Court of Feathers

Twenty-One

Word Count: 2,305

Did anyone else's brain immediately tack "Pilots" to the end??  Just me??  Okay, I'll shut up...

...

As expected, news of the king's death flew throughout Altea, and Shiro had no doubt it had spread further than just the confines of the city by the time the sun rose the next day and even more so as the days continued.

Shiro tried the best he could to stay away from the chaos that now plagued both the castle halls and the streets, but it was hard to avoid it when it was all around him. Offering comfort seemed to be the only thing he was capable of doing at the moment, he knew very little when it came to anything else. The prince and princess continued to drift further from his reach after the death of the king. There wasn't much he could do but offer a tiny nod and smile from time to time and watch helplessly as they ran themselves dry day after tiring day.

Following the line of succession in the avian kingdom, Lance now had to take up the reins his father left behind, adding even more duties to the list since he had been brutally murdered within the castle walls. Guards at every station were doubled, and every one of them were questioned about the night of the murder before they were allowed to continue on with their duties, those that were deemed even the slightest bit suspicious were relieved and sent home immediately.

The same went for the rest of the help around the castle, every avian- whether they had been serving the royal family for ten days or a decade- were questioned in an attempt to somehow track down the killer. Both Keith and Shiro were questioned as well, each for hours at a time. They both answered what they could, some went unanswered after it was clear they knew nothing about the subject, but it was apparent that neither of them knew any more than the royalty did at that point.

Not many were let go in the end, but after days of the repeated schedule, it was clear that whoever had killed the king had already fled, and that seemed to only further press on the already crushing weight of fear plaguing the kingdom.

Shiro would be lying if he said he didn't worry for Lance and his sister, the teen himself appeared to hardly have any experience with running royal duties, but he was required by law to fill in the king's shoes, and continue on once he reached the age to be crowned king. Allura- although she wasn't required to do anything in their current predicament- hardly ever left her brother's side in some attempt to help in any way she could. Being older, the princess was more experienced, and Shiro was sure Lance greatly appreciated any help he could get, it had to be tiring enough even with both siblings working day and night to keep the panicked kingdom under control.

Now, one might ask at this point, where were Keith and Shiro in all of this? That answer was simple: staying as far out of the picture as possible.

After the shock of another attack, Shiro figured it was best that the two of them lay as low as possible. He hadn't been sure if they were allowed to go back out into the city after what happened, so they both resorted to wandering around the castle. Neither boy left the sight of the other for the fear of somehow being separated by some mysterious force within their aimless wandering.

With the exception of the multiple broom closets discovered along the way (just trust him on that, there were a lot of broom closets), they had managed to find a handful of hidden treasures nestled into the castle as well.

After poking around a little more, Keith took an immediate liking to the training deck after finding a control panel that would release moving dummies to take down, and Shiro wasn't surprised to find him in there swinging a sword for hours at a time.

But, while Keith enjoyed smashing dummies to bits, Shiro himself preferred the library he had found earlier in the week. Even if it wasn't to curl up and read (he still couldn't find any readable books after Lance took the only one he found written in English), he still enjoyed the sense of peace that seemed to envelop the place, and he wasn't ashamed to admit, Keith had found him dozing in there on more than one occasion.