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[center]Mentions: [@Potter] Layla [@SausagePat] Ruby [@Rodiak] Zarai[/center]

It had taken Sjan-dehk more time than he cared to admit, but he was here at last. The castle. At the very least, it was within sight. Grey stone and painted roofs reached for a sky of soft azure and clouds of pure white behind a beautifully-carved fountain and across a small plaza. As he had just found out, the walls that he had been following – and which had been mocking him – the entire time he had spent wandering around the city like a headless chicken weren’t the walls of the actual castle. They merely sequestered a quieter, smaller town away from the rest of Sorian.

The real castle was a little ways farther in. Thankfully, it was plainly visible from the arched gateway which Sjan-dehk had just walked through. He would have been sorely tempted to simply call it a day and return to his [i]Sada Kurau[/i] had he simply left one maze for another. 

Well, to be perfectly honest, the temptation was still there. Only the reason differed. 

The castle town was quiet. Serene, peaceful, with only vague murmurs of activity drifting through the plaza from its orderly streets and well-kept boulevards. Lilting birdsong floated in from verdant trees. Whatever din Sjan-dehk had experienced in the slums may as well have been naught but a distant memory or hazy dream. Washed-out cobblestones tapped a steady beat against his boots with each step. The thin crowd of well-dressed and well-groomed people glanced in his direction as he passed. Most were curious, but he wasn’t oblivious to the guarded stares and suspicious gazes he received. Sjan-dehk simply tipped his hat towards those whose eyes he met and continued on his way. 

One might be forgiven that he – casual and smooth as he carried himself – was fully at ease. That could not be farther from the truth. 

Something about this place sat poorly with him. The tranquillity felt a little too oppressive; the orderliness a mite too unnatural; the cleanliness a touch too barren. As if the wall that separated the quarter from the rest of Sorian kept the city’s liveliness out as well. Sjan-dehk didn’t like it in the least. There was life here, of course, but nothing felt alive. That didn’t make as much sense as he hoped even to himself, but all he knew was that he wanted to spend as little time here as possible. Perhaps he was far too accustomed to the rowdier parts of a city. Even in his native Jafi, he spent most of his time ashore mucking about in the rougher quarters, much to his mother’s chagrin. 

Or perhaps it was his natural aversion to stately affairs trying to concoct a reason for him to leave before he had to play the part of a noble before the city’s lord. 

Whatever it was, it didn’t matter. The tap of his boots against stones soon turned into dull thumps against wood as he crossed the drawbridge spanning the moat. A pair of guards stood a little too at ease beneath the massive gatehouse. They appeared to be too engrossed in their conversation to notice Sjan-dehk as he approached, but quickly sprang into action once they noticed him. Weapons and armour rattled and clanged against each other as they stood up straight. “Stop! Identify yourself!” One of them shouted with an outstretched hand. 

Sjan-dehk had been prepared for this. If anything, he was surprised that he hadn’t been stopped by any guards earlier, armed and armoured as he was. Keeping his movements slow and deliberate, he raised his hands and presented two open palms to the guards. [color=1E90FF]“[i]I am Wasun Sjan-dehk of Viserjanta.[/i]”[/color] He kept his tone calm, looking at each guard in turn as he spoke. Clean-shaven and well-groomed, neither looked as if they were any older than himself. [color=1E90FF]“[i]I mean no trouble. I am here to speak with your lord.[/i]”[/color]

“Who of where?” the same guard asked, thin and pock-marked face scrunched in confusion.

The other guard spoke up. He was shorter than his partner, but with a stockier physique and a friendlier countenance. “Think I ‘eard that place in a book once.” He nodded towards Sjan-dehk. “‘Is people traded ‘ere years ago. Long ‘fore any of us were born.” Both Sjan-dehk and the other guard turned to look at him, and he merely offered a shrug in response. “I’ve been readin’. Guard commander always said we ‘ave to keep our wits about us, aye?”

“He looked pretty well-armed for a trader,” the thinner guard said and looked down his nose at Sjan-dehk with his dull, blue eyes. “What do you have on you? Two swords, two pistols, one musket? You look more like you’re here to kill our lord, not speak with him as you claim.”

[color=1E90FF]“[i]Four pistols,[/i]”[/color] Sjan-dehk corrected and turned slightly to show them the weapons on his back. [color=1E90FF]“[i]Also you are right. I am not a trader. I am the fourth lesser marquis of Jafi and captain of Sada Kurau. My ship. We docked at your harbour this morning.[/i]”[/color]

“I don’t know, Jas,” the shorter guard said. “‘E seems pretty honest. ‘Is rank sounds important too, what if ‘e’s another one of those late notice guests we don’t know about?”

Jas scowled. “Another one? At this time? They might as well let us go home.”

Despite the delay, Sjan-dehk found himself fighting back the urge to grin. There was comforting familiarity in hearing the banter between these two soldiers. Granted, had they been his crew, he would’ve likely told them to focus on their work by now, especially since these two had the rather important task of guarding the castle’s gates. However, Sjan-dehk wasn’t about to tell another commander how to do their job. He had his own matters to take care of, in any case. [color=1E90FF]“[i]If it would help, I can leave my weapons with you.[/i]”[/color]

For a moment, Jas seemed to consider the offer. Then he sighed. “Nah,” he said with a dismissive wave of his hand. “The number of armed people I’ve let in these past two days, another one isn’t going to change a damn thing. Just watch yourself. If you do get an audience, that is. There’s some fancy nonsense going on that we’re not paid enough to understand. Ladies been coming non-stop. You’re the first man Dev here and I’ve seen this morning.”

“King’s tryin’ to get ‘is sons wives, is what I’ve ‘eard,” Dev said.

[color=1E90FF]“[i]King?[/i]”[/color] Sjan-dehk asked and furrowed his brow. That complicated things slightly. All this time, he had been preparing himself to speak to a duke or perhaps even archduke. A king felt far too important, far too powerful to be met with a lowly lesser marquis like Sjan-dehk. Perhaps he should have listened to the tutor after all, and learned to live with dressing in fine silks. For now, all he could do was just hope that this king wouldn’t be too put off by a soldier’s attire. 

“Aye, King Edin runs this ‘ere place,” Dev replied. Shuffling a little closer and speaking in a lower voice, he continued,  “Between you an’ me, I ‘aven’t ‘eard much good about ‘im–”

“Quiet!” Jas hissed and slapped his partner on the back, hard enough to almost send Dev flying forward and onto the bridge. “Are you trying to get us both kicked out of the guard or worse, killed?” He looked at Sjan-dehk and tilted his head towards the castle’s courtyard. “Don’t mind him. He’s just sharing some guardroom talk he really shouldn’t be sharing. Head on in and good luck with your audience.”

Sjan-dehk nodded his understanding. [color=1E90FF]“[i]We all have problems with our superiors,[/i]”[/color] he said with a knowing smirk as he passed the guards. There was some truth in that; while Sjan-dehk was strictly speaking the only noble on this expedition, he ultimately had to bow to the whims and requests of the various officials and bureaucrats aboard the [i]Sudah[/i]. Except for the captain, of course. Sjan-dehk outranked him so long as they were on land, and that was perhaps one reason why that man had yet to even make his presence known to the local dockworkers. 

As he crossed the courtyard, Sjan-dehk pushed whatever worries he had about meeting a king out of his mind. Duke, archduke, king, what did it matter? They all outranked a lesser marquis. This wasn’t anything Sjan-dehk had never done before. He just had to be polite and humble, and bite his tongue whenever he felt like saying something that shouldn’t be said in a courtly scenario. No one could expect anything more from him. 

The doors to the entrance hall groaned as Sjan-dehk pushed them open. Immediately, he was struck by how packed the room was. Then, he noticed that they were all women. Surely the king and his sons didn’t intend to meet with every single last one of them? Sjan-dehk doubted there was enough daylight to give each lady a fair assessment. For a moment, he wondered if the local nobility practised concubinage as was the custom in Viserjanta until rather recently. Sjan-dehk’s high queen, Daraya the second, had made the practice illegal almost as soon as she ascended the Saffron Throne. In fact, one of Sjan-dehk’s last assignments before coming to Sorian had been to intercept ships transporting slaves meant for some depraved minor noble to build their own little harem.

Sjan-dehk hoped that wasn’t the case. Considering what he had done to the people he had caught plying such a sordid trade, it would make things awkward, to say the least.

Well, even if it was, what did it matter to him? This wasn’t Viserjanta. The locals here had their own laws and their own ways of doing things. It wasn’t Sjan-dehk’s place to judge whether it was right or wrong, and it certainly wasn’t something worth sticking his nose into. All he wanted to do was to offload his prisoners, figure out what to do with the rescued captives still aboard the [i]Sudah[/i], and more importantly, settle the fate of the [i]Celestine[/i] once and for all. Nothing more. 

[color=1E90FF]“[i]Excuse me.[/i]”[/color] He repeated that phrase, each time with a tip of his hat, as he gently made his way through the crowd to an emptier spot near the front of the room. Once again, he was all too aware of the strange looks he was getting, but this time he couldn’t in good faith fault anyone for it, for there were a number of women who caught his eye by their distinctiveness. There was the one in a wheelchair, who looked frail as she was bored; a white-haired girl with strikingly mis-matched eyes whose dress looked a touch less refined than the others, but then who was Sjan-dehk to say? In his yellow-and-white captain’s grab, and as well-armed and armoured as he was, he looked like he was ready to go to war at a moment’s notice.

His eyes lingered over the two women for a moment longer than he was comfortable with, and he quickly looked away to his destination. A relatively empty corner where he could lean against the wall. Opposite him was a dark lady, but it wasn’t her who drew his gaze. It was the deadly-looking snake sitting by her side. Now that was certainly something new, and Sjan-dehk wondered if her people tamed snakes as practice or if that one was just unique. He hoped it was the former, and that it was something that could be taught. The Viserjantan islands had no shortage of deadly constrictors and jungle vipers that would make excellent companions for the adventuring sort. 

However, this was not the time for such conversations. He had a task to do. He simply hoped that the wait wouldn’t be too long.