Fragments of the Mind

A Princess Warned

"You! What are you doing here? How did you get here? I sent..."

"You sent assassins to kill me. Yes, I heard about that. This chap accosted me one evening. We exchanged words, then blows. Turns out he wasn't quite as good with a blade, or his hands, as he believed. He didn't want to tell me who had hired him, but I was rather persuasive. In the end, he spilled his guts - and then I spilled his guts."

She blanched.

"There was something he couldn't tell me. Oddly enough, neither could the other two assassins, nor the Crown Agent - he'll live, by the way. None of them seemed to know," he paused and raised an eyebrow. "Why?"

"Oh, please," she retorted, anger overwhelming her fear. "As if you didn't know!"

An expression of weariness crept across his face. "Let me give you a bit of insight into men, your highness," the title dripped with sarcasm. "We don't usually ask questions just to hear ourselves speak. If we knew the answer, we wouldn't ask the question." He picked up a bottle and sniffed it before pouring some of the liquor into a glass. Lifting the glass he turned back toward her. "Once again, why?"

"You are plotting against me," she said in a terse tone.

"I was halfway to the Spine and on my way into the hinterlands. Exactly who am I supposed to have been plotting with? The Guanda men of Arbol? Yes, it has long been their dream to leave their forest paradise and live in the festering, disease ridden, rat holes called cities." The disdain in his voice was positively acidic.

"Then why have you returned, if not to replace me?"

"Because you annoyed me, and the only way to stop a bully is to stand up to them." He set the empty glass on the tray. "No, princess," he said as he approached the balcony. "The person you need to fear is whoever put it into your head to send assassins after me. That is," he paused at the balcony edge and turned back to face her, "unless you send more. If I encounter anymore such unpleasantness, I will return and slit your pretty throat...sister, dear." With that he swung over the railing and dropped from sight.

She approached the railing and looked down, knowing she wouldn't see anything. There was nothing but empty air for sixty feet.

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Author's Note:

This scene came to me one night while was working on something completely different. I quickly jotted it down in a notebook and forgot about for a couple years. It's gone through a bit of revision in that time. I keep coming back to it, wondering if more of the world will reveal itself to me. So far, no dice. Frankly I'm disappointed as I'd love to learn more about the mysterious figure.

By all mean, let me know of typos and grammar errors which may have escaped the editing process. I am open to comment, questions, and constructive feedback.