Dragon Princess

Chapter 10 (Day 5)

  The men are restless, as the kingdom draws nearer so does their public humiliation. Branton looked carefully at his men as they gathered their stuff up for another day's march. They walked around like a dragon was looming over them, threatening to eat their fingers. "Come now men, straighten your backs and have faith in our people!" He shouted, encouraging himself as well. The men cast him a weary look and got back to their slouching.

  Branton narrowed his eyes, his honor to his men blinding, humiliation. "Attention!" He shouted for all the camp. The men stood at attention, backs straight and eyes forward. Branton looked his men in the eyes, "When we walk into our kingdom we will not act like we have committed a crime!" He walked up to one of the men, "We will walk in like we saved our families from a respond attack." He walked again, sifting his way through his men, "We are brothers today, we WILL act as such." He walked back to his stuff and muttered, "at ease."

***

  Adara walked to the library and pulled out all the scrolls with the name of Branton or Price of Phoenix Kingdom and laid them out on a large table with the help of Nyx. They kept the sides flat with paper weights and got to work. Pouring over anything that might help with anything. Adara herself told a scribe of her encounter with the prince so that it may be documented what she noticed about him.

  "Adara, we've got something," Nyx said interrupting the story at the fireside. Adara nodded, "I'm almost through, mark it with a thread." Nyx nodded and let Adara finish about his enquiry of her name and her witty response.

  The scribe smiled up at her, "my, you are a quick one I declare. The poor prince sounds as though you frustrated him at every turn."

  Adara smiled and shrugged, "I was hoping to collect as much information about him with as little information being known about me."

  The scribe nodded, "we'll if that's the end I shall release you to your excited friend."

  "Thank you sir," Adara got up and curtsied before going to Nyx, "What did you discover?"

  Nyx bounced up and down in excitement, she smiled at Adara and quoted a text, "'a refugee who claimed she was... close to him said he was a very peaceful man who she thought when he was ruler the war would finally end.'" Nyx looked at Adara, "what do you think of that?"

  Adara sighed, "keep it close, although I doubt the girl was actually close to him, he was very... hostile towards me in a smart way, he had anger issues but he knew very well how to control himself. This woman probably wanted to get into the kingdom claiming this so that she could stay with the exchange of this information."

  Nyx frowned but nodded, "you're probably right."

  Adara shrugged, "he doesn't seem to show up much in the war... perhaps he has a distaste for it and is peaceful like the woman said, surely his own people know that much."

  Nyx gave her a side look, "you really think so?"

  Adara nodded, "he may have been in a bad mood from our agreement, it wasn't as though he got anything from it, and as a prince, he probably hasn't been at such a short end of a stick." She shrugged again as a way of saying 'what could she do?'

  Nyx snickered, "yeah, that sounds more likely. He couldn't have identified you as anything beyond a dragon rider."

  Adara frowned, "actually I think his friend he talked about was watching me too, he might've noticed things I can't hide while Prince Branton simmers in his distaste of me."

  Nyx perked up in curiosity, "really? Tell me about him."

  Adara thought very hard, she hadn't paid much attention to the man, only really focused on the prince. "He must've seen me staring a lot at the prince, he might've known I had some sort of status. Other than that I'm not sure, but I can guarantee they don't know my exact identity."

  Nyx nodded with a smile, Adara thought she looked beautiful with a smile, her dark long hair seemed to shine and her pale porclien skin glowed, not to mention her warm brown eyes. She was pretty all the time but when she smiled, she looked better than any woman. With her beauty, she could get just about any man.

  Adara looked back at the scrolls, trying to retain as much information as possible.