
He eased his elbow onto the cushion as the carriage began to climb, "Notice all you want, Your Highness, just let luck stay a respectable job until somebody pays better."
Didi turned toward the window instead of pushing, her jaw locked tight.
Juna shoved the window wider, then reeled back as the next turn dragged tannery stink inside.
"Ugh, how long until the box stops stinking?"
"Outer gates, then palace gardens, and if the roses disappoint you, insult them quietly."
Didi pushed the blanket aside and faced the open window, "Your quarters will have windows and doors that open from inside, nobody's locking you in."
"Windows are acceptable," Juna decided, one finger still hooked on the latch.
"Progress, a royal treaty with three demands, windows, supper, and everybody pretending supper is purely practical."
"You forgot bandages," she grumbled, glaring at his torn shirt, "negotiate for whatever keeps you upright before you inspect my appetite."
The carriage rolled to a stop inside the courtyard, and the captain dismounted beside their door.
He opened it with the hand he once raised toward Hajin's collar, "Palace courtyard, Your Highness, the royal wing received your instructions from the gate."
"Have the physician waiting there with clean linen," she ordered, "we tell my father I'm back before the palace invents another search, then straight to treatment."
"Understood, Your Highness." The captain bowed and stepped clear of the open door.
Hajin stepped down first and offered a hand while Juna eyed the drop with her injured side guarded.
She glared at his palm like it insulted her, then grabbed it hard when the step jolted her ribs.
'Some victories deserve silence, especially when the winner wants to keep all ten fingers.'
"Your Highness!" Elina came flying down the stairs, skirts bunched in her fists, "are you hurt, where were you, nobody sent word yesterday and the search kept coming back without you!"
Her hands fluttered up toward the bruised temple before she even noticed the blanket, "I aged ten years waiting, and His Majesty nearly took another ten off everyone begging him to wait inside."
Didi caught them gently before they could land, "I'm here, so breathe before you spend them."
Elina took in Hajin's ruined shirt, then Juna's ears, and the smile drained right off her face.
"And these two, did they cause the delay, or did you pick them up after we lost the escort?"
A sharp pinch landed on Elina's cheek, just hard enough to stop the next rude question, "Try that again, with manners."
"Ow, ow, gently, please," she squeaked, bending away without daring to pull free.
"Without him I'd still be lying on that road, and without both of them I'd have nowhere to rest, so start there."
"Him?" She rubbed the reddening spot, eyeing his bloodied sleeve, "he looks like a tavern lost its fight and tossed him out with the furniture."
"Rude, the furniture usually charges extra before it agrees to come with me." Hajin flicked a loose thread off the dried blood.
Didi turned from the joke toward the stairs, knuckles white around the blanket, "Eleven escorts died, Gazel died, and he carried me away, so tell me where my father is."
Her voice cracked on the knight's name, raw and ugly, and she made no effort to hide it.
The last color drained from Elina's face, and she grabbed the stair rail, "The throne room, His Majesty canceled morning court when you went missing, and nobody dared argue."
"Both of you, come with me," she said, glancing back, "the palace can learn gratitude before it learns to inspect your luggage."
"Your Highness, maybe not straight inside, he canceled the public session, but another meeting still has him."
"Which meeting?"
She dropped her voice beneath the guards' approaching footsteps, "The Patriarch of House Flint arrived about the new Gate contract, and His Majesty admitted him while waiting on the search."
Hajin's foot froze above the next stair until his cracked ribs made holding it there plain stupid.
'Father, of course, a whole damn kingdom of chairs and he picks the one behind my reward.'
'Ink, cold tea, and an exile decree signed like I was a parcel sent to the wrong house.'
Juna caught his sleeve above the wrist before he could pretend the stop meant nothing.
"Your heart changed," she muttered, ears swiveling toward his chest, "what's in that room, and do we need the Chain?"
"Somebody who stopped looking at my face years ago, so maybe the habit saves me another morning."
"That explains the face, now try explaining the problem."
"Long answer later," he grumbled, easing his sleeve free, "right now I stay polite and get us paid."
'Fifty silver, medicine for two cracked sets of ribs, and a family reunion, adulthood keeps inventing fees.'
Beeswax scented the air beyond the landing as four sentries stepped aside to let Didi through.
[ ashley(mod): stay with him, chat, he heard the house name and stopped on the stairs ]
[ ShadowMage44: let the meeting happen before anybody guesses which trouble waited inside ]
'Smile first, breathe second, and give that room nothing it can use until somebody asks.'
He walked beside Juna into the corridor, leaving the Chain stored, while Didi led them toward the shut throne doors.