Chapter Two Hundred and Eighty - Jailbirds

“Wow,” I said as I leaned back onto the very uncomfortable mattress and stared up at the bare rock ceiling. “Being in jail sucks.”

“Oh, really?” Amaryllis asked. She was in a cell right next to mine. “I thought that being in jail would be great fun.”

“Don’t be sarcastic,” I said.

“Don’t be dumb,” she shot back.

Obviously, Amaryllis wasn’t in the best of moods. It probably had something to do with our current incarceration. We were all placed in little cells in a large, semi-circular room, with doors facing a small desk where a bored sylph guardsman was reading the newspaper while occasionally looking up to make sure we weren’t up to anything.

Awen had the cell on Amaryllis’ other side. She was pacing in little circles, her hands sometimes wiggling around with nervous energy.

I didn’t have much else to do but complain. They’d poked at us, and taken away all of our armour and gear. We couldn’t fit in any of the sylph-made jail uniforms they had, so we were left in our normal clothes, which was nice. Then they put strange cuffs on our hands that glowed while burning off our mana about as fast as we generated it.

That meant that when I cleaned my cell, I had to do it the old-fashioned way.

But that was twenty-minutes ago, and now I had nothing to do.

“This is really boring,” I said. “Want to play a game?”

“Shut up!” one of the other prisoners shouted over at me.

“I’m sorry for bothering you, mister, but I’d really rather not. Talking with my friends is the only thing I can do right now,” I called back. “Did you want to play too? We can do twenty-questions maybe? Oh! We could sing some songs!”

“I don’t want to sing any songs!”

“That’s okay too. I’d never make someone participate in sing-along time if they’re shy and don’t want to.”

Amaryllis sighed. “Broccoli, do you have any concept of how much trouble we could be in?”

“A bit,” I said. “But really, if the sylph are as fair and just as they claim to be, then we should be fine. We weren’t doing anything wrong.”

“Maybe we weren’t doing anything wrong, but we were certainly doing something illegal. The sylph have so many laws, many of which contradict each other, that no matter what you do, you’re doing something that’s breaking one obscure law or another.” She crossed her wings. “I don’t want to end up in some labour camp smashing rocks.”

“We’ll be fine,” I said, this time trying to reassure her.

We... might not be fine. I didn’t actually know that. But I didn’t get as far as I did in life by being a pessimist. I’d just have to hope for the best and work through the worst.

The door at the end of the prison building rattled, and the guard behind the desk sat up straighter while stashing his newspaper in a drawer. The door opened, and a warden walked in, then held the door open for a pair of guards who stationed themselves on either side of the entrance.

Then a familiar face walked in.

“Oh hey, Princess Caprica,” I said. “Were you arrested too?”

The princess in question perked an eyebrow even as the guard on duty jumped to his feet so fast his chair clattered to the floor while he saluted.

“Hello Broccoli. And no, I was not arrested. You three, on the other hand, were.” She walked across the room and stopped near our cells.

“Are you here to visit then?” I asked. “I didn’t even know they had visitation hours here.”

She chuckled, then shook her head. “Not quite, no.” Her smile grew a lot more genuine, and I detected a faint note of blushing on her cheeks. “I was asked to do a favour by a mutual friend of ours.”

Well, that had to be Bastion. “Really? What’s the favour?”

“To look into why his three most troublesome companions found themselves behind bars within three days of arriving at the capital. He said that it was entirely expected that you’d all eventually get arrested, but he expected it to at least take five days.”

“We’re always pleased to defy expectations,” I said. “And it wasn’t our fault. We were chasing after stolen stuff and were caught up in the kerfuffle.”

“And the accusations of breaking and entering in the warehouses, refusing arrest, and... autodefenestration?” the princess asked.

“Uh.”

Caprica laughed. “Yes, I thought so. Fortunately, you did assist in the arrest of a known band of thieves. The Mitchhum have been something of a thorn in the side of the guard for a while, and they’d recently stolen some goods from some rather prominent and important people.”

“Oh, the grenoil cargo,” I said. “What was in that in the end?” I asked.

“insect jerky,” Caprica said.

“You mean to tell me we went through all that trouble and were arrested just to free up some dried bug meat?” Amaryllis asked.

Caprica nodded. “It seems so. Now, Bastion asked me to look after you, and after a small talk with the chief of the guard, we decided to let you out on bond.”

“That’s a thing here?” I asked.

“It is,” she confirmed. “Though, I had to pay for it myself.”

Amaryllis huffed. It was a very ‘of course you did’ sort of huff. “Which means that now we owe you.”

“Just a little,” Caprica said. “I’ve also lost an afternoon coming down here. It’s not exactly next door from the palace, you know?” She placed her hands on her hips and looked quite pleased with herself.

“Thanks Caprica,” I said. “We really do appreciate it. We’ll pay you back, of course. We have some money laying around.”

“Oh, I don’t need money, my dear Captain Bunch. Money is wonderful, but I have plenty of that. I’d be much more interested in obtaining... let’s call it a favour or three?”

“Helping a friend out isn’t a favour, silly,” I said. “You know we’d help you with stuff without expecting anything in return.”

“Broccoli, you moron, don’t go around telling people that or they’ll start abusing your... niceness,” Amaryllis grumped.

“If they’re abusing my niceness because they need help, then it’s perfectly fine,” I retorted.

Caprica giggled, then cut herself off with a cough to clear her throat. “I think I really do see why Bastion reported that you were mostly harmless.”

“Only mostly?” I asked.

“Only mostly,” Caprica agreed. “You have caused your fair share of problems, you know.”

“That wasn’t on purpose,” I said.

One of the princess’ eyebrows rose. “So you’re telling me you wouldn’t have broken into a warehouse and chased after a known band of thieves if you could avoid it?”

“Ah, well, there were a lot of circumstantial things going on,” I said.

Caprica laughed. “I’m sure. You three cool your heels for just a moment longer. I'll get the warden to get you out of there. Then you can meet me outside, I have a carriage waiting.”

Caprica went off, and soon enough a warden came and opened our cells up. A few of the people in the other cells whined about it, but it was mostly the really drunk sylph that smelled like beer that complained the loudest.

We were escorted to a room where we were given back our stuff. I was quick to tie Orange’s collar back on, then I summoned the spirit kitty, just to make sure.

I think I might have yoinked her away mid kitty-nap, because she was entirely displeased at being summoned in the middle of a jailhouse. I tried to make it up to her with chin rubs as I followed a guard out of the prison and back onto the streets of Goldenalden.

As promised, a carriage was waiting for us just to the side. A big one, with lots of gilding and nice paint trying to disguise the fact that it looked so square. Another guard, this one with the whole ornate getup of a royal guard, opened the carriage door for us.

We found Caprica sitting on the front side of the carriage, so the four of us--myself, Awen, Amaryllis, and Orange--bundled ourselves into the rear seats, facing Caprica.

“Did you find all of your things?” Caprica asked.

“Yup,” I said, and my friends nodded.

“Good. Well, now that we’re here, I wanted to talk about... what is that?” She was staring at my arms, where Orange was grumpily settling in for a nap.

“This is Orange.”

“Is that a spirit cat?” Caprica asked.

I nodded. “Yup. Orange is the Grand Admiral of mouse-catching aboard the Beaver Cleaver,” I said. I let go of Orange, who sat on my lap and puffed her little chest out. Though... she wasn’t quite as little as she’d been when I first found her.

“May I touch her?” Caprica asked.

“Oh, sure,” I said.

Orange shot me a look as I picked her up and placed her onto Caprica’s lap. The little sylph princess seemed entirely uncertain of how to treat Orange. Carefully, she ran a hand down Orange’s back, and Orange stood up with the gesture, pressing into the petting. “Oh, she’s majestic,” Caprica said.

Orange’s smugness grew.

The carriage took off with a rumble, bouncing over the cobbled roads of Goldenalden while Caprica seemed to completely forget that we were there and made little cooing noises at Orange. She rubbed Orange on the head with her forefingers, then when Orange looked up, Caprica started squishy-squishing Orange’s cheeks.

I think Caprica nearly fainted when Orange flipped over and let her touch her belly exactly twice before batting her hand away.

Amaryllis cleared her throat, and Caprica looked up, then blushed. She continued petting Orange, but with a more dignified air to her, as if she wasn’t just making baby voices at the cat. “Yes, well, as I was saying earlier. I have something of a request for the three of you.”

“Sure,” I said.

“Broccoli, for just once, can we listen to the request before accepting it?” Amaryllis asked. Awen giggled next to her.

“Fine, fine.”

“What I’m looking for isn’t anything too complicated,” Caprica said. “It is, in fact, something you want as well. The cervid delegation is stationed at their embassy in the purple district. They’re more or less closed off from the rest of the city, focused as they are on minding their own business.”

I nodded. “You want us to befriend them.”

“Essentially, yes. That would be nice. The delegation has a few younger members that expressed a wish to explore the city. We offered them an escort, but they don’t like the idea of having a military escort, especially one that’s from a nation with which they have some ongoing tension.”

“Oh, you want us to take the place of a military escort,” I said.

Caprica nodded. “And I want you to put your friend-making skills to the test. Try to befriend them. They might be younger members, but they still have a little bit of power, and perhaps the ability to sway their parents towards a less violent course.”

“Yeah, that sounds easy!” I said.

“Um, Broccoli,” Awen spoke up. “Do you remember Emmanuel?”

“Yeah,” I said.

“What if, ah, the other cervid are like that?”

I considered it. “Nah, don’t worry Awen, there’s no way any of the cervid we meet will be that bad.”

“I would certainly hope not,” Amaryllis said. “If only for the sake of the country's diplomatic ability.”

“Should I know what you three are talking about?” Caprica asked.

I shook my head. “It’s fine. So, when do you want us to meet these new potential friends?”

The carriage rumbled to a stop. Caprica smiled. “Why, right now.”

“Oh, shoot,” I said. “Whelp, you keep an eye on Orange for us, okay?”

“Gladly! And good luck.”

***