High Castle Hijinx

[r7]

 

A/n: I’m back! After about six months and a slew of school work, I’m posting something on here again. I had originally intended to re-debut with a project I’m working on, but I wrote this for something else, and thought it would be a waste to not post it on here.

Prince Davion was having a fairly good day. He’d managed to finish negotiations with the Baron of a fief that had been acting up lately, stop a dispute between some of his men, help the court wizard finish a spell and even had time to actually prepare for the next in the set of blind dates he was being forced to go on.

For the prince, ‘prepare’ actually translated to ‘set-up-an-escape-plan-and-make-sure-I’m-not-covered-in-blood’

- he’d done that once, and managed to scare of the one princes he might have been able to put up being in a marriage with. As the sun set behind him, basking the gray stone of Castle Highcliff in red and orange light, he trudged slowly over to the tower in which he’d meet the next person of note his father was trying to marry him off to. As the heir to the throne, and his father’s only child, Vechs’ marriage was fairly important to the kingdom - solidifying ties with or even uniting his kingdom with one of the many surrounding ones. There were a whole slew of people who wanted a royal marriage with the upcoming power that was the kingdom of Dalania - but the king only had one dependant.

Vechs was actually one of the lucky ones in that regard, as it meant he had a semblance of choice in terms of who he married, rather than his father just assigning him a bride. As many of the marriages didn’t actually hold large political benefits over the others, the king had allowed Vechs to pick from the list of candidates that his father had given him - after talking with each of them in these meetings that he had come to hate.

“Okay, Z’ll be telepathing me at nine thirty, so if things are going bad I can just say he’s having an emergency….” Zisteau, or Z as he called him, was the master of the guard at the castle - and Vechs’ best friend. “Or if it’s actually going well for once, I can tell him I already took care of it….” Vechs muttered to himself as he moved through the large mahogany doors he’d come to hate. As he started to climb the spiral stairs to the meeting balcony, his servant appear beside him, listing off information about the next in the long list of candidates he’d met.

“Princes Aureylian, crown princess of….” The servant droned, reciprocating Vechs’ boredom with the meetings, though Vechs stopped listening after the first few words. He ran his hand along the cold stone wall as he climbed, wondering why he’d asked Zisteau to give him so much time.

When he reached the top of the stairs and rested his against the second set of mahogany doors, he took a deep breath, preparing himself for another afternoon of, boredom, formality and faux interest.

And had already started counting the minutes until nine-thirty.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Vechs? Are you there, my lord? Zisteau’s voice telepathically rang in his head, interrupting his meal with Aureylian. Vechs tilted his head downward slightly, placing two fingers to his temple in order to send back the message: Yeah, one sec. Looking back up to Aureylian, he tilted his head apologetically.

“Sorry, I have to get this. It won’t take long.” Vechs said, politely removing himself from the table and moving over to the corner of the open-air room, before switching to the significantly easier form of telepathy where you spoke aloud.

Are you there, my Lord? Zisteau’s voice asked again.

“Yeah, I’m here now. What did you want to say?”  Vechs replied, before realizing he wasn’t actually sure what he was going to do next. The ‘date’ was actually going fairly well, not even in relative terms like the all of the other ‘better’ dates had so far, but actually well. He enjoyed the princess’ personality, and she seemed like she actually cared about what he was like as a person, not just the wealth that he bought - though that was still probably the primary reason for her visit.

Sir, we’ve got an issue downstai- Zisteau started to say before Vechs cut him off.

“I’ve already taken care of it.” He responded reflexively, despite not knowing what he was going to say the second before.

Wait, what? It’s actually going well? Zisteau asked, as surprised as Vechs had been originally that he didn’t want to get out of the meeting as soon as possible. Right after, however, Zisteau’s voice quickly changed back to a more serious tone. But that’s not the point-

“Wait, what?” Vechs asked, confused.

Sir, we actually have an issue down here. Zisteau replied, voice deadly serious, a tone that Vechs matched as soon as he heard the words.

“What do you mean? What’s going on?”

It appears that we have an assassin in the castle, my Lor-

“How many times have I told you not to call me that? Besides, I thought the assassination attempts stopped a while ago, after I killed the last four who tried to take me out.” Vechs responded, hand straying to the sword that he had at his belt. As his last statement had implied, he actually knew how to use the blade, being one of the premier swordsmen in the realm.

Old habits die hard, my L-Sir. And, yes, that’s just it: The assassin isn’t after you, or even your father. He seems to be after our guest. Zisteau said, prompting Vechs took look over his shoulder at the princess sitting at the table, red hair and plain white dress flowing in the wind as she seemed blissfully unaware of the entire situation.

“Are you sure?” Vechs asked in a hushed voice as to avoid alarming said princess.

Yes, I’m sure. I think we can catch this guys if given time, can you see if you can get the target somewhere safer than a completely open balcony? Zisteau asked, and the sound of armour clanking could be hear slightly as he spoke. Vechs assumed that he sent it through the telepathy to allow Vechs to know that he was moving without him having to explicitly say so.

“Yeah, I’ll try.” Vechs said, before starting to move his fingers from his temple. “Ping me again if you have more news, okay?”

Of course, my lord. Zisteau said before the slight but distinct buzz that came from telepathic communication shut off. Vechs moved back toward the table, not exactly sure how to proceed. As he did the princess looked up, head tilted to the side slightly as though asking a question.

“It wasn’t anything too important.” Vechs said, again having his words decide his course of action for him. He started to take a seat at the table, before stopping and standing up, offering his hand to Aureylain. “You know, I’m tired of this wind… Is it okay if we take this inside? There’s a room just a floor up that we can stay in.”

The princess looked at him and raised an eyebrow slightly, pausing for a second before doing anything. From her eyes Vechs could see her calculating, trying to understand why and what he was doing. As Vechs was breathing in to say something else, the princess had taken his hand, and stood up from the table.

“Of course. The cold was starting to bother me, anyway.” Aureylian said, motioning at the fact that the sun had now dipped below the horizon.

“Thanks. It’s right through here.” Vechs replied, before leading her toward a palin, oak door on the side of the balcony, much smaller than the grand mahogany ones he’d entered from.

As they ducked through it and began to climb a slightly cramped flight of stairs, Vechs started to realize the implications of his actions. Oh, wow, that came out wrong…. Well, not really, but it can be interpreted in so many ways… He thought, realizing that he’d just invited the princess into a room with him - a room that, now that he thought about it, was going to be empty. Great. Just great. Well done, Vechs. Although… I guess so long as she thinks it’s just a display of favor, and not... that, it might not be that bad….

His thoughts trailed off as he went through another small door, the princess becoming slightly more suspicious as she followed him through what was obviously intended to be servant access. Soon, however, he had found the door to his destination, and walked in.

The room was large, nearly the size of the entire ten meter tower, and furnished in a way that shown it was intended for nobility to stay in it, though it lacked the embroidery that would signify a Prince’s or King’s room. The most notable feature of the room, however, was its lack of  additional entrances. Normally, a room like this would have doors to allow servants to access the room without being obtrusive or at the very least windows - this room, however, had neither of those things. The only apparent way in or out was the wooden door they had just walked through.

Vechs let go of the princess’ hand once he had walked in, before he moved to inspect the wall near the door and flick a small, discrete switch. He smiled as he turned back to face the room, shoulder relaxing. The room’s lack of additional entrances was intentional, as he had lead them into what basically functioned as a safe-house. The only way in or out was the single door - which also had a trap attached, one that was now armed.  

“So… Was there any reason in particular you brought me… Here?” The princess asked, turning to Vechs.

“No, not reall-….” Vechs started to stay, before his voice died in his throat as he noticed yet another flaw in his plan: The prominent, large, single bed.

Oh, great.......

Comments

[tanadin]

GOOD JOB VETCHES

I enjoyed this. <3

[r7]

Thanks!

[ex_writeitinsharpie308]

GG, Vechs!

And I love how Z's like, "wait, you of all people are having a good date?!"

[ex_writeitinsharpie308]

Also, your cuts derped :V

[r7]

How so? If you mean the unintentional paragraphing in the story, I don't think there's anything I can do about it. Well, other than possibly switching to HTML, but then I couldn't copy-paste from docs.

[ex_writeitinsharpie308]

If I use the arrows and don't go onto the actual page, I have to go through 4 layers of arrows

[r7]

Yep. :P

[the_mysterious_m]

Good job, vechs.

This was great. Welcome back to writingdom!

[(Anonymous)]

Thanks! I hope to try and stay here for a while.

[r7]

That was me.... Either I or DW derped and I wasn't signed in.

[tanadin]

That's been going around lately.

[subliminalcircles]

Smooth Vechs... Smooth...

[r7]

:P