Zen's eyes were glazing over as he read over the same page of the book of Clarinesian history over and over again. He was exhausted, he was bored, and he just wanted to see his love. There was no way that he was focusing on reading at this point.
Still, he pushed himself to finish reading this chapter. It was important, and it would help inform him about what was currently happening in his kingdom.
The Daisan clan was...
His eyes glazed over again, and the words went straight through his eyes and sailed out of his mind immediately afterward.
...in the year 1345, he finished, then went to turn the page.
Wait, what did that say?
God, this has to be the seventeenth time! he groaned inside his mind, clutching his head in frustration and letting out a puff of frustrated air.
"You okay there, Prince Zen?" asked Mitsuhide from the corner that he propped his self upon.
Zen looked up and turned towards Mitsuhide. "Yeah," he said, trying to appear as cheerful as possible. "It's just...strenuous."
Mitsuhide laughed. "That's a big word there, Prince. You really must be tired," Mitsuhide teased.
Zen chuckled. Mitsuhide rarely failed to cheer him up.
He sighed and looked at the book again. "I just need to finish reading this chapter."
"Is it so urgent that you must read it now?" asked Kiki, walking over to read the book on the table. "Clans Within Clarines," she read aloud.
"Clans Within Clarines, huh? Why're you reading that?" asked Mitsuhide.
Zen sighed softly and ran his finger along the words on the page as he spoke. "The conflicts between the clans and the crown is rising in intensity. Much of this legislation deals with the clans and solutions to quiet them down or to..." He searched for the right word. "...appease the rebel clans." He looked down at the book again. "I figured, in order to deal with the people in the best way, I needed to know about what they stood for and what they planned to accomplish."
"Why don't you just ask Obi about that stuff?" suggested Mitsuhide, smiling. "I'd figure that that ex-mercenary would know a lot about the clans."
That's actually a good idea, for once, Mitsuhide, Zen thought as he looked up at his knight. He stood. "I think I will. Have you seen where he may be?"
"He's either in a tree somewhere or hanging around Shirayuki," Kiki responded.
Zen felt a little bit of jealousy in his heart when he heard the last part about his "personal messenger" hanging around his lover, but he dismissed it. Besides, this was another opportunity to see her if he actually was around her.
"Thanks," Zen said, closing the book and tucking it under his arm. "I'll return with Obi once I find him. Stay here and make sure that Lord Haruka doesn't come in and meddle with my documents." He started to walk off.
"You sure that you don't want one of us to come with you, Prince Zen?" asked Kiki.
Zen turned around for a moment, considering it. Even with all of the rebel activity near the castle, it still wasn't likely that some would manage to get in. The guards were the best in Clarines, and clansman hardly ever got past the first defenses and had never made it past the second.
"I'm fine," he concluded, and started off again. He held up his hand in a goodbye. "I'll be back in a few minutes."
He heard sighs come from the room as he shut the door behind himself.
He looked down the hallway, making sure that the guards were at their posts, and then started to walk to the right.
He navigated his way to the herbalist's room, but within it, he only found Ryuu and the chief herbalist.
"Prince Zen," greeted Garak. "Did you come to see Shirayuki?"
Zen smiled. "You know me too well," he said rather than admit that he was actually looking for his nuisance of a guard. "Do you know where she may be?"
"She was in the storage room up until a few moments ago, but she left with Obi just about five minutes before you came in," Garak said, smiling apologetically.
"Oh..." Zen smiled again after a moment, though he still felt a nagging sense of jealousy. "Do you have any idea where they may have gone off to?"
"She said something about going to the indoor gardens to look for some white lavander," said Garak. "That's all that I know."
"Garden, right...," he mumbled to himself, then looked at her, smiling again. "Thank you, Garak." He waved goodbye to Ryuu and her. "You two have a good day."
"You too, Your Majesty," said Garak, waving goodbye to him as well.
"Yeah, you too," came the soft goodbye from Ryuu.
Zen smiled softly to himself and left, closing the door behind himself.
He looked down the hallways, considering which route was the fastest to get to the greenhouse. He noticed that there were fewer guards than usual, but he thought nothing of it.
He decided to go left, and a few minutes later, he arrived at the greenhouse.
From outside the glass greenhouse, he could see Obi and Shirayuki bent over near some plants on the highest level. They were laughing about something, and this burned Zen to the core.
He shouldn't be so jealous, but he definitely was. He entered the greenhouse, seriously tempted to draw his sword and challenge Obi to a duel but knowing how unlike himself that was and how little Shirayuki would appreciate it.
"Shirayuki! Obi!" called Zen, making sure that the door shut securely behind himself as he walked in.
Shirayuki turned around and immediately her face brightened even more. She waved to Zen. "Zen!"
Zen jogged up the stairs, and when he got to them Obi stood to bow.
Zen chuckled as he watched Obi kneel before him and say, "Master."
"Again, there's no need for you to call me Master, Obi. You're actually the one that I needed to talk to."
He saw Shirayuki flinch out of the corner of his eye, and he knew that him saying that made her think that he didn't want to talk to her at all. He gave her a gentle glance and a small smile to assure her that that wasn't what he meant, and then he looked back at Obi.
"Oh?" Obi stood. "About what?" In an instant he had his knives drawn and positioned between his fingers. "Have someone that you need taken out of your hair?"
Zen laughed. "No, no. I just have some questions to ask you about the rebels in the village. Mitsuhide figured that you'd be able to tell me more about them than a book could." He pulled the book out from under his armpit and opened it. "Plus, this book is pretty outdated. It's about ten years old."
Obi laughed. "Yeah, a lot has changed in the past ten years. I'll tell ya about the clans, if ya want me to, Master." He gave a Zen a complacent smirk. "Usually I ask for payment when I give out information as valuable as this, but-"
Zen returned the smirk. "-but since I'm your master, you'll do as I ask."
Obi snorted. "Right. So...should we go somewhere besides the garden to discuss this, or...?"
"I don't mind either way."
Obi grinned. "Can ya climb trees, Master?"
Zen laughed. "I haven't climbed a tree since I was a kid."
Obi chuckled. "Then let's just go to the courtyard. There are some gruesome detail that I don't figure the princess here will want to hear."
Zen caught Shirayuki's blush when Obi'd referred to her as a princess, and, again, he felt a pang of jealousy.
Zen nodded. "Sounds great to me." He looked at Shirayuki with a loving smile. "I'll see you later, Shirayuki. Sorry that we can't catch up now."
Shirayuki smiled softly. "Oh, it's fine. We'll have plenty of time to catch up later."
Zen smiled back gently. "As long as you say that. I love you," he said. He always made it a point to say that he loved her at the end of every conversation that they had now.
She let out a soft giggle, face turning fully red as she said, "I-I love you too, Zen."
He waved goodbye to her, then looked at Obi.
Obi blinked, then said, "Follow me, Master." He began to walk away, and Zen followed.
He felt as if something was off as they kept walking, but his dismissed it as paranoia.
Obi led him to a secluded part of the courtyard that was surrounded by hedges. OBI had a seat on one of the stone benches. Zen sat on the same bench but a good distance from him.
"So what do you want to know about the clans?" Obi asked after a moment.
Zen pulled the book out again and sat it between them so that he could refer to it later if he needed to. "I want to know their motives, and I want to know why they were founded in the first place. I already know of the mountain clan that we visited, but they favor the crown. What I need to know about are the wilderness rebels and the cave-dwelling clans."
Obi tugged a little bit on the headband of his. "You mean the ones opposed to the crown then? The six I know of are the Daisan, the Fire Quenchers, the Diamond Relics, Abbaerian, Neo-Clarinesians, and the Guarzin."
"...right..."
"You wanna know the foundations of the clans? The Daisan believe that power of any kind is evil. They think that everyone should be left to fend for themselves and that...the world would be better in a free-for-all, you may say. They want no one to have any power over anyone else."
"Anarchists?"
Obi shrugged. "I guess."
There was a pause in the conversation.
"What about the motives of the other clans?" Zen asked.
"Right. The Fire Quencher clan was founded after your brother ruined the names of the two lords that ruled the lands that his castle was on. Its intention is to seat the relatives of the ones that they believe were 'done wrong' on the throne. As far as the Relics and the Abbaerian clan go, I don't know too much of why they were founded. I just know that they want the family down. The Guarzin clan is the biggest one out of all of them. It's a clan of peasants who decided that the ones in charge were the wrong ones and that they were making all of the worst decisions. They wish to overthrow the royal family and to establish an oligarchy."
Zen listened attentively. After Obi had finished talking, he sighed softly. "So they were all founded to overthrow my family and I...?"
Obi nodded. "Yes. I was offered jobs by them multiple times when I was still a mercenary, but they never wanted to pay me much, so I refused."
"Ah, I s-" Zen cut himself off when he heard a yell somewhere in the distance. It was in a foreign language, one unfamiliar to the prince. "What was that noise?"
Obi was immediately on his feet, blades drawn. "Stand back, Master."
Zen felt a fear in his belly, and he drew his own sword. Is it rebels?
His question was answered when one man after another hurled themselves over the castle walls, all landing on their feet on the ground below.
Zen felt his pulse quicken, and his body tensed up in fear. His skin went pale, and he felt as if he would wet himself or vomit. His hands began to shake, his sword quivering.
Bravery isn't not feeling fear; it is standing strong in the face of fear, he reminded himself.
"Don't fear, Master," said Obi, voice dead serious. "I will protect you."
The men were fast approaching. Obi ran to meet them halfway, blades at ready. He expertly threw them through the air, and there were blunt sounds of the knives digging into the skin and loud thurs as bodies hit the ground, yells accompanying the bodies.
The mercenary grabbed the knives up from the bodies as he went, taking the swords of the writhing men if he could snag them by the time that the next man came.
Obi managed to catch every man that had come over the wall, and soon the quivering prince felt the tension leave his b-
"Hello there, Prince Zen," said a cool voice from behind Zen, and he turned around to see the talk figure of Lord Haruka.
No, not Lord Haruka. He favored him, but he looked much younger.
"Do I-?"
Zen wasn't left to complete his sentence. He felt black flood his eyes as a searing pain entered his upper chest. He realized that it was his heart, and, as he gasped to air and clutched at the place that the pain was coming from, he fell back. He barely recognized that his hand was wet, and even though Zen was blinded from the pain, he knew that it had to be blood.
He let out a growl of pain, but he could barely hear anything. He could hardly make out a frantic "Master!" in the distance as he gasped for air, chest feeling empty, his body blinded and deafened and writhing.
He coughed and yelled with all of the life that he had left in him, "IZANA! GUARDS!"
It truly was all the life that he had left in him that he called with, for as he finished, he took his last gasp for air.
His writhing body ceased to writhe, and all the life in his blue eyes fluttered away. His jaw sagged to his chest, hands falling over his body where they had once been supported.
Prince Zen Wistaria, Second Prince of Clarines, was dead, and in the courtyard, all that was left were bodies strewn across the grass, among them his own and the body of his faithful "messenger".