as small a world

Summary: After the events of the Bergatt Treason, Mitsuhide Rouen accompanies Katherine Seiran back to her father's estate before they return to Castle Wistalia. Mitsuhide (Kiki), Zen (Shirayuki). (Some people have kingdoms to protect.) Complete in four chapters.

Warning: There's, like, nothing we know about Mitsuhide's life before he became a knight, so I am taking some creative liberties here. (Some of them might sound familiar if you've read other stories of mine.) Also: this will be long, winding and angsty. Introspective, without real plot. Basically, I'm trying to clear up some things for me.

Set: After the events of the Bergatt Arc (up to ch. 89).

Disclaimer: Standards apply.

For bbqberticus. Because I agree with her completely: Mitsuhide, darn it, deserves more backstory and main story arcs than he got so far. And at this point, his future seems bleak.

"may came home with a smooth round stone
as small as a world and as large as alone"
[in the sea, by e. e. cummings]

I.

Zen Skye Wistalia, Second Prince of Clarines, Crown Prince of the Realm, prospective Ruler of Castle Wilant and designated Protector of the Northern Realms, knew exactly how to take his Sword.

"No discussion, Mitsuhide. You're accompanying Kiki to Evergreen Manor. The Captain already forced a protective detail of at least twelve knights onto me and I still have Obi here. Nothing will happen to me on the way back to Wistalia. Kiki, on the other hand…"

He trailed off suggestively, and Mitsuhide had to give him that: he was good. Where had he honed his skills to this masterful level of manipulation?

Of course, it wasn't technically manipulation if the manipulated could see right through it, was it?

(Didn't mean it wasn't effective as hell.)

"Mitsuhide! Did you hear me?"

"Yes, but-"

"No buts." Zen's expression closed. "Mitsuhide. That's an order, do you understand?"

And Mitsuhide did understand.

It just didn't mean he had to like it.

"I don't think you're already in the state to attempt the journey back to Wistalia."

One of the knights currently guarding Zen – green and younger than was good for him – looked like the fact that Mitsuhide was arguing with his prince was cause him a heart attack. Mitsuhide ignored him.

A few years– maybe even months – ago, the Prince would have reacted to the mixture of plea and authority Mitsuhide knew to put into his voice. He wished desperately for it to work, but knew it was useless now. It would never work again.

It wasn't that he didn't want Zen to journey. It wasn't that he didn't trust the knights Celeg's Captain probably had already hand-picked to make absolutely sure there would nothing ever happen to the Crown Prince on his ride back to the capital. After Bergatt and his people had managed to invade the garrison, every person living within Celeg's walls – from the lowly kitchen aide up to the captain, and, perhaps even the vice-captain – saw it as their highest duty to ensure the Prince's – who had been attacked on their watch, after all – safe return to Castle Wistalia. And it was his Sword's task to make sure it happened.

A few years ago, Zen might have yielded to Mitsuhide's silent glower. It hit him with the force of an unchecked blow: that time was over. Zen Wistalia answered his protest with a calm glance that held both reproach and understanding, and a very clear command.

"I am well enough again. There is no need to delay the journey back."

"The twins can speak for themselves, Zen-"

"Mitsuhide…" The sharp glance he caught next still did not manage to silence him. At any other occasion, Mitsuhide would have been mortified about the slip, but right now he did not care.

"King Izana will want to question them, anyway-"

"Mitsuhide."

Mitsuhide closed his mouth with an audible snap, and Zen's gaze turned soft.

"It will be fine. Everything will be alright, Mitsuhide."

And that, he thought, defeated, was where Zen was wrong.

Mitsuhide Rouen's world was small.

It wasn't a country.

Of course, he loved Clarines, loved the capital Wistalia that had been a home for him for the past ten years. Loved the Garrison of Celeg, where he'd trained and grown and had lived for many years. And he loved his home – the open plains to the west, dotted by cattle and the small herds of wild horses that yielded to neat, orderly fields of wheat, rape and corn. The farm house he'd grown up in; his strong, beautiful mother, his calm, silent father, his six brothers, loud and boastful. All of those had been his world, for a while, had been the center of his life. But worlds changed, didn't they, and wasn't that what made humans human? They lived and learned and grew, and sometimes outgrew old worlds and formed new ones.

It wasn't a castle.

Castle Wistalia was enormous, with towers and walls and spires and bridges, guard rooms, training halls, throne rooms (yes, throne rooms, as in plural), guest wings, kitchen tracts, meeting rooms, libraries, laundry rooms, stables, greenhouses, the healing tract, the astronomy tower, the aviary. And not to mention the grounds. The kitchen garden, the rose garden, the Poet's Garden, the Hallway of Fountains, the parade ground, the outdoor training facilities. The forest. Castle Wistalia was a sprawling assembly of more-and-less interconnected buildings, hallways and wings, an ever-shifting entity, a beautiful creature. A world in itself, for sure. Just not Mitsuhide's.

His world wasn't even a room.

It could have been, perhaps, in a different life: the bright training hall with its open windows letting in the salty sea air from the cliffs. Or the private part of the library that was reserved for the Second Prince's work, the room with its cozy fireplace and high ceilings, with scrolls and books and a huge desk in the middle. In another life, his world could have been the horse stables, or the guard's barracks, or even the little chapel (his grandmother had insisted the seventh son was supposed to join the clergy). But while he loved the stables with their comforting scent of horse and hay (home smelled that way), or the training hall – polished steel and worn leather, mingling with sweat and work and ocean air (home, here, too, a different one at a different time, but no less important) – or even Zen's office; none of those rooms ever managed to become something like his world.

No.

Mitsuhide's world was five feet nine inches tall and human-shaped, lean, muscled, blond and blue-eyed. With a calm gaze and a strong grip and a mind sharper than any sword fresh from the whetstone. It was bronze skin and a voice that carried the edge of command, a voice that knew and expected obeisance but that, nevertheless, could be calm and kind. Unsure, warm and patient. And, also, impatient and whiny and bossy, because nobody ever said that his life should be an easy one.

Mitsuhide's whole world was a person: Zen Skye Wistalia, Second Prince and Crown Prince to the Kingdom of Clarines, prospective ruler of Castle Wilant and designated Protector of the North, and he has been since the day Mitsuhide lifted his sword in his protection the first time.

Celeg at night was beautiful.

The white sandstone of the walls gleamed in the moonlight, and the cold soaked through his armor and all the way into his bones. It reminded Mitsuhide of the first time he had seen the garrison: a white lady at the horizon, a fortress of strength and calm. The focus of so many stories Takanari had told him about, up to the point that a lanky, eight-year old boy had dreamed of becoming a knight in that garrison himself. It could have been straight out of a fairytale, except it was not.

In the plains, away from the city with its streets and houses and lights, away from the woods in which the tree crowns blotted out the sky, the stars were brighter than anything.

Had Kiki seen the sky over Celeg, before? On clear nights, one could even see the silver band of the milky way –

"A word, Knight Rouen."

Hisame Lugis had the typical, arrogant expression of nobility and carried it with all the poise and grace of a person who felt like the world owed him for existing, and expected to be thanked for it. No amount of rationality would ever manage to banish the surge of animosity he felt whenever he was faced with Celeg's Vice Captain. It was neither the arrogance nor the difference in status that set Mitsuhide's teeth on edge, he knew pretty well. It was something else, something no less important but no more trivial: it was the abyss of something between them that could have held rank and position, family and background, ability and future. And yet all those aspects were only part of why Mitsuhide detested the man, and why he loathed himself for feeling that way.

"Of course, Vice Captain, what can I do for you?"

"You are aware that my proposal to Lady Seiran was merely for the purpose of drawing out the real power behind the attacks on those noblemen, I assume."

Maybe it was this, too: the absolute note of disinterest in Lugis' words when he talked about things that were of earth-shattering importance to others.

"Oh, was that it? I had thought your ambition was to marry into the Seiran family, since there is no way to gain power otherwise, you being the youngest son of the Lugis family."

If Mitsuhide's words affected the man in front of him in any way, it didn't show. It never did.

"Oh, but there are other families than the Seiran Clan, I assure you. My ambitions are not the least slighted by Lady Seiran's refusal. If anything, she saved me from having Lord Seiran as my father-in-law."

Mitsuhide clenched his hand around his sword hilt, feeling his fingernails bite into his palm. The pain was sharp, a reminder.

"I wouldn't want to stand in the way of your plans, Vice Captain."

"Of course not."

Mitsuhide loathed the smile, so he returned it with one of his own. For the span of heart-beats, they just stood there, carefully measuring each other up. Until Lugis' smile became even wider.

"I have been told you are traveling to Evergreen Manor next. I am glad Lady Katherine is accompanied by a knight as distinguished as you are."

Mitsuhide stood very, very still.

"I hear the fact that her last suitors were attacked has diminished the number of proposals she is receiving," Lugis continued. "Now, with the real perpetrators caught, people surely will become more daring again. Goodbye, Knight Rouen. Give my regards to Lord Seiran and Lady Katherine."

"It will be my pleasure." He felt his lips twist over his teeth, knew his grin was feral and didn't care. "The best of luck for your future prospects, Vice Captain."

"It isn't my future you should need to worry about, Knight Rouen."

Lugis' cape billowed behind him like the cape of a true super villain, and Mitsuhide – Mitsuhide seethed.

But he couldn't exactly hate him, could he?

Not when Hisame Lugis only had voiced the things he had been refusing to think of himself.

It all happened very quickly, in the end.

Zen and Obi took off with a sizable guard detail, straight towards Clarines. Mitsuhide and Kiki watched the dust of their horses dissipate into the early-morning air and then took their leave, as well, directing their horses towards the East and the rising sun.

After all those days of being stuck (ha, ha, supplied his brain, you mean of being accused and held imprisoned) in Celeg – he loved the garrison, but it was one thing to be staying there and another completely different one to be forced to stay there – it felt good to feel the wind on his face, the sun on his skin. After all those days of tension and darkness, sitting on the narrow bed of the tower room, waiting, waiting, unable to do anything else and knowing that there was something he couldn't protect Zen from because he was imprisoned in there, it was almost freeing.

Knowing that he had been accused of murder in order to restrict Zen's freedom of decisions, in order to hurt the Second Prince; being the instrument of his downfall or, at least, being the weapon to cut him so deeply –

"Where are you, Mitsuhide?"

"Huh?"

He tore himself back to the present with difficulty, focusing on the landscape passing by, on Solitaire's smooth, powerful stride carrying him over the hilly plains. Kiki was looking at him, her gaze unreadable even after all those years they had spent together.

"Where are you?" She repeated, almost softly.

"I'm here," he answered, automatically, confused by both her question and her tone. "Where else would I be?"

She didn't answer, her eyes flitting over his face and away, her shoulders rising and falling with her mare's steady gait.

And Mitsuhide realized, belatedly, that Kiki would never ask a question to which the answer was so obvious.

There was a second in which he could have answered – could have told her the truth, the weight of the thoughts, the guilt and the blame and the terrifyingly empty future he was riding towards. He opened his mouth to say something – something, anything – and then the second was gone, and he closed his lips again.

Kiki's shoulders stiffened, but she didn't look back at him.

Evergreen Manor was… large.

Mitsuhide had been here before. Trice, actually: two times as Zen's Sword, and one time with Kiki, when she had gone to ask her father for an extension of her time as Zen's aide. All three times, they hadn't stayed long. This time, knowing he would be spending at least two days and three nights in the walls of the large estate, he eyed it with greater interest – suspicion, more like it – and felt apprehension boil in his chest.

He swallowed, and deliberately calmed his heart beat.

"Daughter. It is good to see you safe and sound."

Lord Seiran was tall and broad-shouldered, and wore his title like a cloak. Everything on him seemed to demand the respect that was his due, from his eagle eyes down to the tip of the sword that was belted at his side. Mitsuhide immediately recognized it for what it was: a weapon of war. There was a weapon that had spilt blood, not a fancy ornament meant to convey the wealth and status of a nobleman.

Had he seen Kiki's father carry a sword before? He had always pegged him to be more the scholar than a warrior.

"Father."

People had called Kiki Ice Queen, for her unreadable expression and her lack of emotion. Mitsuhide thought all these people utter idiots for their inability to see the true Kiki. The tone of her voice, the cadence – the way she lowered her head briefly: all of it breathed her respect and regard for her father.

Lord Seiran held out his hand to help her from her mare, and Kiki let him, taking it and sliding down gracefully. He pulled her into a hug – brief, but strong – and then let go of her to look at her.

"You seem well, daughter."

"I am." Kiki smiled, and half-turned to Mitsuhide. "Knight Rouen and I will stay for three nights, father. There is a lot we have to discuss."

"Is that so." Kiki's features were her own, but her mannerisms definitely had been inherited from her father. The dryness of his tone was even more pronounced than the one he knew from her. "Will Knight Rouen be part of those discussions, as well?"

Mitsuhide felt the flush on his face, hot and embarrassing, and opened his mouth, but Kiki beat him to it.

"No, father. After what happened at Celeg, the Second Prince sent him along for my protection."

"I see."

From Lord Seiran's frown it was pretty obvious that he indeed did not see. Kiki didn't turn to look at Mitsuhide, and he was glad for it. Following the embarrassment closely, a wave of guilt crashed down on him, icing his bones and his marrow and making him feel cold all over.

Protection.

He hadn't realized –

Idiotic. What had Zen thought? Sending him to protect Kiki was almost as irrational as putting Obi on babysitting duty and expecting him to keep the kids quiet and calm in a room. After all that had happened, about the only thing Mitsuhide knew for sure was that it had been his fault, utterly and entirely. He had managed to suppress the thought – the fight of getting to Zen on time and the following confrontation with Touka Bergatt had distracted him, and then Zen's mere presence had made him think of the Prince's safety and state of mind more than of his own. But after a day of riding, with nothing to focus his mind on, and with Kiki's father looking at him like that with those grey, unreadable, cool eyes, it all came back.

Protection.

HA.

It made him want to laugh out loud.

He didn't think it would plead his case if he suddenly started laughing hysterically, though, so he held it in.

"You must be tired from the ride. Your room has been prepared, daughter, and a guest room for Knight Rouen. Take your time to refresh yourself, and join me for dinner."

"Thank you, father."

Before Mitsuhide could voice his thanks, as well, Lord Seiran had turned around, waved at the butler standing silently in a corner and vanished up the grand staircase. Kiki nodded at him to follow the butler, and he did as expected, cold and numb.

Mitsuhide, as the Sword of the Second Prince, had stayed in many elegant – even extravagant – estates with lavish guest suites before.

Evergreen Manor was no different.

The open windows displayed the rose gardens in their full summer bloom. He could almost smell the sweetness of their blossoms.

He tore his eyes away and attempted to dust and straighten himself into a half-way passable appearance that would be appropriate for sitting at a table with one of the Lords of the Realm and his daughter.

Despite his best efforts, dinner was an uncomfortable affair.

Mitsuhide listened to Lord Seiran's and Kiki's conversation politely, duly noting all the times one of them tried to draw him into it and giving his best to keep up his part.

But he wasn't a nobleman.

He was a farm boy turned soldier turned knight.

He had neither Shirayuki's natural skills of lightening and holding up conversation, nor Zen's polished, well-practiced ease around people of whatever rank. Obi, he supposed, wouldn't have been found dead at such a table; though he did have the slight suspicion the ninja would have done it for their lady, had she requested it, and would have pulled it off smoothly.

Not that it mattered now.

Mitsuhide ate the excellent food and tasted none of it, answered the questions directed at him and remembered none of them later on, and smiled until the muscles of his face ached.

He didn't remember his dreams in the morning.

Evergreen Manor was silent compared to the morning hustle and bustle in the palace: no changing of the guard, no cleaning ladies gossiping in the corridors, no lords and ladies making their way to and from the breakfast rooms, no messenger boys flitting in and out of sight. The breakfast was as lavish as the dinner of the previous day had been, and was served in almost complete silence. The only time the serving lady – grey and severe, and severely disapproving of his fumbling attempt to not drop the dish of pancakes – actually talked to him was to ask whether he favored tea or coffee.

Shame-facedly, Mitsuhide asked for tea.

When he finished his breakfast he just sat at the table, unsure what to do next. The serving lady made his china disappear and then, while shooting him disapproving looks again, waved in three hustled-looking girls who cleared away the buffet – it still held enough food for a small platoon of knights – within minutes. They glanced towards him, now and then, exchanging whispered comments, and Mitsuhide, unable to take it any longer, got up and fled the hall.

Only then did he realize he had no idea what to do.

"Excuse me, Sir, where do I find Ki – Lady Katherine?"

It had taken him maybe half an hour to find someone who looked like he could help him. Lord Seiran's butler, in return, looked at him like he knew, and judged.

"Lady Katherine is in a discussion with Lord Seiran. She told me to tell you to make use of the stables, the training hall, the forest, the hunting grounds and the gardens to your heart's content."

There was nothing left to say.

"Thank you?"

The glance the butler gifted Mitsuhide with was nothing more than pure disdain, disguised as stiff politeness.

"You are welcome, Knight Rouen."

Too late, Mitsuhide realized he should have asked for directions, as well.

Lord Seiran bred race horses.

Of course.

Among the sleek, pure-blooded animal with their high heads and arched necks, Solitaire looked like the wild stallion he was: rugged and worn. He was contentedly munching from his trough, ignoring the commotion of the other horses that were sensing a stranger. Mitsuhide grinned as his stallion shook his mane in mocking pride. Two boxes away, Kiki's mare was dozing on her feet. She accepted a brief pat.

Solitaire, however, put his soft nose into his hand and breathed out softly, and suddenly the air seemed a lot warmer than before.

"Ya don't see many of'em around anymore," a voice next to him commented.

The stable master had a face so weathered from the elements that he must have looked far older than he was. Mitsuhide almost jumped, and then scolded himself for forgetting his surroundings.

The man continued on, without giving any indication that he had seen his reaction.

"Wild stallion from the Western Plains, huh. Faster than the wind, prouder than a king. Impossible to tame." Solitaire nuzzled the man's hand, too, and then shook his mane again, this time playfully. "He had ya for long?"

"We've been together for some time," Mitsuhide said and shrugged.

The stable master eyed the stallion from his hooves to the tips of his curiously cocked ears. "Must be quite some story."

The Western Plains, grass land as far as the eye could see, a boy and a foal and the beginning of something –

"Must be."

Not perturbed by Mitsuhide's curt answers, the man shifted his attention from the horse to the man next to him. The cursory glance he got made his hairs rise at the back of his neck, but there was no danger. Just an evaluating once-over, eagle-eyed and sharp-minded.

"Ya a knight?"

"Yes."

"I see. The likes of you don't normally train with horses, do you."

"Not normally, no." Celeg knights were taught horse riding and how to take care of them, since it was a basic necessity. But they were knights, not the cavalry.

"Huh." Sharp eyes bore into him, relentlessly, until Solitaire head-butted the stable master and whinnied. A smile broke out over the man's face. "Ya protective of him, Wild One? I see." He produced a carrot from nowhere. "There ya go."

Then, he turned back to Mitsuhide. "Wanna give me a hand?"

For the lack of better options, Mitsuhide nodded. "Why not?"

The work reminded him of home, of warm stables and the scent of wild horses, their calls on the wind. It made his muscles, used to other activities, burn pleasantly and gave his hands a task to do.

Unfortunately, it left his mind free to wander.

"Knight Rouen," Lord Seiran said at dinner. "I apologize. We have left you to your own devices today and I fear I will have to request my daughter's presence again tomorrow. Is there anything I can do to lighten your boredom?"

Mitsuhide rushed to ensure the lord that he hadn't been bored at all, and wouldn't be so the next day.

It was not a lie.

He made some small talk complimenting the lord on his stables and his race horses, while trying not to think about how much nicer it would have been to have Kiki by his side today. But once she set her mind to something, she went through with it. Kiki was like that: if she decided to protect Zen, she would protect Zen. If she decided to learn everything she needed to follow in her father's footsteps one day, she would do so, take all the time it needed and excel in it.

She was waiting for him when he reached the doors to his guest chambers; a slim shadow in the darkness. She was wearing a dress – its blue matched her eyes so well it made him ache – and the material rustled softly whenever she moved. He couldn't have said whether he'd ever seen her more beautiful than that, with the moonlight painting on her hair and her nape bare and beautiful. But Kiki was beautiful no matter what she wore.

He stopped when he saw her, and she stepped out of the shadow and into the moonlight. His heart skipped a beat and resumed again at a much quicker pace. He'd almost gotten used to its reaction to her sight, by now.

"Mitsuhide. I'm sorry."

He swallowed the words on the tip of his tongue. "What for?"

She didn't answer, just looked at him. Time stretched.

"Do you want to go for a walk?"

Somehow, he didn't think that Lord Seiran's butler – or the Lord himself, for that instance – would have found it appropriate for the lady of the house, married or not, to go on a midnight stroll through the gardens with a knight. But he'd been alone the whole day, and she looked beautiful in the moonlight, and his defenses had been reduced to rubble and dust, anyway.

He nodded.

They didn't even talk.

Kiki accompanied him back to his guest room and they stood in front of the door, silently.

"I should have brought you to your quarters," he said, and received one of her tiny, heart-stopping smiles.

"Don't be stupid."

"No, honestly. Being the gentleman, and stuff."

Kiki lifted her hand, and for a second he thought she was going to touch him. But she only brushed away some dust from his shoulder, and then dropped her hand again.

"You're always a knight, Mitsuhide."

And before he could ask what she meant by that she had turned around and disappeared down the corridor, and the rustling sound of her dress vanished, as well.

He still couldn't remember his dreams.

The training hall of Evergreen Manor was filled with every kind of weapon he'd ever seen, and some he hadn't seen and would never have been able to name.

Not that it mattered.

Mitsuhide stripped down to his shirt, trousers and boots, carefully placed his sword belt and sheath in a corner of the hall, took a deep breath and began a series of warm-ups.

When he had joined the garrison of Celeg at the age of eleven, lanky but strong from a life of working on a horse farm, the first person he had run into (literally, because, well, Mitsuhide!) had turned out to be his future best friend and brother-in-arms. The first confrontation he'd landed himself in had been with the nephew of the current captain. Teir Galeris had been very conscious of the fact that the Galeris family ranked third in the kingdom's throne succession and had not taken well to the fact that a farm boy who had grown up wielding pitchforks managed to disarm him with their wooden training staffs within a few seconds only. It was then that Mitsuhide had learned that there were people that were – either in their own thinking, or due to their status – elevated beyond what he had known for all his life. And that sometimes, those people needed to put others down to feel their own worth. But Celeg hadn't only taught him the differences between men. She had also taught him the worth of friendship and camaraderie, of faith and loyalty, of patience and, sometimes, of quick and brutal action. She had taught him everything he had needed in order to be chosen as Zen's sword.

Whenever he fell back into training mode, he could hear his instructor's voice echoing through his mind.

Your sword is an extension of your arm! Don't handle it like a ladle! Are you a swordsman or a cook?

Feeling his muscles stretch easily under the warm-up routine, Mitsuhide switched to sword forms. Without any second thought, his body flowed through the series of complex movements, muscle memory guiding him safely. Parry. Evade. Stab. Forwards, back. Duck. It was like a dance – it was a dance, in many senses of the word. A choreography, rehearsed and rehearsed until it had become ingrained into the core of his being. His sword flashed in the sunlight filtering through the windows, the weight in his hand more familiar than anything.

I will guard Knight Rouen's sword until his innocence has been proven.

Zen's face, furious beyond belief for those who knew what to look out for, the anger mixing with the helpless realization that not even he, as the Second Prince, would be able to help his aide. The familiar weight of his sword as he handed it over to Zen, and the immediate sense of loss. Kiki's eyes – blazing, icy –

There is no way Knight Rouen is guilty of the charges you are accusing him of.

The trust in her eyes, and in Zen's, as everything else Mitsuhide had believed in fell away and left him cold, helpless and lost –

He came back to reality, breathing hard, feeling his own pulse in the hard grasp he had on the hilt of his sword. The blood in his ears was rushing so loudly it must be audible to anyone else, but he still was alone in the training hall. He'd made his way through four of the six sword forms way faster than they were meant to be done – they were training forms, used to improve style and coherence, not for actual combat. Taking a deep breath, he took up ready stance again, his feet planted on the ground firmly, and then launched himself into the fifth form.

You're just a stable boy from the Western Plains, Teir taunted, and Mitsuhide felt all his reservations, all his mother's lectures, slowly disappear as the spoilt Lord's son challenged him to a duel he did not expect the farm boy to agree to. And, seamlessly, the voice merged with another one: You were just a simple soldier before you came to the castle. You only were chosen because you are a passable swordsman. Mitsuhide parried a low, two-sided attack of two imaginary opponents by blocking the first one and diving out of reach of the second. He came up in a roll, his sword flashing out, then corrected the angle and decapitated a third invisible foe. Kiki liked to use the same combination, she would – now! He shifted, blocked and went in low, dodged and sprang forward again, and, just like that, another two imaginary opponents were out like a light. He allowed himself ten heartbeats between the fifth and the last form, breathing in and out to calm his heart, and then launched into the last series of attacks, feints and parades.

Brother said whenever I want to go he will send me to Wilant.

Even King Izana was mocking him. Mitsuhide had long given up on peeking behind the mask the King of Clarines wore. However, he had been taught basic politics, and living in the Castle – working with Zen day after day – had given him a comprehensive understanding of Royal politics. Izana wanted to send Zen to Wilant, to have him take over the position of Ruler of Castle Wilant and Protector of the North from Queen Mother Haruto. As it was, Mitsuhide agreed completely with that decision: it would keep the Northern territories, including the ones that had formerly belonged to the Bergatt, under the scrutiny of the Crown. Izana could rest assured: Zen was loyal to his brother and the crown, and would represent him faithfully. Working with the Allurion family – one of the oldest noble families of Clarines, and the one Queen Haki hailed from, no less – would keep the peace up in the North. The King had even gone as far as considering Shirayuki's position: as a Royal Apothecary, and one that had been trained by both Garaku Gazelt, the famous apothecary, and by the pharmacists of Lyrias, she was the ideal candidate for the Royal Apothecary position in Wilant. There still was quite a step from apothecary to bride of the second prince, but they could work on that. Together. As it was, it was a plan as solid and committed as anything Mitsuhide would expect coming from King Izana. There was just one loophole, tiny and insignificant.

This time, the sound of a horn jarred Mitsuhide out of his concentration; he paused in the middle of the sixth form, his breathing quick and jagged. But the sound didn't repeat. Only silence greeted him, eerie and hollow.

He clenched his teeth and began the form from the beginning, ignoring his burning muscles. The sword in his hand felt alive.

When he finally finished up late in the afternoon, his muscles were on fire.

Mitsuhide was by no means out of training, but almost eight hours of it would have taken their toll out of even the strongest, most fit knight. Almost stumbling with exhaustion, he returned to his room and left again to take a bath, and, finally, clean, shaved and feeling comfortably numb, sat down to look at some papers Zen had tried to hide from him – probably evidence of the Bergatt's treacherous activities. He'd been unable to look at them before, but with the physical exhaustion came a mental detachedness that made the task seem possible without actually smashing anything. His body had other plans, it seemed, because he dozed off and was woken by the sound of knocking too patient to not seem impatient.

"Knight Rouen," the butler said, his face a mask of politeness. "Lord Seiran and Lady Katherine ask for you to join them for dinner."

Mortified, he stood and pushed the scrolls off the table; parchment spilled all over the floor.

"My bad." Mitsuhide sheepishly collected the fallen items from the ground and placed them back onto the table carefully. The butler looked on passively and yet managed to exude the sense of you can take the farm boy out of the country but not the country out of the farm boy, a look Mitsuhide was intimately familiar with.

Did it not matter that he had lived in a castle for the past eight – almost nine years of his life?

Apparently, it didn't. Sighing, he straightened his shirt, grabbed his scabbard and uniform jacket and followed the butler to the dining room.