Rulan trudged along beside the angry prince with a dull look on his face. His mouth twitched.

"So you're telling me," he began slowly, with a slight growl of disbelief, "that a noble son spends his life growing up in a bubble of high walls and tipped rapiers, never exposed to the outside world. And to make up for the complete lack of life experience he's shoved into a lion pit with a stick and a pair of fancy shoes and told not to come out til he's pulled all their teeth." What kind of bizarre, pompous assholes were these people who ran the world now? What happened to logic and discipline and princes who knew the difference between life and death? "These quests you're on are what we call hazing. It doesn't mean shit about your character or your worth, they're just a test of how gullible you are." His own family would roll over in their graves if they heard [i]this[/i] was the sort of thing that proved the worth of a king. He set his jaw and glared into the darkness ahead.

"As long as you think you're obligated to carry out these useless kiddie-dares, I'm obviously obligated to go with you. And as long as I'm around there'll be no more toothpicks or fancy shoes. You'll handle these things the way I tell you. The [i]right[/i] way."