The Inn & More Information:

"Wait! My Lady…"

Oh… Seriously? Khael'yyn's mind went blank again upon hearing the King's voice once more. She turned to face him, to find he was looking right at her from his full height, like he had before. That gaze, emanating from the familiar, handsome face, with a single scar along his cheek, shrouded by the hood, was a little mesmerising, to say the least.

"Would you… Could you…" The King winced at himself. He hadn't stuttered like this since he was a child! He took a deep breath and tried again. "I would humbly appreciate your assistance once more, if it is within your patience with me to do so."

Does he know he's the King? Khael'yyn idly wondered, before dripping her head and acquiescing yet again. The man could simply order her to do anything he wanted, so this behaviour was very utterly strange.

"Of course, Si– " Khael'yyn sighed and tried again. "My lord."

"Ah, I thank you, my lady." The King bowed shallowly. Now, Kings don't bow – but this young woman was being very nice to his clumsy manners and strange ways, so he felt it was justly deserved in this case. "I was wondering whether you might enter the inn and speak with the barkeep? I have reason to believe he would know the whereabouts of one of his errant tenants – his nephew, no less – who absconded instead of testifying to the Crown and Court regarding an incident of abject Treason."

"Treason?" Khael'yyn's gasped exclamation made it out of her mouth before she had even realised she'd thought it. Treason was serious, dangerous. She didn't want to be put into danger if she could help it, least of all now.

"It is nothing for you to concern yourself over," the King answered quickly, attempting to reassure and appease her very reasonable concern.

The man strode the few feet she had made away from him before he had managed to call her back, and pulled the cloak and hood closer and tighter about himself, his voice lower to keep the conversation private.

"The matter has been dealt with, and I only wish now to obtain the final piece of evidence to ensure this conviction is assured and upheld," he explained quietly. "However, the person in question has vanished, without trace. Patrols have had no sightings. Public Posts have been met with no responses. We are quickly running out of both options and intelligence."

"Can't you just… Convict and sentence them, anyway?" Khael'yyn asked, without thinking. Then she realised that telling a King how to do his job was rather rude. "Forgive me, I—"

"No, it is a valid question," the King quickly intervened. "Yes, it is true that it is my right by law, as King, to make whatever verdict I believe to be the right one. But I believe – quite strongly believe – that trials should be fair and honest, seeking only the truth. Much more than my own opinion should count, particularly when Treason is such a heinous accusation with a rather permanent sentence."

"So, you want me to go in there, and see if I can get the innkeeper to tell me where this man is?" Khael'yyn cocked her head and looked at him critically. "If you hadn't bumped into me, you'd have done this yourself, wouldn't you? So, why ask for my aid now?"

King Tris'tiiaen blinked a moment, taken back by the plain speech and blunt enquiry. Nobody but his father had ever been blunt to him, or ever questioned him in such a way, before. Yet, he found himself not only unopposed to it, but truthfully, felt more freed by the complete lack of pretentiousness of the direct address and level of questioning. It was the kind of interaction that required absolutely no skill in deciphering, nor required any set skill in manoeuvring through the Political minefield of The Game – the colloquial term for the ways of strategically manoeuvring through the geo-political diplomatic minefield of Court.

The dizzying array of people in any Royal Court was vast, and it needed to be moved through like it was an extortionately-complex chessboard. The language was, to his mind, brain-meltingly complex, with incalculable layers and nuances, where understanding that even the smallest of semantics could make the difference between a friend, ally, or abject enemy. The verbal and physical languages, down to the nth degree, were absolutely vital in keeping everything and everybody stable. There were many ways to impress and insult others as there seemed to be hot dinners, with so many variants of local customs and societal norms in the different Districts within the Kingdom, let alone outside of it.

Being at the centre of The Game, King Tris'tiiaen had long learned to see the bluffs of those to gain the favour of the Court for political games and alliances. He had grown up around it, had been raised within it. His parents clear from the offset that it was something vital to be learned and understood from the earliest time possible, and had been explained to him the best that could be, to a ten-year-old. They had told him they didn't want him to be a pawn, or used as one, for other people's gain, meaning he had to be very aware of when someone was attempting to manipulate him, or some situation. They had been right to do so, because it hadn't taken much longer than that for some people to attempt to do just that.

They were still trying to do that.

Gaining a better foothold for yourself within the Court, was The Game for most of the Nobility Class. Garnering favour with, and even gaining some level of access to, the tight Inner Circle, was the goal, because they believed it came with virtue, wealth, connections, unimpeachable actions, and immeasurable favour. Few ever did, and for very specific reasons. King Trys'tiiaen would easily be the first to laugh at anyone who believed such things could be obtained by being so close to this King, and anybody with such ideals would ever gain such access. He had deftly learned to avoid such people like he did the latest plague. In fact, he tried to avoid anything to do with The Game, whatsoever.

He might be King, but Trys'tiiaen was – first and foremost – a soldier. The Commanding Officer of the most Elite Guardsmen in the entire Royal Army, no less.

His strategic mind, skillset, and training had made The Game easier to manage that it might have been, but what it was truly geared for was strategy of battlefields, of troop deployments and positions to hold, when to keep fighting on verses when to call for a truce

Unfortunately, his hesitation in answering her quickly brought Khaelyyn back to herself, though, and she felt her stomach dropping when she realised her mistake, and expected a severe admonishment to follow. No matter how polite he had been, there was no way the King would overlook such an impudent address to him.

What came next surprised them both.

"May I ask for your name?"

They both stared somewhat questioningly at each other, without really knowing where that came from. But the King decided to barrel on with his mindless question, now it was out in the open.

"We have been talking for quite some time, and although you have every understanding of who I am, I am yet to know with whom I speak."

"Oh." Well done, Khaely, you've been seriously rude to the King. Again. "My name is Khael'yyn Dae'Vaelann, Yo—"

She stopped herself again from offering honorifics, but this time just shook her head with a huff of exasperation, instead of correcting herself.

"Well, you are of course correct. I would have had to do it myself," the King replied ruefully. "However, to do that I would have had to give myself away, and that is something I do not wish to do, if it can possibly be avoided, since it defeats the object of the subterfuge. I would have been forced to reveal myself and enforce his tongue by the Power of the Crown, and I have no wish to do so if it can be avoided. Had I intended that, I simply would have had him summoned to the Court and sent the Elite Guard to hunt him down. Truth be told, I hoped for some great idea to befall me, and I suppose, in a roundabout way, one did?"

"Yeh, with fall being the predominant word there, I suppose," Khael'yyn remarked wryly. She physically shrugged it off and then got back to the point. "What do you want me to say to the innkeeper, then? Am I telling him the truth, or making up a story?"

King Tris'tiiaen pursed his lips, having very little idea about what could be said as a story. Only one thing came to mind, a moment later.

"What if you posed as a wronged woman, searching for him?" he suggested, feeling his cheeks redden. "Perhaps even with-child, if he is difficult to sway? His sense of honour or duty – or equally, his wish to be kept out of it – might push the man to divulge his nephew's whereabouts."

"Huh," Khael'yyn mused softly. "That's quite clever."

The King threw her a wry stare, mildly insulted. "I have been known to pull a few successful strategies together in my time."

Khael'yyn's eyes widened in mortified horror, realising she had really managed to insult him this time. During his many years reigning the Kingdom, as both Regent and Sovereign, King Tris'tiiaen had waged formidable wars and won them, leading from the front on both the battlefield and in the strategy tent, whilst also diplomatically excelling at the being first and last voice in long talks on peace treaties or discussions of the enemy's surrender, on negotiations and compromise within all areas that mattered to the Crown, and the fine art of balancing that Crown and Kingdom with the needs of The People who inhabited it.

His skilfully strategic mind and masterful abilities had saved this Kingdom several times over in the past few years, with plenty of the surrounding Kingdoms, and those who had Treasonous intents within this one, seeing the illness of the Sovereign and a young Regent as ample weakness to attack in various ways. Once the Crown Prince had been made King, another set of fools attempted to attack the new Monarch.

None had come out of it well, and one of the far lands overseas had even had its own King maimed and close to death, because he thought to call out King Tris'tiiaen before him in the duelling ring, to finish their war off once and for all after soldiers, food and weapons dwindled on both sides. It was only the mercy in the heart of King Tris'tiiaen that had spared him his life, but he was dismissed like an errant servant with the demand that their King never threaten Y'ssadiir again. There was no question that would have been no such mercy had the outcome gone the other way.

This man who stood with her was famed, lauded, and awed for his exceptionally skilful, sharp and strategic mind, generous nature, and abject mercy. Yet, here she was, pleasantly surprised that he had some up with a basic ruse to flush out a Court witness.

"My apologies, Your—" Khaelyyn huffed again, adding quietly, "That was thoughtlessly uncouth of me."

"All right, Khael'yyn, I shall mercifully pardon you from the stocks ⁴ this once."

Khaeylynn raised her eyes to him, only to find him looking back with a small quirk of a smile and eyes filled with mirth, giving away the humoured tease in his words. She found herself slipping out a smile of her own and she looked back down at her boots again, shaking her head at him for teasing her. Teasing? Her…?

Well. Two could play at that game.

"So magnanimous, my lord," she cooed back sardonically. King Tris'tiiaen let out a surprised laugh at her playing along with him.

"In that case, do you find my suggestion up to your standards, my lady?" he asked mildly.,

"I suppose it'll do," retorted with a nonchalant shrug and amused demeanour.

"Ha! It'll do, she says…" King Tris'tiiaen chuckled to himself and shook his head. Who would ever, had ever, spoken to him like this before – and with such lack of care for doing so, too? His nanny when he was a toddler didn't exactly count, either. "Very well, since you believe it is sufficient enough to attempt, I now put myself in your capable hands and see where this ruse leads us. The man's name is A'aelwyyn Mael'oaer, and the witness I seek is Claxx'ton Mael'oaer – his brother's child."

Divinities… She really was going to have to go ahead and do it now, wasn't she?

Khael'yyn eyed up the man in front of her for a moment, then impulsively decided to just get it over with. Nobody at the inn knew her – she never frequented any tavern, or places where people could be remembered. If the taverns in Eara'dyyn were anything to go by, the barkeeps were all nosy sods with memories that lasted longer than most lifetimes, so she always ensured they never saw her face or even knew of her existence, because she wanted to eliminate every possibility of ever being found.

"Right. Well. I'll see you in a few minutes then," she mumbled, and moved swiftly past the man in the cloak, heading purposefully towards the inn's door.