That was it! He was afraid of the dark!

He need not threaten lightly, then, if Frey's fear of the dark was all Asbel would be able to hold over the head of the prince. But before the phoenix could take back his threat, the door flew open with a flash of light and, startled -- as always -- by loud and sudden sounds, Asbel leapt away from the prince and ducked behind him to guard against the veritable explosion in the doorway.

But, ah, the newcomer was only the oracle, and Asbel relaxed enough to release his new death-grip on the back of the prince's now-seared shirt and to retreat with the deference due one of such repute.

Just behind the oracle, much taller than her and at least a head above his youngest brother, came the eldest prince, and Asbel could not help but relax, even though the twenty-four-year-old man gripped the pommel of the sword at his waist with the determination to use it if necessary.

The young man boasted the same beautiful orange eyes and silver hair of his youngest sibling, but his skin was darker from his long hours spent outside, and where Frey's smile was always one of cunning and ill-concealed evil, Prince Augustine radiated kindness even when (as now) his expression was pinched with concern and the anticipation of danger. Still dressed in the silver-enameled armor of the knights, and with the heavy starlit-blue cloak thrown back over his shoulders, the general must have just returned from a day of training.

"Are you alright, Frey?" the man asked. His grip on the sword loosened, though his pose grew no less relaxed. "Cassius thought you might be in trouble. He felt something wrong and told me you were here. What's happened?"

"My apologies, Oracle and Your Highness," Asbel murmured, though his voice felt too soft in the wake of her aggressive entrance. He ought to, perhaps, have condemned Frey as the instigator of the incident, but such a claim would be only half true: Asbel could have reported Frey sooner, or avoided the altercation altogether. To complain now would be an act of pettiness, which he was certainly above.

But punishment? He glanced, uncertain, at Frey, but the prince's demeanor was nothing to go by: even a spell of washing dishes would probably prove to be too 'serious' for the devil of a prince. And what could the royal family do to Asbel that they did not do already? Already he was more or less confined to a single room; already he was subject to minor and constant irritants; already he forfeit any hopes he had of flying, exploring, learning.

Prince Augustine may have been thinking along the same lines; his gaze (more copper than orange, perhaps) drifted from Frey to the phoenix and back again. "What punishment do you have in mind, Mighty Oracle? One is my brother and the other is my family's responsibility. If they need discipline, I ought to be the one to provide it."