Motley (#Wattys2016)

15: Tea With The Prince

PRESENT DAY

Nori entered the room cautiously with her sword out. She looked around the room swiftly and immediately saw him.

He had pale skin and ebony hair. Surprisingly, he looked to be about her age. She was expecting a middle-aged man. She supposed he would be handsome, except for his blood-red eyes that made her shiver. They locked gazes, and she stared into his eyes, not wanting to be the first to look away or he might think she was weak.

The Ivory Prince smiled and looked away. "Please sit down, Miss Akagi," he said, gesturing to the chair in front of him. He was sitting behind a table set with a delicate porcelain tea set for two.Nori suspected that the rose-pattern china was not coincidental. "I believe you and I need to talk."

Nori did not sit down. She merely took another step into the room, painstakingly slowly. "How do you know my name?"

"Oh please, Miss Akagi. You're famous."

"Eh? I am?"

He looked up at her. "Of course. I've seen your wanted poster. Nori "Foxgloves" Akagi, right? Did you think that I had no idea who you were?"

For some reason, that made her blush. "O-of course not!" she said in irritation.

He started to pour the tea into his own teacup. "And you probably thought I didn't know about Kei's betrayal as well, am I right?"

Now that was unnerving. Nori felt like bolting out of there and abandoning her mission completely, but she stood her ground, even when the door swung closed without her touching it.

"With the formalities out of the way, won't you sit down?" the Ivory Prince offered. With a flick of his finger, the chair opposite him slid forward and turned to face Nori.

This was not going to plan at all. Nori wiped her sweaty palms on her thighs conspicuously. She calculated the situation; if she sat down, the Ivory Prince would surely kill her since she was so close. If she didn't sit down, he would probably kill her anyways. Nori finally sat down, and the chair swung back around on its own.

"Look, we both know why I'm here," Nori told him. "Let's cut to the chase, please."

The Ivory Prince did not speak until he poured her a cup of tea and took a sip of his own tea. "If that's what you want." Nori did not touch her cup, certain that it was poisoned.

"What do you know about Kei?"

"Well, I hadn't even told him yet how much I know. But that day he helped your crew escape, I put a curse on him. I planted a blood-sucking monster on him, although at the moment it is asleep. I can wake it up from anywhere I may be, and then my general will be devoured in 9.4 seconds," the Ivory Prince said."But my predictions aren't fool-proof." He took another esteemed gulp of tea, looked at Nori, and chuckled at her disgusted expression. "Something wrong, Miss Akagi?"

"It's nothing," Nori said. She was getting seriously scared now. Kei could be killed at any moment now. One more thing to worry about, she thought hysterically.

"So I assume you know about my double agent as well?" he asked her.

"There is no double agent."

He grinned. "How do you know?"

"Nobody in my crew would ever do that. I have complete confidence in all of them," Nori said bravely. He burst out laughing, putting his teacup down and shaking with mirth. "What's so funny?" Nori demanded angrily.

His roars of laughter died down. "You are so naive!" he said, still fighting back his sniggering. "Do you really think that I tracked your ship to Colla Voce by chance?"

Nori's heart sank. "No..."

"Well, I'll leave it to you to figure it out. No point in wasting time," he said. "You were here to kill me, right?"

Nori was not sure how to react to this. She sat frozen in her chair, until he made a movement to stand up. She leaped out of her chair, withdrew her sword and plunged it into his chest.

Only, that was what she had planned.

She couldn't move.

"What the...?" she said angrily, trying to move her arms and legs, but they would not work for her. Some unknown force was keeping her from moving at all, like she was glued to the chair. It felt like invisible iron bands were locked around her body. "Hey!"

The Ivory Prince stood up and smirked at her. "You're much too predictable, Miss Akagi," he said, walking around the table to stand behind her. "And yet, you've become quite bothersome. You warned Colla Voce that I was attacking, and you figured out my master plan."

"Oh yeah? Let me go so I can fight you, and we'll see who wins!" Nori demanded.

"I don't need to fight you. I've got you right where I want you." He grabbed her chin from behind and forced her to look up into his face. "You possess no natural talent for magic, you can't keep track of your own crew, and you refuse to give up when you know you can't win."

Nori snarled and struggled to get up, to no avail. His fingers trailed across her skin to her collarbone, beginning to tighten. "You're twisted!" she spat.

"My dear Miss Akagi," he whispered, wrapping his hands around her neck, "you have no idea."

And then she was suffocating. Black fog was gathering at the corners of her eyesight. She couldn't breath, she was drowning in cold inky darkness. The only thing she could feel was his hands on her throat, and then-

It was gone as suddenly as it had started. There was a roar of fury, and two battle cries, made by familiar voices. "Captain!" one of them shrieked.

With difficulty, Nori turned around and saw Reiko and Masa both with their swords out, swinging them around wildly. "Captain, run!" Reiko shouted. She ducked a lightning bolt from the Ivory Prince, and Masa took out a mace. He swung it over his head expertly and attacked with almost as much skill as Reiko.

Without the spell over her, Nori hopped out of her chair and started to run out of the room. She was blocked by five soldiers who just came in. Masa charged them with his mace, so while he was terrifying the soldiers, Nori could concentrate on Reiko and the Ivory Prince. Reiko shot a stone the size of a grapefruit at him, which he dodged. Another lightning bolt whipped through the air, hitting Reiko in the chest. She was knocked backward into the wall, whimpering in pain. Nori shot a few water bullets at the prince, but he caught them with hands crackling with electricity. The water sparked and sizzled in his hands. "Do you want this back?" he mocked, and shot it back at her with precision. Nori dodged both bullets, but the electricity found her anyways and shocked her. Red burns appeared on the sides of her torso. After a second of concentrated pain, Nori saw Reiko conjure a sandstorm from the other side of the room. The Ivory Prince was enveloped in the biting sand, but he blew it all away within a matter of seconds. More lightning hit Reiko again in the leg, so she sank to the ground. There was a shout from behind her, so Nori whirled around. Masa was overwhelmed by the Rose Marquis guards, who were at least ten in number.

"Nori, leave!" Reiko yelled at her.

"No way! I can't leave you!" Nori said. "Or Masa, since he can't fight!"

Masa looked offended even in the midst of his attackers. "I can use a mace!"

"Captain! You've got to escape!" Reiko screamed. "Get back to the ship and save the city!" Nori stared at her two friends, wondering what would happen if she did leave them. But she was probably their only hope, if she could just get back to Colla Voce and bring reinforcements, maybe draw the Rose Marquis away from them. She sprinted across the room, and before anybody could stop her, she jumped out the window and fell into the water.

With her water powers, she could control the currents to speed up her going in the ice-cold saltwater. She turned her head back to the Katsu. The Ivory Prince and the guards were glaring at her, and he looked like he was forming a kind of spell. Nori put on a burst of speed and dove under the water.

*x's song: Harder to Breathe by Maroon 5*