When Zanac saw his brother, filthy, exhausted, and waving at him like they were old friends who hadn’t seen each other in years… he knew things weren’t going well. ‘My brother hasn’t been happy to see me since we were boys. Things must have gone very poorly, but he had a punitive force, none of the nobles would have done this. Even if a village were burned, they’d just take some of the poor from the cities.’

The closer he got, the more ragged Zanac’s brother and the soldiers with him appeared to be. He looked over his shoulder to the soldier at his back. “We’ll camp here.”

“Sire.” The soldier bowed his head and covered his heart with his hand and wheeled his horse around to bark orders.

Camp was being quickly established, and while it was happening, Barbro came on with his remaining soldiers.

Prince Barbro felt ready to fall from his horse when the steady, weary clip clop of hooves brought him up close. He clasped his filthy hand to that of his presently clean younger brother. “Good to see you, brother.” Barbro said through huffing and puffing of worn out breaths.

“Brother…” Prince Zanac asked with dismay, “…what happened to you?”

“You have a tent?” Prince Barbro asked, and Zanac waved his sibling and rival over to a white tent with several guards standing by at the front.

“Good,” Prince Barbro responded when he saw where Prince Zanac pointed, “I want to discuss this in private.”

They rode in silence toward the conical shaped tent and dismounted at the entrance. The guards pounded their spears several times in acknowledgement as the royals pushed aside the flap. A bottle of wine sat on a small field table with two chairs opposite it. The field table was a simple, innovative modular design, the legs were cut so that a small peg, usually capped with metal, sat at the center, while the table had depressions cut to fit the tip and a hole at the center of each corner depression sized to fit the peg and cap. In this way the tables were easily dismantled and reassembled. The chairs were a similar modular, space saving design that folded into three pieces in the back and two between the seat and the legs. The smooth wood would then be given a cushion suitable to the status of the user, and it was at this that the Princes sat.

Alone together, Prince Zanac did his older brother the courtesy of pouring wine for the both of them, though he did himself first as compensation.

Prince Barbro didn’t complain, he accepted the wine in the silver goblet and drank it with a long, deep draught before smacking his lips and slamming the cup down. As dignity went, it had none, but alone together, the brothers were relaxed enough not to care.

“Good wine, it’s the first good thing to happen since… Lakyus.” He murmured the last word, and Prince Zanac raised an eyebrow.

“What was that? I didn’t catch the last part, brother?” Prince Zanac asked.

Prince Barbro waved it off with a deep, bitter laugh, “Utterly inconsequential, just thinking of a toy I lost.”

Prince Zanac’s brow furrowed, “Yes… I see… but… what happened out there? How many do you have left? What destroyed so many men?”

Prince Barbro cursed and snatched up the bottle from the table, pouring his own cup. “Goblins, goblins and peasant trash, among a few others. There were a lot though, and between them and the rest, it was around six thousand… I was outnumbered, badly. Carne is in open rebellion.”

Prince Zanac gasped, “A rebellion of peasants and… monster helpers? You’re joking.”

Prince Barbro shook his head, “No, no I’m not. We’ve been on a forced march all this time, out of the twenty-five hundred of us originally, we have less than a thousand left, and they’ve been chasing us. Wolf Riders have decimated my cavalry, but they haven’t been engaging us aggressively, they’re tracking us, I’m sure the ones in charge are following us.”

Prince Zanac’s face paled, “We’ve got to go then. We need to inform father and the other nobles, we need to put this rebellion down…” The younger Prince rubbed his forehead and shook his head, pressing his face into his hand.

“Damn it Barbro… I was afraid of this, you went too far, way too far. Attacking Carne was a bad idea.” Prince Zanac said with exasperation.

“Obviously, but… wait you mean something else, don’t you Zanac?” Barbro felt the throne start to retreat from him again.

“Don’t you read the notices we get? Carne is the village Master Gown rescued, and it’s the village that Sir Momon defended and made into his home. Sir Momon even asked for it as a governorship reward for service. You’ve alienated not one, but two powerful allies to the Royal Family at a crucial time, and sparked a rebellion on top of that.” Prince Zanac pounded his fists on the table, shaking the bottle and tipping over his cup, it toppled off the edge and spilled the red wine within, down into the dust.

Prince Zanac bent over and picked it up, and when he set the cup back on the table, Prince Barbro’s face was pale, his mouth barely open, staring ahead. “I… I didn’t know.”

“You would have, if you bothered reading anything father sent us.” Prince Zanac said with a scathing tongue, “Now what? I came out here to bring you back before you messed it all up, but it seems I’m too late. We’ll go back, you’ll explain yourself to father, and what happens after that, happens.”

Prince Barbro bowed his head, “Just get me out of here alive, I’ll be grateful for that, but my soldiers… my soldiers are too exhausted to move, we have enough space ahead for a night’s rest, and I doubt they’ll want to take on… what do you have?”

“Ten thousand men including two thousand cavalry.” Prince Zanac responded.

“That will do.” Prince Barbro said with a weary, worn out voice. “Let me rest… and then… tomorrow we can go home.”

Prince Zanac looked up to his brother’s broken, exhausted face, pity swelled within his heart. “Alright… alright brother, rest, we’ll go home tomorrow… I’ll have a tent set up for you and see that your soldiers are provided for, you just rest.”

Prince Barbro kept his head bowed, though he gave a tiny nod and reached for the bottle again with a trembling, filthy hand that shook so hard when he poured that some of the wine sloshed out and missed the cup, and he simply didn’t care when it happened.

When Lakyus received word about what Prince Barbro was doing to a girl for the crime of ‘looking enough like Lakyus’, she locked herself up in her room and refused to come out. “Bastard. Bastard. Bastard.” She gritted her teeth, tears of rage boiled over. Outside the door she could hear her sisters calling for her to ‘open the damn door’, but her sense of shame was far, far too great.

She stared down at the table, her fists shaking with abject rage. The day Prince Barbro had tried to flirt with her, she’d turned him down flat. The memory came back easily because, up until now, it had been a point of humor for her…

“They say women are attracted to strong men… what do you say, Lakyus?” Prince Barbro had said, staring down directly at Lakyus’s chest.

The radiant blonde adventurer took a sip of wine and smiled demurely, then taunted him by saying, “I’d say that’s probably true, but I’ll have to let you know when I meet one, Prince Barbro.”

His face turned a dark red at the insult, but he attempted to sally on, “You never really know a man’s strength until you test it, and it comes in many forms, after all, a Prince is born to more power than most adventurers ever have, the power to… reward those who ‘please’ them, or ‘punish’ those who don’t.”

Lakyus ran her hand along the rim of her glass, seemingly very fascinated by the light noise it made. “I’m sure that’s true, but then… a powerful adventurer who is so offended by a prince that she leaves his kingdom, and say… tells everybody that she left because a Prince with a tiny penis made offensive, perverted, lewd suggestions and veiled threats to her and her family… may quickly find that he is Prince of nothing. Why, I wouldn’t be surprised if he lost all chance at the throne. Wouldn’t ‘that’ be a shame?”

The way Prince Barbro blushed and stammered, while then saying, “Yes, yes. That would be a shame, thankfully there are no such Princes in Re-Estize…” It made her laugh a little when she lightly touched his hand.

He yanked it back, sloshing some wine on his expensive white shirt, and then excusing himself to storm off in a huff.

The memory of that day, Lakyus laughed at it many times… ‘I didn’t know he’d make someone else pay for it… I didn’t know…’ Rumors had it that she’d been beaten black and blue and violated while being made to apologize and beg forgiveness, all under Lakyus’ own name.

Unfortunately, Lakyus knew those rumors were not just rumors, and soon everyone else would too. Guilt rampaged through her as fast as her heart could pump her blood.

The pounding on her door grew worse, and finally the wood splintered and Gagaran kicked several times, sending pieces of wood as thick as her arm splintering and sailing across the room to smash into smaller splinters before falling down to become tinder piles on the floor.

“Gagaran… what the…” Lakyus looked up, but the giant of a woman only swiftly walked over, put a beefy armored hand on her sister’s shoulder and shot out…

“You know this isn’t on you, right, Lakyus?” Gagaran said in an attempt to comfort her sister.

Lakyus gave a tiny nod as her sisters stepped over the debris and into the room to join her as well.

“I know that. I mean, I know that empirically. But emotionally? If I’d just been nicer about turning him down, made some excuse, maybe he wouldn’t have hurt that one. Maybe if we hadn’t waited until Momon gave us the excuse we needed to take down Eight Fingers, maybe if Barbro and the other nobles hadn’t always blocked Princess Renner’s attempts at funding a job request for us to bring them down… none of that would have happened.” Lakyus dug her nails into her palms.

“It’s infuriating, it’s humiliating, it’s degrading… which is I’m sure exactly what that slime wanted, even if he didn’t want it to be public knowledge, but I’m sure it’s even worse for her, whoever she is. By the four, I’ll bet she hates me for just existing… hero of humanity, and because of my pleasure in taunting that bastard, she got turned into somebody’s living doll to abuse.”

“It’s still just on him. He made his own choices.” Evileye said with a bitter tongue, “At least we know why an Eight Fingers takedown was never a job that got funded. Prince Barbro, and a lot of the other houses too.” The magic caster tried to sound comforting, but it was hollow and they both knew it.

“That’s true, but still… it isn’t enough. I won’t be satisfied with just a scandal for the Prince.” Lakyus shot back, “I don’t know what will satisfy me… but when I know… so will they. But perhaps the guildmasters can start by a general strike on monster jobs within Re-Estize. No more support for any mission in any province of Re-Estize until they do something to make this right.”

“I think that’s the plan, I was just down there talking with Ainzach, and… they’re furious, everybody is, especially now that we helped bring down Eight Fingers.” Evileye said, looking up into the angry blue eyes of her sister.

“That’ll do for a start, but if something doesn’t satisfy me, I’m taking Blue Rose out of this kingdom.” Lakyus said and looked around at her sisters with a silent question.

They answered immediately, “And we’ll go with you.”

“Good.” Lakyus replied, and began to feel a little bit better, forming a weak smile of thanks to give to her beloved sisters.