Request for Backup

II ~ Ash and Guts

Almond slowly opened his eyes, squinting at the light up. By mistake they made it exactly where they needed to be, their only lead so far was a destroyed communication center, cake hounds and monsters were everywhere and he managed to piss off Warden. In conclusion, things were going 'great!'.

He stood up and went to the bathroom, then got dressed, he tried to brush his hair but it didn't make him look any less tired. He was now ready and had no clue what to do, he decided to go and check on Warden. After getting lost a couple times he finally found her room, he hesitated, she might still be mad at him and he didn't feel like getting punched in the face, but he wanted to make sure she's ok.... best case scenario - they would talk it out and they'd admit that they were both tired and agitated yesterday, worst case scenario - at least one of them will end up with broken bones.

He took his chances and rised his fist to knock on the door. The door smacked him in the face. He backed away, there was a moment of silence.

"Sorry-"

"No it's fine, I shouldn't have stood so close to the door."

"..."

"..."

"About yesterday-"

"I'm sorry, everything was just getting on my nerves-"

"It's fine, we were all tired-"

Soon they were talking over each other and shouting apologizes. Somehow this all ended in Warden hugging him while telling him how stupid he is.

"So.... What do we do now? Is there like, a place we meet or?"

"I have no idea, that's why I came to you."

"You stayed behind to talk to the commander right? Y'know- yesterday. Didn't she tell you anything?"

"No, not really."

"Maybe let's just go downstairs and see if someone else knows what to do... Oh! Maybe we should try to find the commander."

"Yeah, that seems like a plan."

The living quarters were all in higher levels so they had to climb down a solid amount of stairs. On their way down they met a couple officers who also didn't know what to do, luckily one of the staff members found them and led them to what seemed to be a dining room.
Now they were all standing in a big room, the decor was simple and modest but the walls were covered with tapestries and paintings of clouds flowing in-between mountains, long serpentine dragons covered in gold, graceful birds resting on carefully styled trees and colourful fish swimming in perfectly arranged pools.

In the middle of the room was a low table surrounded by pillows and mats, Almond knew that most residents of Dark Cacao Kingdom don't use chairs and use chopsticks instead of the cutlery he was used to. Even though Warden apologized for hitting him with a door he was going to enjoy watching her struggle with chopsticks. The staff member turned to them.

"Is that everyone?"

He counted the officers.

"We have a couple missing, either lost or still sleeping."

"Very well, I will go find them, we don't want anyone skipping breakfast!"

She walked off, leaving the group alone. He turned to the officers.

"Take your shoes off before you go up there."

He pointed to a bamboo flooring a couple
inches higher than the ground, they were standing at the edge of it.

"I didn't know you were trained in Dark Cacao Kingdom customs."

"I told you I've been here before, obviously I had to learn some manners."