Caidoz

Chapter 3 ~ An Enthusiastic Juvenile Delinquent

King Libra looked down at Mr. Regor. "I had no idea such a crime had been committed. Why was this not written in your reason for court?"
"I knew this would cause a commotion in the court, as it has already if I told you this there would have press and reporters everywhere... I'm... shy." Mr. Regor replied.
"Please sit down. I am most interested in asking the defendant his side of the story."

The young man stood at the unpainted wooden desk, his ruffled red hair making him look like an excited child; he was unbothered by the pressures of the crowd. "I do not believe I have your name, young sir; it is what?"
"Pegasus, your honor." The crowd gasped in astoundment, for no one had ever merely called my dad only by his duty.
"YOU SEE! YOU SEE! GUILTY, GUILTY, GUILTY I TELL YOU ALL!"

Mr. Regor had again stood up and was slamming his hand down hard with just about every other word. My father, King Libra finally had enough. A fierce, mighty wind blew around the room, making paperwork fly around in a frenzy. My father smiled at the power, but I felt the Caidozian energy pulsing into him, and realized he was fighting toward the change. He was willing it. He was commanding it.

King Libra shifted in form, becoming more muscular, and he shot upwards violently in height. My dad balled his fists and shook his hair in his release, as from each hand grew two brass scales that dangled on a brass chain. When my father looked up again, he had changed into Libra, the scale, a human Caidozian. His grey eyes showed his strength and intellect, and though I was his daughter, it sent chills down my spine to look at his massive form. "This is your last warning Mr. Regor. Either you decide to sit down and allow me to judge this trial, or I assure you that while will be seen by a judge, it will not be as good a trial as it will be with me for I may choose to let another see this case."

  Reclining his scales into his body, King Libra turned to Pegasus. "You must know that I honestly do not care what I am called in court as long as it applies to my status in some way. I will not allow you to call me such simplicity out of the courtroom, understood?"
"Yes, your highness, please do pardon my dialect, I am ignorant of these... lands," Pegasus said.

Mr. Regor sat down quickly, terrified of my dad's impending fury.
"What is your occupation?" My father asked.
"I am the wandering traveler, simply traveling different places for different reasons, all for personal benefit." He said. A growing smile stretched across his face.

I felt the ecstasy behind the words -- his unparalleled passion. I had never met anyone with his need for freedom. It was then that I understood.  As long as it was Pegasus who emitted it, I would never comprehend this emotion.  "Are you confessing to fishing Blue Bloods for your benefit and pleading ignorance?"
"No your majesty, but I guess it might appear like that with my luck," He said, grinning ear to ear.
   I stared at him for a long minute before realizing my jaw was open. I closed it.

No fear, just curiosity at being in the courtroom.
"... Tell me what occurred. " King Libra's voice rang out loud and clear, but his brief hesitation showed how unnerved he was about this strange young man.
"As you wish, your highness." Pegasus bows from the stands. "I am a.... different being from this world," He says, his lips stretching into his familiar countenance of joy. "It happens that I, flying above your ocean, saw a small fishing boat on the ocean." He shifts his weight from one foot to the other.
Different being indeed, I thought. I have never seen any man that fidgets that much except Draco.
Pegasus's eyes temporarily glance at me. " I decided to ask for permission to sleep there to regain some of my strength." My dad fingered his brass weighing bowl.

"What kind of being?"
"If you don't find it an offense, your majesty, I rather not say. Oh," Pegasus's eyes widen, and he lifts his hands up, as in defense. "But please have no fear, your highness! I tend no harm to your kingdom. And of those whose might, you shall never be able to encounter them." Our world? It sounds like-

"Very well, continue."
"When I landed, I transformed back into what you see now. Due to the boat's small size, I knew I would eventually see the captain if I waited long enough. I, unfortunately, probably the regards of my bad luck, tripped and fell entangled in the fishing nets, and was hauled into the air. I transformed back, almost as if by accident."

"I was high enough to see my 'host' hauling out a net of crabs, and I waved to him. Well, more of pawed at the loss. This gentleman noticed me and lowered me down, but instead of letting me out, he took something that belonged to me! The next day he pulled his boat in and had me shackled by the guards and made to see you.

"I must say it has been quite an adventure!" Pegasus finished on a now predictably happy note.
"You plead innocence?" My father asked after listening to his story.
"Oh completely and wholeheartedly." Said Pegasus, beaming.

"I see... Mr.Regor, on the page I received it says you have a witness." The seams on the man's mouth burst. "Yes, I do. Let me introduce to you my wife."