"But . . . buh . . . " Kutur couldn't really form a thought. He was tired, and could only vaguely recall when he began his work. He suspected it was an evening. Kali's sheer clothes didn't help his brain much to get back on track either. "What? Was . . . was Ardasa gone?" He tried searching his memory, but the only things he could dig up were runes upon more runes. Perhaps he should have it written for the record that esoteric magic is harmful to the brain. 
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Ardasa was drowning. She practically fought through the crowd towards her own home. She could not reach her hand out without a claw touching the forehead of a baby or small child. There were simply so many kobolds. The city had either become massive in her absence, or she somehow managed to misplace in her head tens of thousands of people in the short time she had been gone. 

Eventually, she had made it by a miracle of Arda to the doors of the palace. Guards streamed out, blocking the populace from entering and escorting her within. "That was . . . something," she said, through shaky breaths. Rughoi entered the hall, looking with hints of what very well may have been fear out at the crowd. He has stared down monsters, hordes of enemies, and terrible storms, but it is his own people that scares him most.

"Maybe addressing the public was a mistake," Rughoi said. Ardasa nodded.

"Hoo, there's nothing like being an empress, that I can say," she responded, fanning herself with a claw. "It's more tense out there than it was dodging arrows in the streets of Hekaga!" The last sentence froze Rughoi up. "No no, it's a figure of-" she began, but he was already gone. She put a palm to her own head. Her and her stupid mouth. "I'll just retire to the temple room, alright?" she called after him, knowing nothing she's going to say will reach his ears. "Alright . . . "