So, our intrepid heroines begin their journey of international espionage by sneaking into the Emperor’s palace using Scales’ grappling hook. After a few minor mishaps,
Idun and Scales climb through a window onto the third floor of the emperor’s palace.
Scales leads the way along darkened passageways, until they reach a massive set of double doors at the end of a corridor, leading into the Emperor’s bedchambers. Scales picks the lock while Idun stands guard, then the two slip into the darkness within.
Scales and Idun stand before the door to the inner chamber of the Emperor.
Scales turns to Idun and smirks “Well, I got you here. What’s the plan now, Blue?”
Idun draws her sword with a ssnk, striding towards the sleeping emperor beyond that narrow wooden barrier. Scales slides out between Idun and the door, laughing nervously, her palms out and upraised. “Whoa whoa WHOA! What do you think you’re doing?”
“I….I have to. It’s the only way to end this war and protect my people.” Idun looks back at Scales, uncertain, then straightens her back and takes another step forward. “I must save Gelicost.”
Scales blocks her path. “This is an espionage mission! We’re supposed to be cool and save the day, not murder anyone in their sleep!” Idun flinches at the words.
She looks at the engraved wooden doors in front of her, the room beyond surely as free of bloodstains at the neatly polished wood guarding them. The sword hangs loosely in her grip, point down. “I…”
The Emperor, clad in a very fancy bedrobe, walks up behind the two women. “I say, what are you two strangers doing in my bedrooms?”
Idun and Scales whip their heads in fearful unison. Scales brings her hands up defensively on instinct, fists up in a mock boxing pose as she bounces back a few steps. Idun, on instinct honed by years of training, instead whirls on one foot and lunges with her sword. Her aim was true, Scales eyes widen as she looks onwards, too far away to begin to react.
The point stabs through the back of the Emperor’s robe and into the wall behind him. It impales a hanging tapestry, then the stones behind. Idun’s hand releases on the hilt, shaking. She stumbles backwards, away from the body, and her own sword.
Hands clumsy, Idun staggers herself upright as she pushes stray hair away from her forehead. Scales looking on, is ashen and shocked.“You stabbed the emperor! How could you?!”
Idun slumps into an incredibly ornate chair. Her clothes are dirty from the months in prison, and the night spent on rooftops and bridges, leaving gray streaks on the embroidered upholstery. She looks down at her hands, bloodless and dry. “I did what I had to do.” She whispers, almost to herself alone. “For my country.” Her head slowly slumps down into her hands, covering her eyes.
“How DARE YOU!” the emperor shrieks as he pulls himself off of the wall, Idun’s sword scraping against the stones as it came free with him.
“Do you have any IDEA how old this tapestry is! And you’ve gone and put a hole in it!”
The Emperor of Threeneer strode over to her, ankle-length nightshirt fluttering over warmly woven slippers, embroidered with tiny blue flowers. Oh, and Idun’s own sword struck through the center of his heart, though from his angry gestures it seemed to be the last thing on the elderly man’s mind.
Idun sputters as she stands up abruptly. “You’re not...how--”
The emperor, almost half a head shorter than the knight, shoving his way right up to her until her own sword pommel bumped into her ribs, glare cutting into her as she scrambled backwards and away.
He stepped forward again, jabbing one arthritic finger up at her and shouting “This tapestry was hand-woven over a century ago by a Talented weaver! It’s a priceless relic, and you’ve gone and stabbed a hole in it! Can you imagine if I had been alive, and you had gotten my blood over it too?!” The emperor tsked as he continued, “Really, the youth these days, no appreciation for the arts!”
“I’m sorry, I-- hold on, what?”
Idun forced herself to look down to meet the gaze of the Emperor, huffy and impetuous, then down to Idun’s sword still in his chest. The sword had no blood on it.
Idun looks closer, and sees what she missed in the dim lighting and shock. The emperor’s body shimmers and glows faintly in the darkness. His feet fade away to nothing towards the ground.
“What are you?”
“How rude,” the emperor of Threeneer sniffs. “I’m quite insecure about my Talent-based condition, I’ll have you know. Besides, I thought every nearby nation of ours knew I’ve already been dead for quite some time.”
Idun backs away, leaning against the nearest stone wall for support.
It promptly falls forward onto her, smashing her to the ground.
A woman with the coat of the Steward of Threeneer thrown hastily over her nightdress steps onto the top of the rubble (and Idun, lightly crushed), scowling. “Alright, what’s going on here?! And whose screaming woke me up?”
“Ah, dear grands-niece, good timing!” the emperor turns to the Steward, Idun’s sword still suspended in his ghostly ribs. “It seems I’ve been assassinated. We were just talking it over.”
The Steward flicks her wrist, levitating a chunk of rubble off of Idun’s semiconscious face to inspect her. “Really? I thought everyone’s known you’ve been dead for the last two hundred years.”
The Emperor sighs and tugs on his gray beard hairs. “The last two hundred and forty three, actually. We made an official proclamation, invited ambassadors over, what have you.”
“Good for you, I suppose.” She lifts the wall a couple inches higher off of Idun, who groans in pain. “This is our erstwhile assassin? Which splinter cult protest is it this time?”
Scales chimes in from her perch on a sofa. “Blue says she’s from Gelicosta or something, on orders from the ruler.” She crosses her legs and pops an candy from an ornate crystal bowl into her mouth, thoughtful. “Honestly, if I thought she was gonna try to kill you, I would’ve never helped her break in here. My bad, that’s on me.”
The Steward grumbles, adjusting her coat neater and pinching the bridge between her eyes. “The Queen of Gelicost, really? I had her in the ‘mid-low risk’ pile this year. Alright, let’s get this whole mess sorted out so I can reassess my metrics.”
Idun sits on the floor, hands tied, still dusted with a fine layer of mortar from the wall she had been lightly crushed under. She shook her head in adamant denial.
“What are you saying? There’s no war? But the ships you’ve been building on the northeast coast--”
The Steward cuts her off, cocking an eyebrow disdainfully. “You mean in Rrosh? Our main port city and hub for any trade along the entire northern coastline? Of course there’s ships there, where else would they get built?”
“Now in all fairness” the Emperor adds, “demands for both new vessels and repairs has been higher than usual this summer. Though I am still unsure how one could mistake cargo vessels for a navy.”
“Well, I didn’t see the shipyards myself,” Idun protested. “But the intel my Highness gave me said there was warships in great number.”
The Steward scoffed. “It’s not like there’s anything of value for us to invade for anyways. Gelicost’s a worthless spit of rock with nothing but livestock and cold winters.”
The Emperor and Idun both turn to give her very different looks.
“...Not that we’d invade another country unprovoked, of course. That would be a undiplomatic act unbefitting a nation as large and noble as ours,” she added.
“Then what about the lack of soldiers in your cities?” Idun asked. “You only have a few dozen unarmed city guards, and even if some can summon magic blades, you’ve obviously moved your main forces elsewhere!”
The Emperor barks out a laugh, while the Steward sputters. “What--of all the-- we’re a peaceful nation! Who would our soldiers be fighting against, our own civilians!? Why would our guards need to be geared for war when you’re by far the most violent agent we’ve had in ages?”
Idun looks to Scales, who’s the closest thing she has to a trusted ally right now. Scale nods, then grabs a handful of candied fruit from an engraved silver dish. The stewards side-eyes the quickly emptying bowl in mild annoyance.
Idun looks back to an emperor who she had just tried to kill, now plucking at the the stray threads from his newly damaged night robe. This room was nice, if in an overtly opulent way. And the city she had seen, the people who had lived here- their conversations she had heard were that of a peaceful city. Either she was crazy, or...or there was some ploy going on that she didn’t know about.
Idun sat up as straight as the ropes would alow, and inclined her head to the Emperor. “Noble Emperor of Threeneer, I would like to extend my formalist apologies for attacking you, and harassing your city, The mission my Highness gave me was misguided, and I hope you will not hold my actions against my people and Queen.” She pauses, then sets her jaw. “I will honorably accept whatever judgement is bestowed upon me.”
The Emperor crosses his legs and rests his chin on his hand. “You really are a poor example of a ruthless assassin, aren’t you?” He waves towards the Steward, who walks to kneel behind Idun, cutting loose the hastily tied knots.
She unloops the other ropes, then helps Idun to her feet, saying “Really, the only reason I’d send someone as straightforward as you for espionage if I expected you to fail.”
“Well, that’s going a little too harsh there, Aurea” the emperor chides his grand-niece. “This fine young knight worked very hard to get all the way here into my palace. Efforts need be acknowledged and all that.”
“She tried to kill a dead man, uncle.”
“Well, I suppose the intel part might’ve been a bit lacking. But overall, lots of hard work put in, great enthusiasm, love to see it. Why, I haven’t seen such an eager assassination attempt since the night I met my first royal advisor.”
The Steward sighs at the Emperor’s wistful reminisce and snaps her fingers impatiently to get his attention again. “Focus, uncle! What do we do with tonight’s problem?” “Right right, still need to solve this crisis.”
He turned back towards Idun. “So, Idun of Gelicost, if I free you now, what will you do?”
“I....I think I need to return to Gelicost and get some answers.” She stands, and moves over to the Emperor. She kneels and bows low. “I am deeply sorry for the trouble I’ve caused your country and people.” she pauses, then adds “and for stabbing you in the chest.”
“Bah, my chest’s fine! Apologize to my tapestry! But if you’re making a trip to your country anyways, I just had a simply marvelous idea of how you could make things right with me.”
He strode over to his desk, and pulled out a sheet of fine vellum. “Hold a moment, let me pen a correspondence to your king - you can bring it back with you to Gelicost for me.”
The Steward sighed as she opened an inkwell for him and set it out. “It’s a queen currently.”
“Really, since when? What happened to their new king, chap with the beard?”
“He died of some sudden illness sixteen years ago, along with most of his family. Really uncle, you need to make more of an effort to keep up with current events.”
The emperor huffed in exasperation. “Well, he must have only been king for, what? Ten years then? That’s barely time at all, you couldn’t expect me to know he would die so quickly. But yes, do take this letter to your new queen.”
Idun takes the missive. She looks at the freshly sealed wax in her hand. “You’re trusting me with your official seal, just like that?”
“Well, why not? I suppose ideally I’d like to send one of our own with you as well, but that’s a long, bothersome round trip. Besides, you seem like an honest woman.”
“I would’ve said too bull-headed and single-minded to pull any schemes on us, but honest works as well”, the Steward added, as she grabbed Idun by the shoulder to push her out the door.
She paused, then made a couple quick attempts to brush the worst of the mortar, rubble, and dust, off. “Off you go now, sooner you leave, sooner this gets sorted out for good.”
Idun trudged out of the palace, carrying the emperor’s missive loosely in one hand. She looks around her at the city slowly waking in the dawn, lost as to what to do now.
“So, where to now?” Scales askes, popping up behind her.
“What?”
“I told you, I’m in until we get to the bottom of this. But no more stab-first, ask questions later, okay?”
Idun looks down at Scales’ bright, cheerful face. The corner of her lips lifted a tiny fraction, almost hesitantly, like the long months without reason to had almost made the muscles forget how. “Okay, then let us go.”
As they reached the bottom of the stairs together, Teach sprints out from around an alley corner, very much out of breath. One could easily assume he’s been running around the city all night. “Ah-hah! I’ve *huff* found you!”
Idun blinks in recognition, possibly having lost track of all the strangers she’s stabbed at this point. “Ah, you’re the professor from earl--” Teaches’ blade cuts the distance between her and Scales, sending her stumbling away down the steps.
Teach leaps to close the distance, as Idun rolls away just in time, stumbling to her feet and backing up frantically, only to be forced to roll away again, Teach’s sword slicing through the air where she had been with trained and expert precision. She rolls to a a crouch a few precious seconds away, then reaches for her sword - her eyes widening in shock as she remembers only now that it is still with the emperor. The night has lost her her steel.
Those seconds costs Idun as she vainly lunges out of the way of another thrust, her tunic slicing to ribbons and sparks flying from contact with the maille underneath.
This confrontation is going to go nothing but worse for her if it goes on much longer.
Scales jumps in to intervene. “Wait! Teach, she’s good now -- we already talked it over with the Emperor!” Teach bounces back, “Scales? What--” then he sees the sealed wax scroll in Idun’s free hand.
Teach gasps. “Is that...the emperor’s seal? What the--” He looks over at Scales, eagerly awaiting the chance to hear her teacher swear for the first time. “...heck is going on here?” he asks Scales, letting his sword dissipate like luminous blue smoke.
As Scales excitedly explains last night’s escapades, Idun leans back against a wall, slowly slumping down into a sitting position with her head between her knees.
It’s been a long night.
And before that, a long day running through the city alleys and swimming under brides, avoiding guards after stabbing a high school teacher.
And before that...well, it had been a long three months.
Ever since she left Gelicost with Lance, Idun’s knot of tension in her chest had only tightened and tightened, squeezing her heart and ribs into a tense, multilayered knot of worry. Fear of failure, fear for her country, fear for what fresh new problems tomorrow would surely bring.
But now, with her mission apparently over before it had begun? Now she could afford to just be tired.
She rested her head on her knees, and listened with half an ear as Scales caught her teacher up on the whole story.
Scales swings her arms in excited arcs as she exclaims “--and then the Emperor sent us on a super important mission back to Gelicost to to end this entire war before it starts!” She grins in excitement.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa. Both of you?” Teach interjects. “Oh yeah, definitely,” Scales lies cheerfully, “Gotta send someone from Threeneer back with her, of course.”
Idun lifts and tilts her head towards Scales, raising an eyebrow. Scales pointedly keeps eye contact with her schoolteacher.
“Scales, you’re way too young to be an ambassador to a potentially hostile foreign nation! And it’s the middle of the school year!” Teach sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. “What would your fathers think?”
Scales huffs in exasperation. “I’m not gonna tell them everything, obviously! Then they’d be worried, and try to send a chaperon with me or something.”
She pauses a second. “Hey, I’d bet they’d let me go if I told them I had a responsible adult making sure I didn’t get into trouble. Like a teacher?”
“No, I am not signing off on this! Besides,” Teach scrambled for reasons good enough to stop a teenager from something exciting, new, and potentially very dangerous, “I bet a trained, deadly warrior wouldn’t want some fifteen-year old kid tagging along after them!”
“C’mon, Teach,” Scales begged, “I’ve never even gone to another city!”
Idun looked up blearily. “You’re fifteen?” “Hah, see!” Teach responded, walking over to Idun. “Tell her why she shouldn’t go with you!”
“Back in Gelicost most squires start by twelve. Fifteen’s considered the best age to go on your first quest though. If you haven’t been questing already, it’ll be a good first adventure.” She drops her head back down, shutting her eyes again.
“TwElVe!!??”
“Great, all good then. C’mon, Idun, let’s go!”
“Okay, okay, hold on there one moment.” Teach pinches his already pinched nose-bridge, deeply missing the full night of sleep he just lost to running around city streets all night looking for these two. “IF the Emperor allows it, and IF your parents think it’s safe for you to go, and most importantly IF you wait until the end the semester AND get in the top ten in my class, then I suppose I’ll accompany you on this mission.”
Scales bounced on her feet, deliberating. “Eh, suppose that’s the best deal I’ll get. How bout you Blue?” “mhm?” “Mind waiting an extra month to head back home?”
“Mhn. Having the time to gather more intel will be useful to Gelicost in future relations, anyways.” Idun replies, looking across the street where a small gray cat is watching her from the shade of the alleyway.
“Great! We’re all good then”, Scales says, then “Guess you guys never got a full introduction!” “Teach, meet Blue! She’s this knight or assassin I something from Gelicost. Blue, meet Teach! He’s my favorite teacher cause he gets a lot of the fun electives, plus he chaperones field trips like this one.”
The two so-nicknamed adults meet each others’ eyes. “Nice to meet you, I’m Marcellus, Marc for short.” “Idun. Well met.”
A few days later, Idun left the room she had been given, nodding awkwardly to the guards on her way out. The steward had arranged the guarded room, along with escorts who followed discreetly every time she left it to walk the city streets, once she had been disappointed to hear that Idun was not immediately leaving the city to “be someone else’s problem”.
But the Steward had also not locked her up nor restricted her movement in any way. And she had also apparently left Idun an absurdly ornate basket of fruits the first day, as some kind of Threeneer gift custom. She took the last one as her break fast, eating quickly as she idly mused on such gifts and kindnesses. The last time she had known such had been….well, it had been many years ago. Back before Gelicost’s old king and queen had died, along with all but two of the entire royal family.
But the past was best left in the past. Today, she had fruit to eat, and some new acquaintances to meet.
Scales skipped along quayside wall, eagerly searching with her eyes the field of masts and flags of dozens of ships, ranging in size from small fishing dinghies to fat and long merchant vessels than towered over their docks. “So Blue, where’s your ship? I bet it one of the ones over there, right?” Scales asked as she waved at the crew on one of the largest ships, a massive long-sailer with four masts, designed to cross the vast oceans to distant countries for trade and travel.
“That’s why you asked to meet on the docks today?” Idun rubbed her neck, now realizing that they’ve walked all the way across this city for no reason. “Ah. Well. I don’t have a ship.”
“What!? How did you get here the first time?”
“I rode here on the back of a giant eagle, of course.”
“C’mon Blue, what’s that supposed to mean? I haven’t seen any kind of giant birds around, and I’ve known you for over half a week now!”
“What’s this about giant eagles?” Teach caught to meet them again, having stopped aways back earlier at one of the many shops open today. He folded a long blue overshirt (apparently identical to the six blue overshirts he already owned) neatly into his bag, then turning to Idun and asking, “ Summoning oversized birds is your Talent, then? Why didn’t you use it before now? Would’ve been useful in finding your way around an unfamiliar city, certainly.”
Idun sighed away an old insecurity. “No, my talent’s useless. My former companion, Lance, he was the one with the bird Talent-- of shape-shifting, not summoning. But I can only assume he’s abandoned me, as I haven’t seen him since...since…”
Idun stops dead as she looks further up the pier, where fish stalls had left their unwanted fishbits in a untidy pile next to a pier. Teach shades his eyes to see what brought her up short.
Along the quay some distance is a group of perhaps two dozen gulls fighting over the fishheads and other leavings. There is also one very large brown and gold eagle, over four feet tall from beak to talons (thought decidedly not big enough to carry a person) fighting over some discarded fishheads with the other shorebirds, easily dwarfing them in size as he vainly attempts to keep the other birds away from his scavenger’s meal.
“on Hell’s shore, I think that’s him over there.”
Idun strides over to the comically oversized eagle. “Hey Lance! What the bells are you doing?”
“Idun!? You’re alive!” The eagle gasps, then looks away guiltily. It shuffles behind one of the gulls in a vain attempt to be inconspicuous.
“...Arwkk?” it squawks, hopefully.
“Lance! Stop messing around and get over here! We’ve got to get back to Gelicost!”
The eagle cranes his neck awkwardly to look up at Idun as she strides over to him. “You’re not...going to cut me down for betraying you and Gelicost?” he asks, clacking his beak from nerves.
Idun looked down at Lance, who at this size barely reached her chest. “Kill you, merely for running to avoid capture yourself? Do you think so little of me?”
The eagle’s eyes widened. Then, in a flurry of golden brown feathers, a tall, long-haired man with eagle-golden eyes stood in its place. Lance, finely embroidered coat dirtied and ripped at the hem, met Idun’s gaze. Then he pulled the startled woman in for a hug, hands shaking from stress, or perhaps relief.
“I thought you were killed, and you’d left me all alone!” he said, still tightly embracing a startled stiff Idun. “I can’t do something this big by myself! And I knew that I couldn’t go home empty-handed-- but I didn’t know what to do, so I’ve been hiding in bird-form around this city, for months. I don’t know how Her Highness expected just two of us to be accomplish this, no matter how much she praised our skill at the outset.”
Idun gently unprised herself from the unexpected show of physical affection, taking half a step back out of the. “Well, there’s no need to worry about that now,” she said, showing Lance the seal of Threeneer’s Emperor. He gasped “But the war! What--” “There never was one; it was a misunderstanding from the beginning.” Idun smiled, perhaps the first time Lance had seen her do so. “Everything’s been settled. Come now Lance, let us go home.”
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