His Little Heir

Piggy Homicide

     Daya put her hands in her lap, dragging her palm across the napkin she had layed there. She drew her focus to the lone candle that illuminated the table, and in lesser power, the others as they mirrored her set expression. What should she say? What could she say?

     "So, the interview," Leon didn't look up as he began to saw through a tough peice of meat, "You told them I was coming?"

      Daya nodded.

       "So, what's your story?" Ahmad popped a helping of peas into his mouth.

     "Well, really we're walking on thin ice either way. I take it back and Fashad's allies hate me, I don't and Quishea's go up in arms. I... don't know if it's possible to please everyone here."

     "Well," Ahmad paused to swallow, "The first step is always admitting failure."

     Quill jabbed the general with his elbow and glared at him, "Manners!"

      Daya couldn't help but recall her thoughts from earlier. Quill's signature stutter had essentially dissipated, except for an occasional resurgence from time to time. Maybe, they would be okay.

     Maybe he needed Ahmad more than she thought.

       "He's right." Daya sifted through her peas with her spoon, "Really, it's a simple question of who we're trying to please here. Answer that and we at least have an idea of where we wanna go with this."

       "Herrand and Aspin, your allies, right?" Leon chimed in.

       "Dawnstar, Yorkston, and Sable too if we're talking wartime, but yes."

     Her thoughts raced. She had to be overlooking something. Something so simple, and easy, that it slipped through her grasp with every breath she took. What could she say? What should she say?

      "Princess," Ahmad got her attention, "You're familiar with Aspin and Herrand, yes?"

     Daya downed a sip of water, "Very. I spent four years going back and forth from my home to Aspin for, well, obvious reasons, and I've taken trips to Herrand from time to time. Why do you ask?"

     "How do you think they would react?"

      Daya busied herself with gliding her knife through her dinner. As she did, she thought back to the quiet meadows and gorges of Aspin, the dutifully plowed farmland, and the ever flowing rivers. They're small. Tiny, even, about the same size as Quishea'.

     What of Herrand? Its coal and iron mines called to her, and suddenly she was fourteen again, walking with her head raised beside her mother, and traveling down those same mines that now only ghosted her memory. Stronger, better, faster materials, but all traded away for fish and honey. The embers of war fell flat against the earth; nothing rose to warm them.

     And what of her father's covenant?  What of the black gold that ran under the castle's foundation? The same liquid that bubbled into the buckets of rigs and contraptions, but never into the pockets of their laborers. Small, but were they mighty? He had traded her away out of fear, out of submissiveness or deterrence, but whichever trait pushed him over, fear remained the constant.

     Fear pushed him away.

     Did it still hold the same power?

    
     Leon furrowed his brow, looking down at her still working fingers, "Daya? Daya? Hello?"

     No answer.

     Carefully, he positioned his hands over hers, holding them neither softly nor demandingly.

     She dropped the utensils with a sudden thud. Her eyes zeroed in on his hands, then in all corners of the room, never grasping onto a single object again. Did she want this? Did she not?

     Her heart pounded in her chest. Leon's touch was warm; it enveloped her in an air where cold's dominion had crumbled and withered away, where even the word died on her lips, where tenderness answered to nothing but the wind. Maybe she did want this, but not now.

     Please not now.

     "Hey, I-I'm sorry." He slid his hands away from hers, "I shouldn't of-"

      Daya forced a smile. "It's fine."

     "To be fair, if that pig wasn't dead already, he sure is now." Ahmad lightly tapped the rim of her plate with his fork.

     And it was true. What was supposed to be bite sized peices had split into hundreds of tiny strings hardly thicker than her nails, and both her knife and fork held evidence of the homicide.

     "Sorry, I... I was just thinking about your question from earlier," heat rose to Daya's cheeks.

      Ahmad raised an eyebrow  "And?"

     "They won't do it. Herrand's got iron and coal, Aspin's more farm focused, and Quishea's just a heavy runner in oil. If they wanted to take Fashad down so badly, the answer would be to combine their resources, but they didn't."

      Leon tilted his head, "What're you talking about?"

     "Our engagement." Daya pulled her hair back with an elastic, "Think about it. Did Don really want to go through with this? To have his daughter bonded to his sworn enemy for the rest of her life? To witness that?"

     Ahmad and Leon locked eyes with each other, an unspoken language lying between them. What did they know?

     Quill shrugged, "My best guess is... no?"

     "She's right." Leon exhaled, "I thought Quishea' would try something  when negotiations began, so I put more money aside for the military that year. Don went from laughing in my face to... strangely agreeing."

     "Then that leaves three." Ahmad stacked his spent dishes on top of each other.
    
       Leon did the same and extended an arm to take hers as well. Daya barely acknowledged him before being plunged into her thoughts once again; what did Don have to say about the old alliance? Sable, Sable, Sable, why did that name stick out so much from the others?

     A knock on the door ripped her from the question at hand.

     Ahmad slid in front of the others, and jabbed a finger at a cupboard in the corner of the kitchen. Daya didn't move, neither did Leon, but in little hesitation, Quill was at its door.

     He motioned for them to join him. Daya and Leon shared the same dazed expression, but with equal splendor, met him in the designated place. Quill tugged on it's handle; what Daya expected to be isles of canned soups and veggies gave way to an empty space.

     A hiding place.

     With the three of them piled in, the door's chain fell, and then a voice:

     "Sorry to interrupt, sir, but, I have news about Quishea's wartime alliance."

      "And?"

      "They've acknowledged her statement, "Sir, they're.. on her side."

      Daya could hear Ahmad's sigh of relief, a thank you, and the sound of a chain being slid in it's rightful place.

     "Well guys," The general opened the cupboard with an unrelenting smile, "Who wants dessert?!"

00000000000000000000000000000000

     Hey, you! You're a stunning person. That's all. Thanks for reading. 💜