Reborn as the Black Knight

 

The sun dips below the horizon, casting long, spectral shadows across the forest as Dandy kneels by the crackling fire, the flickering flames dancing. The scent of damp woodland mingles with the wafting aroma of her stew, a humble concoction of roots, mushrooms, and herbs scavenged from their travels. The murmur of the forest surrounds them, wrapped in the soft sighs of a world settling down for the night, as Hero tends to the anqas, their mounts grazing in the shadows nearby. Dandy stirs the bubbling pot, watching the steam rise and curl. The flames flicker, casting a warm glow on her face, yet the light does little to fully dispel the unease lurking within her chest. She glances sideways, catching Hero in a moment of quiet — his silhouette framed by the trees as he secures the mounts for the night.

“You told me once before you were just trying to make a living as a priestess,” he says. Hero turns his head over to her, patting the animals good night as he asks. “How did you get there, of all places?” His voice is steady and gentle, piercing through the tapestry of quiet sounds in the forest.

How did she get there?

Dandy pauses, stirring the pot absently for a while, feeling the warmth from the fire radiate against her skin. “It was… it’s complicated,” she replies, her voice trembling like the embers in the fire. “I was born in a little village, nestled in the hills. It was nice there. It always felt so safe and big then.” A beat of emptiness stretches between them, filled by the crackling flames. Hero settles beside her, their proximity comforting yet filled with the weight of unspoken questions. The firelight casts a soft glow on his features; the harsh lines of heroism fade to reveal the empathy glimmering in those brilliant eyes. “And then the monsters came… they were big too,” she continues, her heart heavy with the past. “They didn’t come with a warning. I was so small, helpless. All I heard was a lot of screaming.” The vivid imagery floods back. The sharp clang of metal and wood striking out the same as the pot and the spoon she’s stirring it with, the acrid smell of smoke permeating the air — not from her cooking, just in the memory — and the frantic cries of her neighbors engulfed in horror. “I ran. Every night, I ran. I learned to run. I got lost. I was wandering from place to place, searching for somewhere safe.” The words spill out. “I ran from one town to the next, one village to the other.” She shakes her head.

“Was there another monster crisis during my absence?” he asks.

Dandy looks at him. “People,” she replies simply, letting the word speak for itself. “Just people…”

Hero remains silent, letting her voice wrap around the moment, the way the forest wraps itself in twilight. Dandy strikes the spoon against the side of the pot, scraping off some burned tuber from the bottom of the metal against the rim. “I found myself in the monastery after years of that. The monks… Father Barlow and the others took me in, fed me,” she admits, her voice barely above a whisper, as if afraid to disturb the fragile tranquility around them. “But even there, I felt like an outsider. I never quite fit in, because I didn’t believe any of the stuff they were telling me was true.” The sadness lingers in her tone, echoed by the chirping crickets. “I just looked at a bunch of men and women living in a fairy tale and decided that I’d play along; if meant, I could be in a place with walls that kept everything away.”

Dandy grabs a bowl, wiping out the dust of a day’s travel with her robe before starting to scoop some of the stew into it. There are large, vibrantly colored chunks of the fruits of the forest, mixed together with a thick brown broth.

“But you know, what’s weird?” she asks, watching the contents of the pot spin.

“What?” replies Hero.

Dandy looks back at him. “Even after I got there, even after I slept a few years away… I guess I still felt like I never actually stopped running. I still feel like I’m running, but this time I’m not sure from what.” The stew bubbles and spits, the aroma rich and comforting. Dandy ladles it into two wooden bowls, the contents steaming lightly in the cool evening air. She hands one to Hero, their fingers grazing against each other, sending a fleeting pulse of warmth through her. “I guess it’s just what I do now. It feels like my default state is just… always being somewhere but never being there. You know?” she asks. “I wish I could learn to stop and enjoy things, like you. Even right now, I’m just… I don’t know. Somewhere else.”

He lifts the bowl with both hands, taking a deep smell of it before grabbing his utensils. “Thank you,” he says to her before starting to stir it. Deep wafts of steam rise from the contents. It’s quiet for a while as Dandy sets the spoon over the pot, grabbing her own portion.

Hero looks back at her and then shakes his head. “Dandy.”

“Yes?” she asks, looking up at him.

“— You will never stop running,” explains Hero rather pointedly. He’s always direct, but this time it actually feels like she would want some consolation of some kind, honestly. “There are ghosts in this world so terrifying that even seeing them once will imprint their faces into your dreams until the day you die.”

“Oh… Thanks, Hero…” mutters Dandy, a little defeated, looking down and stirring her food but not really eating it. She’s just picking around at the bowl. After a minute, she looks back up, seeing him half finished with his already. Where does he put it all?

“I know it’s not what you wanted to hear,” he explains. “But we’re the same, us.” Dandy lifts an eyebrow, having some doubts about that. “I know you think of me as perfect, but you and I, we share a brother's curse,” he assures her. He lifts a hand to his chest. “I never stop moving. I never can,” he explains. “Even right now, I’m empty and thinking about what comes next. This ‘Black Knight’ — the enemy. I’m thinking about what comes after him. And then what comes after that? Will I be there to help whoever calls me that day? Or will I mess up?” he ponders, looking back at her. “I need to be running, always, Dandy. We’re cursed with it, like the anqas,” he notes, nodding back to the animals behind them, who are twitchy even this late at night. “I could have been there, maybe. When you had to run. But I wasn’t. I wasn’t fast enough, and so our shared ghost gave you the curse too.”

Dandy crosses her legs, setting the bowl in her lap. “What are you talking about?” she asks. Hero finishes his bowl, looking at her questioningly as he reaches out for the spoon. “Go ahead,” she says, eating a bite of her food. “There’s plenty.”

Hero scoops his bowl full again. “Do you know why we run when we’re in danger?” he asks her.

Dandy chews for a while. “...To… get away from the danger?” she answers, as if that were obvious.

“That’s what animals do, Dandy,” replies Hero. “But I was asking why we run?” he repeats, pointing at himself and her. She shakes her head. “We run to warn the others down the way that danger is coming,” explains the man. “We run to head it off at the pass because it hurt us once, but we won’t let it get to the others like it did to us.” He keeps eating. While she likes where he's going with his words, she's more in awe just watching him pack away the food. He's just shoveling into an empty hole. “I used to just be some dumb kid, a long, long time ago. And then I learned to run, and I learned to fight, and I learned that you can do both of those things at the same time. It’s not one or the other.” Hero’s eyes meet hers. “It’s okay for us to run, Dandy,” he affirms reassuringly, the light of the fire flickering over any darkness that would try to land on his face from the night. “Because we’re not running away. Not anymore. We’re running ahead.”

“...Hero…” says Dandy softly, his words and sure gaze moving through her.

Her shoulders slump, and she sets her bowl away. “I’m gonna be sick.” She groans, rubbing her face and staring up the empty sky for help from above. “Why does everything you say have to be some kind of profound speech?” Dandy points at him with an accusing finger. “I hate you, you perfect bastard!” shouts the priestess in annoyance, clenching her fists.

Hero laughs, the nearly deafening sound brightening the encroaching night. She’s sure that several forest creatures run away in panic at the hollering that might well be a bear’s. He reaches over the firelight, placing a hand atop hers, grounding her in that moment with warmth and reassurance. “That girl who ran away back then was strong; she survived. And she’s still strong, because she survived again and is still going despite having to do that twice now,” he says, looking confidently into her eyes. She’s not sure if he even notices the heat of the fire that should be scorching his underarm. “Remember, Dandy, everyone falls sometimes. But true strength of character is rising again afterward.”

Dandy pulls her hand from his so she can plant her palms into the grass, her stomach heaving as she retches audibly in a display of her true feelings regarding his latest sentiments. But that’s just a feign. In reality, tears prick the corners of her eyes. But she won’t let him see them. What a stupid asshole, making her cry again. He laughs again, filling a third bowl. “I’m glad you like it,” says Dandy, glaring back at him, turning her head his way with a dry look.

“It’s delicious. Thank you very much!” he says, folding his hands together in a quick praying gesture. “I hope you know your mushrooms though,” he says, biting into a large chunk without a second’s hesitation.

Dandy smiles, narrowing her eyes. “I don’t. I just picked some random ones I found,” she explains, hoping to unnerve him.

But it doesn’t work. The man’s face doesn’t stop chewing for a second; its happy and content smile never fades. “You chose well,” he explains, scooping out more from his bowl.

Dandy sighs, beaten. She can’t break him. She’s tried everything, but he’s just too… too whatever he is.

But the absurdity of it all makes her start to laugh, the priestess clutching her stomach and wiping an eye as she watches his face turn curious as he tries to comprehend what in the world she’s suddenly found so funny. But maybe he could never really get it. He’s just too perfect, after all. Some jokes, some feelings, are for those people of the world like her who are maybe just a little bit grimy and selfish. However, there is something to what he said that she, admittedly, likes.

It’s okay to run; it’s not bad to run, whether in spirit or in body. Because there is a choice to turn while running, to spin back around in the face of the danger that had at first hounded one away into the night, grabbing hold of any weapon one can, to hurry back into the fray of it — into the mess.

Dandy smiles, taking a bite of her stew. It’s warm and good.

The night presses around them, wrapping them in its comforting embrace. It still feels scary to her — the darkness of the world around them. But maybe right now… she feels like even if she is scared of it, that doesn’t predestine her to be chased away. She can be scared of it and fight it.

And that’s what she’s going to do.

Because she owes it to the people who were lost — those who had let her get this far in life at all. And she owes it to the people she’s going to meet along the rest of the way. Like the hero, she’s going to do it, so they won’t have to. It’s too late for her, for him — they’ve been burdened by the curse of knowing. But they can spare the others at the expense of their own price of faced terror.

— As is a hero’s duty.

 

---

 

 

Chicory exhales sharply, rising up in the next sit-up, sweat running down her face and body as she compresses together, pulling in her legs at the same time as her upper body. Her core presses together and then pulls outward as she slowly releases, lowering herself back down to the ground in the starting position. She does a few dozen more and then switches, turning over to her front, placing her hands together into a diamond shape before beginning her push-ups, her palms spreading further apart every ten until she spans the full width of her reach. After that, she turns to the side and then the other side, doing her exercises there.

And then, after rising to her feet, she does more.

And then, after finishing those, she moves to a bench in the small room and does more.

There’s a rustling next to her, followed by a crunching. “What’s the point?” asks Hase. She’s lying there sideways on a bench against the wall, eating from a bag of crumbled sweet dough from the bakery. “Aren’t you just wasting energy you might need later?”

“It’s my job to be strong and agile,” explains Chicory, her hands grabbing hold of a chair. She scoots the front of it flat against the wall, and then, with her hands on the rest, flips a leg up to do a handstand on it and starts lowering herself slowly, before pressing up again. “As a royal agent, I need to be in peak condition at all times.”

“Gotcha. Gotcha,” says Hase with a full mouth, watching the sweaty woman in training clothes go through her motions. “…But… you know…” she starts. “Why?”

Chicory turns her head, looking at her upside down. “What do you mean ‘why’?” she asks, looking at the girl with a mouthful of sweets lying there on her elbow. Hase scratches her stomach with the hand she was eating with, smearing glazing over her stomach, before getting back to eating with the same hand.

“Sir Knight protects the princess, way I see it,” says Hase, shrugging. “So why do you need to be all… you know… muscley and stuff?”

Chicory exhales again and then flips a leg down, lowering herself off of the chair without upsetting its balance. The priestess grabs a cloth, wiping her face off. “Well, maybe one day Sir Knight won’t be there,” she explains, squatting down in front of Hase.

“Doubt it,” replies the girl with a full mouth. She swallows. “If that happens, we’re so done for.”

Chicory sighs. “Please. The sun rose and the moon fell every night before Sir Knight got here,” she explains. “And it will continue to do so after.”

Hase scoops another handful into her mouth, raising an eyebrow. “Yeah, but, you know.”

Chicory gets back up, rubbing the girl’s head between her rabbit ears. Hase makes a disgusted face, maybe because of all the sweat. “Look. Apart from that, as a priestess, my body is a temple, a creation of heaven,” explains Chicory, gesturing down to herself, her face shining with the sacrosanct glow of a saint. She points at her visible abs and core musculature. “It’s a part of my faith to honor what the gods have made, and that includes honoring myself by becoming as strong as I can,” she says, contentedly nodding.

Hase continues to chew noisily. "Well, I’m honoring me by eating delicious things before I die,” she explains. “Seems better, if you ask me.” She rolls her eyes. “Wouldn’t wanna waste all these good snacks the gods made for me to try.”

“I wasn’t asking,” replies Chicory, somewhat annoyed.

Hase shrugs.

Chicory sighs, shaking her head. “Come on, Hase. Join me,” invites the priestess. She smiles. “It’ll be fun.”

“Pass,” replies Hase, beyond disinterested.

“It’s not so bad,” reassures Chicory. “In your trade, you know how important good health is,” she offers, still holding out the outstretched hand. “If you’re a good thief now, imagine how good you could be if you practiced. Maybe you could even become a royal agent some day too, like me!”

“…Why?” asks Hase.

“So you can protect the princess?” replies Chicory, as if this were obvious.

“Sir Knight isn’t a -”

“- Sir Knight doesn’t count!” interrupts Chicory sharply before calming herself with an exhalation. “It pays well,” she adds, thinking she might have a way in this way with someone like Hase.

But Hase shakes her head. “I saw the way you lived, back when you healed me last winter,” replies the girl, unimpressed. “I’ve seen beggars with better places.”

Chicory plants her hands on her hips, staring down at Hase, who just continues to eat.

“It’s very meaningful and fulfilling work,” explains Chicory. She holds a hand over her heart. “It’s good to have a clear purpose in life, Hase.”

Hase points at her with an absolutely bare minimum amount of effort. “If that’s true, then why do you have two jobs?” asks the rabbit girl, crumbs falling out of the side of her mouth. She waves out a hand. “You’re a priestess.” She waves the hand the other way. “But you’re actually also a royal agent.” Their eyes meet again. “Some clear purpose right there,” says Hase sarcastically. Hase shakes her head, sitting upright and sloppily licks her fingers. “Listen. You do you, Big-C,” says the little thief, shrugging as she walks off, leaving the bag behind on the bench. “But I think I’ve got this all more figured out than you do,” explains the girl half Chicory’s age with quite a remarkable confidence in her words. “See you at dinner,” she finishes, clicking with the side of her mouth and pointing back her way with both hands before stepping out of the door.

Chicory opens her mouth, lifting a finger to utter a counter-argument. But all that comes out from her are unfinished vowels. The door closes a second later.

The royal agent and priestess looks around herself at the empty training room, not really sure what just happened here.

 

---

 

 

Zabaniyah hums, walking down the corridor of the estate within Acacia’s fortress on the outskirts of the city, but then stops, listening as he hears a familiar sound — but one that has no place here.

A ghost.

The inquisitor from the south turns his head, looking down a corridor, dimly lit at best. A deep wailing carries along its barren walls, refracting off of the brickwork like a spirit trying to find its headstone in an endless graveyard.

Here?

How can this be?

Magic glows around his hands, a rapier manifesting in his grip — made entirely out of holy essence. He steps forward down the corridor, blade at the ready, as the sound gets louder, as the presence gets louder. His heart strikes in his chest, battering against his ribs as his gloved hand reaches out, gripping the door and then tearing it open. The man thrusts inside of the room, blade held at the ready, his eyes landing on the centerpiece of it all.

“Don’t look at meee~!” howls Chicory, lying on the bench, the crumbs she was pouring into her face from above falling onto her cheeks and sticking to the fresh wetness from the streaking tears. “I’m nothing!” she cries, hiding herself below the sticky fabric.

Zabaniyah lowers his rapier, scratching his head in confusion as he looks at her sobbing into the empty bag of bakery sweets.

 

---

 

It is later.

“Children can be more ruthless than any other beast of this world,” says Zabaniyah consolingly, patting Chicory on the back as the two of them stand up on the ramparts, looking out over the city.

Chicory holds her face in her hands. Not because she’s crying anymore, but because she’s so embarrassed.

“But she was right, wasn’t she?” asks Chicory, lowering her palms from her face. “Who the hell am I? What am I doing here? Why?” She shakes her head, looking back out into the city as the two of them stand there. Chicory groans. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t even be talking about identity crises with you of all people.”

He shakes his head, taking his hat off and pressing it between his stomach and the wall to keep it from flying away. His crossed arms lean over the edge of the brickwork. “Do you know what a man told me once?” asks Zabaniyah, his thick accent coming through. “When I asked him the same question? Why he is doing what he does?”

Chicory shakes her head.

“He said that it beats doing nothing,” replies Zabaniyah, almost laughing.

She should have known. “Sir Knight?” asks Chicory. He nods. “Of course,” mutters the priestess.

“Don’t worry,” he says, reassuring her. “I won’t tell anyone.”

“Oh gods, I’m so sorry you saw that,” says Chicory, fresh shame coming up. “I haven’t lost my composition in over a decade.”

“Then Zabaniyah thinks it was time, or?” he asks, looking at her and winking with one eye. “Now we both hold a secret about the other.”

Chicory opens her mouth to reply, but once again finds herself lacking of anything to say. Today seems to be one of those days. She looks at him and then back out to the city again for a minute before looking back at him again, only to find him having never turned his gaze away. “…What?” asks Chicory.

“Why haven’t you told anyone?” he asks. “The Orthodox Church has many secrets your master would love to have,” says Zabaniyah, as if this were obvious. “Secrets that I know. Secrets that you know I know.”

Chicory crosses her arms over the banister, the same as him and stares out into the world beyond. Lights move as the sun sets, and night only slowly starts to cover everything. There is only one star left in the sky, but there all toward the horizon, lights begin to flicker aglow — each and every single one of them an individual. Streets separate houses, and houses separate into floors and it all moves and ebbs and breathes as fire travels through the streets and it’s just so -

Her shoulders slump.

It’s all just so complicated, isn’t it?

“I never thought that I…” starts Chicory. She shakes her head, stopping herself and changing topics. “— Acacia needs to know what’s useful to her,” says the agent. “I’ve deemed your condition to not be that.”

“Ah,” says Zabaniyah, almost pleased. “Then I suppose I do have one secret of value more over you than you over me after all,” he notes. Chicory shoves her shoulder into him playfully. The man laughs quietly to himself as they watch the world together, a late breeze finally finding its way toward them. Chicory closes her eyes, feeling it move through her hair and wick away the sweat and maybe just a little of the shame.

“How did you end up… you know?” she asks. “— In your position.”

He’s quiet for a time, but then speaks. “It is as you said, complicated. — Life,” explains Zabaniyah. “You, Chicory, say you have lost your composition today,” says the man. She opens her eyes again, looking his way. “But poor Zabaniyah had never formed one to lose. Even now. The rules of my culture and of my beliefs are… strict.” He lifts his gaze, looking up toward the single star in the night that is visible now, even before full moon-rise, because of its sheer brilliance. “So what do you do?” he asks, shaking his head. “When the composition you feel you need to take is beyond you because heaven’s will and the world’s rules are incompatible with another?” He holds a hand over his heart, the feather of his hat billowing out to the side along his waist in the wind. “I know only that I was called here to this world by the grace of God,” says Zabaniyah, gazing toward the star. “But my road of purpose was tolled by bridges built long before I came as who I am in this life, asking of me a price I cannot pay.” He looks at her, the soaked in light of the star still somehow trapped in his pupils. “So, I ask you, Chicory,” he starts, a hand over his heart as the other clutches his hat. “You are two people, trying to be one. But so is poor Zabaniyah.” He lifts his hat up, placing it back onto his head, the ruby fabric carrying somewhat to the side in the wind. “So what can such odd creatures as us ever hope to do?” He stands up straight. “Creatures who are neither here nor there,” he finishes, one hand holding out to the left and the other to the right as he offers her his choice and dilemma.

“I…” she thinks for a moment. “— You could work here, in the north,” she replies, almost eagerly. “It would be okay here. The holy-church is different. We’re not perfect, but the rules here -”

He stops her. “- Ah. Yes, it would be ‘okay’ by the rules of people, Chicory,” says Zabaniyah, tilting his head to the side, flicking the brim of his hat. “But God’s will for me was to be in my home country in the south; otherwise, I would not have been born there.”

She opens her mouth again to retort, but once again it fails her. Chicory stops and the two of them stand there apart from each other, neither having a clear answer for the other’s secret. As is often the case with matters of faith and soul, there are vagueries to it that even the studied minds of the world will simply always disagree about.

He smiles and she can tell that he’s about to turn and leave and her mind races to say literally anything else to stretch the moment on a bit longer.

He tilts his hat to her and turns around, but then stops, unable to walk any further because she grabbed his wrist. “The gods let me born in a village on the border to the north,” explains Chicory. “That doesn’t mean my destiny was to stay there. It’s just where I was born!” she snaps, closing her eyes for a second as she presses out something confusing and damp. She looks back at him. “I was born there, but my purpose in life was elsewhere. It was to serve elsewhere!” she argues. “The gods gave us a whole world,” says Chicory. “Why, if not for us to see all of it?” she asks.

Zabaniyah turns back around, studying the priestess for a moment. “So do you serve people, then, or do you serve God?” he asks, formulating once again the conundrum of her condition, this time very plainly and clearly. And so, the argument they began with loops around to its start. He holds a hand against his chest. “I can do but one, Chicory. So what does Zabaniyah choose?”

She opens her mouth again and once more it tightens; a visceral, strong grip almost feels like its clenching her airway shut. Chicory forces out a breath that barely makes as much as a crack of a sound and then grits her teeth. It won’t work. She can’t say anything.

No.

Her hand clenches down tighter around his wrist. “They’re the same thing,” replies Chicory, finally forcing a sentence out after a very long time. It’s not a perfect sentence, coming out broken and from a guttural place at the bottom of her throat. But she said it. “Maybe not all the time, but it can both things at once,” explains Chicory. “I serve as an attendant to the crown, because the well-being of the people is the will of the gods.” The dusk gale blows past them, the man holding his hat with one hand, the feather dancing the wind and the other locked down in Chicory’s grasp around his wrist with both hands, one of which has slipped down lower. She doesn’t know if that made any sense or if she got through if it did. But she’s just talking now. “The other night…” she starts, looking away, referring to their night on the beach. Confused, Chicory’s eyes meet his. “What…” Zabaniyah reaches down over her fingers, prying her grip on his wrist apart. But because of the nature of their grips, their hands are crossed over the other. “- What was that?” she asks, shaking her head.

“…Complicated,” replies Zabaniyah, the two of them studying the other’s eyes for any hint of movement or treachery, but there is none to be found in either gaze. “It was complicated, it is,” he says, neither of them having let go yet.

“I’m okay with life being complicated,” says Chicory quietly. “Maybe it’s supposed to be?” she asks. “Otherwise, we wouldn’t be here.”

“But you understand that I am -”

“- I know!” snaps Chicory, almost loudly now in contrast to the softening of tones that had been going on as she steps forward closer, their oddly crossed arms pressing together. “I don’t care,” says the priestess, or the royal agent, or whoever she’s supposed to be today.

It doesn’t even matter.

Because right now, in this moment, she is someone else. And maybe that is the point here, because as moments shift to moments and expressions change from one to the other, so do the people within and behind those. A man with a mask is at best brother to the man without it; they are separate individuals. And when the mask changes from one to another, then this too implies a full change of personality. Moments of time, the hours of life — these are the masks. A person may always follow the same narrative, but as they dangle along the thread of their life until the weaver finally cuts the string, the rhythm of their motions and encounters constantly changes them into someone else again and again and again.

And this newest person in the line, soon to be replaced by a newer version of the same entity yet still, doesn’t need to follow the beliefs and understandings of any of the prior.

Chicory and Zabaniyah look at one another, and both of them know that it’s complicated in so many different ways — their differences of belief in their schools of faith doctrine, their cultural incompatibilities, their allegiances with his being to his God first and hers to the crown of her nation beforehand, and also the secret.

The sun finishes setting on the horizon, falling down below the end of the world and giving way to the night to come, and the star above shines now at its fullest, now that the sun has gone and the moon has yet to show its fullest power. The light of it casts down over the two of them.

And the person who is Chicory today makes a decision for the person who will be Chicory tomorrow, regardless of what the Chicory of the past had held to be true about herself — she doesn’t matter anymore as much as the former two.

The wind takes the man’s hat from his head; now there finally not being any hand to safe keep it, and the fabric thing flies off the side of the wall, flying in the cool breeze that beckons in the night that seeps in between the closing gap between the two of them as they somehow, with their weirdly and awkwardly held arms, make it work.

After the kiss, Chicory looks at her, and she looks back, the two of them smiling, despite the fact that their hands are running out of blood and starting to tingle, because to Chicory at least, that feels no different than the rest of her right now as they close in a second time and the moon rises in the distance, beginning to glow ever so brighter by the minute.

— And that one little change of wording there was the secret, if it ever really mattered to you at all.

Not that it’s anyone’s business either.

 

---

 

 

“Will you please give these people some privacy in their personal moments?” asks Sir Knight, looking at Acacia. “This was a very beautiful, sacred moment that belonged to them, and you’re kind of…” Sir Knight watches Acacia. “- ruining it,” he adds dryly, gesturing out of the thin fortress window that the two of them had been skulking behind like predators in the night.

— Mostly Acacia.

She ordered him to shut up and stand there quietly, and he had to obey. She’s humming to herself, pleased like a queen bee with a busy hive, spinning around in a strange little dance that he can only assume is meant to celebrate this victory that she somehow seems to be claiming ownership of.

The princess scoots around, slamming her hips into his leg, before buzzing and sauntering down the castle corridor, like smugly triumphant goblin, until a shadow consumes the corridor, swallowing her whole like a phantom and bringing an end to her wicked reign of terror.

— At least for the night.