Bearer of the Stars

Chapter 08: Old Friends

There was a clash of bright lights and the crowd around was screaming. Jaspur stood, to the side of the crowd, with a cloak draped over his shoulders and head. He followed his float from behind crowd lines, watching the actor who looked nearly to be his twin, wave at the cheering crowd around him.

Of course they wouldn't actually put him up there on the float, especially not with the lower levels trying their hands at rebelling more frequently. One guard had gotten his teeth knocked out at a recent blown up tavern fight in the stone district. His father had forbade him to stand on that float, and Jaspur found that it was one of the few times that he actually agreed with him.

A Jolteon stood in front of the fake prince, shooting off pretty and extravagant explosions of electricity. They were like fireworks, and of course they had a team of raichu's nearby to control the electricity if it ever got out of hand. It was unfair that they would only be there for the first three districts.

His ears twitched as he heard nearby conversation, listening patiently to see if he could pick up anything about the bearer. This had been his compromise with his father. That he follow the float to keep an eye on things, but that wasn't truly what he was doing.Zeark was supposedly wandering around here, he promised he would have. Though he was also under obligation to bring his sisters, and Jaspur was not in the mood to have another meeting with Lily. Maybe it was just one sister, but he didn't care because most of the time it was Lily anyway.

"I heard the king has new rules he plans to enforce." He heard some pokemon say amongst the crowd and then he heard a murmuring agreement.

"Teach those lower levels not to be such idiots hopefully." Another pokemon snapped. "Always trying to cause trouble. We have a perfectly good system set up. I don't know why they feel entitled to try and change it." It was true his father had plans, but they were nothing of what anyone could have expected. Actually, it made Jaspur absolutely sick to think of what his father planned to do. He had called it the Purge, and it involved a short term genocide. Though that's why Jaspur was the way he was, he was trying to stop people like his father.

"I heard he's just going to increase the tax rate, like he always does." An old scruffy looking sylveon snapped, and then he continued to grumble about financial problems in the kingdom. Jaspur quickly tuned him out, for he had no interest in those kinds of things. At least not today.

"I can't wait to see the prince." He heard a pokemon say, and then he looked around. He swore under his breath, he had promised to be by his float the entire parade, but it seemed he had passed it by accident. He supposed that's what happened when he started thinking about his father.

His gaze then traveled to where he heard the voice and he met the sight of an oddly colored pikachu sitting on top of his friend Zeark's shoulders. Zeark looked overly disgruntled, but he wasn't shoving her off or giving the slightest outburst to how displeased he was. No, when Zeark was in public he had to play the same part Jaspur did. The perfect role model for their fathers.

"Will you stop it about the damn prince, Blitz?" That's when he saw a very small eevee, who was sitting beside Zeark with her fur standing on end. She looked even more upset than Zeark did, and that was saying something since Zeark had more than one job at this parade, and none of them involved carrying a pikachu around on his shoulders.

"He's not so special. I think the light show is much cooler than his appearance will be. Who cares, he's just one damn espeon and we see enough of those at school." Who he assumed was Night hissed, her tail lashing against the ground. Zeark leaned down and whispered something into Night's ear, her face deepened with further disapproval.

Pokemon had started to notice Night's disapproval and if Jaspur was there he'd probably tell her to stop too, not because he was offended, but because if you said the wrong thing in the streets of Ethos it could doom you to a noose.