"You're kidding me."
"...We have no other choice."
In response to this, the first speaker—a burly man in his late 40s—shakes his head. The two are sitting around a small table, their eyes reflecting the withering glow of a candle that has been on for a few hours too many.
The other speaker, a younger man with cropped blonde hair and a slight foreign accent, sighs as their pause lapses into silence.
"This is a crazy idea, isn't it?" He lets out a stress-induced laugh, and glances at the paper covered in scrawling script that's the source of this whole mess. "They sprung their visit on us so late, you'd think they'd have the courtesy to escort themselves." He sighs again; it had become quite a habit in the last few weeks. "Damn Valestrians," he mutters under his breath.
The other man laughs at this, and his aging face seems to shave off a few years in the process (if only it shaved off the scrawling beard while it was at it...).
"Say that to the king, Luke," he says as his laughter subsides, and leans back in his chair, "It's our fault for not having a translator within a two weeks journey. Honestly, I can't believe we don't have a single person here in the main castle who can speak Valestrian."
"Well," the younger man—Luke—says with a slight smirk, "We do."
The other one shakes his head as he concedes the point. He has a feeling this is a very bad idea. "Yes. Yes we do."
The cold is the worst part. The darkness she can deal with. The rats are tolerable. The food is consumable if she doesn't think about it too much.
But the freaking cold is going to be the death of her.
She tosses in her bed once again.
"Can you try not to wake up the whole castle?" Beca hears from the cell across from her own.
She groans internally. Of course Kimmy Jin has to be awake.
Beca gets up off the simple cot she had been laying on, feeling little drop in temperature from when she was under that meager excuse for a blanket. She crosses to the far wall, where a small window is coated with cobwebs just out of arm's reach, and covered with thick metal bars.
They really don't want her going anywhere.
It's rather rude, she thinks for the umpteenth time. It isn't like she has anywhere to escape to. Well, even if she maybe sort of does, she hasn't tried to escape for the last four years. You'd think they'd cut her some slack. Frequent customer rewards, or something?
A pause. Are those footsteps? The thought returns her to reality, and she turns just in time to see Luke—her best friend—come to a halt in front of her cell.
Great. What a wonderful way to start her morning.
Beca begins to filter through all the possible factors that could've forced him to come here, but any coherent thoughts she was having taper off when she sees him take out a single key and slip it into the lock on her cell door.
"Luke is breaking me out of jail?" Beca smirks to cover her surprise. She eases her way towards the door, eyebrows raised as if waiting for this to be called off as a joke.
"Luke is lifting you out of the frying pan and contemptuously tossing you into the fire," he responds as he finishes with the lock and swings open the door. It screeches with a little too much built up rust.
He beckons her out when she pauses near the entrance, and then begins to explain the situation as they make their way out of the dungeons (not before Beca sneaks a chance to stick out her tongue at Kimmy Jin).
"So basically," Beca summarizes as they navigate through twisted halls she had hoped never to see again, "A bunch of Valestrian royals need an escort and you didn't think to get a translator," she pauses as they pass by a few chattering servants, "so you're forced to ask for help from someone you threw in jail?
Luke's face tightens, but to his relief he isn't required to respond to that, as they've paused in front of a large oak door with an intricate design. Rayne notes lots of lions on it. And a whale. A whale? This door is definitely new.
"Please, just don't go blowing your identity," Luke says with a tired voice, as he reaches up for the doorknob. He pauses, and looks her in the eyes for the first time. "You know that we never wanted to...you know..."
"Oh skip the theatrics," Beca cuts him off with an eye roll. "Let's get this over already."
She leans on the door with her right shoulder, and it budges only slightly. Surprised by its weight, she applies a bit more pressure—
And promptly falls flat on her face.
"What the…" she begins, rolling over to figure out what the hell happened, but is promptly stopped by giant face full of orange.
"—So sorry, I didn't realize you were opening the door too and—" Beca catches a bit of the person's ramblings as she scooches back to regain a normal person-to-person perimeter.
She has about three seconds to look at the perpetrator before her personal bubble is immediately broken again.
In those three seconds though, Beca's able to glean a lot. She's tall, not lanky or uncomfortable tall, but taller than Beca, and she has very blue eyes. Like, the sort of blue eyes that more eloquent people would write swooning poems with metaphors about sinking and oceans and stuff. A worthy blue to drown in.
Wait, no. Scratch that. No drowning. What the hell is she thinking?
Beca clears her throat, and the girl who was practically straddling her backs off (thank god). The redhead reaches out her hand to help her up, but Beca ignores it and gets up herself.
Beca also ignores the hurt look on the other girl's face.
Luke, meanwhile, has been watching the whole exchange with barely concealed humor. He has his hand over his mouth, no doubt to hide a grin, and the briefest of snorts gives him away.
But seriously, how can he help it? He's never seen Beca Mitchell look so vulnerable in all of the years of his life.
"I'm Chloe," the girl with red hair is saying, having bounced back from her previous rejection, "Chloe Beale." She goes for a handshake, thinks better of it, then—as if not wanting to believe anyone would actually not like physical contact—grabs Beca's hand in both of hers and shakes it rigorously.
"Beca," she gets in response as the brunette pulls her arm back. She looks at it as if it's been tossed in the toilet.
"We don't get many visitors down here," Chloe chatters, beckoning Beca towards a small table in the middle of the room, and for the first time Beca takes a good look at it. There really isn't much to look at.
The place has little to boast but some comfortable-but-extremely-worn-down-looking couches. Chloe immediately plops down onto one of these, and Beca even imagines a little 'plop' sound in her head. Cute.
No. Not cute. Very not cute. What was she even thinking?
Shaking her head to clear it of such weird thoughts, Beca leans herself up upon the rickety table next to Chloe. Luke follows her lead, making his presence known for the first time since they entered the room. Chloe looks at him in surprise, but her gaze soon finds its way back to Beca.
"Chloe, Beca," Luke motions, "Beca, Chloe. Beca will be joining you during the escort of the Valestrian royals as a translator." His voice hesitates a bit at that last part, and Beca can't help but roll her eyes. Get over it buddy.
Chloe visibly perks up at this news, and shoots Beca a large—unreturned—grin. Really, who paid this girl to act so happy all the time?
"Well, that seems to wrap things up, I better be going now." Luke smiles innocently, and Beca's jaw drops open. "Take good care of her for me Beale." A mock salute.
He begins to waltz off, but Beca scrambles over before he makes it out of the room. She grabs him lightly by the collar and urges him against the wall.
"You've got to be kidding me," she whispers aggressively. Her eyes dart back to Chloe, who's watching the scene unfold with detached interest. "You're leaving with just that?"
Luke gives another sickly sweet smile, and Beca growls. "Is there something else you'd like, m'lady?"
The brunette's grip tightens on his collar, but she quickly pushes him away, wiping her hands against her pants in disgust. "You damn hypocrite."
"I'm going to the bathroom," she says to Chloe, not looking at the ginger. She's aware that she overreacted towards Luke, but this whole situation is outrageous. After everything they did to lock her up, they're just letting her waltz out of the place with no supervision?
Well, not exactly no supervision. She remembers Luke mentioning on their walk that the captain of this division would know. She glanced back at the ginger. Could she be the captain?
No. She wasn't angry. Beca was sure whoever knew would be angry.
Whatever. It didn't matter to her. In jail, she had found that a lot of things that seemed important before really didn't matter. Except for rat poison. She had found that rat poison was in fact very important to life.
Lost in her thoughts, and not having any intention of actually going to a bathroom (this was a cool-off-steam walk), Beca noticed too late the aggravated looking blonde woman walking briskly down the hallway—right into her.
God, what was with her and hitting people today.
"My apologizes," Beca fumbles, realizing that it's her place to apologize, given that she's the one splayed across the other woman. She pulls herself off quickly, and goes as if to walk away, when she dares to make eye contact with the lady.
The woman is looking at her like Beca had just killed her dog. She stands up, stepping close and looming over, as if she hopes that she can crush Beca down to the ground with just the pressure from her gaze. Beca wouldn't be that surprised if it worked.
"What is with you servants these days, lazing around the hallways like…like…lazy cats!" Beca attempts to withhold an eye roll. "I swear, if it was up to me every one of you would be thrown—oh, Chloe!" In a matter of instants, the raving drama queen had turned her face into a pristine smile. Beca almost recoils at the warmth.
"Hey Aubrey," the redheaded-bundle-of-joy (Beca has decided that's a more accurate name) beams. "I see you've already met Beca."
"Beca," Aubrey tastes the word in her mouth, and finds it clearly unsavory. She crosses her arms. "And since when has meeting her been on my to do list?"
Chloe grins a little, taking Aubrey's sourness in stride. "Sorry, I figured you'd have been told already. Beca's serving as a translator during our escort of the Valestrian nobles."
At these words, the blonde giggles quietly to herself, her face suddenly flushed. She trains savage eyes on Beca. "I knew there was a reason I didn't like you."
Chloe glances between the two, as Aubrey slides past Beca and grabs the ginger's arm, leading her back towards their room—and safety. The redhead misses Aubrey's whispered words as she passes Beca.
"Traitor."
Beca's mouth thins into a line in distaste. She watches as Chloe is pulled away.
"You don't know anything," she responds finally, but by this time, both women are already gone.