Messenger

Chapter 24

 "What the hell are you doing here?" Flower asked as the group quickly scattered throughout the intersections leaving her to use Len as a glorified walking stick.

"Helping! Wasn't that obvious?"

Now really wasn't the best time for witty remarks. "Ok, then why did you bring the three musketeers with you?"

"Well, they were already a part of our plan for tonight, but that got turned on its head and they're here now regardless." Len explained rounding a corner. A constant flurry of footsteps and shouted taunts could be heard along with the disoriented sound of the King trying to focus on multiple targets. God, what idiot brings preteens to a straight-up rampage where they could get the crud kicked out of them? Oh right.

Wait a second. "You people had a plan for tonight?"

"...Yes." Len looked like he was going to kick himself. "We might have been trying to setyouupwithPiko." The last part coming out as if it were one long word that Len really didn't want Flower to figure out. Sadly for him, Len's not that lucky.

"I can't believe you." Hime dashed past the two of them with the assailant sounding not too far behind, shoe squeaking on the floor and the smaller person's squeals breaking up the conversation. "This isn't over."

"Yes, ma'am!" They ran ahead without much direction, the pathways blending together. Stone towered over them as the spaces slowly got taller and more vaulted. Flower mentally tried the piece together where they were, but all that was obvious in the darkness was that they weren't anywhere near the ballroom anymore. Concentration fled from her mind in the chaos and shouts and each bruise on her leg feeling like it gained its own tiny heartbeats tearing mercilessly at Flower's navigation. She must have broken something back there and it wasn't helping anything.

Just keep going. There's no room for staying still even when no one had a clue where they were going. Why couldn't she remember where they were? Why could she put her finger on the clues that would explain their location? It was like Flower's head was swirling in on itself in crashing waves.

More shouts, remarks, footsteps, running, panic. Everyone was clearly with the group, but how would anyone know if someone got left behind or hurt? More running. God, this hurt. Was that stupid monarch feeling that same pain or was his adrenaline blocking it out? Flower hoped it wasn't. More yells. God, was it loud.

"Guys! I found the door!" Both Flower and Len's heads snapped up to the sound of Fukase's voice slicing through her string of thoughts. Sensory details flooded back, revealing the nighttime glow of a vast entryway at the end of the last intersection of paths to the main door. Piko and Oliver scrambled from the left hall almost sliding into the corner with the twins shooting out from the opposite side followed by Miki. At least everyone is accounted for.

The bigger issue came from the noise outside. Flower would think that the various distraction tactics from her friends would create the most noise from how it made her head spin, but that was easily out-classed by the other commotion behind the doors.

"Everyone, out now!" Miki started to open the front.

Piko was the first to respond back. "Wait. We're going straight into that mob you warned us about?"

"Do you have a better idea?" Flower was sad to say that she couldn't think of anything and since all of them were together now, there was no way that King Howard didn't know where they were.

At the very least, it didn't sound like anyone was pounding on the door as the group unlocked it and stumbled outside. She could only imagine how this must have looked; four people from this town, two other random kids, and the dang princess running into a mob looking like they escaped a wild bull chase. Quiet gasps and whispers rose up with a healthy dash of confusion. Well, it was definitely better yelling.

Disappointingly, that wouldn't last very long.

"Princess, it really isn't becoming to start a scene like this. Especially in front of your subjects." King Howard was trying to hold his head high and put on his 'I'm not phased' act, but his clear limp and the fact that large scrapes of fabric were trailing behind him gave away the ruse. But, leave it to this guy to keep on mocking anyway.

"Leave her alone! You've done more than enough already." Piko defended. He really doesn't give up, does he? Flower might as well return the favor.

The King still held up his haughty smile. "But, what did I do? Are you truly going to stand there slandering the name of such a respected person? Anyone here could see that you children are out of your depth and any word you say could be a gross exaggeration."

"And that's where you're wrong." Old Howard could say whatever he wanted to Flower. He already did, and it's annoying, hurtful, and all of that other good stuff, but the line is drawn at trying to turn their own home against her friends. Flower had no right to say that these were 'her people'; they didn't know her nor did they care about her and that's fine, but they did care about Piko's family and there was no way that she'd let her actual peoples believe otherwise. Fukase was eyeing the mob warily as if they could spring at him any moment, so there was some doubt on whether the others felt the same.

It doesn't matter. None of them were going to stand for this. "You've done plenty here from the moment you showed up spanning to long before that. Heck, within the first ten minute of arrival, you yelled and nearly smacked a child with us needing to put all of this together just to pacify you! I wouldn't even say you were welcome here from the start since you admitted to threatening the King and Queen to let you enter in the first place along with threatening all of us to hand over our resources or else you'd burn our outer settlements to the ground!"

Affronted protests rang out from the people. Glad to get that secret out of the bag.

"You have no real proof. You're just spouting nonsense!" Howard tried to counter.

"How about the fact that my parents haven't been home in three years in your "peace negotiations" that have amounted to a load of nothing or that you assaulted and tried to kidnap me? I think there's plenty of proof for that!" Flower just had to let it rip by now, but there was still another elephant in the room to address. "These people have evidence from all the things we've needed to take from them to meet your demands. I really wished I could have helped more and above all, I'm sorry for how epically I let them down, but we are done with it. This isn't going to happen anymore."

"And how do you expect to do that?"

"By arresting you." There's something to gain by not being the most flashy in a crowd such as being able to use chaos to your advantage. There's also something gained from basic knight and guard training where one of the first things you learn is how to bind someone's wrists. Piko had those skills down solid and the deposit of nice material around and a few extra helpers weren't making things any more difficult. "Considering how I was there for the attempted kidnap and how I'm supposed to protect Flower from things like this, it's best not to try anything else."

Len was already pinning one of the King's arms and Fukase moved to hold the other. "Someone want to grab some actual guards?"

"No need." It appeared that half the ball's guests decided to get a look at the commotion with Maika and Yohio leading the pack. "We have a lot to deal with."

Merry Late Christmas and other such hoildays! Yeah, I'm aware that this is late, but I was taking a little winter break to combat the extra people and cats. My siblings came home along with their pets, so it's been a little hectic around here, but we are pushing through. Gotta say, that rant was very theaurptic to write. Please remember to stay safe and take care of yourselves!

-TheLavenderNarwhal